my friend Jenn has been emailing me lately for dating advice, anything ranging from when to call, if gchatting is ok, who pays and for the love of gawd, what does it mean when he looks at her profile after being radio-silent for 4 days? she started online dating the same time as me and last week was her very first date from the site. marinate with that. let that sink in. it took her 4 months to finally meeting someone from that site. every once in a while i would ask her how the Dating Thing was going and she would go on & on about how she has great email exchanges with a guy and then nothing would come of it. or she would not be happy with the look of the profile picture, or something about the guy reminded her of an ex and she’d retreat..
by no means am i an expert on the online thing, i winged it and i am definitely not an expert in dating; but somehow i could pinpoint what she was doing that could be hindering her in meeting someone.
1. the cell phone thing: i have talked about this ~ i hate texting. i partake in it, with friends and even with $5wordGuy* now, but in terms of wooing and the first stages of dating, it is a no-no. it is a strict no-no. most of my friends live off of texts, they thrive off of it and jenn is ok with having full on conversations via text. it boggles my mind. bottom line, don’t do it. not at first. you’re trying to build a relationship, don’t build it over an electronic device. i feel the s ame way about gchat/IM.
2. walls. i don’t know jenn that well, we run in the same circle and have many mutual friends. she has alluded to being hurt in previous relationships. i finally flat-out told her to get over herself, she’s not the only one in the history of the world to have ever been hurt. walls are made to keep people out, but they are also to keep one in & isolated. don’t have walls for the sake of having walls. it’s indulgent. it’s egotistical. and quite frankly, it’s counter productive.
3. getting hurt. on the same thread as #2, so what if you get hurt? it happens. it happened before, you survived it. it happens to everyone, and they survive it. and even if you end up burned, even if you end up fetal position with your face kicked in, it’ll hurt but it won’t kill you. it might dent you, it’ll teach you a lesson but it.will.not.kill.you. i promise. it’s ok to have some mad hope.
4. EFF tradition. you want to ask him out? do it. i asked $5wordGuy* out for our 2nd date… not only that, i CALLED him the night after our first date to ask, then within the same hour, EMAILED him with what i thought we should do. after that whirlwind cluster, i sat in my dark living room flipping my shit for having reached out to him TWICE in one night. as it turned out, he was on cloud 9 that i called him, asked him out AND emailed him. (*note*: this particular scenario worked for me, it may not for others.)
5. who pays? i have a rule. (yes, yet another one). if the guy asked me out, he pays. if i ask him out, i expect that i will pay but if he insists on paying, i let him. i don’t split. splitting is for friends. if this guy is trying to get into my pants, we’re not friends, so therefore one of us pays. if i am not interested in the guy, i insist on paying and then i never lay eyes on him again.
6. email quota. don’t make a pen pal out of the guy. you want a pen pal? email your friends, not your potential suitor. everyone’s smarter, wittier, better via IM or email. you can edit, look up a word in the thesaurus, put all that effort into an email and he’s probably doing the same, and OMG, you guys have such chemistry. then you meet and you both suck at it. all that invested time? gone. get to know them one on one, thru spoken conversation, not written. learn their facial ticks when they verbally tell you that you’re beautiful. any douche can tell you you’re hot via email but not all can say it sincerely, complete with eye contact & hands firmly to themselves as y’all are sharing dessert.
7. moving on. i don’t know why there would be repeat views of a profile, maybe he wants to refresh his memory, maybe he accidentally clicked on it, who knows? but if he doesn’t get back to you after a period of time, move on. get over it. refer to #3, if you want to beat a dead horse, go to #4.
that’s pretty much all i got for now. it’s 12:34pm on a friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. i’ve plans to bake a harry potter cake with my darling, who never fails to email me mid day to tell me that he’s thinking about me and then come nightfall, splits dessert with me while i go on & on about what crazy shenanigans my friends & i have gotten ourselves into via our respective email threads and texts.
have a wonderful weekend, enjoy the summer sun, step away from the computer and for the love gawd, remember our military folk, past & present.
Some Mad Hope 