Today I drove two hundred and eighty one miles. After spending 36 hours in Dallas and not making it to the conference, I felt like I needed to take control of my own movement, complete a trip on my own terms. Driving two hundred and eighty one miles through the desert is within my control, so I did it. I DID IT.
You know why, right? I don't know if this is romantic, pragmatic, or just plain crazy. All I know for sure is that it's 9:43 pm and I'm drinking and blogging alone in a hotel bar. This isn't pathetic! Okay, maybe it's a little pathetic. But I'm nervous! Kevin and I have been talking for about a month, and if this date is terrible I will be so, so sad. I don't even have anything substantive to say. I just needed to tell someone, dear readers. Say a little prayer for me. I really, really want this one to go well.
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The key to a good date with me: laugh at my jokes. I need visual and auditory confirmation that you think I'm funny. Extra special bonus points if you're witty, too.
So, extra special bonus points to the Master of Ceremonies. I'm glad I took the initiative on this one. I'd been feeling a little low today, after spending two days traveling and failing to reach my destination. About 4:00 pm, I texted the Master of Ceremonies to see if he was free. He was, and tonight we had dinner. It was fun! Not only am I cheered up, I can call date #3 a success. Probably the best date I've been on so far. We ate sushi. He was easy to talk to, funny, and sweet. Cute, too (though, for anyone playing along at home, not a bald white guy). I genuinely don't have anything snarky to add, or any big-picture ruminations. It was a nice date. In an attempt to get to a work conference this week, I found myself stuck at the Dallas Love Field airport for about 10 hours. While waiting, I thought it might be fun to go on a date in the airport. After all, I was at Love Field. How serendipitous would it be to meet someone at Love Field? What a great story! So I set my Tinder to "1 mile," updated my "about me" section to explain my mission, and began swiping. I did not meet someone at Love Field. But this happened: He's very polite, no?
People in Dallas use Tinder very differently than people from my area. This was not the only NSA sex proposition I received at the airport. Just the most amusing. And so you aren't concerned for my safety or worried about my decision-making abilities, at no point was I seriously considering meeting this guy. I've been watching way too much Dexter lately. By the time he and I were matched, Tinder showed that he was 30 miles away - clearly not at the airport. I just wanted to see where this was going. This time we went to dinner. It was nice.
I still don't want to have sex with him. He's super sweet, guys. I had a lot going on yesterday and he was very accommodating of my schedule. He bought me dinner. He invited me to a party. He laughed at my jokes, and he shared intimate details about his life. We care about many of the same things, and have similar orientations toward life, morality and justice. But I feel absolutely no physical attraction to this guy, and that seems important. Ugh, and I'm just the worst. I fully intended to tell him that I wanted to only be friends, but I couldn't. He has very earnest eyes. And a pleasant beard. A beard I had no interest in stroking, but a nice beard nonetheless. I genuinely do want to be friends! But I couldn't do it. Next time. Next time for sure. Also: I spoke too soon! The 6'3" Athletic and Toned Social Drinker DID respond, and he's very mysterious. I almost wish I hadn't given him a nickname; Tall Dark and Handsome would have been an apt moniker. Updates as they come! 1. On Match, users can specify the desired race of your potential partners. That, dear readers, is super fucked up. I mean, silver lining, I can immediately tell whether or not you're a giant racist. But A. Why is Match.com facilitating racism? and B. I'm shocked at how many men are willing to date any woman as long as she's not black. Sorry dudes, this better business bureau only recognizes other equal opportunity employers.
2. Speaking of which, you can also specify the desired body type of your potential matches. I don't even know why this is necessary for men to fill out. They all have exactly the same answer: slender, athletic and toned, about average. All of them. Exactly the same answer. 3. In two days, four people have winked at me, and not one has a profile picture. I genuinely don't care if you are slender, athletic and toned, or about average. No picture just seems shady. 4. This "about me" section: I found several Passive Girls that were slave girls, A girl for me will be ORAL Fixated-BJs and Head....quiet and eager to please. A Girl who uses her mouth on her man is ideal-IF she is sexually excited by ORAL sex.....Always sucking fingers is a Good Sign. Young enough to be fun, old enough to be wise and eager to please. In addition to being a grammatical nightmare, misogynist much? This isn't Fet Life, buddy. Know your audience. P.S. - The 6' 3" Athletic and toned social drinker got himself a subscription and appears to be uninterested. Read my e-mail on 1/21, looked at my profile on 1/23. No response. Bummer. Some personal statistics, for your consideration:
I should say at this point: I don't really believe in The One. I believe there are lots of potential Ones, that you find One and make a choice to be together. That choice is love. Being together not because you're destined to be, but because you decided to be. I think that's real, and I think it's beautiful. But how do you know when you've found a potential One? Especially in my situation -- when you've gotten to know a virtual slice of their personality before you actually meet? What's the impact of online interaction on real-life chemistry? Before moving to the rural Southwest, my rule was that if I liked someone I would try to meet them in person as soon as possible. Otherwise, I would manufacture a version of them in my head. That version was inevitably not them. That's tough out here. Because of distance, I have to be patient about meeting people. In a few cases, I worry that I'm doing a pretty bad job guarding against the dude-creation factory in my brain. I worry that, in the two instances where I've dated someone I met online, it's only because they more closely matched what I made up in my head. Because in both instances, after about a month or so they turned out to be...not quite who I thought they were. Disappointing. But then, that happens in real life, too, doesn't it? You think someone's ready for a grown-up relationship, but one day you realize they don't understand their own feelings, much less have the ability to share those feelings with you. Whether braving the digital frontier of love or just powering through the old-fashioned way, we all end up presenting our heart to a stranger and asking them not to break it. Either way, its a pretty big leap of faith. Geeze, this is starting to sound like a bad 2005-era Live Journal. Next time I'll go back to being funny and weird instead of just weird, I promise. Date #3 might not be too far off on the horizon, check the Dates page for updates. Specifically, things I hate about the Match.com user interface.
1. It is stupid hard to navigate. I should be able to find my e-mail without accidentally clicking on MotoXMayhem123's profile. I'm sure MotoXMayhem123 (tagline: "Hey there ladys") is a great catch. I'm also reasonably certain MotoXMayhem123 isn't going to be a good fit for me, and I don't need to encourage his interest by visiting his profile. 2. When you search, you are shown all the potential matches that meet your search criteria - whether or not they subscribe to Match.com. Non-subscribers can wink, make your picture their "favorite" and see if they have e-mail, but they cannot read or send e-mail. I've bravely sent the first message to a couple of dudes, and I'm getting nothing back but crickets. Is it because they're not interested or because they're cheap? I DONNO, BRO. It took me two weeks to realize that I can click on my "sent" messages and see whether or not they've opened my e-mail, which, as clues go is a pretty good one. But srsly, Match? WHY MUST YOU TORTURE ME? Does the 6' 3" Athletic and toned social drinker hate me, or can he not swing for a membership on his $50,001-$75,000 salary? 3. Sometimes profiles are inexplicably highlighted with a green bar. I uncovered this explanation in the help menu: A great way for existing members to draw extra attention is by using our "Highlighted Profile" add-on feature. This feature puts a green highlight around a member's profile to make it more prominent in search results. "So these men aren't special," I concluded. "They aren't a particularly good match for me. They've simply paid extra money for a green bar. " "Ok," I thought. "That's stupid. I wonder how much a green bar costs." So I navigated to my own subscription services to see, and it turns out I HAVE A GREEN BAR, TOO. A green bar is included in my current subscription. Based my this, I can infer that a green bar means that a user is a paid subscriber and has been for 0-6 months, or has paid extra to re-attain their green bar status. So no green bar might mean you aren't a paid subscriber. Or it might mean you've been on the site more than six months. Or it might mean you turned off your green bar (which is an option). This is needlessly confusing. My friend Elise is married to an introvert.
Before embarking on my 13-date quest, she gave me this advice concerning introverts: slow down. Introverts tend to respond more slowly in conversation, because they're processing their reaction inside their mind before they speak. At first I brushed her advice aside - my sister's an introvert, I have introverted friends, and we communicate just fine - but I did listen, and her advice proved helpful tonight. Dear readers, #2 was an Introvert. Capital I. And this was hard for me. I process out loud, all over everyone all the time. And I talk fast. I think fast. Silence in a conversation makes me uncomfortable. Right at the beginning he seemed a little nervous. As soon as I met him, I didn't feel nervous at all. (I remembered to put on dangly earrings before I left my house, which always makes me feel pretty and feminine and a little bit powerful -- helps with the first-date jitters.) He paid for my tea, we sat down in a booth, and talked for about an hour and a half. It started a little slow. There were many pauses. But I think Elise would have been proud of me tonight. I did not immediately fill every silence with my words. I waited! I was my genuine self, yes, but I worked hard to be patient, and turns out, it wasn't super weird. In fact, after about forty-five minutes he seemed to loosen up quite a bit, and I saw we had more in common than I realized at first. At the end of the date he seemed eager to see me again. I'd actually like to see him as well...but in the established and platonic capacity of friends. He seems like a kind, gentle, thoughtful man, who would be a great match... for someone else. So yes to friends. I hope he'll be okay with that. This is getting a bit hard to manage.
My dating rule: wide net, low bar. I'll respond to almost anyone, and probably say yes to just about every guy that asks. Especially if he offers to come to my town. I live 144 miles from the nearest Target; I'm not trying to be choosy. That's why I need to go on thirteen first dates -- I don't just meet men in my everyday life, I've got to make an effort to ensure our paths cross. Trust me, I'll be more discriminating when it comes to actual dating. And my bar isn't THAT low. Just don't be a creeper and put forth minimal effort. For example, I didn't respond to this message: Interested in a playmate? ;-) And he was only 40 miles away. Ok, so my strategy is to over-saturate my first three months or so with first dates, hoping that a few turn into second or third dates. Right, because the actual hope in making this resolution is that I won't have to follow through. That I'll only go on 4 or 5 or 8 dates, because date number whatever ends up falling deeply and desperately in love with me, AND I like him back. But right now, I've just had date #1. Medium date. He's still texting, by the way. Tomorrow I'm meeting date #2 for coffee three blocks from my house. (Score! He's coming to me!) (But not actually, it's a first date, geeze.) And I have a few more legitimate prospects. There's a potato farming pilot from Tinder. Two dudes winked back at me on Match today, so I sent them both e-mails. Another guy on okCupid, who grew up 120 miles from where I grew up. Our hometowns are closer than I am currently to a Target. This is the guy I'm most interested in, but remember that city of 3.2 million people, four and a half hours away? Yeah, he lives there. So that's disappointing. That's a lot. If I met all of them, that'd be six first dates. I'd be almost halfway to my goal, 2 weeks in. Maybe I should slow it down. Well, that was fast.
If I'm being completely transparent, it's not like I signed up for online dating at the stroke of midnight, 2014. I've had an okCupid account for years, I'd dabbled with Match once before, and I downloaded Tinder right before I left to travel back home for Christmas. I'd built a foundational correspondence with #1 a couple of weeks before committing to thirteen first dates. I hope this doesn't reflect poorly on #1 himself; in conversation with friends I referred to him as a "legitimate prospect." It isn't that I thought this date would go particularly badly; I've just done enough casual online dating to know that there's a big difference between a pic with a profile and a flesh-and-blood human. That's my biggest challenge with meeting people online. I tend to create a version of them in my head that inevitably doesn't quite match reality. If I've learned anything, it's that the best option is to just meet guys as quickly as possible. If I can determine in a few messages that we have something in common and you are not overtly misogynistic or racist, then I'll probably be willing to meet you in person, especially if we're in the same town. Even if I'm not super physically attracted to you...because if I've learned two things, it's that no matter how good the picture, people never quite look exactly like you expect them to. I was a little nervous about meeting #1, in part because we'd been texting for like two weeks. In two weeks of texting it is very easy to fabricate a voice or a sense of humor. But, he drove two hours to meet me at Applebee's on a Sunday afternoon, so A+ there, #1. He was of medium height. Medium build. Medium-brown hair. I think he was wearing a gray shirt. Very medium. (Can one be very medium?) Conversation was good, a little awkward at times. It seemed like he was revealing more information about himself than he'd intended to, but while he shared a few things that were unusual, there was nothing that would make me run screaming to the hills. He was... nice. Medium? I didn't feel a ton of chemistry, but it's hard to know with just one date whether someone is being themselves. If he asks, I'd see him again. |
JaneHi, I'm Jane. I go on dates. Archives
December 2018
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