date

Pants on Fire

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One of my friends made a date for the other night. According to his profile, he was about ten years older than she (she’s 39 and has broad age parameters), no kids, all looked interesting.

They made plans for a few days later. Drinks at a nice place, a late start to the evening. He hadn’t seen his buddy in a while, and he didn’t want to cancel the earlier dinner plans. Reasonable. No explanations necessary. In hindsight, that should have been her first clue.

She arrived by taxi; the driver over-shot the address. As she walked back toward the restaurant she saw her date saying goodbye to his buddy…a hot and heavy goodbye as he put her into a cab.

My friend still went in to meet him. And told him what she saw. He briefly hemmed and hawed, and then decided to be truthful. Not about the earlier date, but about himself.

Turns out that “no kids” is, in fact, 5 kids. It appears he decided there was no point in lying anymore. His true age? Guess we’ll never know. I wonder if his wife does.

Later…I Promise

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I favorited him. He messaged me. Likes my photos. Likes my profile. Do I want to chat or, better, meet for coffee? OK! Here’s my number. I prefer meeting to phone date…awkward and counterproductive. Call or text and we can set something up. Or message me back on site.

You, readers, already know where I’m going with this…nowhere. Right. Is it out of the question I’ll hear from him? Of course not. Sitting by the phone? Definitely not. But our phones are generally sitting by us, so we keep checking. Like waiting for college acceptance or that million dollars from Publishers Clearing House. Refresh.

The problem, according to me, is that getting in touch feels more like making a doctor’s appointment than something we optimistically anticipate. We’ll message later. Remind ourselves to follow up. Just…not right now.

More On Organic vs. Virtual

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Let’s say you meet someone; let’s say at a friend’s party.

When you’re introduced, your host tells each of you about the volunteer work that the other does. Some common ground. You talk about the personal experiences that led you to your causes, and about the ways each of you contribute.

One extraneous comment sets conversation in a new direction, and you learn that you’re both super-fans of the same team. That you grew up in the towns right next to each other and hung out at some of the same places way back when (you probably never met back then because of the 2 year age difference).  You rescued the same breed of dog. Did I mention that he went to grad school at an esteemed university and is well respected in his field?

Now, let’s equate that initial conversation with viewing each other’s profiles. The basic profile formats provide the same types of information regarding background and areas of common interest (education, tennis, movies). Call that a wash (or close enough).

In one of my earliest posts, I mocked the not-so-humble essays that tell us about the well educated, fit, adventure-seeking connoisseur who loves his family and the beach. It’s time I reconsidered. What, after all, are our options?

It is a struggle to write our essays. I mean…of course everybody’s talking themselves up. (For today, I’m not addressing liars.) We do, after all, have interests that are important parts of who we are; we all participate in the world in different ways. And if their tones were more modest…well…mightn’t they seem insincere? We wouldn’t look twice if he presented himself in negative terms!

I’ve championed the less-is-more essay. On the other hand, I find it difficult to message a man who hasn’t included something specific in his profile for me to address. I’m going to try a new approach.

I learn the most about myself by looking back over decisions I’ve made and how I’ve spent my time when it was mine to spend. I’m going to apply that to a new set of profile essays and let my recent activities speak for me. I’ll include events I attended and TV shows I watched. Work I did. Restaurants. Movies. Books. Maybe some silly anecdote.

Groundbreaking? Doubt it, but will let you know if it has any impact.

Any Friend of Your’s…

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In college, I met my future ex-husband through a friend, Joe. Joe introduced two other friends of his who are now married. Years later, he met one of their other friends, and they formed a relationship that lasted several years. None of these were fix-ups, just friends meeting friends.

When my sister was backpacking after college, her college friend told her to look for his good friend from high school, also travelling. They did meet, and have been friends ever since.

So there’s some logic to the sites that let us know how many facebook friends we share with our match. But we all know that “facebook friends” are not necessarily our real friends. They may be acquaintances, or people we met once. They may be people we worked with, or someone we knew very, very well a very, very long time ago. Our old babysitters and teachers. Our kids’ friends and friends’ kids.

Friend of a friend on facebook is not equivalent to joining mutual friends for some shared experience. If you’re at your friends dinner party, your hosts considered how the combined guests might connect for comfortable and interesting conversation. Not so with random and broad facebook connections.

There’s a potential downside to the mutual friend. Maybe that friend is an old flame. Or you don’t intertwine your work and social relationships. And, if your shared friend knows you’re dating and knows “he’s” dating, why haven’t they thought to introduce you? Or did they, and then decide against it? Why? What if the mutual friend is uncomfortable answering your questions about your match?

Of course, it’s possible that the mutual friend connection could play out well and help things along. Like when we have mutual love for dogs and Italian food, a proven formula for success.

How You Doin’?

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Saturday:  I was just chatting on one of the sites. I signed off without letting him know I was leaving; he was freaking me out. Not in a threatening way. Can’t even say he was creepy. Too persistent…catches me every time I’m there. On the particular site, I don’t think there is a way to sign in invisibly.

I did start chatting with him after he made a third request in as many days…gotta admire his tenacity. I hadn’t responded earlier because I think he’s skimming more than a couple of years off his age, based on photos. I understand vanity, but, also enough already with the liars (there are way too many of them). We get it. You want to attract someone younger. Guess what. Us too.

What sent me running, though, was the series of lines. A compliment is nice. He reached out, so I asked what he was doing. He answered that he was thinking about a date with me. I asked about his weekend plans…hopefully spending time with me. Stop it! Don’t tell me you’d like to have a conversation; have a conversation! Ask a question (and not “where’d you find the fountain of youth?”).

Sunday: Today he asked why I stopped chatting and said he’d like to get to know me. Nope. Then I feel bad about not answering (since I feel bad when I don’t receive a response).

Tuesday: He’s still messaging me, this time with a question about my weekend. I can say with certainty that he’s not “the one.” Begs the question, is it nice or mean that I responded to his question/message? I really don’t know (and am very interested, reader, in your take on this).

Small World

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A week or so ago I signed up for my first swiping site. It took me a few attempts to get the hang of it. When I meant to be looking through photos, I was actually accepting and declining. Next mistake, I didn’t realize that it automatically updated for my location.

I’m down in Florida for a quick visit with my parents. I opened the app. At first, it didn’t register with me that the men I was viewing were Floridians. Once it did, I decided to go with it; I’m down here enough if anyone turned out to be interesting. Someone has.

Someone just like me, who didn’t realize when he landed from the UK that he was viewing locals. Dumb luck. We texted for a day. Then we talked on the phone. Naturally, this call was the easiest of my calls so far (the accent didn’t hurt). With only one possible time slot that we’re both in town without commitments, we’re meeting later for a drink.

As always, details will follow for you, my voyeurs.