It’s a Person, Not a Choice

Mike, I think this whole “too many choices” thing takes us right back to the issue of how we look at other people.  You’ve made the argument in favor of weeding people out in advance, but I think that’s the very same mentality that leads people to think of one another as “choices” rather than as other people who can play varying roles in their lives.

If we encounter members of the opposite sex as options to choose among to fill an empty slot in our lives, of course we start fearing buyer’s remorse…sure, this one might look good, but I haven’t checked all the shelves yet.  I don’t really know whether I’m getting the best deal.

If, however, we take people as they come–if we interact with them naturally and view them as humans instead of prospects and don’t start sizing them up to see whether or not we might want to “buy” the moment we lay eyes on them–then there’s no reason to make any kind of choice at all in those early days when we don’t have enough information to choose in a way that makes sense and lends itself to certainty.  We can get to know a variety of people in a variety of contexts and explore moving one toward a romantic relationship if and when our inclinations have grown in that direction based on the relationship we already have.

It frees us from having to line up virtual strangers and try to guess which one might or might not be a good “prospect”.  It frees us from interview-style dates and it frees us from circumstances in which we feel compelled to start crossing off rules to make a “relationship” that was never a relationship at all “keep” working.

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Too many choices

Tiffany,

I can’t help but notice that some people have a difficult time making decisions in life if they are faced with too many choices.  They delay the decision making process to carefully weight the pros and cons, putting off making a final decision in case something better comes along.  Ultimately what ends up happening is that they will lose out on one opportunity whose patience has worn too thin.

I’ve seen people miss out on good job opportunities because they had several interviews or bids that they went to and as the calls came in, they held out for a better offer.  I’m sure that you’ve heard the expression, “A bird in hand is worth two in the bush”.

This also applies to the dating scene.  The expression in this case is that there are, “Plenty of fish in the sea”.  And that seems to be the problem, at least that I notice.  I think it’s tenfold with online dating and possibly worse if you are a man seeking a woman.  I’m sure that you’ve noticed that women are literally inundated with emails from men, variety abounds.  And with so many fish available, how can you be certain that you’ve found the right one?

So, what’s a guy supposed to do to stand out?  To be the clear choice?  Or is there anything he CAN do.  Are there simply women out there who may never make a decision and pass up great opportunity after great opportunity?  The best advice I have for men is to just be yourself.  And the best advice I have for women is to not pass up Mr. Right in your quest to find Mr. Perfect.

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Being polite by lying

I’ll never forget the day that I tried (in vain) to explain to a man that things are not always as they appear. It was a Saturday morning and I was on my way to the park with my kids when my phone rang. The caller was a young man who had simply dialed the wrong number. At least, that’s what he thought. To this day, I am still convinced that he dialed the right number.

Upon answering the phone the caller asked, “Is Glitter there?” I politely informed him that he must have miss dialed. I was about to hang up when it occurred to me that he wasn’t joking. “I’m sorry, who?”, I asked.

He clarified that he was calling my phone in search of a woman named “Glitter” who he had met the night before. They shared a moment, it would seem, that left quite an impression on him. It was real, he informed me, the bond that formed as they made a connection over drinks in a bar. She seemed to be so into him, laughing at his jokes and touching him ever so slightly when she spoke.

It was real for him but was it real for her? I pointed out to him that “Glitter” is a very uncommon name and the fact that he dialed the wrong number (the number that she gave him) might indicate that he had been lied to. Maybe all that glitters isn’t necessarily gold. He was very hesitant to embrace the possibility that this woman might not be sitting by her phone at this exact moment awaiting his call. Certainly, she must have felt what he felt on that unforgettable evening.

Sometimes people lie to be polite, to not hurt your feelings. Or, in this case, to not have to watch as they hurt your feelings. Would it have been so wrong for her to say, “I had some fun but you’re just not what I am looking for”? That seems better than allowing this man to go home feeling a bond that isn’t real and anxiously waiting for a chance to see her again. He had built this up, in his mind, to a level that far surpassed whatever moment they had shared because she must have felt it too if she gave him her number. But she didn’t give him her number, she gave him MY number. That doesn’t seem polite, it seems downright cruel.

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On the wrong page

I did it again, I recognize that its a pattern but I just cant seem to find a way or the willpower to stick to my guns. My biggest weakness is that I’m just not that strong, I remember saying that to you and (at the time) it wasn’t a joke.

I get myself into these situations where I am first dating someone, doing everything right. I take my time, try to get to know them before I get too invested emotionally. But as the red flags start to fly, I find myself crossing out rules, tearing entire pages from the rulebook and finally just throwing the whole book away.

This doesn’t come from desperation or loneliness, it just comes from an overwhelming feeling that there has to be someone out there who is right for me. I caution women about NOT passing up Mr. Right in their quest to find Mr. Perfect so I try to take my own advice and give people a chance.

I had a rule about not dating women who are recently separated and there is a good reason for that. I just don’t think that they are on the same page. I think that they are looking for someone to replace what they recently had. They are in the comparing phase where everything seems to be, “My ex used to do this…” and pointing out how I am similar or different.

Until you have been on your own long enough, you can’t know what it is that you truly want because you don’t know who you truly are. I honestly believe that. I think that when you get into a relationship you make compromises, you have someone making up for your weaknesses and filling your needs and insecurities. So, it’s almost impossible to know who you would be without that person. What your weaknesses and insecurities and needs are. It takes time on your own to figure this out before you try to mold yourself around someone else who is molding themselves around you.

The problem that I have with this theory is that I may have gone to the point of no return. I may have been single too long to mold myself around someone else. I may have found other ways to fix or pacify my weaknesses and insecurities. This makes me think that people who are recently separated should only date people who are in the same boat and the same goes for people who have been single for years.

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When Losing Contact is a Plus

Mike, I’ll certainly agree that people sometimes give up too easily.  It happens in marriages, and it happens when people only allow twenty minutes for coffee because they believe that a magical sign will have descended within that time or the relationship is forever doomed.

I’ll even agree with you that most decent people with similar goals and values can make a relationship work if they’re both willing to invest in it.  But notice all those qualifiers that weren’t included in your post?

The problem with the idea that all a relationship needs is a mutual willingness to “make it work” ignores the important fact that “making it work” might mean very different things to different people.  And it’s entirely possible that a relationship that’s working out just fine for one person is making the other one miserable.  Without a mutual understanding of what a working relationship looks like, even that commitment is useless.

And when, in week three, there are already “issues” to be worked through–when a woman is referring to someone as “the red flag guy” when she talks to her friends or a man comes home from a third date sure that he’s had enough but finds himself picking up the phone a couple of days later–it just might be a clue that those two people probably don’t have a shared idea of what a good relationship looks like.  If they do manage to make it work…and most do, for a while…it will undoubtedly be at someone’s expense.

I agree that the value of a relationship can’t be measured in days, but I think it can be measured–and measured clearly–in mutual respect.  And if a “couple” can’t make it through the first couple of months without drama and red flags, it’s a safe bet that respect is lacking.

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Losing Contact

As I logged into my email account I discovered a gentle reminder of my online dating past.  I have a few contacts who I struggle to remember and I should probably simply delete.  These are the women who, for whatever reason, I am no longer in contact with.  At some point we must have thought that there was something good between us.

Possibly there was a red flag or two.  Maybe I offended them in some way (if you can imagine that as a possibility).  Maybe they offended me (well, that’s even LESS of a possibility).  Possibly, there was just no chemistry or spark.

Many of these women I never even got the chance to meet.  Some opportunities simply do not birth relationships.  My contact box is becoming a laundry list of problems that I never chose to marry (or vice versa).  Sometimes it’s good to not get involved beyond a certain point.  But what is that point?  It may be different for every individual person depending on their investment in the relationship and what they are getting out of it.

Now we can argue over the amount of days or months or years but the value of a relationship isn’t based on the amount of time you’ve invested.  I’ve seen relationships end in a matter of hours (when the alcohol wears off) and I have seen them end after fifty or more years.  The fact is that problems arise and even good relationships become broken.  Now, if it was a car you could mathematically determine whether it was economically feasible to fix the car or buy a new one.  We aren’t talking about cars, we are talking about people.

It all comes down to a willingness to make it work.  Once that is lost, the relationship either becomes very one-sided or fails completely.  If both parties have a willingness to make the relationship work, almost any odds can be overcome.  It all boils down to the first question that most marriage and relationship counselors will ask, “Do you still want to make this relationship work?”  If either party says “no”, counseling is probably a waste of money.

Read Tiffany’s Response: When Losing Contact is a Plus

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Don’t Marry Your Problems

This morning, I was talking to Mike about a logistic issue with blogging, and I remembered something I used to tell my students during the many years in which I taught standardized test preparation classes:  don’t get married to a problem.  That is, don’t get caught up in that feeling that you’ve “come this far” and “invested this much” and now you have to stick it out to the bitter end.

In the standardized testing context, of course, that’s critical.  It’s timed, and throwing good time after bad means losing other points down the road when time runs out. But I think it’s just as critical in life and, in particular, in relationships.

It’s a familiar concept to all of us, isn’t it?  You fix a car once and don’t think anything of it.  The second time, you’re getting frustrated, but you made that first investment…and by the time the third repair rolls around you’ve thrown a lot of money you could have put toward a new car into it, and you’re hesitant to “give up now”.

But there’s an amazing irony that kicks in when this concept is applied to relationships.  It doesn’t necessarily serve to keep people in long-term, committed relationships when times get bad, but it seems to keep a lot of us on the path to bad relationships.  In the early days, when the red flags are flying–when we haven’t been involved long enough to have any common obligations or strong foundations or common friends or any of the things that make it truly hard to separate–we don’t want to “give up too easily”.  I don’t want to name any names, but I definitely have friends who work very hard at fixing relationships that were never good in the first place (which leaves me wondering what “fix” even means in that context).

This may sound cynical, but if you’ve been dating someone for a month or six weeks and have a bunch of stuff you need to “work on” and “fix” about your relationship, mightn’t that be a sign that this isn’t really the right relationship?  That maybe the person you’re dating isn’t a good match for you or this isn’t the right time in her life to enter  into a relationship or she’s a Complete Nutjob?

Isn’t it a little like deciding that you want a red dress, so going out and buying a blue one figuring that you might be able to bleach it and then if that works out you could dye it red?  Or, more to the point, like spending more than you can afford and fighting another shopper to get your hands on a blue dress that you might be able to bleach and then might be able to dye red? What is it that makes us work so hard to hold on to exactly what we don’t want?

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Crossed signals

He was probably trying to be polite. Maybe he heard that women like coffee and I’m sure he has had women tell him, “You’re wasting my time”. I don’t think that he meant to say that it would be a waste of time to talk to a woman if it wasn’t going to lead to sex. I’m not defending him nor do I know what his intentions where when he wrote that. I can’t see his profile but I can see the womens profiles and I often wonder what message they are trying to send.

What message does it send when a woman posts a picture of her and her dog followed by three pictures of just the dog? Her profile says that she is looking for a man who enjoys long walks. I can see where this is going, “Come walk my dog for me”.

Or the woman who is looking for a man who is tall, dark and handsome. Her profile says that she knows it sounds kinda shallow. I disagree, there’s no “kinda” about it. I’ll bet that her ideal first date would be to just meat for coffee. Oops, did I say “meat”, I meant to say “meet”.

The problem is that there is a serious communication gap between men and women. Even you and I don’t always communicate that well. If we did, you would agree with me more often.

And that is the larger issue here. The message that we are trying to send isn’t always the message that is received.

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People of value, value their time.

It seems to me that if I were truly “jaded” I would have a more pessimistic outlook of online dating. I wouldn’t be so quick to point out that wanting to meet for a cup of coffee is superficial and shallow. Actually, it sounds like a good approach to me (No, that’s not on my profile).

I have met several people organically that I often get together with for a cup of coffee. It’s a great way to sit and talk, catch up with an old friend or get to know a new one. If you get together for dinner, you are eating which makes it harder to talk. Combine that with the fact that restaurants are typically louder than coffee shops and faster paced. Meeting for coffee can be quick or you can sit there for hours, it’s not very committed but that can work for both parties.

I didn’t say (or imply) that people don’t have value unless you meet them with a specific goal in mind. But if you have a goal, shouldn’t you be upfront about it? There is a reason that we talk to people “organically”, it’s not random. Maybe there’s an attraction, maybe you noticed that you have the same phone, maybe you overheard them say something that intrigued you or made you smile. But there is a reason, a purpose. Something prompted you (or them) to start up a dialog. So, what is wrong with that reason being that two people are both single?

What made me decide to try online dating was the realization that many single women are simply too busy to meet men, or so they think. I was at the mall a few years ago shopping for a few new shirts. As I was perusing the shirt rack in one of my favorite stores, I suddenly found myself distracted by the sound of angelic laughter. Despite my protests, my eyes became drawn to this woman who was entering the store. She was beautiful and close to my age. It may have been presumptuous but I already felt like we had a few things in common. She was laughing which tells me that she has a great sense of humor, we were both shopping in the same store and I could tell by looking that we had a similar fashion sense.

This lovely woman was enthralled in a conversation on her cell phone and it would have been rude for me to interrupt. She glanced my way, approaching the same shirt rack that I was riffling through, not looking at me but through me. The cell phone and shopping appeared to be all that could occupy her mind at this time.

As we stood there (just inches from one another) searching for the perfect shirt, I overheard her say, “But I would have to find a single guy first and they all seem to be hiding” and there was that angelic laugh again. I quickly looked for a shirt that I thought she would like. My plan was to show it to her and ask, “Is this what you’re looking for?” Referring to a guy to shop with, not a shirt. But my plan failed as she was gone in an instant.

To me, this was a missed opportunity to meet someone “organically” because technology got in the way. So, why not use technology to make connections rather than prevent them? I believe that there is a percentage of women who keep themselves busy and distracted to offer an excuse for why they are single, to hide their frustration with the dating scene. But in those quiet moments, after the kids have gone to bed and their friends are spending time with their husbands or boyfriends, they find themselves alone, feeling like something is missing and turn to online dating.

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Do People Only Have Value if They’re Potential Partners?

Mike, you sound so jaded.  It makes me kind of sad.  I begin to fear that you may be one of those people who notes on his online dating profile (nope, I’ve never peeked) that he’d like to meet for a quick cup of coffee first so that you can avoid “wasting each other’s time” if there’s no chemistry.

Have we really come to the point where other human beings aren’t worth getting to know unless we expect that they will fill a pre-defined need or desire?  Is it not worthwhile to take a person as he or she comes and make whatever connections come naturally?  Is it a waste of time to get to know someone kind and interesting if she can’t or won’t become a romantic partner?

In my experience, the best way to get to know someone is not to narrow my view of him/her in advance. That means not reducing someone to a particular category or deciding that he might or might not qualify for an open position in my life.  The quick screen (Are you single?  Am I attracted to you?  Are you looking to get into a relationship?) reduces people to far less than they really are, dismissing so much possible value.

It seems to me that the scenario you seek to avoid–the situation where you find out someone is in a relationship and “pretend to be happy for her”–is actually triggered by the mindset that identifies someone as a prospect instead of just a person.  If you meet someone and relate to her as a human being and someone who could become one of many things–a casual acquaintance, a date, a friend, a co-worker, someone you might not wish to continue a relationship with at all–then there’s no expectation and nothing to be disappointed about if she turns out to be unavailable.  Maybe, on those terms, you might even find yourself actually happy for her if she were in a good relationship.

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