Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Too good for you! And me...
Interesting lunch date yesterday, with a woman I met via an online dating site. The whole story of her situation is a fascinating one, but isn't something I want to go into here. Very briefly; she's 29, from India, and moved to the US last year to live with a husband she met via an "arranged" marriage. She'd met him when he came to visit pre-marriage in India, and she was committed to being a good wife and loving him, etc. All the fairy tale stuff girls grow up dreaming about.
Well, that lasted about an hour after she got to America, when she almost immediately realized he'd been lying to her, that he was in love with an American woman, and that he had wanted an Indian wife as a sort of cultural duty/obligation. He probably hoped/thought having her might enable him to change/settle down/feel like a good son/etc, but it didn't.
The weird part is that he's fine staying married, covering all her bills, giving her spending money, etc... but he hasn't seen her in three months, they haven't been "intimate" since last year shortly after she arrived in the US, and he's encouraging her to date and try to find another man to marry. (She wants to meet a rich US citizen and marry him, since she loves living here.) If they divorce she'd have to return to India, since he's not a citizen; he's just here on a Visa. The whole situation is crazy, and the immigration issues and work permit she's after and other bureaucratic stuff is crazier. But that's not what I want to talk about (though it's primarily what we talked about during our 3 hour lunch).
What I found most interesting about our conversation is her online dating history. She's a beautiful woman, and has a fantastic, slender body (5'3", 105lbs, but still sort of curvy), and a very sultry, breathy voice, especially with her Indian accent. I wasn't totally smitten by her (for various personality reasons, more than physical attractiveness) but I can imagine a lot of men would be. Even though the photos she's posted on her profile don't show her off to her best extent, and there's no voice option either.
That established, she's been on the dating service for about a month, and has received 60 or 70 emails/winks. The greatest flood came in during the first couple of weeks, but she said she's still getting 2 or 3 almost every day. I was impressed by that (I've received about 25-35 in 9 months, at least half of them obvious scams.) and more impressed by the fact that I was the first man she'd liked enough to actually meet. I don't think of myself as an especially eligible bachelor, especially not for her, since while I have some desirable traits, they don't really match up with what this woman wanted. (High income and a desire for immediate marriage.)
What, you might wonder, did I do to win her over (as far as I won, which wasn't very)? Timing helped. She mailed me almost a month ago, during the time that my membership was inactive, in her first or second day on the service. Before she started getting all of her incoming mails, and she said that she hadn't done much searching or mailing since then, since all the contacts were coming to her. (I'd never seen her come up on one of my searches, but if I had I'd have clicked through to her profile but not mailed her.)
Temporal coincidence aside, she liked that my profile photo had me in a dress shirt and a tie, that I didn't have any semi-naked or drunken party photos in my other pictures, that my profile was long and detailed and made me sound like I wasn't a player, and that when we traded a couple of emails I didn't make any comments about her beauty, sexiness, etc. (Not that I didn't notice it, but I've been lucky enough to socialize with a fair number of beautiful women, and have learned a few things about what men do that annoys them.
Of the 60 or 70 men who had tried (and failed) to interest her, she said about half were immediately ruled out for being too old, young, divorced, or had kids already. She had set those as iron clad rules. Of the 30~ remaining, about 25 eliminated themselves by being rude or crude or clueless. Remarking about nothing but her looks (she giggled wildly that one man had asked her bra size), making it clear they just wanted sex, talking down to her or treating her like an idiot/child, etc. Which left about 5, whom she'd gone so far as to speak with on the phone. They all D/Qed themselves during the conversation, mostly for doing the same stuff the others did in email. She said two guys had immediately started talking about how sexy her voice was, and the others had just sounded dumb, or had done all the talking and not let her get a word in. Which left me, the one out of the 70 or so not to do anything stupid enough to drive off this lonely, friendly, curious, intelligent woman. And that's despite the fact that I wasn't anywhere near the richness level she wanted, and didn't lie to her about how much I wanted to get married and have kids by like, Halloween.
I was fascinated to hear how blatantly most guys fucked up their courtship attempts, since I didn't think I'd done anything all that special or clever to woo her. I hadn't told her lies, I hadn't tried to flatter her, and I wasn't that crazy for her. Perhaps that helped; that I was looking at it as a curiosity, rather than my heart's greatest desire, so I didn't try too hard and trip over my own feet, as so many of the other guys had.
It also helped that I'm... not a complete idiot. Or culturally clueless. The IG was raised in the Bay Area, but she's half-Indian and we talk about culture all the time. Plus I've read some books about Indian culture, and it's not all that different than Filipino culture (Malaya was Pinay), in that both are religious, culturally-conservative, and fairly patriarchal. That one is Catholic and the other Hindu is irrelevant; it's not what version of the
FSM a culture adheres to, it's how they shape the ancient rules of their faith to support the male-dominated "traditional" society.
So, I had a fairly good idea what sort of things would appeal to a woman who had grown up in India. Or at least I knew the things that would immediately turn her off, chief amongst them talking about sex -- in the initial contacts at least. We actually talked a great deal about sexual issues over lunch, and she found the topic fascinating. But it was in the context of curiosity and sexuality in American culture, rather than a stranger slobbering over her via an online dating site. I also knew to treat her like an adult and listen to what she said. True, that's good advice for dealing with anyone, male or female, but I knew she'd been talked
at by males her entire life, including her husband, and that she would not take kindly to it from a potential suitor.
All that said, what did it get me? Aside from an interesting lunch and some fascinating conversation/blog material/human nature insight? Nothing, really. But it was more valuable (and a less expensive date) than most of the others I've lined up via online dating, and I certainly enjoyed it more. I don't know if it's going to happen, but we tentatively talked about remaining friends and seeing each other now and then for some conversation and consultation. I gave her some advice on her profile (in terms of how things she said would be viewed by American men) and she talked about what she liked in mine, and of course she imparted a great deal of info about how men approach women via the online dating, some amount of which I summarized in this post.
I don't think I can apply anything directly from her comments to my ongoing online dating efforts, though. I already knew the attractive women received a regular deluge of emails and winks, and I already knew that talking about their looks or bringing up sex in the initial contacts was a bad idea. (I'm sure there are some dumb/vulnerable/slutty women who might go for that, but I've not met them and I'm not looking for them.) I was not aware of just how poorly most men played the "getting to know you" game, but that knowledge has been more depressing than invigorating. Depressing for my opinion of the male half of the human race in general, depressing for thinking about what heterosexual women have to put up with in this world, and depressing for the fact that I've not had more success with my online dating, if that's the kind of idiocy I'm competing against.
Labels: online dating, psychology
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Women and Conflict Avoidance
Background information:
It's been about eight weeks since I saw or spoke with my former best friend, the IG. We had a fight back in late May; she was the angry one who cut off contact, but it was my behavior that caused her to react like that. So blame to go around; to me for being an idiot and to her for not shaking it off or making herself clear in some less-extreme way. That established, we went about a month without speaking other than some very terse texts, and one brief face to face meeting when I retrieved a cat she was taking care of. Over the past couple of weeks we've gotten back to txting a little more frequently, but it's nothing like it was. During the spring we were trading numerous txts every day, talking on the phone several times a week, trading long emails, and hanging out for several hours at a time at least once a week. Perhaps too much time together, for a non-romantic M/F relationship...
The thing that's interesting to me, on a psychological level, is how she feels about our current estranged state. I spent all that time with her since I enjoyed spending time with her. While I understand that my jokes about, "Have you changed your mind about not wanting to fall in love, or be FWBs this week?" got old, and eventually drove her to demand a break, the way she's acting now is very annoying. And yet psychologically interesting.
Basically, she can't live with the fact that she instigated this, that she hurt my feelings and rejected me, and that she's not being a good (or adequate) friend now. She says we're still friends and that she just needs a break and that I need to understand that she's serious about not wanting to date/romance again. That's all quite reasonable. The part that amuses/vexes me is that she doesn't want me to feel bad about it, and she refuses to take responsibility for being the reason I do feel bad.
As I see it, this is
classic female-brain behavior. Women are negotiators and peace makers. They feel a need to patch over and soothe disagreements within the tribe. Not always, of course, and not all women, but the female brain tendency is towards agreement. They tend to be very unhappy and discontent when someone they care about is angry with them.
The obvious analogy harkens back to Malaya. During our relationship, I could never be in a bad mood. Especially not at her. If she did something that upset me, then she'd get upset that I was upset. Especially if I was upset with her. Very quickly things would escalate to the point that I had to stop being upset, since my anger was making her crazy, which in turn upset me. It sounds like a nuclear reactor, accelerating itself into a meltdown. It wasn't that bad, but the net result was that I could never be angry with her, since it made her so unhappy. Therefore, it was more or less incumbent upon me to not be in a bad mood or hold anything against her, and whenever she did something to upset me, that act or event became almost immediately irrelevant. (Because her resultant upset immediately trumped whatever I was upset about in the first place.)
I'm not suggesting this whole scenario was a conscious ploy on Malaya's part to change the subject or take my attention away from whatever she'd done to piss me off in the first place. It did basically have that as the end result, but she wasn't faking or pretending about it; she was genuinely anguished by my unhappiness. (And from my PoV, at least those disagreements were easy for me to fix. I just had to stop being upset. The times she was upset about something not due to me were the hard ones, since I couldn't so easily fix that.)
The IG's reaction now is much the same, at its root. She doesn't do the chain reaction/meltdown of increasing unhappiness (Or maybe she does; she doesn't say so in her sporadic txts, but we're not face to face or even voice to voice, so I really don't know for sure.) but she's totally unable to deal with the fact that she's done things to make me unhappy.
She's told me that she misses the long emails I used to send her (regular readers have probably noted an uptick in blogging frequency in June/July now that my various conversational observations are going up here, instead of to the IG via email), but when I do send her something she doesn't reply, or replies with a pointlessly brief comment. If I make a joke about how I'm going back to online dating since I miss leaving the house with female companionship, she gets all upset, like I'm blaming her for the fact that we're not hanging out anymore. After all, it's not like it was her choice to take some time off... oh wait.
The most recent example was yesterday, when I txted her to ask if she thought I could ever be happy dating a woman who wasn't talkative. It wasn't a hypothetical; I've had 2 online dating emails from a woman who is (apparently) interested in me, and they've been about 20 words. Combined. "Hi, how are you today Eric, I like that new photo, how was your trip to San Francisco?" That's almost an exact quote, of an entire email. With much improved spelling/punctuation.
I asked the IG about that since she's always urged me to date more, she loves to matchmake, she knows me pretty well, and (I think) knows that I could never be happy dating a woman who wasn't a good conversationalist with a lot of opinions and ideas. True, email writing doesn't necessarily preview how a face-to-face conversation will unfold (I've definitely learned that lesson in my months of online dating), but there's some correlation. Especially when this woman is the one pursuing me, she's trying to convince me that we should try a date, and she's read my dating site profile in which I stress that good conversation with an intelligent, informed, opinionated woman is about my #1 dating requirement.
The IG said (as I knew she would) something vague but cautiously encouraging, to the tune of, "Give her a chance, you never know!" To which I replied, "Well this woman has mailed me 2x and used about 15 total words. Most misspelled. Seems an ill omen." The IG said nothing back, and five minutes later I added, "Admittedly, the same is true of your emails. But this woman is trying to date me! In theory...."
In my ideal world, the IG would have replied with something like, "True, but it was you thinking with your dick that drove me to it." Which would be as (arguably) true as my comment, and along the same level of playfully-biting sarcasm. In reality, she said nothing for a few hours, and then sent me a long (for a text), hurt-sounding reply along the lines of, "Why do you keep making those sarcastic remarks. They hurt my feelings. I don't want you to be angry with me." Which is a reasonable remark, stemming straight from the typical female mindset of not wanting a friend to be upset... especially with her.
If we were living together, or seeing each other regularly, I'm sure that the same dynamic that went on with Malaya would be going on now. The fact that I was angry with the IG would be the thing that made her upset, and since her being upset was intolerable to me, I'd have to stop being angry to reset the whole dynamic. That's basically what's happening now, minus the fact that I can tolerate her being upset, and plus the fact that she's continuing to upset me by not communicating, not replying to emails, etc.
So my question, if I have one, is this. Does this sort of thing go on with most/all M/F relationships? Is this how most women react to the unhappiness of those they care about?
It's not that women can't take responsibility for being the source of someone else's unhappiness, and it's not that they must resolve, or at least contain/calm down all conflict, but there does seem to be a strong tendency for women to do all they can to avoid feeling that they are to blame for someone else's unhappiness, if that other person is someone they care about.
I don't think that men are immune to this urge, but as I understand it, the male mind is fundamentally more comfortable with competition and discord, even when the problem is with a friend. Brothers are quite often not at all friendly to each other, as their situation drives them to compete for resources and attention, and male friends can get into physical confrontations very easily. Men are able to make up and forget about it fairly easily too, or so the stereotype goes, and most men are much less bothered (than women) by the fact that they may have upset someone else.
In a semi-related issue, I realize that I'm being much more honest with the IG now than I was during the time we were friends, then dating, then friends, and then best friends. Now that I'm not harboring any thoughts, no matter how back burner'ed, about possible romance, I find myself much less concerned by her reaction to my normal behavior. I wasn't lying to her previously, but I was adjusting my personality in various ways. She's a very sweet, sincere, friendly young woman, so when I interacted with her I toned down my sarcasm and snark in general, and especially towards her. I wasn't doing that for some consciously manipulative, "Maybe now she'll want to fuck!" type reason. It was more about the fact that I knew her very well and had learned that she didn't appreciate that sort of thing. I think everyone does that around friends/loved ones; hides or brings out different aspects of their personality.
When you combine that with the fact that one of my (typically male) ways to deal with rejection or emotional upset is to get sarcastic and biting, it's a bad combination in terms of how I'm going to behave towards the IG. Especially when you add in the fact that I'm frequently annoyed with her, and not all that concerned if she realizes it. It's very male of me, I suppose.
Another related observation. The IG has lost about 3 points in attractiveness to me, since we had our falling out. I was going through the pics on my cell phone a couple of days ago, while trying lying on top of the covers in the early morning, waiting to cool down enough to go back to sleep after waking up in a sweat, courtesy of the two cats who were bookending me. And after deleting recent photos of cats and the garden and other bullshit, I eventually got to the 3 or 4 hot photos of the IG I've long cheered myself up by gazing upon. This time I looked and was like... eh.
The girl in them was cute, but nothing amazing. I found myself thinking, "I wouldn't click the thumbnail to see a larger view of these if I saw them on the Internet." Yet I could remember, less than six months ago, finding those exact same pictures absolutely riveting. Funny what emotional and sexual attraction does to the human mind and its ability to judge objectively.
Finally, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to reply again to the online dating woman. She chose me, and though she's fairly cute and slender, I would not have contacted her if I'd seen her profile first. Furthermore, WTF is with her emails? She'd have been hard-pressed to compose 2 messages that I found less appealing than the ones she sent me. Especially since she read my profile and knew the sort of woman I wanted. It's almost like she's playing a game or trying to win a bet: "Can I get this guy to want to date me despite sending him emails of exactly the type he's sure to dislike?"
I think not, even though if online dating has taught me anything it's that you really can't judge another person from their emails.
Labels: online dating, psychology, the I.G.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Online Dating Foibles; Part V
It's been a few months since I did anything with online dating, and a few weeks since I canceled my subscription to the service I was using. I vaguely consider returning to it from time to time, but I'm not yet lonely/bored/horny enough to make that effort. Especially since the automatically-generated new possible dates I get emailed every few days (more often since I canceled my sub than when it was active) very seldom include any women I'm interested in, and most of the ones I do like I've seen before.
That said, I'm not oppossed to the idea of further online dating, and when I saw
an article about the practice on Yahoo news tonight, I clicked through. According to the article, business is booming on online dating sites since the recession began. People want more security, want to be in a relationship so they can share costs or not waste money on expensive first dates, etc. The article was mostly fluff, but it had a few quotes from the guy who runs OKCupid.com. I'd never heard of that site, so just out of curiosity and post-fireworks boredom, I clicked over to check it out.
It appears to be free to join and use it (which guarantees I won't bother, since anything free is guaranteed to be totally infested with fakes and bullshit artists and scammers), but when you do sign up they give you dozens (as many as you'll take, apparently) of 1 question quizzes, with multiple choice answers. They all follow the same format: a question/proposition, such as, "Would you object if your partner flirted with someone else in front of you?" Then there are several choices such as: "yes, no, depends on the circumstances." You click one, then click the same option for how you want your date to answer it (sometimes you can click multiple answers for her, but never for you), and weight how important her reply is.
Oddly, and stupidly, you don't get to value the importance of
your answer. Just hers. For instance, I'm almost mandatory on wanting a woman to be slim or at least not obese, but I don't really care what she likes in a guy. I would never date a woman who smoked, but if she was open to a smoker, I wouldn't care. I wouldn't date a woman who was a religious fundie, but I don't care if she was open to that. Etc. I'd obviously like to be within her preference range on those issues, since if I'm not she won't be dating me anyway. I'll find out how she weights the questions depending on whether she replies to my email or not. Yet OkCupid doesn't let you weight your own answers, just those of your hypothetical match. WTF?
At any rate, your answers, flawed through the mechanism is, are supposedly used by their algorithms to match you up with someone compatible, eHarmony.com style. I have no idea if they're of any use, but I can testify from months of experience that the self-reported goals/dreams/biographical details users report on other dating sites are utterly useless in predicting chemistry or compatibility. So maybe quizzes are the way to go? They're very quick to take, at any rate. I plowed through about 50 in maybe 15 minutes, until I lost interest. Plus the more you take, the more your, "Highest possible match." percentage increases. I got up to 98% by around 45 quizzes (though I'd skipped some along the way), but it didn't seem to be increasing any more at that point.
Most of the questions are fairly straight forward, asking about your opinions on monogamy, obesity, children, religion, career choice, etc. The one that made me laugh and prompted me to post this was the 40th quiz question presented to me. (They take 10 seconds each, and I've skipped quite a few dumb ones.)
If the price of an apple was raised 50% and then decreased 50%, making it cost $0.75, how much was the original price?
* $1.00
* $0.75
* $1.25
* $0.50
How would your Ideal Match answer this question?
* $1.00
* $0.75
* $1.25
* $0.50
How important is their answer to you?
* Irrelevant
* A little important
* Somewhat important
* Very important
* Mandatory
I'm aware that most people can not manage simple mathematical equations in their heads, (the RCA dog-expression on the face of every store cashier when I give them $5.08 on a $4.33 bill testifies to that), and whether or not my potential date can calculate a tip without taking off her shoes is not of any real importance to me in my dating choices. I just found it funny that they offer multiple choices for this one, and then you can weight the results.
What would have really made it funny is if this question had allowed multiple choices for how "my ideal mate would answer," as quite a few of them do. That way I could have picked the correct answer, and then one or two that were almost right, but excluded the really wrong one? I'll take a woman who is sort of bad at math, but if she can't even get close to the right answer, then she's off the menu?
Better yet, you can choose (or not) to let other people see your answers to any quiz question. So do I click that box on this one, to show off my basic algebra skillz? Would a person who couldn't do the problem be sure not to click that, so they wouldn't look dumb? Or would they parade their ignorance, like a creationist in a Flintstones shirt at a scientific conference?
Labels: online dating
Monday, March 23, 2009
Online Dating Foibles; Part IV
I've done nothing with online dating for more than a month; nothing bad happened, but neither did anything good, and I've been very busy working on website stuff and fiction and various real life activities. Also, to some degree I've been denying myself dating since I wasn't getting enough fiction writing done, and felt like dating should be a reward for doing good work on important things, rather than a distraction from said activity. And I'm very good at letting it (and other momentarily enticing activities) become entirely too distracting, at the expense of spending time on what I should/could to spend that time on.
I also have held back since I don't have an approach I want to take in my attempts to entice complete strangers, women no less, into spending time with me. I've tried various different methods during my few months of online dating, and all have been roughly equivalent in their success. Or lack thereof. Longer, personalized emails. Shorter emails. Short form letters with a few details personalized. Longer mails musing on the whole process of online dating with a short personalized note at the end. Etc.
My natural inclination is to look at profiles of potential dates, read their personal info, and then write a couple/few paragraphs about what interested me in them and/or why I think they'd be interested in me. This doesn't work that well, or at least it doesn't elicit more replies than short mails, or form letters, etc. I've not noticed much of a qualitative difference either, which is more important to me than a qualitative improvement. I'd much rather send out 20 emails and have a couple/few interesting, intelligent, simpatico-enabled women reply, than get 10 replies from boring, average women I won't want to date once I get to know them. And that calculus has some impact on my approach, since while the longer, more intelligent/interesting mails get fewer replies, the ones who do reply are more likely to be similar to me in terms of personality, attitude, etc. At least in theory. (Not so much in practice, to this point.)
I think the most effective (on a quantitative level) approach would be pare back and dumb down my own profile info, claim a six-figure income in some suit-wearing profession, and send a short form letter. "Hey you look great! Do you like to travel and dine out and laugh a lot? Me too!"
Those 3 activities hit high on the "DO WANT!" list of about 98% of the female profiles I've so far seen online, as does a suit-wearing man with a high salary. Checking the boxes for liking puppies and wanting kids would pretty well seal the deal.
Now obviously that wouldn't last, since I don't own a suit and aren't about to liquidate my investments to artificially swell my bank account. (Though locking everything into a 2% checking account 6 months ago would have been a phenomenally wise course of action. Hell, so would lottery tickets, compared to the stock market.) That would, I'm quite sure, result in a huge uptick in first date prospects. Would I enjoy any of those dates, or be interested in actually dating any of the women? I have no idea. I'd have to try it to find out. In fact, the IG keeps subtly encouraging me to do that, which seems something of a betrayal to her gender. I ask her about that, and she's like, "Every guy lies about everything when he's trying to get a date, so you might as well join them."
Kind of depressing to hear the unvarnished truth of the dating game, from the PoV of a beautiful young woman, eh?
I'm not doing that yet, or much of anything else though. I'm posting today though, since I've had a few dating observations written down for months, and while going through my notes page today to find something for another project, I stumbled over them and thought, "Oh yeah. Didn't I used to have a blog that I posted words, and stuff, on? These would be good. There."
I don't say these are universal truths that can be used to divine the inner essence of a woman's soul, but they are all things I've noticed holding true in multiple trials.
1) You can tell a LOT from the first hug. First hug of a given date, but especially first hug of the first meeting. Yes, how she hugs you is partially based on what she knows about you, how interested she is in the date, how well she likes you, what she thinks of you 5 seconds after first seeing you, etc. But it's more indicative of her personality and uptightness.
(BTW, don't go for a handshake. I've never had a first date who wanted a handshake. Women don't do that to potential romantic dates. Friends, colleagues, etc, sure. But not on a date. Open your arms and see how she comes into them. Or not.)
Bad signs: If she gives you a sideways shoulder hug., Or an awkward, quarter-turned, high arm hug. Or the bend at the waist one, where only the top of her shoulder touches your chest. All bad signs. She's not comfortable about physical contact, she doesn't like you, she's frigid (emotionally and personality, though sexually too), etc. Women who start off with that sort of hug are generally uptight, don't like to talk about anything personal or intimate (I don't necessarily mean sex), won't give much in conversation, tend to be non-spontaneous and reserved, and are generally quite boring dates. On the first date, at least. I'm sure they're much less reserved and are more open and friendly and genuine with their real life friends and family, and some women are reticent about physical contact but not emotional/intellectual interaction, but I've had enough trials by now to say with pretty strong certainty that if a date starts off with such a hug, it's going to be a stiff one.
Two of my better first dates were with women who weren't all that bright or clever, but who gave me a big, torso-to-torso hug right at the start, and that hug was very indicative of their personalities. They were open, giving, flexible, enthusiastic, unabashed, and a lot of fun to talk to and interact with, all in non-sexual ways. I'm not a woman and I don't know exactly where the "pressing my boobs into a guy I just met" experience factors into their overall personality, but it's a very strong "tell" of how they'll behave on a first date.
2) Okay, #1 was pretty obvious. Here's a bit more of an odd one. If you can, somehow contrive to hear where they stand on the Angelina Jolie vs. Jennifer Aniston contretemps regarding Brad Pitt. It doesn't really matter who they side with. What matters is how strongly they feel about it (if a woman's strongest opinion is about stupid celebrity dating bullshit, it's a very bad sign), how they express their opinion (if they have original thoughts of opinions, or just parrot some ritual condemnation of X or Y), and most importantly, if they have any empathy or understanding of why Brad Pitt dropped Jen for Angie.
On two different dates the issue came up (we saw a movie theater showing some new movie by one of the principles), both times the woman swung into an unprovoked tirade about that slut Angelina Jolie stealing away Brad Pitt, and both expressed puzzlement that any man could make such a decision. It's the last one that's the sign of doom. When I heard that for the second time, I might as well have just ended the date right then.
It's not that I don't think think Angie was a man-stealing slut, or that Brad wasn't a cad for dumping Jen... it's that their breakup and hook up serves as a wonderful litmus test for comprehension of human nature. You can think Brad was a total asshole and hate Angie, but if you honestly don't understand why Angie is about 5000x more enticing than plain white bread lumpy oatmeal Jennifer, there's a gulf between our personalities and understandings of human nature that will never be bridged.
The most boring first date I've ever had ("date" referring to the event and to the person) offered her only strong opinion all afternoon in regards to that celebrity coupling, and as I watched her opinion about how horrible Angie was and what a great girl Jen was and how she'd never see another Brad Pitt movie again, I bit my tongue and clamped my lips. It was hard not to interject with some sarcastic comments about how Jennifer Aniston was the most boring butterface in today's popular culture. It was harder not to laugh, or sigh, over the fact that a grown adult woman wouldn't understand male psychology enough to grasp why a famous, dashing, rich moviestar like Pitt was bound to be more attracted to a wild, gorgeous, edgy woman like Angelina, rather than a suburban housewife sitcom type like Jen.
I don't know if Angie and Jen are perfect, tarot card-like opposites (while still remaining within the realm of attractive slim white women), but they're a pretty good case study of extremes. Jen's image is wholesome and bland and cute and average. Angie's images is dark and wild and crazy and dangerous and knife-wielding. I'm far more attracted to the later than the former, and I think most guys share that urge, though most guys have to settle for the former, since they outnumber the later by about 5000 to 1. That proportion if probably for the best, since the Angelia types are generally unstable and crazy and dangerous and substance-abusing. But they have a darkly seductive vibe that no boring brunette like Jennifer Aniston can hope to compete with.
I didn't ask any of the good dates I've had their opinion on this issue, but I do have some evidence for the prosecution. Malaya practically idolized Angelina's looks, style, knife-fetish, attitude, etc, and since she'd always thought Brad Pitt was super hot, they were probably her favorite celebrity couple. Not that she had any other favorite celebrity couples, AFAIK.
The IG is much younger than Malaya (or me). She was too young to appreciate Brad Pitt in his golden-era, and doesn't find him that hot now since he's more than 20 years older than her. But she can see that women in their 30s or older would die for him, and she instinctively understands why he, or any man, would be much more drawn to exotic Angie than to white bread Jen. I didn't coach her to that conclusion; she brought it up herself at one point, and when I related my Angie vs. Jen for Brad observation after the aforementioned dates, the IG was like, "Of course Angie is hotter. What woman is so dumb she can't see that?"
I don't think this is a right/wrong preference, BTW. It's a personality test. I'm sure there are lots of men who would much prefer a woman who took Jennifer's side. It's a very plain, safe, uncontroversial view, and a lot of guys like those traits in their woman. I do not though, which is why this is a relevant Rorschach for my psychological screening of potential mates.
It might be a bad one to use in my current battleground though, since from what I can tell from their online dating profiles, FAR more of the women out there are Jennifers than Angelinas. There are very few artistic types, very few who express any sentiments out of the ordinary, very few who want to date a guy with original ideas and wordy proclivities, etc. And yes, obviously that's from my POV as just such a guy who hasn't had as many dates as he would have liked thus far.
It's also age related; single women in their late 20s/early 30s on online dating sites are going for the safe choice. They want a male version of Jennifer. Stable, well-off, conventional in likes and dislikes, unfree spirited, ready to settle down, etc. The sort of guy they ignored all through their teens and twenties while throwing themselves at every faux-bad boy who came along. And now the math is against them.
Reports stressing that women in their 30s and 40s have better odds to be killed by terrorists than married abound, and
untrue or not, there's a popular perception that women had better find a man while they're still young and pretty, or they're going to die alone. That's changing, as seemingly everyone (in Western culture) waits until later to get married these days (and then reproduces below the replacement rate, thus dooming our
country and
culture, or so say various mathematically-disinclined alarmist racist/Christian propagandists).
That said, and digressed upon, there are an amazing number of never-married 33-38 y/o women on online dating sites, almost all of whom say they "definitely" want 2 or 3 kids and a male Jennifer Aniston type husband in his 30s. I don't think I need to point this out, but that's simply not going to happen. The numbers don't work out. There aren't that many eligible bachelors in their desired age range, and if those guys are
that eligible they're looking at 26 y/os. There are a lot now, and in 5 or 10 years there are going to be a lot more single, childless women in their early 40s. Aside from serving as career advice (if you're a young doctor, start learning advanced turkey baster techniques now, cause white women with financial resources are going to place a heavy demand on your services), this demographic trend is an odd one for me to be caught up in.
I was prepared (and looking forward) to spend the rest of my life with Malaya. That didn't work out, for reasons not entirely unrelated to the subject matter of the previous paragraph, and now that I'm single and looking to date women in their late 20s and early 30s... I'm finding that most of them aren't datable. For reasons directly related to the subject matter of the previous paragraph. Most of the interesting ones are gripped by baby fever. They fucked around from 18-30, and now that they're 32, or 34, or 36, their ovary clocks are ticking, and they want to date their next husband.
Earlier this year I blogged about one woman who after a good date came right out and said that she liked me a lot and would have dated me in years past, but that she was looking for a husband (with a viable sperm count) now, and was going to keep making multiple first dates a week until she found him.) It was a pity, since she had slim thighs and a great first hug, too. She was 32 with a face going on 40, and to be honest, I didn't think much of her chances. I certainly wouldn't have considered her marriage material, (too flaky, no career or ambition, not that hot) even had I been actively looking for a wife.
This glut of would be moms in my demographic hasn't really modified my online dating behavior, but honestly... it probably should. I have changed a bit; when I look at a profile these days, I always check the age and what they say about kids. If they're over 31 or 32 and say they definitely want kids, then I cross them off the list. They're not looking to date; they want to get married, and whether or not that desire is going to help them actually find a mate, it definitely does much to DQ me from their boyfriend considerations. At least unless/until I start lying more about my job and income.
The funny part is that I'm sure those women are as or more likely to "put out" than single women a decade younger. It's not that these 33 y/os are saving themselves for marriage, or aren't interested in sex, it's that they're going to use their bodies to try to encourage their chosen man to marriage. They'd probably put out on the first date if I drove up in a Porsche and worked in a law firm. And not out of some cynical, conniving attempt to entrap or entice that hypothetical me; but because they'd be strongly attracted and would do what women (and men) do when they're on a date with someone they're strongly attracted to.
So it's kind of funny; the best way to get sex and dates with single women in their 30s is to appear to be completely interested in and eager to marry. Whereas a smarter, fitter, better-looking guy who was honest about his non-desire to marry would find a lot of friendly women who hugged him amicably at the end of the date and moved off like a Zerg queen, desperately seeking a man willing to be infected for the good of the hive. (I probably failed at that gaming metaphor, but hey, I didn't play Starcraft and haven't been following the development of Starcraft 2. A fact that would come as a great surprise to the beta-begging hordes who emerged from the woodwork this weekend, after the SC2 beta was just announced.)
Since I'm not that junior partner, and don't care enough to pretend to be him, I'm ruling out a lot of women I would otherwise have considered dating, since from their profiles and my previous first dates, they're not going to be interested in me. So now I'm looking at younger women (never a painful experience), and considering divorced women in my age range. I don't see myself marrying a woman with kids, unless she was interested in having another one or two with me, but for dating, they could be ideal. They're not gagging for remarriage or an immediate LTR, they don't need a lot of maintenance, they're not going to be dependent since they've already got people they love best, and they don't have so much free time that they'll expect more from a relationship than I'm currently looking to give. I've seen several single mom profiles that are like, "I'm very busy with work and my kid but I miss dating and it would be great to meet a guy who wanted to go out and have fun once or twice a week."
Honestly, that sounds about perfect to me. One of the things that wore one me with Malaya and living together was the time consumption. She wasn't high maintenance on gifts or activities, but she really wanted to spend a lot of time together, and it was usually up to me to amuse/entertain her. So we ended up watching bad TV, or driving to the mall, or going to movies, or out to eat a lot, simply to kill some time together and to get her out of the house before she got stir crazy. I didn't mind those activities, and enjoyed interacting with her, in the 2+ years since we split up I've never once missed going to the mall, and I gave away my TV last month after turning it on maybe 2 or 3x a month post-Malaya. (Less than that really, since I never subscribed to cable and didn't have an antenna on the TV, so it was only functional for DVDs.)
At this point, a girlfriend I see once or twice a week, for dinner or a movie or just hanging out, with occasional sex and emotional closeness that doesn't extend to deep love, sounds perfect. It just looks like I'll have to find that from a 27 y/o, or a single mom.
Finally, some related eye candy. I don't know if it's due to some new ad selling guidelines, or the collapsing economy killing off their usual booze/trucks/sporting goods advertisers, but lately every time I look at ESPN.com I see an ad for True.com. They're a personal ad, online dating service that I may or may not be a member of, and their ads amuse me. Maybe they have more balanced ads in other venues, but here's a random selection of the ones they run on ESPN.com, the #1 online sports site. Notice a common theme? Eighteen year olds with big tits, perchance?
I wonder about these ads. I'm sure the average ESPN.com reader enjoys the view, and savors the idea of horny college-aged girls, but 1) isn't the average ESPN.com reader (and ESPN viewer) a 49 y/o, married, fat, balding white male who desperately hopes his boss doesn't bother to check the internet monitoring software which would tell him just how much time his employees spend on ESPN.com vs. actually doing their work? (At least I assume that's their average viewer, based on the onslaught of Viagra, Rogaine, and indigestion pill ads I see when I do watch ESPN.) 2) Doesn't the average guy, no matter how horny, realize that 21 y/o women who look like webcam pornstars don't run ads on personal sites because they meet so many men in real life that they don't need to? And 3) aren't guys too young and/or dumb to understand #2 still young enough that they're meeting tons of girls at school or work or at parties, and are thus uninterested in online dating?
The choice of models, basically porn stars in porn poses, but with (some) of their clothing on, seems inappropriate to the service and the demographic at hand. Really, they look just like the webcam strippers you see pop up ads for. Never quite beautiful, but always with slutty eyes and usually with implants, as they loll around on beds or couches. The ad with 4 women was webcam like, with the 4 women all shown in a short movie, looking hungrily at the camera, shaking their shoulders to draw attention to their bobs, etc. I laughed. And then I took a screenshot. Which I pasted into the collage you see below. Enjoy.
Click to see it full size, if the subtle nuances of its appeal aren't percolating through the obfuscation I provided by slightly thumbnailing it.
Labels: advertising, online dating
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Online Dating Foibles; Part III
I had dates Sunday and Monday evening, and both went pretty well. I'm not going to talk about Sunday night since I liked her and hope to see her again, which is an entirely realistic possibility at this point. Plus she was very smart and sarcastic and aware, so there's not much weird or wacky to write about. Yet.
Luckily for the blog, Monday night was more entertaining on that front.
She was smart and had a sense of humor, and was aware of the bullshit that goes with online dating. I mailed her last week, she replied a few days later and suggested we meet for a beer, I said sure and suggested a place near Berkeley, she agreed asked if Monday or Tuesday was better, for me, I said Monday, she said 8pm, and that was that.
In my earlier days of online dating (a period that ran from around October, when I signed up, until about um... last week) I wouldn't have considered that sort of accelerated schedule or almost blind date status upon meeting as a viable strategy. I wanted to let them get to know me via my writing, I wanted to read emails from them, I wanted to gradually work up to a phone call and if that went well a RL date, and I wanted to plan cool stuff for the date. Find a fun activity, a restaurant we'd both like, maybe an idea about dessert afterwards, etc.
I was souring on all that preparation even before
events on a date a couple of weeks ago entirely killed the concept. Now I'm very much coming from where the two women I just dated came from. I mailed them (and various others who didn't reply) early last week, they replied a couple/few days later, we were adult and honest about being somewhat interested but not really trusting what we saw online, and we all agreed that it's about the face-to-face meeting. You can email and even phone call forever, but you never really know what it's going to be like until you meet in the flesh. Personality, sense of humor, attraction, chemistry, etc. All can't be adequately replicated in other ways, and all are essential to liking someone enough to take the next step and trying to get to know each other/starting a romance.
This is, of course, anathema for me to admit. I'm a writer, I should be able to communicate my personality through just words, and should be able to draw out or at least divine (between the lines) theirs, from emails. Or at least from a conversation or two. That's what I thought for the first couple of months, anyway, and I had nothing but bad or boring dates with women who weren't at all what I'd been hoping for (and who apparently returned that favor). So now I'm a new me with a new approach to this bullshit, and it involves spending far, far less time in the pre-date foreplay, and cutting right to the chase.
It's not just impatience or a sop to people who can't write/email, either. I'd be quite happy to do emails and texts and such with someone after we meet and like each other. That's a valuable way to learn more about each other and deepen the relationship, and it's enjoyable. But that's with a person when we already know we like each other and want to date more. It's pointless with someone before meeting, since if you don't hit it off in person, all that knowing and sharing and interacting = wasted time. I suppose it could ease the first date meet and greet and give you some more info going in, but I don't think that would ever make the difference in deciding to keep dating or not, since as I said, that's about chemistry and attraction and other things that are only measurable once you're face to face.
The question is, how do I project this to future potential dates, especially the ones I make the first step to contact? Women are in a buyer's market with online dating; there are lots more guys seeking than women accepting, at least on sites that allow pictures and window shopping. (The ratio is supposedly much closer to 50/50 on eharmony.com, since there the match making is all done by computer algorithms and you don't get to pick or choose, or view photos before you make contact. I don't want to be cruel and stereotyping, but it's pretty easy to say that's where goeth all the ugly, fat, shy women who know they won't succeed in an open market. Hence the even-er numbers. Hence me not being there.) Every woman I've dated so far has told me they get tons of emails and winks, most crude and stupid and horrible, most from men who appear fully live up to the quality of their initial communication. One would think it would be easy to stand out in such an undistinguished field, but I've gotten replies to maybe 10% of my emails thus far, while I've replied to more like 50% of the winks or emails I've received from women. Even though 3 of the 4 women I've met who mailed me first were probably not women I'd have mailed myself, if I'd seen their profiles first.
All that said, Monday night's was nearly a blind date. We'd see pics of each other and we both had pretty interesting/informative profiles, but we'd only traded a couple of rather non-interactive emails, and some quick phone texts. That was fine with me, since it was just for drinks, and I had a good enough vibe about her personality and intelligence that I figured I could at least last an hour of chat, with the ready aid of alcohol. I wouldn't have committed an afternoon to her based on our interaction going in -- I've learned that lesson -- but that's what's good about meeting for drinks, or the (inferior) coffee chat. Cheap, informal, and quick, if need be.
The date was fine, but pretty early on I was decided against pursuing her further. She was nice and smart and had a sense of humor, but I didn't feel any sparks or chemistry, and I wasn't attracted to her. She wasn't ugly, but she wasn't especially cute either, and and was dressed in a huge, bulky turtle neck, a fleece ski jacket, and very baggy jeans. She appeared to be slender, under all that camouflage, but who could tell? No makeup, no jewelry. I felt almost overdressed, even though I was just in an Oxford style shirt and slacks. What did I know; I figured the point was to look good for a date? Amusingly, I more jewelry on than she did, with my 2 new ear piercings and a silver necklace. (I only own one necklace and 2 earrings, but I was wearing them both. I can't take out the earrings for another 4 or 5 weeks yet, either.)
I won't play by play the whole thing, since there's no physical action and nothing really weird from the conversation. We got our drinks (I bought the first round) and sat at a quiet table outside, under the heater, and sipped and chatted in agreeable fashion. Forty minutes in she volunteered to get the second round, and per my request, had the bartender make me a mystery drink. I never did find out exactly what was in it, but it was brownish in color, rum-based with a fruity kick, and the date said there was brown sugar and a splash of bitters for variety. I enjoyed it, but not so much that I'd order it again. Even if I knew what it was called. One nice thing about dates is that I can keep trying mystery drinks and maybe I'll find something I like best of all?
So, what about her? Here's the amateur psychology part. Over the course of our conversation the woman revealed to me that she was recently separated from an LTR. They'd been together for upwards of four years, and had broken up in May 2008. She'd instigated the break up, since she loved him and wanted to be with him forever, but he didn't want to marry or have kids, and she did. He refused to change his mind, he didn't want the responsibility or burden, and he was already 43 so he wasn't going to mature into it any time soon. She was 33 or 34, and with her clock ticking she decided she had to cut him loose and try to find her future husband/baby-daddy elsewhere.
The juiciest thing about their breakup is that while they "officially" broke up in May, they lived together until August, when she finally got her own place. She delayed moving out since she was paying most of the bills and she waited for him to land a full time job, but during their 3 or 4 months of roommating, they were still... intimate. I didn't bring it up at the time, but my thought then, and now, is this. How are you broken up if you're still living together and fucking? Maybe she'd decided in her mind that she was going to find someone else, but she couldn't really start looking while she was still living and sleeping with her ex. Who wasn't technically her ex yet. And who, I might add, was getting exactly what he wanted. Retaining emotional and sexual access without having to grow up or worry about marriage or kids. Talk about letting him down easy!
That info didn't come out until well into our conversation, but once I had that much of the rest of her behavior became clearer.
She had really rigid, controlled, uneasy body language. Even crossing the street to the bar, she was walking hunched over with her arms crossed. I met her in front of the bar and she gave me a weak, one armed, slightly surprised and awkward hug, and seemed to have some issues with maintaining eye contact for most of the night. We took our drinks outside and sat at a square table, and for the nearly 2 hours we were there, she never budged from her seat (except when she got up to get the 2nd round), and sat the entire time very upright, legs crossed, arms crossed below her boobs. I sat adjacent to her, but varied my posture frequently. Leaned in, slouched back, turned my chair so I was sideways to the table and could look at her while sitting with my ankle on my other knee, etc. I didn't actually pull up an empty chair for a footrest, but would have been happy to do so if she hadn't been so rigid and uptight with her body language.
The only time she varied her posture was when she talked about her ex. Then she'd uncross her arms and start pulling the neck of her thick turtleneck up over her chin, almost to her nose. She'd pull it up, then let it slowly slide back down, before pulling at it again. Her eyes would wander while she did this, not making much contact with me, and the motion was clearly entirely unconscious. I don't know quite what/why that signified, but it was interesting to observe, when she remained motionless 99% of the time.
This isn't exactly Sherlock Holmes quality work, but I thought it was pretty clear she wasn't at all over him. She still loved him, and she didn't want another guy. She wanted him to change his mind and grow up and accept responsibility. She never showed any anger or frustration with him; and spoke very calmly about things, but she had to be torn up over it, after nearly 5 years and then having to dump him for that reason. I'd guess that she's forcing down a bunch of anger and frustration she'd do better to release, but that speculation has me standing on tip toes on my pop psych shoebox.
One other bit of data for the analysis. As we brought things to a close and got up to head out a bit before 10, I cut right to the chase. I can't quote myself, but I said something like, "So... we had a nice chat, but you've been honest about what you're looking for, and he isn't me."
She was a little put off by my directness, but she rallied fairly soon, perhaps since my tone of voice was very matter of fact and I clearly wasn't broken up over things. She agreed that yeah, that was pretty much the size of things, and the funny part was that once we'd established that, her demeanor totally changed. She got much calmer and looser, and gave me a big spontaneous hug when I walked her out to her car. We ended up talking while standing beside it for another 10 minutes, and she felt far more relaxed and chatty then. It was like a load went off of her shoulders at that point; she wasn't trying to replace her ex, she was just chatting with a guy, and she could be herself. I can't say much about her body language change, since she was standing up at that point, but I metaphorically at least, her arms were uncrossed and she was calm and acting more like herself.
The real irony would be if that version of her was so much more attractive that I was immediately swayed and decided that I wanted to be with her after all. It didn't happen, but it would be a nice punchline if it had.
Also, I want to congratulate myself on the fact that I handled the situation smoothly. I essentially gave her a modified version of "It's not you, it's me." and she bought it. I wasn't interested in dating her, so it was handy that she reciprocated my disinterest, but the way I played it I didn't have to come out and say that. I focused entirely on her interests in an immediate candidate for an LTR, and how that wasn't me, and she took the bait. It wasn't just bait, it was true, but this way I didn't have to reject her or give her any reasons why I was okay with our 2 hour chat being the total of our lifetime interaction. Not that I deserve a medal or anything, but I'm new to dating, so any successes, even in rejection, are noteworthy.
Tragically, I've got no dates lined up going forward, unless/until I can entice Miss Sunday Night into another go 'round. I am going to start sending out more emails this week though, if I can figure some way to work around the obvious contradiction in my newfound attitude. "Let's just cut to the chase and have a drink since it's all face to face that matters. Now look at my profile and see if you're interested."
Labels: online dating, psychology
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Before he could be properly appreciated...
In one of the articles I read today about
Illinois' crazy governor getting impeached (unanimously) I saw a mention of the last governor to be so summarily tossed out; Arizona's Evan Mecham. I remembered the name and something about canceling the MLK holiday, but it was back in the 80s when I was too young to really follow politics of current events. So I headed to the always-reliable wikipedia, found
a substantial article, and was surprised how funny (in a horrible sort of way) it was. A few quotes from the gold mine of content on the guy. Corruption, incompetence, paranoia, casual racism, and much, much more.
As governor, Mecham was plagued by controversy and became the first U.S. governor to simultaneously face removal from office through impeachment, a scheduled recall election, and a felony indictment.
... [There were many accusations of cronyism as he appointed incompetent or unqualified friends to state offices.] Among these nominations was Alberto Rodriguez as superintendent of the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control, while he was under investigation for murder. Other questionable nominations included the director of the Department of Revenue whose company was in arrears by US$25,000 on employment compensation payments, an appointee for head of prison construction who had served prison time for armed robbery, and as state investigator a former Marine who had been court-martialled twice. Other political appointees who caused Mecham embarrassment were an education adviser, James Cooper, who told a legislative committee "If a student wants to say the world is flat, the teacher doesn't have the right to prove otherwise," and Sam Steiger, the Governor's special assistant, who was charged with extortion.
...Besides the uproar caused by the MLK Day cancellation, Mecham committed other political faux pas. Claims of prejudice were made against Mecham after he defended the use of the word "pickaninny" to describe black children, claimed that high divorce rates were caused by working women, claimed America is a Christian nation to a Jewish audience, and said a group of visiting Japanese businessmen got "round eyes" after being told of the number of golf courses in Arizona. In response to claims that he was a racist, Mecham said, "I've got black friends. I employ black people. I don't employ them because they are black; I employ them because they are the best people who applied for the cotton-picking job.
...Throughout his administration, Mecham expressed concern about possible eavesdropping on his private communications. A senior member of Mecham's staff broke his leg after falling through a false ceiling he had been crawling over, looking for covert listening devices. A private investigator was hired to sweep the governor's offices looking for bugs. The Governor was quoted as saying, "Whenever I'm in my house or my office, I always have a radio on. It keeps the lasers out."
This guy was 20 years before his time. Imagine if he were around today, with cable news and the Jon Stewart show and blogs? God the amusement he'd provide, with this non-stop cavalcade of blunders and foots in mouth. He's like Sarah Palin without handlers or speech writers, albeit without a high school drop out daughter and her self described "fucking redneck" baby daddy.
The racist comments are the worst/funniest/most groan-inducing. I have to assume he was joking (in poor taste) with that "cotton-picking" remark, rather than saying it in inadvertently as a figure of speech. If it was unintentional, it might be the funniest thing anyone has ever accidentally said.
His racist comments
remind me of Rush Limbaugh's a few years ago, when he was briefly on the ESPN pregame football show, until he "resigned" after making some comments about how the media always tries to inflate the value of black quarterbacks. Rush, like Evan Mecham, steadfastly denied that he was racist, going to the notorious "I have black friends" defense. And he probably does (as far as someone like Rush Limbaugh can actually have friends, as opposed to sycophants and boot-lickers). But that's not the point. There's a difference between being a racist and a bigot, though the terms are frequently used interchangeably. You can be a racist and not a bigot, though I don't think you can be a bigot and not a racist.
Rush Limbaugh and Evan Mecham are (were, Mecham's dead now) racists, by the classic,
1st definition in the dictionary sense. They see the world in black and white (and yellow and brown, etc) where race colors (taints) every issue. It's the mindset that MLK was directly attacking with his famous "I have a dream" speech. The whole "by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin" concept. They don't necessarily hate other races; they might even admire them in various ways. You can be white and think Asians are smarter/better at math, Jews are better with money, Blacks are better dancers, etc. All things you might wish to be yourself. That's not the point; the point is that if you attribute those talents to their race, it's the same concept as attributing stupidity or sloth or greed or other negative traits to race. It's racist, even if it's not bigoted.
From even those few quotes of Mecham it's pretty clear that he was bigoted as well, and there's plenty of
past evidence to convict Rush of the same sin. But they're not unusual or exceptional; they're just public figures whose comments on race were broadcast widely. They don't think of themselves as racist either; after all, everyone knows that blacks are dangerous and criminal; what's wrong about saying so?
An anecdote. Last weekend I had a first date with another woman I met via online dating service. It was a disaster. Well, that's overstating. I was miserable and had a horrible time and will never see her again, but it's not like we got into a public altercation. I kind of wish we had; it would have been something interesting. I have never been that bored during two hours with another human being, and it came about because she was just inert. She had no opinions, no observations, no suggestions, no comments, she answered questions with short, declarative sentences, she never laughed or joked or smiled, etc. Halfway through, while waiting for the chocolate factory tour to begin, she took the first of her 3 10-minute bathroom visits and I texted a few friends, and
my Twitter account, in desperation. And the quick text I got back from the IG was the most interesting remark I'd heard all afternoon.
That's not why I bring up the date, though. The funny part, in an Evan Mecham way, was earlier, when we were driving. We met in Berkeley and I drove us down to a chocolate factory near I-80, after we window shopped a bit and had a coffee. That was the plan, anyway. The window shopping turned out to be a disaster since she had nothing to say about anything, didn't seem to be interested in anything but some theater company fliers in a cafe window, and didn't want to go into any of the shops. She thought they looked weird, or so I interpreted from her wrinkled nose and nervous eyes.
I'm not exactly bohemian, but I've been in that area a few times, and it's far from dangerous of weird. It's mostly White and Asian, it was the middle of the afternoon on a sunny Sunday, there's no graffiti or barred windows in the area, etc. We weren't even in the heart of Berkeley, (
like the place I got my ears pierced last week, while there to give the IG moral support for her latest piercing) near the Cal campus where you'll see later-day hippies galore, and most of the stores are sprawling used record places and head shops and there are pushy street vendors on the sidewalks, etc. We were
on Shattuck near University, which is a little bit hippy, but is mostly just businesses, small restaurants, quirky jewelry and art stores, etc. It could be a nice semi-downtown neighborhood anywhere in the US. There were a few street people, but I didn't even notice them. It's Berkeley; of course you'll see a few bearded guys walking around with huge backpacks and bedrolls.
She however, very much did notice them. Even very early on, when we were sitting at a little outdoor cafe and drinking coffee (well, hot chocolate actually) she was doing this eye bugging thing whenever someone weird walked by. The funny part came later, when we were driving to the chocolate factory. We headed west on down Ashby, which is kind of a weird street, but it's not the hood by any stretch of the imagination. Certainly not on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Several blocks down Ashby crosses Martin Luther King, on a corner blighted by such dreadful inner city sights as a busy corner market, joggers, dog walkers, children playing, etc. I think there might even have been a woman or two pushing baby strollers. Most of them white people! Horrifying, I know.
As we got to that intersection and waited for the red light, my date peered through the window and saw the street sign. Breaking her near-silence, she said, "Ohhh... Martin Luther King street? I hear it's dangerous here."
I am seldom speechless, or even at a loss for words, but at that one I did take a pause. After taking a breath I said something about the old Chris Rock joke, about the irony of how MLK was a man of peace, but if you found yourself on a street named after him, you'd better run. Run! She didn't laugh, she just kept looking around nervously (there was not a sullen, saggy-pantsed black teenager in sight) and didn't seem all that calmed even when we were half a mile away and parking in a lot entirely full of nice cars and white people.
It was kind of a head-slapping moment; not that she thought it, but that she said it so casually. (Actually, it wasn't that casual. She was on edge right from the start of our date, since she'd obviously expected me to be different than I was, in some unknown way. So probably she blurted out something she'd never have said in racially-mixed company.) And I'm sure that she, like Rush and Evan, would vociferously deny that she was a racist. Nevertheless, I had to think about that afterwards. She worked in the HR department for a tech company and did a lot of their hiring and internal transfers, and I kept thinking about
all those studies when researchers send out identical resumes, but one is from John Smith and the other is from Dikembe Shabungue. And Mr. Smith gets far more call backs.
The other interesting thing about this woman's character was that one of the very few things she showed any interest in all day were the fliers we saw for various plays and shows coming to the Berkeley area. One was by some Black performance company, and she said she was interested in seeing it. (Which she might yet... but not with me.) Afterwards, having seen her uneasiness at street people, MLK boulevard, her refusal to go to the Ashby BART station when I wanted to drop her off (since it was nearer MLK and therefore dangerous), etc, I thought back on her theater interest, and her stated interest in indy films, and all the pieces of the stereotype started to come together.
I've often heard about the white liberal type who are sympathetic and compassionate, but only from a safe distance. This woman had happily voted for Obama, and she would go to a play about black culture, and she's probably seen
A Raisin in the Sun and
The Color Purple, etc. But at the same time she's got this mostly-hidden reservoir of terror of the Other. Weird people, different people, black people, strange things, etc. For her, riding BART to Berkeley was way out of her comfort zone, driving past MLK was scary, etc. It doesn't make her a bad person, and in fact we got along well in email and txt before our date, so we had something in common. But she was only book smart; only interesting when she had time to think of a response. Her real life personality was timid and insecure and non-spontaneous, and that made her boring and hesitant. And that made our date a disaster.
Happily the date gets funnier in retrospect. Talking it over with the IG the next day we were alughing our asses off. Even immediately afterwards, while driving home I called Malaya to vent/rant, and she was laughing hysterically at my depiction of events. I didn't just call her to yell though, I was curious. She used to complain to me how boring her social events were at work. She was surrounded largely by over-educated, suburban, white women, and she always said the conversations were painfully dull. I never quite grasped why that was, but I think I know now. In recent weeks I've gotten to know/dated 2 fairly intelligent, gainfully-employed, well-educated, semi-worldly white women in their early 30s, and both were incredibly boring in person. I'll avoid a massive digression in this post, and just say that after those dates and some discussion of them with friends, I've concluded that there are many different types of "intelligence." People can know a lot of things, be able to write coherently and think, and even do fairly difficult jobs with competence. Yet at the same time they can be horrible at communicating, lack any sense of humor, kill any conversation they're invited into, etc. I'm sure it's not just white people who fall into this trap, but the more white women I date, the more those "white and uptight' stereotypes seem accurate.
And yes, I'm straying in an interesting direction for a post all about racist thinking. The difference, as I see it, is that I don't attribute a genetic, biological reason or predestination for this. It's entirely cultural, just like any superior black dancing ability, or Asian math prowess. Some white people are brought up and live in a way that sews the seeds of them being uptight and uneasy around strange or new or different things as adults. And unfortunately, I keep reaping those harvests via online dating.
Happily, this weekend's date is a lively and intelligent woman who pointed me to some YouTube videos of her doing on-the-street interviews as part of a media project in college, and she's able to talk and think and be sarcastic and wry, on her feet. Literally, in this instance. I'll report how that one goes at some point. Or not. I seem to blog on
CPT these days... wait, what?
Labels: bigotry, dating, online dating, politics
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Online Dating Foibles, Part II
I had a first date Saturday the 10th (yesterday as I write this, 5 days ago when this post goes live) and it's worth a blog post.
I met her via an online dating service, and like most of the women I've thus far met via that, and then encountered in person, she saw my profile and sent me the first email. (I've mailed a fair number of women, but most have not replied and of most who have replied have not progressed to a face-to-face meeting.) This woman was okay, but she wasn't my ideal. I probably wouldn't have mailed her if I'd seen her profile first but she was interesting/attractive enough to reply to when she made first contact, and we had a couple of good phone chats which encouraged me.
The date was fun; we met in
Sausalito, a touristy, bougie, expensive little town on the northern SF Bay. Sausalito is about halfway between my location and hers (San Francisco) so it seemed an equitable meeting place. Saturday was a gorgeous, cloudless day, which broadened our date options. She was free in the afternoon, so we met along the boardwalk @ 2pm and strolled south and looked at the water and boats and tourists and other eye candy. Walking back we took the other side of the street and detoured a bit, walking through several art galleries and a couple of little boutiques. Interesting sights and conversation.
That ran for an hour+, and when we eventually felt some hunger pangs we picked one of the many seafront restaurants for lunch. I suggested we share an appetizer and a salad, and I'd pick one and she'd pick the other. We settled on a shrimp/crab quesadilla and a nice salad, and I then talked her into splitting a decadent apple pie ice cream walnuts caramel syrup thing for dessert. That was clearly the highlight of her meal, and she was literally moaning and sighing while eating it. (As I remarked to myself at the time, at least I would always know what she sounded like when experiencing unfeigned pleasure.)
We spent almost 3 hours together in total, and it was nice. Nothing amazing; she wasn't stupid but wasn't especially bright, she tended to babble instead of speaking more succinctly (a tendency that was quite apparent during our phone chats too), and she was a little spacey at times. Also, she looked at least 5 years older than her online photos, though she said some were from as recently as this summer. Low resolution photos erase a lot of wrinkles, I guess. *cough*
On the plus side she had a good sense of humor, more for laughing at my jokes than for making her own (which was a substantial upgrade over my last first date) and she had a pretty (though not cute or beautiful) face despite the age lines (of which I possess enough not to complain about anyone else's). Most encouraging, to me anyway, was her tall, lean, fit body. She wasn't exactly athletic, but she looked good in jeans that weren't even that tight. She wasn't uptight about physical contact either; she bumped into me and touched me frequently, initiated several hearty hugs (not those sickly, boob-avoiding, one-armed sideways hugs some women use), let me hold her hands to warm them up when she was cold in the restaurant, etc.
I wasn't smitten, and didn't think she was either, but I thought it was a pretty good first date, and was interested in seeing her again. I don't expect that much from a first date: I'm just looking for some personality traits in common, hoping we'll feel some physical attraction, checking if she's got a sense of humor, if she's uptight or distant or high maintenance, etc. This woman wasn't a 10 on any rating, but she was at least a 6 or a 7 on most, and I thought that was pretty good for a first date. I could overlook her slightly bulging eyes and wrinkles since she had a nice body, her sense of humor and vivaciousness more than made up for her lack of education or brilliance, etc.
At the end of the date we walked to her car, and she said she'd drive me to mine since I was half a mile down the boardwalk. We got there quickly and sat to chat for a moment. She first reached over and delivered a long, not-very-awkward car hug, before asking what I thought. I'd previously told her that I had free time this week with the termite tenting at my apartment, and was free for lunch or maybe dinner any day. (The faint prospect of being invited to stay the night, thus saving me one night's hotel expense, factors in there too.)
She listened, and then went into a typically (for her) rambling speech that contained a lot of elements of what a great first date it had been, but wrapped up her discourse by saying that she went on a lot of first dates, and was looking for something really special right from the start, and though she'd had a great time this afternoon, it hadn't been the magical chemistry thing she was looking for.
And then we had another long hug and she said bye and I got out and she drove off, and while I got into my car and started driving home, I tried to decide if I was disappointed or not. During our date I was consciously overlooking at lot of things that I wasn't real thrilled with, but that's how it goes in real life, not "perfect soul mate love at first sight" fantasy storybook dating land. Also, she had a cute butt and slender thighs, extraordinarily-desirable attributes possessed by perhaps 1/20th of the 16-35 y/o female population in America. (Though the odds improve to perhaps 1/10th or 1/8th of such women in the fitter Bay Area.)
Driving home, I thought back over events, and one stood out. During our meal she'd told me a story about a friend who had recently gotten married. I hadn't paid the story much attention at the time, but in retrospect it took on a level of prophecy. The story went that her (female) friend had met a guy on a group outing to a ski resort, or a lakehouse, or something like that. The details weren't clear (which was an element common to all of her stories), but the gist of it was that the woman, my date's best friend, had met a new guy on that trip, and after just one day of interaction, mostly in a large group, she'd told a friend that she'd just met her future husband.
Now maybe that woman thought that about every guy she met and only remembered it this time since they did in fact get married, or maybe she had vague thoughts about it that became much stronger over time as she grew to like him more. I dunno. The key point is that she remembered it that way, and her friend, my date, had heard the story and clearly taken it to heart.
So that was her goal. She was dating a lot, meeting a lot of guys, and though she'd been married a decade earlier, and had (by her description) fucked her way across Europe during a half year of travel after her divorce in 2005, and had known a variety of guys since then, over the past few months she'd decided to settle down, to stop meeting guys in bars, to try online dating, and to get serious about finding a future husband/baby daddy. And she felt like she'd know Mr. Right as soon as she met him, and was determined to keep looking until she found a glass slipper that fit. Perfectly. On the first try. She liked me, but she didn't feel any magical supernatural chemistry, and she didn't have any "he's my future husband" thoughts, and at this point in her life (34 y/o, aging in dog years, and eager for kids) her clock is ticking and there's no time to fuck around (literally or metaphorically) with guys she doesn't think are mutually-interested husband material.
It seems an unrealistic standard to put on every date, but if she goes on a first date a week for a year, I suppose she'll eventually find a guy (or three) she feels that way about. Whether they'll reciprocate, or will just pretend/string her along long enough to take their turn peeling off those jeans and working their way up those long legs, I don't know and won't speculate. In any event, I wish her well. She wasn't for me (and I obviously wasn't for her) but she deserves happiness and she was honest with me.
I found it most interesting to see precisely how different her perspective was. If I were in her situation I would be working intently to date a lot of guys, but I wouldn't expect magic on the first date. I'd want to find guys who seemed stable and open to an LTR, and then see them several times to really get to know them. I don't think you get any kind of true appreciation of another person on the first meeting. I don't know how it is meeting men, but I know most women don't show anything like their real personality/feelings/behavior until several dates in, (though long phone chats and other forms of interaction can move that timetable along; it doesn't have to be only face-to-face time).
Love at first sight? The few women I've felt utterly enchanted by upon the first meeting I always thought better about after additional encounters. Liking someone that much right off the bat is much more about lust/infatuation than something more intellectual or indicative of long term personality compatibility, and I think first impression hunger is a poor standard for judging a future husband or wife. I haven't relayed these thoughts to my first (and last?) date, and I don't have any interest in or need to try to talk her out of her current dating approach, but it's definitely not one I'd take. Then again, she's dated and fucked a lot more people than I have, and she's feeling much more pressure to settle down and start a family, with her ovaries clock tick tick ticking far more at 34 than my testicles will be at 44, or even 54. Though I do want to have kids sooner than that; those 60 y/o men pushing strollers or watching their kid skateboard always look sort of overwhelmed and rattled.
Until then, the online dating foibles will continue. I've got 2 more first dates scheduled for this weekend, and both women seem much more intelligent and mature than this past woman was. (Which is good, from my perspective.) On the down side, neither possesses this last woman's physical attributes, (from the waist down, at least) which means I'll need to be that much more strongly attracted to their personalities and faces to want to invest the time/energy that starting a new relationship requires.
At any rate, it's all blog material...
Labels: online dating
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Online Dating Foibles, Part I
I'm still sporadically pursuing female attention via online dating, and while I'm not blogging about it, that doesn't mean I'm not encountering blog material. I think I'll have to write a book about this someday, or at least work a bunch of semi-fictionalized tales into a novel, since there's just too much weird and amusing and drama-rich material.
I've had no luck (in terms of getting replies) when I send short, generic emails to women whose profiles I fancy. Besides, for me it's harder to send a short email than a long one. So what I do lately is send the intriguing women an email (which goes anonymously through the service) with an boilerplate opening paragraph, and then 2 or 3 paragraphs about things I liked in their profile. This lets them know it's actually a mail to them, not just one I cut and paste to every woman I see, and it keeps my interest writing it. Thus far, I've gotten 3 types or replies. Complete silence, a very short "no thanks", or enthusiastic acceptance. The majority are the first type, of course. From what I've read, the hit rate is like 5% for men seeking women via online dating services. Most of the ones with pictures to browse (that does not include eharmony.com, which is picture free and all about computer algorithm matching like an arranged marriage) have far more men than women. And since I'm not lying about my profession or grossly inflating my income, I've got a bit of an uphill struggle to start with.
Initially I did a bunch of searches and favorited a bunch of women, and then spent hours one weekend sorting through them all, ranking them on various criteria, giving them overall grades, prioritizing which ones I wanted to mail first, etc. That didn't work very well since I'd spend hours at it one day and mail a dozen women, then get exhausted or discouraged with the whole thing and not return to it for a week. Or three. So now I'm being much less selective/obsessive, and devoting an hour a day to it, during which time I mail 2 or 3 women, as I steadily work through my favorites list.
Thus far the favorites are winning, since it's easy to add a dozen more women in 5 minutes of searching, and while I don't search that much, my backlog of favorites increases much more quickly than I can send out emails. I don't mail them all; I favorite every woman who looks and sounds somewhat interesting, and then a week or a month later when I return to her profile I read it much more carefully and decide if I really want to try to contact her. I delete at least half of them without trying to make contact, even though I'm trying to be less picky. From the women I've met thus far, I've concluded that you really can't tell that much about a person just from a few paragraphs, a list of their favorite things, and some photos. You gotta at least talk to them on the phone, if not meet them, to determine if you'll have any chemistry or attraction in real life.
I've not gone there yet, but I am occasionally tempted to lie about my income and/or career, like 75% of the other guys do. I had no idea there were so many single lawyers and professionals making $100,000-$150,000 a year who were looking for love online! Amazing they can't meet a nice girl in person, what with their good looks, muscular physiques, high incomes, and honest, forthright character. *cough* (Sure, that approach would just delay the rejection from the initial email to the second date, but hey... dates!)
But I digress, since I had a quick, funny story to tell. So:
One of the two women I mailed on Thursday replied to me on Saturday morning. Here's her reply to my instigating email:
Thanks for the thoughtful and well-written email, Greg!
Unfortunately I'm already dating someone.
Best,
Connie
Nice of her to at least bother to reply; the vast majority of people do not (including me; I've ignored most of the women who have emailed or winked at me, since most of them weren't attractive or interesting to me) and your message in a bottle floats out into endless silence. Except that you can look to see who has viewed your profile, and that lets me know that the women I mailed checked me out, in almost every case. They just weren't interested enough to reply. Lawyer. $100,000+. I'm telling you...
Ordinarily I'd have said nothing to Connie here, since as I said, just by sending a quick "no thanks" she put herself well above most, in manners and consideration. Unfortunately (for her?) I received her reply just as I was going to bed, after staying up an hour later than I should have, after a long night of work, in order to fulfill my two-a-day email quota. I wouldn't have replied with anything if she'd just said no, but her saying that she was dating someone annoyed me. Her profile said nothing about that, and gave every impression that she was single and available. I mailed her though a fricking singles dating site, for Xmas' sake!
Plus, she called me "Greg." I don't have anything against that name, but I signed my email with my actual first name, and she forgot it in the time it took to click reply and type those dozen words? True, "Eric" has an "E" and an "R", as does "Greg," albeit in a different order, but come on...
So I was a little annoyed, and that made me a little snarky.
Thanks for the reply and good luck with your relationship and your short term name memory issues. You might consider removing or amending your profile now that you're off the market, so future potential suitors don't waste their time as I did? Unless you're just keeping open the possibility of an upgrade...
Eric
Was that wrong? Mean? Probably, but it made me laugh when I wrote it, and sent me off to bed in a better mood. (Which didn't last long, since Jinx was all hyperactive and attacking Kyo and making noise to the point that I had to toss her (Jinx) out of the bedroom so I could go to sleep. Yes, I have a new/second cat. Much overdue post on that to come...)
Connie replied to my snark, but I didn't read it. Not even a peek. I deleted it unopened, since I didn't want her wounded complaint or angry rebuttal to bring me down or complicate things. I got in the last word, it was a funny word, and we all lived happily ever after. (Except for the part about me not having a girlfriend, and staying up too late getting bitchy as I email women through an online dating site.)
Labels: online dating
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