Thinking about how I was going to title this thread, I originally thought of, “how often does someone tell you that there is no chemistry between the two of you?” but I thought this would be more to the point-
Do some people have bad chemistry with everyone they meet? As in, individuals who could go out with ten different people, and all of them give them the virtually the same explanation of, “Well, you’re a great person, and I had a lot of fun, but there’s just no chemistry between us”
I had kind of thought that chemistry was something beyond anyone’s control. But if it happens repeatedly, the common denominator is the person who is on the receiving end of these speeches. What do you think?
I’m not sure I’m answering your question, but I do believe there are some people whose social skills are so weak that few other people make any extra effort to get to know them. Some of these people wind up being “your basic serial killer” in the fictional accounting for such things.
Others wind up being perpetual wall flowers in anything they try to get involved in.
I doubt that it’s “chemistry” as such, but the thought is intriguing, as though these folks just have the right brew of repellants to work on most of their fellow human beings. Perhaps the “chemistry” may even manifest in some barely detectable aroma that’s less than a true stink, but enought to put others on guard.
I’d love to hear others more familiar with Chemistry to debunk this notion.
I would take it to mean that the person saying “no chemistry” isn’t interested in finding out if there’s chemistry or not. Generally, if I meet a guy, there are a few possibilities:
[ol]
[li]I want to jump his bones immediately (rare)[/li][li]I think “he seems reasonably attractive and reasonably interesting, it’s worth pursuing” (more usual)[/li][li]I think “nice guy, but I have no interest in ever being physical with him, not my type” (pretty common)[/li][li]Ugh (also rare; any “ugh” reaction will usually have manifested itself in emails or phone communication before meeting)[/li][/ol]
#1 would be an example of basic pheronomal chemistry; it’s rare. It sounds like you’re actually getting mostly #3 responses, which the lady in question is describing as “no chemistry,” and I would say something to the guy like “I don’t see this going anywhere.” Actual “chemistry,” whatever that is, can take a while to develop, which is the point of dating someone for a while.
Why they’re not interested in pursuing things with you: I’ve never met you, so can’t even guess. I’m assuming that you bathe regularly, dress like a more or less normal human being, have good manners (I’m talking chewing with your mouth closed, not pulling her chair out for her) and have nice fresh breath. Beyond those possible immediate deal-breakers that wouldn’t manifest themselves on email, IM, or phone – has the lady seen a picture of you? Is the picture reasonably accurate?
People said I looked good, dressed well, acted polite, etc. In short, I did everything right on my end, and at the same time felt like I liked the other person. I never have been in a situation where I was the only one that didn’t feel any chemistry. So as you can imagine, in a way it is really frustrating because it is something beyond my own control. Obviously it ultimately lies in the people I am meeting, but I can’t tell right off the bat, “I don’t think this person is/will be interested in me” and I try to be really outgoing and not make assumptions like that.
It took twickster’s reply for me to realize you might have been referring to yourself! I apologize if I was offensive with my own reply. I treated your OP as a “rhetorical” or “academic” question. Didn’t mean to imply that you might have the attributes I mentioned.
I’m still curious if somebody with more knowledge of bodily chemistry has an answer that helps.
I think it’s quite possible for someone to be sending out what are “not the kind of person you date” signals to about everyone, but I think that is probably through actions, words, and appearance, not phermones. There are really two solutions to this:
Change the actions and words (and appearance) to send different signals
Find someone in the minority of people that DO interpret your actions/words/appearence as a “dateable” signal.
One must do both to some degree, of course, but for me the answer was clearly more 2) than 1)–I am a weird, weird person and I never really dated much before I met my (now) husband. He suits me. Few people do. I think that some other people are “easier” matches, and those people tend to have more opportunities for casual dating/casual sex. It’s not a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just a “that’s the way it works” thing.
This is going to be vague and I apologize, but my memory is lousy. I was watching one of those Discovery-type shows one Saturday afternoon and they were discussing the chemistry of human sexual attraction. There was a study that seemed to show that people could smell certain genetic factors, and that what was MOST attractive in a potential mate was someone with as many different immune factors than you as possible. Theoretically this would give your offspring better immune defenses than someone who shared many of the same factors as you. I may not be remembering this with complete accuracy, but it was something like that.
Whatever the specifics turn out to be, I do think that we don’t have complete conscious control over what we find attractive or over whether or not people find us attractive. I know that at least a few times I have met guys that I wanted to throw myself at even though they were complete strangers, and I’ve known a lot of nice guys who I never could think of in any way except as friends.
My advice is to try to be yourself and keep looking. Especially look in groups of people who share your interests. Do you love to read? Go to book signings or join a book club. Do you like music? Try to get out more and see bands you like. Interested in cooking or painting? Take a class instead of buying a cookbook.
I have online-dated a lot, and here is my take on the “no chemistry” line. You may or may not agree with me, but think about it.
If you are attempting to ‘date up’, you may have heard this as the stock reason to not pursue a relationship with you. Say you’re a 7, but you only respond to or initiate emails with 10s. The whole “we don’t have chemistry” thing is often used as a polite get-out-of-dating-free card when you don’t want to go into the real reasons. If you are being overly ambitious, you might try lowering your standards and being more realistic.
(I’m not saying that you’re ugly- I don’t think I’ve ever seen your photo.)
My experience at least partially is that chemistry when meeting people is a reflection of social skills: in my case I had to learn to see the other person and respond to what they were actually saying and doing, rather than just following the images and plans in my own head. Among other things.
This doesn’t nean that there couldn’t be another layer of interaction involving physical chemistry (pheromones, body odours, actual chemistry in the literal sense) when meeting someone.
I’m not sure which of these would come into play first: if you are uncomfortable with how someone behaves, would you get close enough to them to like their smell? Or if you like their smell, would it matter what their mannerism was like?
Another thought… a while ago, I went on a date with a woman I met on the net; she was asian, plump, creative, we got along in email; logically we should have hit it off. Yet I wasn’t excited by her. And there was nothing I could do about it. I was angry about my lack of excitation, actually; it should have happend!
Was that incompatible physical chemistry? I wonder.
Good call trublmakr, except that physical attractiveness isn’t always the scale being rated. I personally couldn’t date someone that was sweet, cute, and as mentally shallow as a restaurant soup bowl.
Another thing that makes me feel the “no chemistry” instantly is when someone really over-shares stuff. Bad things happen to everybody, but spending an hour of our first date telling me ONLY about how you’ve been raped, sexually and physically abused, harassed, fired, discriminated against, and hated is really freakin’ depressing. If the date ends with me not sure whether to take you home or to a shelter, then you told me too much. If you tell me the same kinds of things about other people you know, that’ll immediately scare me off wanting to talk to you further, because respecting other people’s confidences is a huge moral issue of mine.
(Incubus, posting here lets you out of the first, and posting without whining lets you out of the second. I don’t think I can explain it. Have you tried dousing yourself in cinnamon and vanilla or something?)
I think you’re right about there being something about that person that’s the common denominator. If I were to claim that someone and I had no chemistry, what I would mean is that I find that person dull. He might be a perfectly nice guy, but I can’t get past finding them dull.
However, not all women find the same things dull. Take one of my supervisors, for example. I hate speaking to him about anything, because it’s excruciating. Every rambling thing that comes out of his mouth takes on the tone of someone making a speech, even if he’s just asking how you are or attempting to tell a joke. The only thing remotely interesting about the man is that he drinks too much and hits on all the 20-something women who work under us, so we get to spend time wondering when one will file a sexual harassment suit or if he’ll get a DUI. Yet some of those young women seem to find him charming, at least for a while.
If the world’s dullest alcoholic letch can find women who think he’s witty, anyone can…they just need to speak to a lot of them.
Well, I kept my question kind of vague, because I didn’t want it to come off as whining. It is a legitimate curiosity of mine, and I believe that there are others in the same situation I am in.
“No chemistry” as a polite blanket statement bugs me, and helps to cast doubt about the whole ‘chemistry’ aspect altogether. If there is something else, then the other person has nothing to lose by telling me. If we have just met for the first time, I can’t possibly know/like them enough to be upset or heartbroken if they tell me why they aren’t attracted to me. If it is something fixable, like say I show up at a date and I accidentally buttoned my shirt crookedly, giving me a ‘slob’ vibe to the other person, I’ll make it a point to never have that happen again in future dates. If it is something I can’t control, like my nose, or my hands, or the sound of my voice, I will make it a point to try to pursue women that don’t have the same hangup about it.
The outcome is always random; no matter how attracted I am to the other person, I can’t ever predict how much they will like me in return. Some might get frustrated by this, indeed there are many posts on the 'dope about people that are inept at interacting with others and feel anxiety about it, particularly when whatevery they try always fails. I look at it positively, knowing that at the very least I can work hard to make myself seem as presentable as possible to the other person.
Though it would be nice to be the one that gets to decide every once in a while.
P.S. trublmakr , I am aware of the issue about dating ‘above your spectrum’. I never back out of meeting someone I think looks ‘too good’ for me. Who knows what they think. I always pursue every opportunity with the potential that it may work out well.
I think this problem tends to afflict the “nice guy” contingent quite often.
Sometimes even if there’s nothing that actively repels you from someone, there’s also nothing that actively attracts you either…hence, no “chemistry”. So, don’t assume that the person is just using “no chemistry” as an excuse to hide the real reason. Sometimes it really is just a matter of everything being fine, but not having that special spark.
I’ve been dating quite a bit lately. It’s normally not a problem for me to get at least a kiss on the first date if I feel curious and attracted enough to find out what that would be like. I find largely two things happen when I get to this stage. The first is that people are often poor kissers. Either too prissy/dry or too sloppy/wet. There’s a happy medium there that’s often hard to find. But even more of a turn-off is the chemistry of the kiss. That would be the smell/taste test. Yep, I account for the dinner and the caesar salad we just shared. I can take that. But often it’s more than that… it’s this personal taste or smell that you just know is a permanent fixture in the given person. That’s what I define as chemistry. Poor kissing skills and personal taste or smell. The latter, if they aren’t right, are immediate disqualifiers (all other attributes: looks, personality, smarts, conversation being a pass up to that point).
I think that a lot of the time bad chemistry is mostly due to body language.
When I was first starting to date, I would often (as in almost always) fall into the friend category. We all know from Ladder Theory that getting off the friend ladder is very difficult once you’re on it, and that no matter how high you climb on that ladder, you’re probably not going to get anything out of it other than heartfelt talks and cuddling. Getting stuck on the Friend Ladder: Exhibit A, was me.
In all seriousness, it took me a few years to figure out that my successes were almost always when I was flirtatious from the beginning; when I was drunk, very into the girl, just didn’t give a shit anymore, in the kind of environment where flirtatious behavior was appropriate, whatever.
Gauging the amount of flirting that is appropriate is sometimes difficult. If you’re too pushy too soon, you might make yourself unattractive. However, being too “gentlemanly” will very often put you into a position where she doesn’t think of you as being a potential relationship or bed partner. The probable benefit usually outweighs the possible risk.
I found that casually taking it for granted that physical intimacy was okay was more often accepted than not. I’m not talking about sex but moving closer, putting an arm around her, touching her shoulder or knee, that kind of thing. If she was uncomfortable, she could move away and I wouldn’t prevent her or push the issue because that would make her feel threatened. By being casual about it, not making it into a big deal, and reading her signals to gauge acceptance, it would often be quite easy to progress to kissing by the end of the evening.
While I’ve also seen the study that showed that women rated body odor higher in attractiveness when certain chemicals related to immune response showed that the man had a very different immune system from the woman, this effect would probably be small compared to other factors like physical attractiveness and social interaction. Unless you really stink. Then it might be the main problem.
An awful lot of our communication is indirect. I’ve seen claims that upwards of 80% is non-verbal. If you can get better at flirty sexy-though-inducing body language, it might change your “chemistry” for the better.
Of course we know you’re a decent guy and would NEVER take offense or be upset by being told the honest truth about why someone doesn’t want to date you further. If all guys were like you, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion, though.
If I were out on a date with a guy, and came to the unpleasant realization that I didn’t want to date him again for some reason, I could have the following reasons for not telling him what it was:
If they were in private, he might take offense to it and decide to chew her out for “being so shallow” or “finding that kind of thing important.” And, remember, in your scenario, the two dating don’t know each other well-- so the offense might even escalate to yelling and arguing, or being left somewhere with no ride home, or physical assault. If we don’t know someone well, we don’t know what they’re like when they’re angry.
If they were in public, she might be worried that he would take offense, make a scene, and humiliate her (in front of strangers or even possibly people she knew).
Even if the guy seemed reasonably calm and nice right then, he could use any contact info he had about her (email, phone, work address or wherever they met originally) later on, if he wanted to get angry or upset about it.
Some guys are natural salesmen. The proper response to “I don’t want to date you because of X” is “Well, I’ve changed X, now you’ll date me!” The cycle continues until you fix everything she’s told you, which leads to…
The reason may be embarrassing or seem shallow, even to her. Even if she’s not going to date you again, this doesn’t mean that you can’t talk about her to your friends or family, and that word won’t get around.
An example of an embarrassing or shallow reason is: “He’s a great guy, but he has a laugh like PeeWee Herman, and I just can’t imagine being in bed with someone who laughs like a Chihuahua on crack.”
Now, like I said, you’re a reasonable guy, and I bet I could tell you that “it’s the laugh, sorry man” with no hard feelings. On the other hand, as a reasonable guy, you can surely imagine that being told that stings a bit, and if you’re annoyed or angry with the person telling you, it could turn into “Well, she already decided on the first date that I was going to be bad in bed, and I don’t like girls who move that fast anyway” to a guy’s best friend, and about three steps later the rumor mill has it that she’s a kink-driven tart-about-town.
To make a long story short…er, too late for that. To sum up, just because you’re okay with hearing it doesn’t mean that she wouldn’t be wary of telling it to you, for perfectly good reasons: she’s got an impression of you that you wouldn’t take it well, she’s uncomfortable sharing “I’m not sexually attracted to you because of X” because she doesn’t think talking about sex on the first date is okay, or whatever her feelings might be. You have every right to expect not to be upset or have your heart broken-- and so does she.
I’d agree with that, if you use ‘body language’ in the largest sense of ‘how you present yourself, what signals you send, plus how you perceive the other person’.
Non-attachment to the goal, in the Buddhist sense, perhaps.
I remember a time about 15 years ago, at work. There was this woman I was Very Taken With, Jessie, and most of the time I felt helpless and hopeless with respect to her. One fine spring day, however, I was in a an unusual mood, kind of light and playful. I unexpectedly encountered her as I headed out to the production floor, and we chatted and joked briefly. Then she said, “Well! You’re not usually like this!” I didn’t really have a reply to that–I think I may have said something like, "Well, it’s a really nice day out’ or something–and we went our separate paths on the job.
For a long time I didn’t understand what that experience indicated. It was only much later that I learned about this lightness of interaction, this non-attachment. And it’s still damn hard to remember at times, for someone who has at times approached the learning of social interaction with all the seriousness and determination of heading into Exam Week at electronics school.
Actually, I thank the posters in this thread (and Jessie, wherever she may be) for reminding me of that experience. It seems to be more important than I thought at the time. And remembering the emotional tinge is important, I think: that light playfulness rather than the heavy frantic trying to figure out what to do next.
This light playfulness, now that I think about it, is, I suspect, behind good flirting. Not uninterest in the other person (flirting is enjoyment of the other person), but… non-attachment to any particular goal, and watching the other person to see what’s really going on, what they are actually doing.
:: nods ::
This was another thing that was a big surprise–that being forward was more often than not appreciated. I came out of the kind of Anglo upbringing that was extremely cerebral and non-emotional, and my own personal attributes emphasised that to an extreme.
Somewhere I picked up the meme that expressing interest or asking questions or anything was Prying, and was Wrong and Impolite. You waited until someone was ready to give you the information. I was very surprised to learn that people often appreciated interest in their lives and activities.
:: nods ::
I definitely agree with this.
I will add that it’s damned near impossible to perceive one’s own body language without external help. I had a counselor and a group of people who gave me feedback. A video camera is also useful, if sometimes traumatic. (Get someone to film you when you aren’t expecting it.)
But the emotional states are also important. Light and playful, that’s the ticket.
I am now remembering various Dopefests where this knowledge would have come in useful…
