Sorry for picking on your brains… but how would you imagine getting out of this predicament ? You think it will require the right guy ? Or a combination of right guy and loosening up ?
Do you even have fun during these ocassional dates ?
No freaking idea. I keep occasionally going on dates (I average maybe 4 a year, mostly guys I meet online when I start feeling like I shoudl be dating) and pretending to be a normal girl and not someone who gets all freaky. I figure eventually if I keep facing my fears I’ll eventually be comfortable with this whole deal or maybe I’ll meet the guy I like enough that I’ll I’ll stop freaking out. Or maybe I’ll just get tired of the whole deal (seems to be happening more and more lately) and accept that a comfortable life with my cats and books isn’t that bad a thing.
Fun? I dunno. I usually have interesting conversations but worrying about all the things I freak out over is kinda stressful. That’s part of the problem, I think. I don’t consider dating fun enough that I’m willing to deal with the stress (very often, I’m kinda in a dating mode right now tho’, I’ve got two possible dates next week, we’ll see how they go). It’s not an equal trade.
When your chatting online… do you talk more freely ? Is your online persona more open and friendly and easy going ?
Dating’s a lot of work, but are you sure you’re just not interested in this guy? If so, it’s OK to say “no.”
Well, I’m kinda hijacking the OP’s thread so this’ll be might last insight into the twisted mind o’Tremorviolet. I don’t really chat online, I find it boring. I think my online persona is pretty much what I am in real life. Just like on the Dope, I’m slightly stand-offish, a little too willing to ramble about myself, hard to rile up, reluctant to get involved in serious debates, and not one to flirt.
Back to the OP, as others have said, being afraid of dating is normal btu don’t let it drag on. Conquer your fears. I wish I had started trying to date much earlier in my life. I pretty much avoided it in high shcool and my twenties and sometimes feel like I didn’t learn crucial dating skills. (kinda like riding a bike, maybe if you don’t learn 'em by a certain age, you’re doomed)
tremorviolet, I know what you mean about those skills. I just don’t know how the game is played. A few years ago it was easy because I had lots of guys in my social circle, and bringing it up a step from friendship to “boyfriend” was a simple progression. This whole game of exchanging numbers (but who calls whom, when?) and “dating” is pretty frightning to me because I don’t know what is expected of me.
One thing I can do well is flirting, as long as it’s someone I already sort of know, and I’m comfortable with the person. But when it’s someone I’m meeting for the first time, I’m too scared to anything but jabber on about things much too long and laugh nervously.
What makes me most apprehensive about the concept of dating someone from the internet is that to me, it feels basically like two people getting to know each other to see if there’s any chance they’ll want to hop in the sack together.
But I will try to get over my fear and try a date or two. I won’t meet anybody if I sit here in my room all the time.
Internet dating gives me the creeps as well, but what you have described here is the entire point of virtually any form of dating, so far as I can tell.
[QUOTE=AntigenWhat makes me most apprehensive about the concept of dating someone from the internet is that to me, it feels basically like two people getting to know each other to see if there’s any chance they’ll want to hop in the sack together. [/QUOTE]
That’s exactly it. Like you, I used to meet guys through school or work (when I worked retail and we had lots of time to chat). So we were already on a friendly basis before the possibility of dating arose (which I usually shot down but at least it was friendly). Meeting a stranger for a date is just kinda weird and the whole date has a lot more subtext than just grabbing a few beers with a bunch of friends. And most online daters say they’d be happy just making a friend but, truthfully, I’m not looking for another friend, I already don’t have enough time for all my friends.
Anyway, the meeting strangers thing gets easier. I can fake it through a first date pretty well now. (it helps if beer is involved. I know a lot of people say no alchohol on the first date but one or two calms my nerves a lot) It’s the prospect of after that really freaks me out…
Tracy where on the Willamette are you? I just got over a 2 year period of feeling exactly the same way, and if you’re close maybe we could get together and talk about it. Email me if you are interested.
I would still be there if my current boyfriend wasn’t smart enough to take it slow and not make any sudden movements. He was recovering too, so we both circled around each other for a while. I don’t know if you have ever had surgery for a joint before, but it was like that- I kept doing things that had hurt or scared me before, but now they weren’t frightening or painful anymore. It took me a while to believe it, but now I’m just feeling happy and relieved.
Good luck, at any rate.
I think there’s good reason to be afraid of the straightforward dating game. Think of it… making arrangements to spend your precious time alone with someone you scarcely even know just because you like their hairstyle or something? It’s a little like gambling, isn’t it?
I think a better approach is make friends in groups and meet people as parts of group activities. Avoid any straightforward dating plays, either making them or accepting them. Hopefully after a while you’ll find yourself spending most of your time at group functions chatting with one particular person. Then it’s a little more natural to make arrangements to spend time with the person alone. I think it’s a much more comprehensive approach to social life than the serial train wreck of dinner-and-a-movie.
Disclaimer (or testimonial, depending on how you see it): I’m married.
I think its quite normal to seek “dates” amongst people you know… especially since 90% of couples are in the same income/educational/cultural levels. My experience is that women only give a chance to men that have been introduced by a common acquaintance. Safer I suppose.
You are so normal you could ski down either slope of the Bell curve. You are so typical you should submit yourself to the National Institude of Standards and Technology as the archtype for “dating, 21st Century, attitudes regarding”, You are so cheeseburger-and-vanilla-ice-cream ordinary you should rent yourself out to people who are sick of counting sheep to fall asleep.
Those people–the ones who enjoy dating and live in anticipation of first dates–those are the freaks. I don’t mean the standard issue dyed-hair and body piercing type, anime obsessing freaks either; I mean the three sigma, organize-the-closet-by-color-and-washing-instructions, lite-jazz-admiring, check-the-401(k)-valuation-every-half-hour-style freaks. Anyone who enjoys the process of modern dating should probably check with his/her parents and see if he/she wasn’t adopted shortly after a mysterious cluster of UFO sitings.
Being anxious about dating is a pretty normal reaction, I think. After all, ultimate success in dating involves aquiring a new-and-probably-more dysfunctionaly family members and/or parasites, engaging in an obscenely expensive and expectaction-ladden celebration in which you wear ill-fitting, impractical clothing while dancing to shitty '80s music, and wondering if you’ll ever get to see your kind of movies again without enduring the unending criticism of your “partner”.
Then there’s the whole procreation thing that people are always urging you to do, as if you’re part of some unseen selective breeding program. Sleepless nights. Dirty diapers. Infant illnesses. Temper tantrums. I’m not going to say any more about it, other than a child is clearly an anxiety’s way of making another anxiety. (Nod to Richard Dawkins.) In fact, considering the entire process, it’s immensly surprising that the human races manages to perpetuate itself. Maybe modern dating behavior is like the peacock’s fan; proof that you can survive it’s unwieldy requirements is evidence of your superior fitness.
The whole phenomenon is so entirely bizarre it deserves an exhibit in “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.”
You wouldn’t get that impression from film and television, of course, where the awkward bit of the meet-cute usually lasts somewhere on the order of 40 frames. This isn’t, mind you, because the director wants to make you feel like a socially-retarded misfit–though it is an unintended advantage–but because the perfect romantic comedy film is 105.2 minutes long and the screenwriter was compelled at gunpoint to toss out pages 15, 19, 25 through 32, and that whole thing about the guy’s social phobia that resulted from his painful adolescence in favor of the subplot where the leads’ best friends initially bicker and then end up in bed, as defined by Nora Ephram’s Definitive And Inalterable Rules For Writing Romantic Comedy, or How I Turned The Classic Boy-Meets-Girl Story Into A Cliche-Ridden Money Machine (Third Edition).
In reality, or at least my reality, which may be only tangetially related to the normal experiential shared universe that everybody else lives in, dates are often filled with awkward silences between short and halting bursts of conversation in which one attempts to convey one’s value while obscuring one’s deficiencies and emotional baggage, followed by pregnant pauses in which one’s mentally anguishes about disgorging the way-too-personal-for-a-first-date anecdote in the previous statement, and interspaced by alternating attempts to make and avoid eye contact.
Then there’s the whole end-of-date question, i.e. “Should I kiss her, shake hands, or just get down on my knees and beg her forgiveness for boring her to the point of actually having to wake her up at the end of the evening?” This awkward decision is often, if not well, avoided by ending up stone-drunk and incoherent half-way through the date. This is a rather effective avoidance policy which results in a large number of first dates, at least when measured in relation to subsequent engagements. Someone should make a rule–no, a constitutional amentment–on how this situation should work.
I think I had a point to make when I started this thing but it has since escaped me like Steve McQueen in a prison movie.
Stranger
Stranger on a Train, wow, you explained some of my anxeties very well! :eek:
I’m actually enjoying this dating thing. I know there are very shy people out there, I know some people loathe it. Like I said before, I still feel nervous/anxious, especially when I really like the other person.
But yeah, there are sometimes those uncomfortable silences where you are trying to think of something meaningful to say without overdoing it. I had a little dialogue going in my head during my last date while we were sitting staring out at the ocean-
A: “This is pretty romantic. I should put my arm around her maybe.”
B: “No, too soon! I’ll ruin everything! She’ll freak out!”
A: “For all I know in her mind she could be screaming for me to put my arm around her but too shy to say anything out loud”
B: “READ her body language/facial expression! Does she even look like she wants me to do that?”
A: "She doesn’t have a cold expression, she doesn’t have warm expression, ARGH she has the most neutral facial expression imaginable! I feel like I’m invisible right now! :mad: 
"
In the end I did put my arm around her. She didn’t flinch or stiffen up or say anything. So I guess it was okay, because if it wasn’t she certainly would have mentioned something (I would hope, anyway. )
I’ve always tried to be friends first, date second. If you meet someone you like or think you could possibly like, invite him out with your friends or to movie night at your place with some people you’re comfortable with. If you’re not concentrating totally on him, maybe you won’t get so nervous.
Keep telling yourself that it’s just one date, and there’s no committment in that.
Do you ever find that it works? I always found it a recipe for failure because familiarity breeds contempt. Be acquaintances first, yes. But not friends. Or at least not close friends. From the start, you have to be an obvious “prospect” without jumping directly forward to the “prospecting.” That’s the rub.
All of my long-term relationships came out of friendships, too. And I’ve been a little gun-shy to jump back into the ol’ pool after the last one ended a year-and-a-half ago.
But this past weekend, I sucked it up and I told a good friend whom I really like, that I like her. She responded with, “I can’t believe you just said that because I was just going to tell you I really like [insert mutual friend’s name here].”
And so I was painfully reminded with why I a-feared datin’. “Live life with no regrets,” my ass.
Happy
I find it works. I’ve just gotten engaged to a guy I knew as a friend for 2 years before we started dateing.
IME (now dated (no pun intended 
): If you didn’t make a romantic move by the end of the second date you were dead in the water. I was always a big believer in friends first but, after a high rate of failure revised that. I changed to make no move on the first date (unless obvious she wishes it) but must kiss on second date.
Finally, I revised it to trying to kiss on the first date. Depending on the results of the kiss, I would decide if I wanted to go forward.
It really saved much time. A woman can be very good at disguising her true feelings for you (to not hurt your feelings, want a free night out etc.) but has a much harder time doing that with a kiss.
Sure, I may have scared a few away but it really seemed to separate the wheat from the chaff. No more wondering and wondering “Does she like me”.
So, I chickened out and haven’t called this guy back yet. It’s Friday and he called on Monday – er. Whoops. I’ll call that a misstep on the path to Making Friends and Influencing People, but honestly, I didn’t feel a connection with the guy, and I think/hope he’s, you know, let it slide. (Am awful, wimpy person. :()
I’m much obliged to Stranger On A Train for both relieving me and cracking me up simultaneously. Thanks for the words of, uh, comfort. 
I go to school in Ashland, but “home” is about twenty minutes southwest of Portland. I’ll probably be coming up for a weekend in February.
Generally, I’m afraid that my big problem is with the stages of dating: I’m very good at (and enjoy!) superficial connections (like first impressions and first dates) but horrible at following through with anything deeper.
I mean, I’m in no hurry. I’m a freshman in college, and I’ve got a lot I want to do. I do like to go out, though, and flirt lightly with people – and why not? it makes everyone feel good – but am not definitely not looking for anything long-term. That’s where the misunderstandings/problems start, I think. Rhetorically, she asked, what’s to be done?
It worked for me. I was pretty close friends with my boyfriend for three years before we finally got together. We’ve been together three years now.