Wouldn’t a dishrag for a mate be the one that gets dragged shoe shopping when he hates it, then pouts for half an hour while his woman inflicts an activity on him that he neither enjoys nor understands? I’m just wondering.
I agree with Telperien-- if you want to spend half an hour in the shoe store, let your SO go look at CDs or something if he doesn’t want to shop with you. My husband despises stuff like shoe shopping and frankly, it’s less enjoyable for me if he is there so unwillingly, so it’s absolutely no skin off my nose to shop alone or with a friend instead. He doesn’t know jack about shoes and doesn’t care, so what would be gained by compelling him to participate? Exerting my power to get him to do stuff he doesn’t want to do? I’ll save that power for getting him to do the laundry. I can handle the shoe shopping on my own.
We are not attached at the hip. Part of the reason he married me and not his last serious GF is because I can do my own thing and don’t need him to be with me every moment, regardless of his desire to be there for that particular activity. The stuff we do together is stuff we both enjoy (or stuff we both hate, I guess). If you want to shoe/hardware shop and your SO isn’t into it, call your friends and spare your SO. It’s more fun that way anyway.
So Telperien, don’t worry. Not only is there nothing wrong with you, but I think you have the right attitude and if you want to, someday you’ll find a guy who loves you in part for not making him go shoe shopping.
If you don’t like the term “prize” here, I apparently managed to communicate what I meant by it, so don’t try to reinterpret it.
Yes, I am unwillingly single. I would like to have a relationship. What I am unwilling to do is apparently what is required to get it, which is change my mindset to “I’m going in here tonight and coming out with a phone number” and then moving in like a bounty hunter. Zero interest in that. Completely unattracted by the concept.
If I somewhere implied that what I meant was “I should be able to act in a repulsive manner and still find a partner!”, I didn’t mean to (and can’t see that I did). What I’m talking about cannot be rephrased as etiquette.
Dancing bores the heck out of me. I enjoy music, but rocking from foot to foot repetitively to it sure don’t add anything, and since I don’t care what other people think, there’s no thrill of getting up and moving all sensual-like in public (which I assume to be what most people are actually enjoying by dancing.)
I don’t drink alcohol.
I have long hair.
I enjoy conversation–but that’s something which clubbing doesn’t seem to lead to in any appreciable way since a) it’s usually too loud to talk, and b) the more people you get in a room, the less meanginful conversation there will ever be. But the sort of people who join book discussion clubs or whatever seem to tend to be more in the tedious wanker category than the sharp debater category.
I spent the prime dating years of my life working 14 hours a day and getting 3 hours of sleep so my socialising posibilities and abilities were nill. Reading some of my posts from that time in my life on the SDMB, I’m barely intelligible my brain was so sleep-deprived.
I’m picky. I want a highly intelligent woman who is decently thin. Not a model. Not beautiful. Just a healthy size. I want to be at least somewhat physically attracted to the person I’m with; I want them to be at least somewhat healthy; and as an artist, I’d like to want to draw them. The area of the US that I live in is rather liberal and cold, so there’s not a big push to try and look fashionable or even just healthy. Being myself thin, well-dressed, well-spoken, and not terribly liberal, I’m not a very good match for the majority of women in my city.
I have little to no energy while the sun is out (I’m nocturnal), so it’s hard to do most social activities unless it really sounds fun. But, most enjoyable things that I’d do that involve getting out of the house aren’t fun to do by yourself so I can’t get enthused to do it (which is of course the whole reason to go do it.) :smack:
Online services like OKCupid are predominately male, so more often then not your message doesn’t get read as girls will stop going through their messages when they’ve found a guy or two that looks promising–so unless you’re lucky enough to be at the top of the mailbox when she looks, you’re out of luck. You really need to be on the ball and get in early when a new member joins or you’re screwed, and I tend to forget to check the site every day (for new meat… sigh)
But at least part of this comes back to the intimidation factor. I’ve met way too many guys who had less education on paper - who I liked and would have gotten to know better - who suddenly got defensive when they found out I had brains and paper to go with that. Their response is either to become an overbearing jerk in an attempt to show that they’re “just as good,” or they just take off, and tell people later that I was a stuck-up bitch or something.
So yes, I tend to look for better educated/professional guys to avoid that. And sometimes I’ll be deliberately vague about what I do until it’s clearer to me that the guy won’t freak just because I have a degree beyond a BA.
I tried OK Cupid for a while. I did actually read every message that came in. Who didn’t I answer? The people that
Totally ignored my stated preferences (close to where I live and age range were the big ones). I’m willing to be flexible about how tall, or what ethnic background, etc., but no I don’t want to date someone my dad’s age. Piss off.
Sent messages that made clear they never read what I wrote, or worse, were one-liners like “I think we could be great together, check out my profile.” (Excuse me, make that “we cud B gr8 2gether, chk me out.”) I’m not “meat” or a bot, thanks, I’m a human and you’re much more likely to get my attention by writing a few lines that show you paid attention.
On the other end of the spectrum, sent messages that planned out our lives together when I don’t know them from a hole in the wall.
I’m not saying you do those things, Sage Rat; maybe you’re just not hitting the right note with the women you write to. But it’s just not true that women ignore all but one or two messages, or that they’ll just glom onto the first messages they get.
I tend to work long hours, and I sort of live in two places right now, so that makes it a little hard to meet people too. I get lonely at times but for now I’m mostly either too tired to too busy to think about looking.
Hoo boy, this is a HUGE topic. I mean the former, and yes, some once loser mama’s boys who have figured this stuff out have made themselves bloody rich selling this information. They currently dominate the Google ads at the bottom of this thread.
I do not claim to be a master of this stuff, or even really understand it. It’s a journey of 2874874 steps, and I’m currently on number four. Even so, I’m doing pretty well with it. Two dates this weekend, and four more in the works. I’m not exactly Hugh Hefner, but six moderately attractive women could keep me very busy for a very long time. And all that without stepping foot in a bar or compromising who I am.
I jealously guard my secrets, but I’ll share my favorite opener and my favorite closer. They seem to work for me.
Not the subtle manipulation inherent in both of them. Sneaky and devious.
“Hey. We say hi to each other all the time, but we never talk.”
No snark intended, but I’d answer that in the same way I’d answer someone who says “I refuse to vote, and yet I will complain about the elected leaders of this country.”
If that’s what makes you happy, then I wish you a long and happy life.
You said that you don’t like one-liners. How do you feel about either messages or profiles that run slightly longer than War and Peace? How many paragraphs does it take before your eyes glaze over?
More than a couple paragraphs, and chances are good you’ll have lost me, unless your opening paragraph really grabs me. That’s especially true if you’ve already taken the time to fill out the other sections about stuff you like/can’t live without/etc.
Long, rambly paragraphs that tell me your life story, or about the woman of your dreams in detail, are a turnoff. You’ll give me the impression that you are prone to long rambly monologues (worse in person than on screen), or that you have such a specific idea of who you want that I’ll probably never fit the bill.
Since some of you talked about closing up thread, I’ll stick with that theme. The number one rule of writing proposals or business plans is that you have to get people engaged in the opening paragraph, or you’ll lose their interest and your shot. Writing profiles is the same kind of exercise, IMHO.
Meant to add - keeping it relatively brief can help build intrigue. But for pity’s sake, stay away from coy lines like “you’ll have to meet me to know more about XXXX.” That’s kind of ham-handed. Again, IMHO.
Long-time married here, so not in the target demographic, but I do have to chime and in and say: while meeting someone spontaneously and serendiptously CAN happen and is wonderful - typically, meeting someone is a *process * and it takes practice. Unfortunately, it can hurt - just like the first time a kid tries to swing a baseball bat or a teen gets behind the wheel of a car, early “meet someone and date” attempts feel awful, are self-consciously awkward and can lead to awful pain to some of the parties.
Until you can feel natural behind the wheel of a car, you can’t enjoy the experience of driving. Unless you choose to recognize that emotional pain is a part of the process of learning how to meet and date people - and figure out a way to manage that pain to get past it and practice some more - you will never feel natural meeting people. Obviously, with folks like Zebra, who has been stomped on twice as described, sometimes those earlier experiences are so off-putting that “getting back in the saddle” seems damn-near impossible. That is a tough place to be.
**Priceguy ** - I really enjoy your posts and you seem like a great person; it is hard to hear how solid you are in your mindset due to concerns that you will be emotionally hurt again, or somehow revert to a frat boy trying to score notches on your belt. I completely understand your concerns, but am also aware that if you stop and choose to acknowledge that anything worth doing by humans can be improved via practice, then you may be able to approach meeting someone differently.
Just thinking out loud here…the one theme I keep hearing is that folks need to look at the obstacles they have allowed or chosen to remain in their paths and be open-minded to trying different ways to move past them…it’s hard.
Potential partners are not only attracted to humor, but also confidence
The “hat you wear” when you meet people - meaning the personality traits and general demeanor you exhibit - is usually VERY different from the hat you wear day to day
So the potential partner, subconsciously realizing that they aren’t meeting the “long-term, day-to-day” you, is looking for a “proxy” - a signal that the Daily You is attractive. No different than evolutionarily seeking physically attractive mates as a proxy for fecundity/the ability to provide. The two classic proxies people measure? Humor and confidence.
So if you think you have to look at meeting people as a competition, you’re screwed - it feels false and phony. But if you look at meeting people as a unique situation that has unique requirements, and one of those requirements is projecting confidence, perhaps you can approach it better. Look, everyone accepts as given that you must behave differently playing with a child vs. presenting to executives. How is this any different? The question is: what honest parts of yourself should you emphasize given THIS unique situation?
Huh? Are you saying that I have to be both cocky and funny?
What a country!
It’s always on.
It’s so funny, last night I was having a pretty terrible time. It was just not working. Our conversations revolved around how work sucks, and that was just about it. The food was terrible and the restaurant was annoying. When we went for a walk later, we somehow got on the topic of weird ice cream flavors. We came up with such oddities as soy sauce, crab, and dead baby. When we walked past Starbucks, she pointed out the specials and suggested they might be some idea starters. I looked at the first item listed, and shouted out “VANILLA! IT’S JUST SO WEIRD IT MIGHT WORK!” That got her ROFLHAO.
A little while later, we passed by an empty store front and decided that that’s where we’re going to open our weird ice cream store. Great. We had comedy, conspiracy, and role-playing. The only missing ingredient was me turning away from her like I was bored, and calling her a goofball.
Perfect. I haven’t been kissed like that in a long time.
See… this is precisely what I can’t stomach about social dating. Why does it have to be about a bunch of people acting phony around each other to try to sell themselves?
I’m with Priceguy on this one.
I understand where some of the smaller town/remote area posters are coming from when they say they don’t have the same opportunities to meet eligible people. I’m married but two of my sisters are not (they do have SOs). One sister met her SO online and the other met her SO through a friend. Around these parts, friends, family, church and work are the most likely places one meets new people. Bars are full of groups of friends socializing with each other in booths and at tables; dance clubs are full of college-aged people (which is great if you’re the right age group but if not, you’re the creepy old man/old woman who’s hitting on the kids); speaking to strangers in the grocery store will get you nothing more than odd looks. It truly is tough to meet new people.
But besides that, there’s the idea that you ‘know’ someone because their face is familiar and you without even thinking about it assume you know their ideas, interests, attitudes, and values. I would bet a lot of people in my town think they ‘know’ me and yet very few of them actually do. It takes time to get beyond the surfaces and it’s harder to let your real self out in a place where you know you may be looked down upon for your beliefs, or viewed as ‘odd’ or ‘weird’ because of your interests. But for those who fear that for themselves, imagine that there’s someone else out there right near you who feels the same way. It can vastly expand the pool of eligibles once you realize that you’ve unconsciously classified someone as a person not of interest before you’ve ever taken the time to really find out if that’s true.
Regarding the shared interests, I was so naive when I met my husband - completely socially stunted and clueless. I thought couples had to have shared interests, and he was totally obsessed with racing and old cars, so I developed an expertise on racing although it bored me silly and I learned to look at old cars in a new way. He didn’t care a thing about reading, genealogy, or needlework. On paper, we should have been a disaster. Twenty years later, I still hate Nascar but I like old cars. He doesn’t read but joined me for a sewing class and wants to take another. It doesn’t have to be a ticky-tacky fit but it does take a willingness to be open-minded and give things a try.
I know it’s tough out there; I have plenty of single friends who haven’t found a good man or woman. I know that if I were single in my area and at my age I would probably give up on finding someone whose obsessions fit my compulsions and vice versa. But I’ve often wondered if sometimes people aren’t passed over too quickly by those in search of the perfect fit ‘on paper’ so to speak.
Wow - do I feel misunderstood. My whole point is to NOT think of this as “selling yourself” - I am trying to agree with you and Priceguy. What I am trying to say is “look, acknowledge that this is a unique situation with unique requirements. Now, get comfortable with how to be the best YOU in that situation. And if you know the basics of human behavior, you can better understand which parts of you - the confident and humorous ones - you need to bring to the front.”
I get it: Looking at a situation that feels VERY personal as, instead, some craft to master can get weird fast, like that idiot on that Reality show who has a pickup “technique” that is apparently infallible. That’s exploitation. But, on the other hand, I have found that if I accept that there are certain truths about human behavior that shape social interactions - and if I accept those truths and try to learn from them - NOT in a mercenary way, just in a “how can I be happier and feel better about myself?” sort of way - it helps.
