Even less real than reality television
I don't date much, not that I dislike dating, but...okay, actually I dislike dating. A lot. It's just so artificial. The attempting to get to know someone while also trying to decide if you feel anything for them is, if possible, even less real than reality television.
You meet someone you think you might like and they ask you out (or you ask them, but I never do that). You go out and spend a couple hours, probably over dinner, asking each other a standard list of questions. Sometimes this process is very awkward as you learn you have nothing in common.
Even when it's not painfully awkward it can still be a failure. You sit there thinking this guy is fantastic...smart, funny, cute...you've got a lot in common, but not so much as to make conversation boring, but you feel nothing for them. You spend the entire night wondering why on earth you don't feel something, anything, for the guy. You wonder if you can make yourself feel something. Maybe you even try. You go out on a second, maybe even a third date, but it never works. Sometimes it goes the other way and they are the ones who feel nothing for you.
Usually that set of circumstances leads to the "lets just be friends" speech. I assume that people mean it when they say things like that, partly because I have a lot of faith in people, but mostly because I mean it when I say it.
If I had an amazing time with someone, loved hanging out with them, and want to keep doing it, just not as their girlfriend, I'll tell them I just want to be friends and I'll mean it. Of course, most of the time when that happens guys will keep hanging out with me for a little while thinking that somehow they'll change my mind and when they find that's not the case they stop returning my calls, or they automatically assume I didn't mean it and stop returning my calls.
Sometimes I come away from the experience with some great friends, but not often. In general, the whole dating experience is a waste of time. It's way better to get to know someone before you date them at which point it's not really "dating" so much as the evolution of friendship into something more. The risk exists that you may lose a good friend in a breakup but, in my experience, that's rare and avoidable, and even when it can't be avoided the risk would still have been worth it.
So, I don't date. I wonder if maybe I should, but the experience is so excruciating that I can't really bring myself to "put myself out there". You know what I mean, you have to do something, join a singles club of some kind, or start using match.com, or start hanging out in bars or worse yet "clubs" and that's just the precursor to the aforementioned painfully bad dating experience. Waste of time, right?
You meet someone you think you might like and they ask you out (or you ask them, but I never do that). You go out and spend a couple hours, probably over dinner, asking each other a standard list of questions. Sometimes this process is very awkward as you learn you have nothing in common.
Even when it's not painfully awkward it can still be a failure. You sit there thinking this guy is fantastic...smart, funny, cute...you've got a lot in common, but not so much as to make conversation boring, but you feel nothing for them. You spend the entire night wondering why on earth you don't feel something, anything, for the guy. You wonder if you can make yourself feel something. Maybe you even try. You go out on a second, maybe even a third date, but it never works. Sometimes it goes the other way and they are the ones who feel nothing for you.
Usually that set of circumstances leads to the "lets just be friends" speech. I assume that people mean it when they say things like that, partly because I have a lot of faith in people, but mostly because I mean it when I say it.
If I had an amazing time with someone, loved hanging out with them, and want to keep doing it, just not as their girlfriend, I'll tell them I just want to be friends and I'll mean it. Of course, most of the time when that happens guys will keep hanging out with me for a little while thinking that somehow they'll change my mind and when they find that's not the case they stop returning my calls, or they automatically assume I didn't mean it and stop returning my calls.
Sometimes I come away from the experience with some great friends, but not often. In general, the whole dating experience is a waste of time. It's way better to get to know someone before you date them at which point it's not really "dating" so much as the evolution of friendship into something more. The risk exists that you may lose a good friend in a breakup but, in my experience, that's rare and avoidable, and even when it can't be avoided the risk would still have been worth it.
So, I don't date. I wonder if maybe I should, but the experience is so excruciating that I can't really bring myself to "put myself out there". You know what I mean, you have to do something, join a singles club of some kind, or start using match.com, or start hanging out in bars or worse yet "clubs" and that's just the precursor to the aforementioned painfully bad dating experience. Waste of time, right?
posted by Beth at
8:34 PM
1 Comments:
If you approach it as making friends vs. a "date" you'd be surprised what can happen. I met B that way and it worked out. I was just tired of hanging with the same people all the time.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home