With New Years coming up, I seriously need to make a resolution for 2008: Keep the blog updated! It's been way too long. But rest assured, my mission has been continuing as promised.
It's true - working my first 9-to-5 job leaves me with less time for these things. But I've gotten fully used to it now, and I'm back to consistent dating and other activities following a 2 1/2 week lull.
And so, I went on another date last Thursday. It was my fifteenth since starting the blog. Yet another first date! The tenth different girl I've been out with.
As usual, I met my date at Starbucks. I arrived and saw several people sitting, but it looked like I had gotten there first. I started to sit down, but then one of the girls sitting nearby got up and introduced herself: I hadn't recognized her from her match.com profile.
In a way, this relationship ended at this very moment. For the first time, I was meeting up with a girl who initiated on match.com - she'd sent me the first wink and message. Browsing diligently as I do, I had seen her profile prior, but decided I wasn't interested. But when she winked at me, I figured hey - I need the practice! Fastforward a week or so later, and I was going out with a girl I had very little or no interest in. So this was different.
We got up to order, and ran into some awkwardness. The cashier took my date's order, and I tried to add mine - "and, can we have a strawberries & cream frappuccino?" She told me to hold on. What the heck? So I just gave her the size. She told me to hold on again! I was extremely annoyed - the cashier didn't recognize that my date and I were together. She rang my date's order without mine. I tried to pay for it, but my date interjected that she didn't mind paying for her own, blah blah.
As a result of this little incident, I realized something absolutely critical.
Back in front of a frappuccino and a girl, a couple of things were going on. First, I wasn't interested. Not at all. I'd expected that in this situation, I'd have no problem being relaxed and being myself. I wrote before about how I thought that "not caring" was a key to everything. But alas - I didn't care about the outcome, and yet I was doing worse than on perhaps all but one of my fifteen dates. I suffered from my infamous Voice Thing, and couldn't easily think of things to say. At some point, my date said that I was shy.
Huh? Was I going backwards? In fifteen dates, this was the first time that anyone had ever actually called me shy.
I thus determined that my "don't-care" strategy needs further examination. It may or may not help, but it's clear that it is not enough by itself.
But back to the cashier incident. While talking to my date, I really couldn't stop thinking about it. It was a major distraction, and was probably a big reason why I was doing so poorly.
The critical realization is this: It is absolutely critical to be "present" while talking to someone, or doing anything social. You can't be distracted by other thoughts. That distraction takes way too much away from you. Simple.
It wasn't even going well enough for me to get a high note to end on. For the first time in a while, I ended up letting my date end it first. I walked her to her car, and the final first-date words (I always make note of these) were: "Thanks. Talk to you soon."
The last time I heard that, I got a second date (and a third). But I feel like this girl may think it over and change her mind. If she doesn't send a follow-up (like the ones I've received after most of my successful dates), I'll never know, because there's no way I would ever ask her out again.
Without further ado, here's a list of things I learned on this date (to be integrated into the Master Plan soon):
1. Dating is awesome experience. This one was bad in a way, but just take a look at this: In fifteen dates, I've gained all sorts of experience. I've now been out with girls who liked me, but who I wasn't interested in; girls who I was crazy about, but who weren't interested in me; a girl who didn't even remember who I was after our date, and more. I'm starting to get a really good feel for what I'd only read before. Dating is a numbers game. It's no big deal if something doesn't work. It's no big deal if a particular person isn't interested in you. Even after meeting someone you like a lot, if it doesn't work out, another person you like just as much or even more will eventually come along - even if you can't imagine that at the time. So experiencing all of this for myself has really taken the edge off, in that I'm not so anxious about the whole prospect of going on dates and seeing the results.
2. It's absolutely critical to be "present" when doing something social. In the moment, and not dwelling on something else instead of giving all of your attention to your companions and the conversation. The social activity itself can be a big source of anxiety for someone like me, and so it's easy for little mishaps to become major distractions, if you let them. The key is to simply brush off mishaps and refuse to be distracted. Bring your attention back to the task at hand, even if it requires some mental force to put off the worries.
3. Elaborate. I wrote about this some months ago. In most of my conversations, I've been doing a very, very small percentage of the talking. I figure I can shift this and do more if I can figure out how to simply elaborate on whatever I do say. A new idea I have in mind is this: One way you can elaborate on almost any topic is to give your opinion on the subject. I want to try giving my opinion following most anything that I say, and on more of the things that other people say. This will be interesting, but more on that after I have an opportunity to work with it.
4. Be open. I found myself rattling off pre-thought-out responses to some questions. I need to figure out, or perhaps "feel" out a way to give reflective, honest, open responses without needing an abnormal amount of time to think.
5. A tiny little detail I thought of after this date: Try to refer to the other person by name at some point. At a minimum, use their name when you say goodbye. This may sound kinda oddball, but I feel really good when someone new says my name. In my case, maybe it's because I've had so few peple outside of my family even know me by name. But I think it's nice, and helps build a connection between any two people.
It's true - working my first 9-to-5 job leaves me with less time for these things. But I've gotten fully used to it now, and I'm back to consistent dating and other activities following a 2 1/2 week lull.
And so, I went on another date last Thursday. It was my fifteenth since starting the blog. Yet another first date! The tenth different girl I've been out with.
As usual, I met my date at Starbucks. I arrived and saw several people sitting, but it looked like I had gotten there first. I started to sit down, but then one of the girls sitting nearby got up and introduced herself: I hadn't recognized her from her match.com profile.
In a way, this relationship ended at this very moment. For the first time, I was meeting up with a girl who initiated on match.com - she'd sent me the first wink and message. Browsing diligently as I do, I had seen her profile prior, but decided I wasn't interested. But when she winked at me, I figured hey - I need the practice! Fastforward a week or so later, and I was going out with a girl I had very little or no interest in. So this was different.
We got up to order, and ran into some awkwardness. The cashier took my date's order, and I tried to add mine - "and, can we have a strawberries & cream frappuccino?" She told me to hold on. What the heck? So I just gave her the size. She told me to hold on again! I was extremely annoyed - the cashier didn't recognize that my date and I were together. She rang my date's order without mine. I tried to pay for it, but my date interjected that she didn't mind paying for her own, blah blah.
As a result of this little incident, I realized something absolutely critical.
Back in front of a frappuccino and a girl, a couple of things were going on. First, I wasn't interested. Not at all. I'd expected that in this situation, I'd have no problem being relaxed and being myself. I wrote before about how I thought that "not caring" was a key to everything. But alas - I didn't care about the outcome, and yet I was doing worse than on perhaps all but one of my fifteen dates. I suffered from my infamous Voice Thing, and couldn't easily think of things to say. At some point, my date said that I was shy.
Huh? Was I going backwards? In fifteen dates, this was the first time that anyone had ever actually called me shy.
I thus determined that my "don't-care" strategy needs further examination. It may or may not help, but it's clear that it is not enough by itself.
But back to the cashier incident. While talking to my date, I really couldn't stop thinking about it. It was a major distraction, and was probably a big reason why I was doing so poorly.
The critical realization is this: It is absolutely critical to be "present" while talking to someone, or doing anything social. You can't be distracted by other thoughts. That distraction takes way too much away from you. Simple.
It wasn't even going well enough for me to get a high note to end on. For the first time in a while, I ended up letting my date end it first. I walked her to her car, and the final first-date words (I always make note of these) were: "Thanks. Talk to you soon."
The last time I heard that, I got a second date (and a third). But I feel like this girl may think it over and change her mind. If she doesn't send a follow-up (like the ones I've received after most of my successful dates), I'll never know, because there's no way I would ever ask her out again.
Without further ado, here's a list of things I learned on this date (to be integrated into the Master Plan soon):
1. Dating is awesome experience. This one was bad in a way, but just take a look at this: In fifteen dates, I've gained all sorts of experience. I've now been out with girls who liked me, but who I wasn't interested in; girls who I was crazy about, but who weren't interested in me; a girl who didn't even remember who I was after our date, and more. I'm starting to get a really good feel for what I'd only read before. Dating is a numbers game. It's no big deal if something doesn't work. It's no big deal if a particular person isn't interested in you. Even after meeting someone you like a lot, if it doesn't work out, another person you like just as much or even more will eventually come along - even if you can't imagine that at the time. So experiencing all of this for myself has really taken the edge off, in that I'm not so anxious about the whole prospect of going on dates and seeing the results.
2. It's absolutely critical to be "present" when doing something social. In the moment, and not dwelling on something else instead of giving all of your attention to your companions and the conversation. The social activity itself can be a big source of anxiety for someone like me, and so it's easy for little mishaps to become major distractions, if you let them. The key is to simply brush off mishaps and refuse to be distracted. Bring your attention back to the task at hand, even if it requires some mental force to put off the worries.
3. Elaborate. I wrote about this some months ago. In most of my conversations, I've been doing a very, very small percentage of the talking. I figure I can shift this and do more if I can figure out how to simply elaborate on whatever I do say. A new idea I have in mind is this: One way you can elaborate on almost any topic is to give your opinion on the subject. I want to try giving my opinion following most anything that I say, and on more of the things that other people say. This will be interesting, but more on that after I have an opportunity to work with it.
4. Be open. I found myself rattling off pre-thought-out responses to some questions. I need to figure out, or perhaps "feel" out a way to give reflective, honest, open responses without needing an abnormal amount of time to think.
5. A tiny little detail I thought of after this date: Try to refer to the other person by name at some point. At a minimum, use their name when you say goodbye. This may sound kinda oddball, but I feel really good when someone new says my name. In my case, maybe it's because I've had so few peple outside of my family even know me by name. But I think it's nice, and helps build a connection between any two people.
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