The lull is coming to an end.
With my ever-burning desire to complete this mission on which I've embarked, this latest lull has seemed like an eternity. But I just checked the date of the last significant post, and it's only been three weeks.
There hasn't been anything major going on - no dates, for example - but I've been keeping at things. Thinking. Gearing up.
The biggest step I've taken was finally joining a group where I'll be seeing the same, small, manageable group of people repeatedly. It's a flag football team that meets up every Saturday morning. I've been the last two weeks (the season lasts a few months), and the second week was better than the first. The first wasn't bad - I did enough to perhaps not come across as shy - but I mostly just played, instead of getting into any significant conversation. The second week, I arrived before anyone else, and found myself alone with one of my teammates before the others arrived. I kept a pretty good 1-on-1 conversation going for about 15 minutes before anyone else showed up. It was about as good as any conversation on any of the many dates I've been on. This was a female teammate....as I typed that, it occurred to me that I haven't had any extended, 1-on-1 conversations with new guys I've met since I started this thing. More on that later.
Overall, the football team is an outstanding opportunity - the type of thing I should have been doing from the very start. Not only do I have my teammates to get to know, but the league is a great way to meet other people as well. It should be as easy as anywhere (even easier than a college campus, in my estimation) to strike up conversations, but more on that after I actually do it.
In the meantime, I ended up compelled to re-join some dating sites. Someone interesting responded to a previous communication I sent on eHarmony, so I rejoined that one. I also joined chemistry.com (a ridiculous ripoff - don't make the same mistake I did, because it's probably beyond worthless), renewed my match.com membership, and joined HotOrNot.com for a mere $5.95 per month.
As for match.com - I winked at 50 people yesterday (e-mailed others), and have gotten zero responses. 0/50 is a pretty low percentage, so it looks like that well is still dried up. But while I'm speaking of match.com, there has been one other interesting development there. I've been talking over e-mail with a girl I met there, who's moving to my area after she graduates college next month. I told her I'd love to be friends with her after she gets here. She's a great girl, all the way around. The one time I tried to be friends with someone after going on a date with them, I felt as if I had some covert hope of something romantic developing. The result? Disaster. This time, I've decided that no matter what, I'm just going to be friends with this person. No matter what. She'd be just the second friend I've made (unless, of course, I make others before June!), so that would be huge. I won't get ahead of myself though, because I haven't even spoken to her on the phone yet.
I did have a brief phone conversation yesterday, though.
It's easy to find a few interested people on HotOrNot.com. You go through, and click Yes on every single profile - it only takes a few minutes. I have about 29 "double matches," and I'm hoping to make some friends through there. But for some reason, I responded to the opening message "hay sexy.. what is good," and 11 days later, guess what I'm doing tomorrow night?
I wanted to get back into practice, and there seemed to be some remote possibility at the time, so I thought I'd give it a try. But after talking a little over the site, I felt as if there were no chance that this girl was any kind of a match for me. I went to graduate school, and she only has a high school education. She has five tattoos and at least two piercings; I'm totally straight-edge, and have none of either. We're talking about some real "other side of the tracks" stuff here.
I've gone out with a few girls I at least ended up not being interested in, so it's probably not a big deal, and wasn't really my point here. The odd thing is that, despite my low interest, I felt quite anxious as I prepared to call her on the telephone last night. Just like usual. Maybe that proves that it's not romantic interest that makes me anxious. I'm not entirely sure, but I will figure it all out in the end.
At any rate, the first call to her cell phone dropped, and I calmed down a bit before the second. As usual, my anxiety diminished almost completely after the first few words were exchanged. I suggested the usual Starbucks date, but she wanted to go see a movie instead. I figured, why not? It really doesn't matter. I did dinner twice, but the other 16 or so first-dates were at Starbucks. A couple hours ago, we decided to shoot pool instead, so that should work much better for me getting conversation and interaction practice. There's nothing to lose, and it'll be interesting.
Since I'm again active on all these sites, this is likely the beginning of many more date posts - some painful, others (knock on wood!) wonderful. At the same time, I am going to find at least one more social club to join, and that'll be an enormous help as well. And I will probably be able to meet a couple more people from the internet to try hanging out as friends.
The idea is that I've come a long way, and it's now time to will myself to the finish line. I figure by July 9 - the first anniversary of the blog - I won't be able to finish, but I'll be able to get close. Close enough to finish things off, keeping my New Year's resolution for 2008.
With my ever-burning desire to complete this mission on which I've embarked, this latest lull has seemed like an eternity. But I just checked the date of the last significant post, and it's only been three weeks.
There hasn't been anything major going on - no dates, for example - but I've been keeping at things. Thinking. Gearing up.
The biggest step I've taken was finally joining a group where I'll be seeing the same, small, manageable group of people repeatedly. It's a flag football team that meets up every Saturday morning. I've been the last two weeks (the season lasts a few months), and the second week was better than the first. The first wasn't bad - I did enough to perhaps not come across as shy - but I mostly just played, instead of getting into any significant conversation. The second week, I arrived before anyone else, and found myself alone with one of my teammates before the others arrived. I kept a pretty good 1-on-1 conversation going for about 15 minutes before anyone else showed up. It was about as good as any conversation on any of the many dates I've been on. This was a female teammate....as I typed that, it occurred to me that I haven't had any extended, 1-on-1 conversations with new guys I've met since I started this thing. More on that later.
Overall, the football team is an outstanding opportunity - the type of thing I should have been doing from the very start. Not only do I have my teammates to get to know, but the league is a great way to meet other people as well. It should be as easy as anywhere (even easier than a college campus, in my estimation) to strike up conversations, but more on that after I actually do it.
In the meantime, I ended up compelled to re-join some dating sites. Someone interesting responded to a previous communication I sent on eHarmony, so I rejoined that one. I also joined chemistry.com (a ridiculous ripoff - don't make the same mistake I did, because it's probably beyond worthless), renewed my match.com membership, and joined HotOrNot.com for a mere $5.95 per month.
As for match.com - I winked at 50 people yesterday (e-mailed others), and have gotten zero responses. 0/50 is a pretty low percentage, so it looks like that well is still dried up. But while I'm speaking of match.com, there has been one other interesting development there. I've been talking over e-mail with a girl I met there, who's moving to my area after she graduates college next month. I told her I'd love to be friends with her after she gets here. She's a great girl, all the way around. The one time I tried to be friends with someone after going on a date with them, I felt as if I had some covert hope of something romantic developing. The result? Disaster. This time, I've decided that no matter what, I'm just going to be friends with this person. No matter what. She'd be just the second friend I've made (unless, of course, I make others before June!), so that would be huge. I won't get ahead of myself though, because I haven't even spoken to her on the phone yet.
I did have a brief phone conversation yesterday, though.
It's easy to find a few interested people on HotOrNot.com. You go through, and click Yes on every single profile - it only takes a few minutes. I have about 29 "double matches," and I'm hoping to make some friends through there. But for some reason, I responded to the opening message "hay sexy.. what is good," and 11 days later, guess what I'm doing tomorrow night?
I wanted to get back into practice, and there seemed to be some remote possibility at the time, so I thought I'd give it a try. But after talking a little over the site, I felt as if there were no chance that this girl was any kind of a match for me. I went to graduate school, and she only has a high school education. She has five tattoos and at least two piercings; I'm totally straight-edge, and have none of either. We're talking about some real "other side of the tracks" stuff here.
I've gone out with a few girls I at least ended up not being interested in, so it's probably not a big deal, and wasn't really my point here. The odd thing is that, despite my low interest, I felt quite anxious as I prepared to call her on the telephone last night. Just like usual. Maybe that proves that it's not romantic interest that makes me anxious. I'm not entirely sure, but I will figure it all out in the end.
At any rate, the first call to her cell phone dropped, and I calmed down a bit before the second. As usual, my anxiety diminished almost completely after the first few words were exchanged. I suggested the usual Starbucks date, but she wanted to go see a movie instead. I figured, why not? It really doesn't matter. I did dinner twice, but the other 16 or so first-dates were at Starbucks. A couple hours ago, we decided to shoot pool instead, so that should work much better for me getting conversation and interaction practice. There's nothing to lose, and it'll be interesting.
Since I'm again active on all these sites, this is likely the beginning of many more date posts - some painful, others (knock on wood!) wonderful. At the same time, I am going to find at least one more social club to join, and that'll be an enormous help as well. And I will probably be able to meet a couple more people from the internet to try hanging out as friends.
The idea is that I've come a long way, and it's now time to will myself to the finish line. I figure by July 9 - the first anniversary of the blog - I won't be able to finish, but I'll be able to get close. Close enough to finish things off, keeping my New Year's resolution for 2008.
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