The Vagaries of Dating The Vagaries of Dating

I opened the text; it's all looking good. Will keep you posted...

coal, I'm sorry to hear that. Are you keeping in touch at least?

Mutual friends so I think so. Unexpected turn of events so a few different emotions

semi date coming up and quite nervous and stressed. wish i could turn my brain off until the actual event because i'm stressing myself out!

Someone you've known for a while or a new person on the horizon?

I just created an OKC profile myself (maybe this should go in the OKC thread) and I'm already frazzled before even messaging anyone. Hmm. It's weird to think about dating after seven years of not thinking about it at all. Best of luck, rayuela!

thanks!!

ljubljana, it's someone i've known but never in a dating context. i would say more, but my paranoia has convinced me that i can't say anything remotely identifying even though there is .0001% chance this person has even heard of message boards.

anyway, my therapist helped me to realize that i was stressed because i was refusing to admit i was excited and was instead channeling all that energy into doom and gloom. i'm feeling much more sanguine about the date now. heh.

dating makes me feel like a crazy person.

Because dating is a thing that only crazy people do.

seriously, why do i even bother. this is too much mental energy.

We make it too much mental energy, I think, with all the expectations we circle up around it?? Also, being bored at our jobs all day but confined to desk chairs does not help discourage the little manias that spring up.

the expectations are too much! i have just had such low expectations from OKC that the prospect of going on a date with someone who i am actually friendly with is rather disconcerting.

any NY ilxors up for drinks tonight?? i'm in need of a distraction.

I may very well be, but I think it would probably be in Bushwick if anything? Hm unless something brews up in the city.

i was thinking somewhere in the lower east side or thereabouts...is that too far??

I didn't see this earlier . . . but count me in for drinks next time.

yes! i still owe you a drink :)

I owe her a drink, too! She'll be getting loaded for free at this rate.

the benefits of buying rounds for everybody when you're already drunk!

i'm not trying to be a dick, but some of you guys seem a bit neurotic about all this! dating doesn't really have to be so fraught with angst you know. simply ignore advances/okcupidmessages from obvious psychos or dullards, flirt back with/answer advances/messages from people who seem cool and worth a few minutes of your life to interact with. when you meet someone you think is cute and interesting, you exchange numbers, you get together for lunch or coffee once, where you know there's no chance in hell of spending more than an hour or two together, basically to further suss out attraction levels and filter for stalker-y/psychosis red flags. if low-key test date is fun, you go out, have some drinks, conversation, see what happens. some dates work out ok, some don't go that great, once in a blue moon you meet someone you really really click with and its awesome. but that's much less likely to happen if you don't slog through some less-than-perfect dates first. an awkward date wont kill you ya know.

^^^ all this does out the window when you're freshly divorced. i've been on both ends and it just comes with the territory. you get a year or 2 to deal with it, then it's time to suck it up and get out there again already. a few awkward dates and some casual sex seems to help the process move along.

thx messiahwannabe

Haha, I had no idea that either of you "owed" me a drink. The more inebriated I am, the more generous I get. I guess that's better than drunkenness bringing out some latent stinginess?

gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

dating trouble?

now that I am drunk, I will say. lady I have been friends with forever, after a party sort of event at her place, says let's go to my room and listen to music. I figure she is sleepy, prepare to say goodnight and go home, and she is like "I planned this entire event in order to get you in my bed, you should stay." how can I be an adult and not notice such things? she thought I wasn't interested, I thought the same, people are so stupid. well, me. she is clearly awesome.

Wow mayzing

doesn't sound like much in the way of 'vagaries' tbh

it was for me

respect. sounds pretty awes though.

yeah seems like it's working out for you!

"I planned this entire event in order to get you in my bed, you should stay."

a+++

hope she said it with a semicolon tho

I dunno, is this a better place to maybe discuss this?

Firstly, that we only name it "animal lust" when we are powerfully attracted to someone who is wrong for us in every way. When we feel powerfully attracted to someone who ticks all the other boxes, we call it "true love" or "head over heels" or something else, because it's appropriate desire. The animal lust is what we call desire which is inappropriate.

But I was actually trying to compare and contrast two slightly different things. I've reread this Lisa Diamond book on sexuality this past weekend and it seemed like it supported her theory that there are two different (though related) mechanisms of desire. That one she called Proceptivity which is mostly internally-driven and hormonal because one is feeling horny (and if it wasn't this person at work triggering it, it would be some attractive person in a shop near me, or a random person on the internet, but I'd still just be externalising something which was originating in me.) And the other is Arousability, which is that process by which becoming intimate with someone and getting to know and trust them and you start to think that they are the most amazing person on earth - and then once you have started thinking "this person is awesome" up pop feelings of desire which are based on being aroused by that person.

Sorry, I should have spelled that out better. I have a bad habit of dropping in jargon I've recently picked up which puts a name to a thing I've been thinking about and noticing for a while, but didn't know there was a name for, and then assuming that everyone else has been reading the same books/blogs/press/etc and knows what I'm talking about.

(I've been having having trouble detangling feelings of "I'm getting to know this person and I like them, but I'm not sure which way it's going" for one person I've been seeing, from feelings of "OMG, lluuuusssstttt" for someone completely inappropriate and kind of wanted to talk through varying types of desire and how to process them. Because it's been a long, long time since attempting to do that, for me.)

Didn't know where else to put this.

Watching the new season of First Dates last night and its the usual C4 bollocks of cloaking people's potential humiliation as an experiment although there is some funny-ish at times moments.

Anyway, why did we have to get the opinion of the staff? How lame an idea was that?!?!

what's cool is when you have a seemingly really great date - which never happens - and then don't hear a word of reply when you later inquire about a second. uuuuugh

in conclusion, unquestionably bad dates >>> mysteriously unfruitful good ones

dating is perhaps the worst experience ever known, which is why i've swore to live a life of solitude

^^^gets it

doesn't get it

I'm tryna date now it's weird but for once in my life I'm not threatened by the weirdness

i think i overheard a coupla college kids out on a coffee date the other night, i'm not sure. it didn't sound very romantic, more like they were reviewing their sexual and drug use histories to determine whether they would sleep together

#figuringOutHowToLive

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLvMpBnVEAA5piw.png

makes u think

A research scientist at Indiana University's Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction couldn't possibly be wrong about that, what with that classy Oxford comma and everything.

So like three weeks ago I was at a cafe, sitting next to v attractive and interesting woman who was on a date with some dude. I kept wistfully thinking "why can't I meet people like that", but then a week ago I saw her on OkCupid and immediately messaged her, and now am about to meet her this evening. Anyways, I'm not sure if telling her this story at some point (like, not immediately) would come across as a) totally endearing or b) totally creepy.

maybe after you marry her

I would very much like to know what became of EDB!

As shitty as dating via dating apps is, attempting it without one is a trial all its own. I've been "out" twice with this girl I had met before via shared interests but never really hung out with properly, took a chance and asked her to a film event (I know movies tend to make for the shittiest dates but it's the most obvious mutual touchstone as she has an advanced degree in film studies), a nice time was had but no firm followup plans were made, nor any outright overtures I could detect. Then we met up a second time a couple of days back - another movie, followed by drinks and about three hours of the most engaging conversation I'd had in a long time. On the way home (same direction), there's slightly more intimacy, but was it just the cocktails? Years of singlehood teaches you to doubt every potential sign. Anyway we have plans to catch Let the Sunshine In but it'll probably take at least two weeks since has a busy night-work schedule and I might lose my mind in the interim.

this sounds very promising! just chill out and stop using words like 'touchstone' imo

you have and may continue to do cool things together! let the intimacy take care of itself

yeah I guess I shouldn't be so neurotic about it, it's just a natural side effect of not doing any real dating for basically a decade

this sounds nice! ride the wave imo, wherever it leads seems like it'll be a good place

EDB is ed b. iirc?

this sounds nice! ride the wave imo, wherever it leads seems like it'll be a good place

ime this is never the case but I earnestly appreciate the optimism!!