Just when you thought it was safe - OK CUPID PART 3: The Return of the WOO!

I didn't get that impression with you, but I do often get the impression with some people that they're trying to sell their well-adjustedness a little too hard. And as I may have mentioned somewhere upthread, I've seen this in the profiles of people I've dated and who I know to be pretty far from even-keeled. So I guess it's just important to keep in mind that that particular tack sometimes gets people's skepticism hackles up. Genuine kudos for feeling like you're on solid ground, though!

I wanted to try and stick it out a little longer this time, but the week I had to wait to deactivate my account again is almost up and I'm just not feeling it. I think I may be over that particular venue altogether but curiosity keeps sucking back into it.

Someone emailed me and we went to about 6 msgs back and forth and then his suddenly got shorter and shorter and I'm taking the hint and not replying to the last one. Wtf, men of OKC? I realize it's pointless to wonder what "went wrong" or w/e, and I'm not that invested in it, but if you can't take the heat, definitely next time u should write to someone who will flirtatiously run with your kinda presumptuous comments and pamper your ego. Which is not me. Hold your own or gtfo.

Ain't just men. Every burst of seeming interest I encounter on OKC eventually tapers off (or just abruptly stops altogether). I feel like the site is full of flighty/flaky people anymore. Or people who are trying to do excessive pre-date vetting?

Trying to think of non-mean-sounding way to say "or maybe your conversations aren't as interesting to them as they are to you?" Like, people have different interests and different conversational styles and that's fine, yours/theirs might not work for everyone.

Have you never had a conversation that tapered off from your side as you realised that it just wasn't happening for you? I know I have.

xpost

And I should point out that it didn't used to be like that. I went out on a lot of OKC dates back in the day and am still friendly with some of those people. It was mostly pretty casual and fun back then, but it just doesn't seem to work that way anymore.

WCC: yeah it's totally that, and yes he's entitled to do that. I'm just bitching about it. It was just the feeling that I was kinda giving him a pass on some comments he made but I kept it going and now HE drops it? Whatevs!

Laurel, why on earth were you giving someone a pass on comments which irked you? You have no obligation to communicate with anyone.

I was giving him another chance to strike a better note! I didn't want to drop someone cute and apparently functional over slightly mis-judging the tone of an email.

I think what failed correspondences are doing is making me more and more sure that a p high level of conversational agility is an absolute requirement for me. I've been telling myself for years that I should give ppl who weren't that adept with language a chance and try to appreciate our differences and stuff but that turns out to be a terrible idea.

yeah. i've been trying to email someone back but something they said in the last email slightly annoyed me a bit, and i was trying to just power through, but it somehow killed all my enthusiasm for the person, and i think i'm just going to drop it

Ha, Laurel, I was going to ask "was he hott or something?"

Look, it's fine. You like what you like. If conversational agility is a big turn-on for you then it's fine to look for that. Sometimes email isn't a good indicator of whether a person has conversational agility (have had brilliant conversations w people via email who couldn't string a sentence together down the pub and vice versa) but sometimes if you're not really feeling it and trying to force something against your better judgement, the other person is having the same vibe.

(In something totally unrelated, I just wish my lust-bone wasn't so damn self sabotaging sometimes.)

apparently i am fun in a flawed but interesting way. haha

have had brilliant conversations w people via email who couldn't string a sentence together down the pub and vice versa

yeah, in email and written communication, I can take all the time I need to find the right word, sometimes calling on the electronic thesaurus to help. Can't do that talking at the pub, and on rare occasion just go silent in the middle of a sentence because the word I'm reaching for I just can't think of right away. I thus sometimes come across more eloquently in writing than in person (although obv. sometimes am ineloquent even in writing)

^^ high language ego

See, I just flap my hands about and spout out words at random, around the meaning of the word I'm looking for, until it comes. I probably come off like a lunatic, but hey oh well.

i should try that

If you're really lucky, it will become a game with your conversational partner, to try and guess the word.

yeah, always fun when that sort of thing happens. Any sort of spontaneous game you make up on the spot

Something I didn't want to type earlier at work (and probably should go on the vagaries of dating thread but oh well I am putting it here.)

Like I needed a sharp refresher course in the difference between proceptive desire and arousability.

I have met someone off a site who is really smart and attractive and kind of amazes me and we have a great time hanging out, but it's all very intellectual (this is a good thing) and we're taking it very slowly (because neither of us know what the hell we want and that's OK) and I'm trying to figure out if it's an attraction or a friendship - like, I find them attractive both physically and intellectually, but it's like we're feeling each other out slowly to see if we're compatible - and that's all great. I'm feeling really comfortable and mature about that process, I think it's a good thing.

But then someone has just been hired at work, and it would ~completely~ be inappropriate on every level and this person is half my age and whoa just... no. So not gonna happen. And yet on an arousal level, like, every time this person is even near me it's like the hairs on the back of my neck prickle up with lust. And it just feels like my hormones are just doing this just to fuck with me. Like "what you feel for this other person is not animal lust, *this* is animal lust, had you forgotten what it felt like ha ha hahahahahah?"

Basically... ARGH.

In my experience, animal lust often gets churned up by people who are maybe completely wrong for you in every (non-sexual) way. It's gotten to the point that whenever I'm feeling heavy sexual chemistry with someon, I'm usually very wary of anything resembling our long-term prospects. And I'm usually right.

i know, it's always like that. and then i just go for it anyway, damn the torpedoes! isn't that how you're supposed to live life?

No.

My quiver matches are my best friend from high school (oh hai!), and a guy who begins his profile thusly: Merry Meet! First and foremost, I consider myself a Witch and student of all things Pagan.

My only twu wuv lives terribly far away, and everyone else sux. (Not my friend-my friend is awesome, but unsuitable.)

Insanely pretty people mess up my head. I always make stupid decisions as a result cause I go so starry eyed. cf what just happened to me. Ugh. Still not over that one. Was like being stabbed with a very beautiful elaborate knife.

Pro tip: Make sure you are searching within your desired geographical parameters, because otherwise you might get confused by a pretty boy, look at his profile, have him look at yours and write you, write him back and get along really really well and exchange 70 short but substantial messages in four days. And want to die.

In my experience, animal lust often gets churned up by people who are maybe completely wrong for you in every (non-sexual) way. It's gotten to the point that whenever I'm feeling heavy sexual chemistry with someon, I'm usually very wary of anything resembling our long-term prospects. And I'm usually right.

this statement depresses me :(

Well, it's not to say that I haven't felt lustful towards or worked up with people who were right for me. It's just that that weirdly overpowering, chemical-level lust is a whole other animal that seems to hit a whole other part of my brain. Wherein I am objectively saying to myself, "This person does not work for me on any kind of long-term level...but I am almost uncontrollably drawn to them, physically." Like, I don't think it's a particularly pleasant sensation (outside of, y'know, the moment of actually engaging that lust), mostly because the general incompatibility with those people makes the whole endeavor uncomfortable and not really worth it. Give me the lower-level and more controllable and richer lust felt for someone I actually care about and wanna be around anyday.

i think that was probably the deal with the last guy i dated and it bums me out that i didn't work for him on other levels :( which is dumb because i'm really awesome.

Yeah, you shouldn't feel like your awesomeness is at all compromised by incompatibility with someone you may have had chemistry with.

I kinda feel like that kind of overpowering chemistry is just some weird latent thing that tells your brain who you should be churning out kids with but that's pretty much shit for judging whether someone is at all right for you in a longer-term romantic context. It's helpful if people are able to discern the difference between their varied impulses and make decisions accordingly, but that clearly and sadly doesn't always happen.

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/25332215.jpg

I know exactly what you mean bg thats how I feel too :(

Haha. Not okc related, but how do I tell the difference between whether someone like me, or just wants attention? Grope them, and gauge the ensuing reaction??

VP, when you find the litmus test for that, please let me know, OK?

I think with regards to the other matter, it's a combination of things at play.

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 know, it's always like that. and then i just go for it anyway, damn the torpedoes! isn't that how you're supposed to live life?

― messiahwannabe, Wednesday, August 22, 2012 10:04 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No.

― emilys., Wednesday, August 22, 2012 10:09 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

i mean, i get it, it really does cause problems every now and again and everything. but seriously, i honestly often get the impression so many people on this thread are just so overthinking all this! last "damn the torpedoes" experience - 6 months of hott sex & interesting conversation, 2 weeks of awkwardness and bad vibes, 6 months of overthinking. if i could go back in time i'd do it the same way again, except maybe skip the overthinking part.

please don't be offended by this, if possible! i'm genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of every last one of you guys' love lives

"Other messages have been posted since you last looked... Please review and if you want to change your message, do so before posting."

nope, i still stand by my statement ;)

i mean, it's cool to think about all this interesting stuff as per wcc's post, but i feel like there comes a point where it's sort of "enough thinking, time to do"

indeed. I'm jumping back on the horse as it were. nuff moping. date on Friday. a guy my age! first time in... well let's not go there.

btw is there a chance this thread could be deindexed at all?

Well, y'know, maybe for some of us, "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" has not just resulted in awkwardness, but in situations where we didn't just get emotionally mangled, but in some cases had serious, real-life consequences for us.

I'm not trying to be a harsh on your happy buzz here, but there's "this person won't be perfect for a relationship for me" and there's "this person will put my physical safety in danger, and it will end up with regular trips to the police, and maybe having to file a restraining order."

All of things which have actually happened to me when I've said "damn the torpedoes" so, you know, sometimes there's "overthinking it" and sometimes there's "trying to work out the patterns that get you into these terrible situations so you can avoid them happening again." Sometimes puzzling through this stuff and how it works is actually v v important.

I should stay off this thread. It makes me feel so completely separated from the rest of humanity, just when I should be trying to understand and relate to other humans better.

sorry you've had such bad experiences dating wcc! seriously! i guess i just don't know that many people who regularly get into police-involving situations in their normal dating lives. like if it happens at all it only maybe happens once in a persons lifetime and stuff? surely this shouldn't be something that occurs regularly :/

i just hate to feel like i'm sending out my words of general encouragement and carpe diem and whatnot to everyone here except for you ;_;

or... you think you don't know when stuff happens to people you don't.

You don't know this, you only know what you have been told

Ie that's an assumption on your part

Dude, I'm sure that your encouragement and carpe diem stuff works in like 4/5 of people's cases. But there really are different strokes for different folks.

Maybe my dating choices have been really deeply flawed, maybe there's something damaged about me that attracted really damaged people, this is the stuff I've been examining. This clearly just isn't the place to talk about it.

But there really are different strokes for different folks.

Definitely - what works for A doesnt work for B

Plus even for one person, there are times for doing, times for thinking and times for doing nothing at all.

For what it's woorth, WCC, you seem to at least understand how to separate out the different types of desire on an intellectual level even if you don't feel as if you're quite as successful at putting that knowledge into practice. The proceptivity/arousability thing is exactly what I was trying to get at earlier.

I've dated enough that I feel like I've gotten really good at figuring out who's compatible with me and who isn't. The problem is that, even when I find someone who I'm really compatible with, there are any number of other factors (bad timing, insecurity, commitmentphobia) that ultimately wind up making that person pull away from me. I only ever end the things that aren't working. When it is working, the decision to stay together gets taken out of my hands. The bottom line: a lot of people are fucked up and confused even when the situation they're in is otherwise good.

messiahwannabe, I sympathize with your viewpoint, and I've damned those very same torpedoes for stretches of time, but at the end of the day the wisdom of that maneuver is largely dictated by your own fortitude in the face of torpedo fallout. When you're damning torpedoes with someone who's clearly not completely stable, it's not really such a fun game anymore, and I don't personally have the fortitude for that. And even when there haven't been personality disorders at play, I feel like I run into complications that I don't really wanna have to deal with in a situation where I'm not emotionally involved at all.

It's tough for me, because I feel like I need to "play the game" - aka have an OkCupid profile, even though it's mostly been completely a waste of time with me. The people I've connected with in my life I've kind of happened upon by accident--and in unplanned ways. And they aren't perfect, and had they had a dating profile I may have given it a once-over and never done anything about it. And like Old Lunch, sometimes I've had very strong connections with these people (and they with me), and it's ended for other reasons beyond my control. For some people I don't think emotional connection is important to them. It's extremely important to me. I seem to connect with this certain kind of person who doesn't come around that often, it would seem. I don't know if I'll find them on a dating site.

Meanwhile, I'll keep meeting bozos on OkC that make me want to bash my head into the sidewalk merely because I am a masochist. And I can't seem to go without male attention for two seconds.

Yeah, y'know, there's an extent to which I've been thinking (since having my last serious relationship devastatingly explode in my hands) that my adult life has been way too consumed by romantic entanglements of various kinds. With, like, nothing to show for it but pain, a compromised ability to trust others, and too many of my own needs/wants subsumed in the pursuit of trying to have a harmonious life with people who ultimately didn't give a shit. Several of whom have gone on to have their own little harmonious lives with people who aren't me. And I've thought a lot about how I need to redirect all of that wasted time and energy into my own life pursuits, because, for all of the failed attempts at relationships, I at least have the autonomy now to go my own way and not have to answer to anyone else. And that's a really freeing thought, and it gives me a lot of fuel to pursue things that a lot of people my age might not be in a position to do because they're tied down by their responsibilities to other people.

And then I reactivate my OKC account. Because I'm a stupid.

Don't mean to sound trite or cliched or spam-like or anything, but OKC can work. I'm still dating someone I met on it last November. So far, so good.

This thread is now making me think of Charles Coburn in "The More the Merrier." His catchphrase was "Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!"

Maybe a WWII housing shortage and single boarders who looked like Joel McCrea would help alleviate some of the problems delineated above.