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

They are showing Forbidden Zone at the local art house place, 35 ml print awright, and I invited some fresh new dude from this site along. He accepted, coffee beforehand, then movie. I think this is the most terrible first date idea I've ever concocted. OTOH the new dude is a 6'5" goth with the prose mannerisms of Loius Jagger so it might be...perfect.

35 ml you guys know what I mean

I told him it was a musical and he said he hates musicals so it should be...perfect. Maybe as good as the time I made a perverted middle aged man man watch Saddest Music In The World with me at an art house cinema in a different town?!?!

Tomorrow I am meeting up with someone I met IRL, a guy doing the same grad program I did last year, but I am not sure if it's a date or not. We agreed earlier in the week to meet at my favorite walking-distance beer/booze/burger joint, Bob Dobbs. However, last night I think I did an accidental dine and dash at Bob Dobbs. Also this guy has only seen me in my extremely neuter work clothes. Also also not sure if it's a date. That should be awesome too. I do like talking shop w/people from the new cohort of my grad school/cult so it should be fun as long as I'm not a burger thief!!

I really have no idea why anyone puts up with straight men.

crabbs, i hope you are not too concerned about what he will think of your bob dobbs bill dodger's clobber.

Dinner date in 4 hours. Shit. Dating is a lot easier before you start caring what happens.

The tall goth* and I are having dinner tonight. The disadvantage (one of many) to texting is you can't tell, pre-date, that someone is affecting an accent. 99% sure his is an affectation. He grew up in rural Tejas but sounds like Stewie x Stephen Fry with also the aural diction of a l0u1s jagg3r post?? How does that happen? OTOH he's physically kind of like every doodle of a dreamy guy I've ever draw.
*goth credential: call center manager

Dinners freak me out, I think--nothing else fully explains why I'm so edgy, have been all day. You have to sit and...look at each other, right in the eye, and talk in between chewing and swallowing without losing the thread and I don't know why this seems so complicated. Getting drunk in dim bars is something I understand. I don't feel at home having dinner.

Loosen up IO! Shake it off! It would be weird if you looked at him directly in the eyes for the entire meal, so forget about that. Eat whatever you want, talk about whatever you want, be yourself and don't front. What more is there to worry about?

and order the lobster!

I don't knnnooooooooow! Doing something wrong, being bad at being nice, looking like a disgusting savage who smokes between courses given half a chance. Being uncultured and uncouth compared to my dinner partner? You don't have to tell me this is ridiculous, this is just what's going through my head.

At least my nails look good.

Tap them slowly and rhythmically on the table during any breaks in conversation longer than 20 secs.

Maybe Abbott and I can Skype in from our FAP in Arizona.

;)

Oooooh, get you!

lol oops wrong thread

Okay, change of thinking: this is for me, this is supposed to be fun for me. Dates should be fun. I am not on trial. I can do whatever I want in order to have a good time, however I am defining good at that moment. Wine.

Have fun with Crabbits!

this is the torture of OKC. dearly prefer to turn to a dear friend and say "can we keep on like this except start having sex and vacations together?" but it always goes wrong.

Go Texas!

:)

I hope this rising tide lifts all ILXor boats!

I don't understand, he's smart & educated & gainfully employed at his life's passion, and has useful life skills & a totally own separate LIFE with things happening in it--I borderline-seriously do not know what to do when someone is so functional and thoughtful and not needy. Like, they are just doing this because they like me? That makes no sense.

She responded! ^_^
My neediness paid off!

otm xpost

Not to say I had all of my shit all the way together, but I do know that at the core of the dissolution of my last relationship was the fact that nothing I said or did was ever enough to convince her that I liked (and even, gasp, loved!) her. So with that in mind, I would universally encourage people to try tamping down their insecurities and accept the possibility that they are legitimately likeable (and even, gasp, loveable!).

tall orders, tall orders

think I'll opt for 20-40 years of anxiety-ridden wild mood swings beneath a calm, drunk exterior.

I kid, I kid, that is sound and welcome advice.

Yo, we've only been on 5 dates, I have time to grok the fact that he likes me. Calm down.

i had an incredibly awkward/underwhelming second date last night. i feel bad because i became very standoffish and probably it was really obvious i wanted him to leave (i made dinner at my place and actually pulled the "i have an early meeting tomorrow" line and started washing my dishes) . i was also kind of in weird brain space because i smoked pot for the first time in a realllllly long time (maybe a year?) and felt weirdly twitchy and withdrawn so i think the "not feeling it" was mutual.

i have no other irons in the fire.

Feeling really unloved after signing into OKC for the first time in three weeks to no messages.

that's not uncommon ime. I think the robot takes you out of rotation when you don't log in

I realized why the restaurant date made me nervous: because I feel like there are specific behaviors that are appropriate for that setting, and I feel constrained by them? Of course it's silly, probably why it took me like 3 days after the fact to realize, but I worry that I won't be able to express how I feel if it conflicts with the script for that occasion: making light conversation, laughing, keeping it going, not being disagreeable or disagreeing, etc. Being railroaded into good behavior, basically.

Sure enough, at least one thing was said that in a more relaxed place I would have questioned, possibly mocked, but I'm p sure I just smiled vacantly instead.

WHY AM I SO HOPELESSLY DUMB?

Beholden to (silly/imaginary) rules of propriety? No one expects you to follow a script -- you expect that for some bizarro reason. Glad it went well obvs!!!

I know! But I'm not the only one, I had this realization while talking to someone else last night who said this is why she doesn't like to do anything "special"/formal to celebrate special occasions--the pressure to conform to how the occasion is supposed to go.

Which I guess just means that some of my friends are at least as crazy as I am.

I think I am being negged and/or insulted? Some guy wrote me and asked if I could add chapter markers to my profile so he could save his place. And his profile clearly indicates that he hates fat people (Says someone even "slightly overweight" is a deal breaker in his questions, and in the question, "Can overweight people still be sexy" he answered "No"). THIS SITE IS SO WEIRD. I HATE IT.

just block him and move on.

I know, I will do so... it's just more and more this is a useless endeavor for me it seems.

there is definitely a terrible signal/noise ratio but sometimes you meet cool people

Sometimes OKC messages are like when certain ILXors post in a thread that doesn't interest them simply for the sake of expressing disinterest. They're part of a whole mass of people that I will probably never understand.

I think I just recently figured out that people are such untoward assholes largely because it's a way of acting out their own insecurities in the face of their own romantic failure - a kind of defense mechanism to repair (or at least shelter) a frail ego damaged by one's own rejections / anxieties about intimacy / inability to honestly deal with their (unmet) need to be loved. The other day I was in a really sour mood, resenting the time I'd wasted on that site, and found myself being way more critical than I would be otherwise. Of course the difference is that I never would actually tell anyone these things without merit (and even then wouldn't bother, I hope). So, if it's any consolation, these people are pretty much assholes who can't come to terms with their own vulnerability and can only project their internalized dejection outward on others they perceive as vulnerable / want to assert dominance over. It's an artificial mastery that's far more sad than anything (it's actually really depressing when you think of it), but fuck that, life's too short to waste sympathy on these assholes. Site needs an SB system is what.

moodiness is a big part of the site for me, when i bother to visit it. sometimes it's like o man look at all these gorgeous ppl; no one would ever date me. very occasionally it's like have all of them scrubbed and brought to my tent.

but really, reaching out to a stranger who is presumably looking for love just to shit on them is the essence of assholery

While I'm still in my psychology armchair, I also just realized the extent by which I, a textbook narcissist, am way more interested in maintaining the miscellanea of my own profile than I am in that of other people. I mean, I'll spend forever rearranging the order of bands I like, and then in a second disqualify someone on the sight of "phish" or whatever. There's a real perversity by which I not only create my own ideal through my own self-presentation, but by which I project myself outwards onto a profile that I can thereby take as a kind of "perfect match." But the real perversity, of course, isn't that I just create some kind of ideal for myself, but that this ideal actually lets me direct (i.e. reflect) all my libidinal energy toward it. It's like going on the site let me find true love in myself, and that in itself is an effective (albeit incredibly problematic and superficial) source of pleasure and emotional fulfillment.

Anyways, I think that thinking about the perverse psychic mechanics behind online dating has become for me much more interesting than actually bothering with it.

just got on this ting

DELETE AND RUN

RRUUUNNNNNN!

I love that dating sites have made the internet as awful for a social phobic loser like myself as the real world used to be. Before you had to write a mini-CV and find a good picture of yourself, NOT TAKEN WITH A CELLPHONE!!!!!!! and with no zits showing (why is this still a challenge, I'm almost 40), I used to meet people all the time. Ah well.

But the real perversity, of course, isn't that I just create some kind of ideal for myself, but that this ideal actually lets me direct (i.e. reflect) all my libidinal energy toward it. It's like going on the site let me find true love in myself, and that in itself is an effective (albeit incredibly problematic and superficial) source of pleasure and emotional fulfillment.

Had not made this leap, verrry interesting.