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Why don’t they answer my emails? Where did he/she disappear to? Newspaper columnist Carolyn Hax’s interesting viewpoint below:
CAROLYN HAX
Carolyn:
I know you get these all the time, but I really could use some perspective. Where have all the manners gone in dating? I met someone online, went on a couple of dates, he was polite, showed interest and appeared to be someone worth getting to know.
He made an effort to be in touch with me when he was busy with work. He called me over the weekend and, since I was out running errands, asked me to call him when I got home. I did and haven’t heard from him since.
Yesterday I checked my online account and saw that he had severed our communication through the site (we hadn’t used it in weeks, since we were seeing each other in person). He didn’t even have the guts to write a note saying he was sorry but it wasn’t going to work out. No explanation, nothing.
I was shocked at how rude this was. In a very calm but perplexed voice, I left him a message saying that I was surmising that he wasn’t interested based on his action, and that I was disappointed, because I thought we had agreed that we both thought it polite to just tell someone you weren’t interested because it wouldn’t have been a big deal. (I mean, geesh, it had only been a couple of weeks of dating.) And I would have shown him that courtesy had the situation been reversed.
Now, I was a little hurt, but more shocked at how cowardly he behaved. Is this what happens these days?
Do you think I did the right thing by pointing out his bad behavior?
Washington
If it made you feel better, then you did the right thing. If it made you feel worse, then file that away for next time, and just let future doinks think they got away with one.
I do believe, though, that you need to expect there will be a next time.
I could probably fire off a good rant about where all the manners have gone in general, not just in dating, but you have enough specifics here that I don’t have to.
No one seeks awkwardness. Some people feel it more than others, some fear it more than others. Now, just about everyone has the Internet. So, now people who mostly fear awkwardness can hide all they want behind electronic dodges.
Those same dodges, meanwhile, are available to protect those who treat others as disposable: There are more people online and more degrees of separation, and that means your average jerk can feel pretty confident that s/he can treat Internet dates horribly without getting busted for it at home, work or favorite hangouts.
If you date at all, just by the nature of dating you’re going to be meeting a lot of new people and you’re going to be in more situations where awkwardness and misunderstandings are common. So you’re going to see manners break down no matter what.
Date online, though, and while not everyone will be rude, you will be choosing your dates from the pool with the highest concentration of people who are looking for an easy way out of something. In other words, get used to what just happened.
Golly! Can being vegetarian now be not cool? Thank you, thank you, for all the times I’ve had to adjust dinner party menus for assorted dietary wierdnesses. BTW, I ate vegetarian for about 10 years (with occasional nights off if I couln’t resist BBQ). Gee whiz, New Yorkers, stop reading so much into everything. Let women have what they want to eat, okay? I’d go at least three dates before I made too many assumptions about anyone based on what they ordered to eat. Well, maybe not if they drank a gallon of Pepsi with the whole business....
Be Yourselves, Girls, Order the Rib-Eye
By ALLEN SALKIN
Published: August 9, 2007
MARTHA FLACH mentioned meat twice in her Match.com profile: “I love architecture, The New Yorker, dogs ... steak for two and the Sunday puzzle.”
She was seeking, she added, “a smart, funny, kind man who owns a suit (but isn’t one) ... and loves red wine and a big steak.”
The repetition worked. On her first date with Austin Wilkie, they ate steak frites. A year later, after burgers at the Corner Bistro in Greenwich Village, he proposed. This March, the rehearsal dinner was at Keens Steakhouse on West 36th Street, and the wedding menu included mini-cheeseburgers and more steak.
Ms. Wilkie was a vegetarian in her teens, and even wore a “Meat Is Murder” T-shirt. But by her 30s, she had started eating cow. By the time she placed the personal ad, she had come to realize that ordering steak on a first date had the potential to sate appetites not only of the stomach but of the heart.
Red meat sent a message that she was “unpretentious and down to earth and unneurotic,” she said, “that I’m not obsessed with my weight even though I’m thin, and I don’t have any food issues.” She added, “In terms of the burgers, it said I’m a cheap date, low maintenance.”
Salad, it seems, is out. Gusto, medium rare, is in.
Restaurateurs and veterans of the dating scene say that for many women, meat is no longer murder. Instead, meat is strategy. “I’ve been shocked at the number of women actually ordering steak,” said Michael Stillman, vice president of concept development for the Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group, which opened the restaurant Quality Meats in April 2006 on West 58th Street. He said Quality Meats’ contemporary design and menu, including extensive seafood offerings, were designed to attract more women than a traditional steakhouse. “But the meat is appealing to them, much more than what I saw two or three years ago at our other restaurants,” Mr. Stillman said. “They are going for our bone-in sirloin and our cowboy-cut rib steak.”
In an earlier era, conventional dating wisdom for women was to eat something at home alone before a date, and then in company order a light dinner to portray oneself as dainty and ladylike. For some women, that is still the practice. “It’s better not to have a jalapeño fajita plate, especially on the first date,” said Andrea Bey, 28, who sells video surveillance equipment in Irving, Tex., and describes herself as “curvy.” “You don’t want to be labeled as ‘princess gassy’ on the first date.”
But others, especially those who are thin, say ordering a salad displays an unappealing mousiness.
“It seems wimpy, insipid, childish,” said Michelle Heller, 34, a copy editor at TV Guide. “I don’t want to be considered vapid and uninteresting.”
Ordering meat, on the other hand, is a declarative statement, something along the lines of “I am woman, hear me chew.”
In fact, red meat on a date has become such an effective statement of self-acceptance that even a vegetarian like Sloane Crosley, a publicist at Random House, sometimes longs to order a burger.
“Being a vegetarian puts you at a disadvantage,” Ms. Crosley said. “You’re in the most basic category of finicky. Even women who order chicken, it isn’t enough.” She said she has thought of ordering shots of Jägermeister, famous for its frat boy associations, to prove that she is “a guy’s girl.”
“Everyone wants to be the girl who drinks the beer and eats the steak and looks like Kate Hudson,” Ms. Crosley, 28, said.
Not all red meat, apparently, is equal in the dating world. The mediums of steak and hamburger each send a different message. Dropping into conversation the fact that steaks of Kobe beef come from Wagyu cattle, but that not all steaks sold as Wagyu are Kobe beef, demonstrates one’s worldliness, said Gabriella Gershenson, a dining editor at Time Out New York. It holds the same currency today that being able to name Hemingway’s four wives held in an earlier era.
Hamburgers, she added, say you are down-to-earth, which is why women rarely order those deluxe hamburgers priced as high as a porterhouse.
“They’re created for men who want to impress women, so they order the $60 burger, then they let the woman taste it,” Ms. Gershenson said. “The man gets to show off his expertise and show that he can afford it.”
When Paris Hilton was arrested for driving under the influence, she announced that she had been on her way to In-N-Out Burger, the Southern California chain revered for its gut-busting Double-Double, as if trying to satisfy a craving for two slabs of meat and cheese was an excuse for drunken driving that anyone could understand. And twice last year, Nicole Richie, persistently facing rumors that she suffered from an eating disorder, was photographed biting into burgers in Los Angeles, an effort that seemed designed to demonstrate her casualness toward calories.
Of course, there are always those rare women who order what they want and to heck with what a man might think.
Saehee Hwang, 30, a production director at Artnet.com, found herself out with friends at DuMont restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when she started feeling attracted to a new guy in the group. She said she had wanted to order a burger, but started having second thoughts. “I didn’t want to appear too much of a carnivore,” she said. “It might be off-putting.”
But then she decided she should not change her order to fit a preconceived idea of what a man might want. She ordered the house specialty, a half-pound of beef on a toasted brioche bun with Gruyère cheese. “We started dating afterward,” Ms. Hwang said. “And he told me he liked the fact that I ordered the burger.”
What about when the tables, so to speak, are reversed? Can a man order a juicy New York strip on the first date and make a good impression? Gentlemen, be careful. Real men, it seems, must eat kale.
“When a guy sits down and eats something fatty and big, you wonder if they eat like that all the time,” said Brice Gaillard, a freelance design writer. “It crosses my mind they’ll probably die early.”
Internet dating is MADE for people who like to write and are good at it. Never underestimate the seductive power of a well-written email. But if you can’t write well, or can’t close your editor’s eye when reading an email from a new suitor, you are in big trouble. While there seems to be no excuse for misspellings, it does seem that many do not know how to use a spell check. Or write right into those boxes on the dating sites, rather than off-line where you can use your word processor and polish away.
My clients find over and over that love can come in the most unexpected packages. Poor writing (or a spelling mistake or two) may mayn hid a sterling character. Try to hold your word snobbery (as well as other forms of snobbery) in check when you go looking for love.
Sentence Sensibility
By JAIMIE EPSTEIN
Published: July 8, 2007
I promise this is on topic, so please bear with me. . . . One day, as a cure for a broken heart, a heart that had only barely survived a head-on collision with another heart, a heart just out of intensive care, bruised and limping and still shying at the sound of any traffic, I decided to go online to find distraction in the arms of other, virtual men and maybe, as a bonus, a suitable replacement for the one no longer in my life, to meet someone the normal way, as opposed to the archaic, anachronistic, so 1970s way I had met HIM — I’d had my skis (nearly) charmed off me at 10,000 feet by my instructor, who was trying, with a dribble of luck but gallons of patience, to teach me how to jump turn on telemark skis. A broken heart, like the crack of dawn, can’t be fixed, said a wise friend, but I was hoping that the splint of male attention might at least encourage healing — and it would mean I’d have less time to waste obsessing over you-know-whom.
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I didn’t realize, however, what a huge boulder I would be rolling uphill — what with my being a “literary person,” a sometime editor of this column, someone whose ear is as tuned to the pitch of language as a cellist’s is to music — until the misplaced modifiers, dyslexic spellings and grievous abuses of syntax started pouring in. One seeker of a woman to call his own allowed that the last book he had read was “Atonement,” which was about to earn him a gold star, Ian McEwan having his own section on my bookshelves, except that he didn’t quit while he was ahead — he had to add that it was written by . . . Ian McGregor! O.K., no big deal, you say, they’re both Brits, it’s hard to keep all the Ians (or, um, Ewans!) straight, you know what/whom he meant and at least he reads something besides Gawker. Well, yeah, but couldn’t he have malapropriated a lesser writer’s name, one whose first and last aren’t tattooed on my forehead, one not sitting on a pedestal in front of my computer? Couldn’t he have checked his sources?
Speaking of mis-namers, I am sure the Spielbergs and the Kings of the world are used to the “Steven or Stephen?” flip of the spelling coin, and some of my closest friends have been known to lose one of my “i”s, but you’d think that a man trying to impress a woman would get her name right. Well, you would be wrong. After an intense flurry of e-mailing that involved the seductive vocabulary of maple farming — “splitting maul”! “peavey”! — and even more seductive pictures of said maple farmer, I decided that we had reached the point in our relationship where I really needed him to spell my name correctly, and I told him so in a gentle mama-bear-like way. Next thing I know I get a quick response: “oops, bad timing — I just started a new relationship”! O.K., maybe he did, or maybe he took offense at my comment about the grin of satisfaction slathered over his end-of-the-workday face in his latest photo attachment: “for all i know you’ve just put a family of four through a wood chipper!” (Dude, where’s your sense of humor? Did you not love “Fargo”?) But maybe he was one of those men who would sooner ask for directions than have their punctuation or grammar corrected. Can you spell “thin-barked”?
I know what you’re thinking: No wonder she’s single, no wonder she got dumped, who would want to feel those eyes/ears of judgment upon his every utterance? (Please include a RECENT photo and a list of the five things you can’t live without when you e-mail your diatribe to me at .) But just imagine what it’s like to be afflicted with an excess language-sensitivity gene. I mean, how would you feel if someone extolled your “skillful verbage”? Maybe he liked the way I threw my verbs around, but my nose picked up a whiff of “garbage.” And what about the onomatopoeticist who enjoyed the “slurshing sound of the waves”? “Slurshing” made me think “drink sloppily and quickly,” and combined with the motion of the water, the effect of his words was to produce welling seasickness, not the soothing rock and roll of the ocean crashing and uncrashing with romantic abandon along the shore of a secluded beach that he must have been aiming for.
Uh-oh, I just ended a sentence with a preposition! Hey, I know I fall far short of the lofty standards upheld by Strunk and White, Fowler, Bernstein and Garner. It’s not like, whoops, I mean as if (see!), I’m perfect, as if I have, after all these years, mastered the subtlety of who/whom, as if I never use “media” in the singular or accidentally type “their” when I mean “there,” as if I ever get the comma or not before “too” 100 percent right. I know people don’t proofread their myriad daily e-mail messages, and I have certainly been chagrined to discover, say, that I fired off “bike” when I meant “back,” but isn’t dating online like sending out your résumé, aren’t you trying to sell yourself to a potential employer (i.e., friend, lover, hand-to-hold-until-the-end-of-time)? When you write to a new someone, that someone who just might be the answer to your dreams (yeah, right), don’t you want to show him/her that you care, that you are paying attention?
Alas, there does not appear to be a 12-step program for usage addicts, but while pondering what to do about my little weakness, I recalled that my baby brother, while working on his Ph.D. in math, once mentioned an “encumber” in a letter to me (yes, a real letter — it was eons ago), referring to the green vegetable, sometimes peeled, sometimes not, that you slice into salads or turn into raita to accompany your Indian feast. His spelling, if that’s possible, has only devolved since (maybe that’s why he finds numbers so elegant), but I still love him as much as I always have. So, channeling sibling tolerance, I began to leap over stray commas and words-run-into-periods and managed to go out with a cool downtown daddy-o “tommorow” who has “distain” for organized religion. And guess what? I even enjoined myself! Unfortunately, I won’t be able to discuss the financial wizard who basically wanted to know whether I could squat his weight (160; I can) because his affliction would indeed be off topic.
Jaimie Epstein, a freelance writer in New York, is really rather low maintenance.
Where and how you live is as important as your latest haircut. Potential mates will be looking at the whole package. Pay attention and give your living space the same attention as your dating wardrobe.
The New York Times does these wonderful snarky articles now and then about the datinig scene, and this one on March 29, 2007, was so great that I have copied it here in its entirety. NYT articles tend to disappear after a couple of weeks, so I am taking this chance they may get after me by printing it.
This article talks about singles and their judgements of prospective suitors by their apartments. While some of the judgements seem a bit over the top (must use pink light bulbs?), I harp on this topic regularly with my clients. Where and how you live is as important as your latest haircut. Potential mates will be looking at the whole package. Pay attention and give your living space the same attention as your dating wardrobe.
From the New York Times:
It’s Not You, It’s Your Apartment
By JOYCE WADLER
DATING is fraught with disappointments, so you can imagine how delighted a single woman might be to find someone like Albert Podell — particularly after she Googles him and learns how rich he is. Last year, Mr. Podell, a 70-year-old lawyer, gave N.Y.U. Law School $2.9 million. He goes out four nights a week, to the opera, symphony or theater. He is well read. He says he has traveled to 162 countries.
Then comes that magic evening when the woman is ready to go back to his place.
“It’s totally unchanged, like it was when I went to law school in 1973, a time warp,” Mr. Podell says of his small one-bedroom in SoHo, a description that seems plausible, given the hot pink living room with the futon seating and the fraying contact paper on the kitchen cabinets.
The place is also dimly lighted, which, once you examine the kitchen nook in daylight, is probably not such a bad thing. The cabinets hold nothing but a six-month supply of powdered milk for Mr. Podell’s cereal, so that he can keep his trips to the supermarket to a minimum; the Formica countertop is peeling; the stove has been disconnected from the gas feed. (Mr. Podell, who usually eats out, sees no reason to waste fuel.)
All these things have proved detriments to love, but none so effectively as his sheets. Mr. Podell likes the ones from the ’60s and ’70s that tell a story: sheets with intergalactic battles or pink hippopotami or the Beatles. Since these are no longer available in adult-bed sizes, Mr. Podell’s sheets are now 30 to 40 years old. The fading is such that a person who saw one in a Salvation Army bin, having lost everything she owned in a fire, would remind herself that there was no reason to be desperate. The fading, however, was apparently not the reason that the sheets became a deal breaker.
“I was dating this very nice woman, I thought,” says Mr. Podell. “I was ready and she was ready to do the big deed. I take her to my apartment, go into the bedroom, and fling back the sheets, and she said, ‘My husband had these sheets and he was a mean-hearted son of a bitch and you must be like him and I’m leaving.’ ”
Spring is here and the restaurants will soon be filled with anxious and hopeful couples, ordering wine, dusting off their most luminous lies, thinking they might finally have found love. Then they will see their dates’ homes for the first time. And suddenly some of them will realize that they cannot be with this person a moment longer — or at the very latest, because that wine was not cheap, beyond the next morning. A few whose homes have been romantic deal breakers may, like Mr. Podell, know what went wrong and choose to ignore it, seeing their apartments as a reflection of their brave refusal to bow to conventional taste.
“There have been at least 40 women who’ve said, why do you live here?” he says.
Make that 41. Why does he live here?
“Ever hear the words ‘rent stabilized’?” says Mr. Podell, who’s paying $702 for a one bedroom in SoHo. “What do I need a fancy place for? A lot of people want to show off their wealth. It ain’t me, baby.”
Then there is Bob Strauss, 46, who writes dating advice for match.com and has a real stuffed baby seal in his apartment. He didn’t whack the seal on its silky little head, it’s a family piece inherited from a rich aunt and uncle in Miami.
It is displayed along with Mr. Strauss’s South Park and Sonic the Hedgehog figurines and Lego collection.
“It’s provocative,” he adds. “I like going out with tough, smart, aggressive, challenging type people. It’s fine with me if they want to argue about it; I don’t want to blandify my apartment to make myself generically acceptable.”
Most people, however, will never know how their homes sabotaged their romance. They operate under the assumption that if the garbage has been discarded and the dog hair removed, the house is romance-ready. They are unaware that such seemingly insignificant details as a Klimt poster or harsh overhead lighting are proof to some that they are not dateworthy. For these poor innocents, a guide.
No Stuffed Animals, Even If You Are Dying
Alison Forbes, a founder of The Art of Everyday Living consulting service in Los Angeles, is often called upon to help make homes relationship-ready. It was her sorry duty to inform us that the stuffed animal pandemic continues. She believes it may show a reluctance to grow up — or, in cases where the stuffed animals cover the bed, a reluctance to make space for another person.
Jason Bunin, the 36-year-old bad-boy chef at the Knickerbocker Bar and Grill in Greenwich Village, echoed her disapproval.
“You see it more in younger girls, like between 21 and 25,” Mr. Bunin says. “Pink, purple, teddy bears, unicorns, all over the bed. I’d just whack ’em off with my arm.”
Why do men dislike stuffed animals?
“Too cutesy and immature.” Also, Mr. Bunin says, if you were to get involved with someone like that, you’d have that garbage in your house.
Mr. Bunin, by the way, is on the dating scene no more. He married Caron Newman earlier this month in an Elvis-themed wedding in Las Vegas. You can check out the video at cupidswedding.com. Mr. Bunin is the one in the black sequined tuxedo.
There Is a Reason Nice Buildings Are Not Named for Norman Bates
Sure, you can save money by moving into your mother’s house, but as always in matters of romance, you must first ask yourself: Would James Bond do it?
If you are still thinking about the answer, consider the experience of Adria Armbrister, a 30-year-old program coordinator at Columbia University’s School of Public Health. Ms. Armbrister met a man online through Yahoo and after a month and a half of e-mailing they had dinner. It went well: The man, who was 29, owned a business, he did not ask Ms. Armbrister to pay for her own meal or try to borrow money. On the second date, they stopped by his house to pick up an umbrella. The house had belonged to his mother, who had died five years earlier. The plastic-covered gold sofas and the heavy gold tasseled lamps suggested to Ms. Armbrister that her date had not redecorated — never a sign of an enterprising personality. But the deal breaker came when she saw his room.
“We walked up three flights of stairs to the attic,” she says. “It looked like a teenager’s room. The computer was up there and the twin bed, his clothes were all over the floor. I was like, uuuuuh-huuuuh. He didn’t even seem sorry that he lived in a 12-year-old boy’s room, this was like normal behavior. It said to me, this person is not grown up yet. It was frightening. He’s lived his whole life in the attic.”
What did her date do for a living?
“He was in the real estate business.”
The Word “Ex” May Be Substituted for the Word “Mother”
It is also a detriment to romance when one’s date shares a roof with a former spouse.
“I met him at a function,” says a woman who is a lawyer in Manhattan and has been divorced for several years. She would speak only on condition of anonymity. “It was like” — and here she sings — “across a crowded room. He was very upfront about his living arrangement. He said he and his wife had one of those huge Upper West Side apartments with four bedrooms. She lived in one, another couple lived in another one, whoever was in need of a home is in the third one. Every morning, they go to the kitchen and have coffee together. I couldn’t picture myself in that scenario. It was like Frasier and Niles with that father and Daphne. He was very cute, but then I realized he was totally unsuccessful.”
Although the Stasi Were Said to Love It
“I can’t sit in a room with overhead lighting,” says Michele Slung, a freelance book editor in Woodstock, N.Y. “It makes me feel like I’m in a police interrogation room. I believe in lamps that are casting warm glows, and anyone that doesn’t understand that, I can’t be in their house, men or women. It’s a matter of warmth; it makes people happy.”
Ms. Slung insists on pink light bulbs, her preferred shade being Dawn Pink. She also uses amber lampshades.
“I don’t think I could ever like somebody who got their lighting wrong,” she says. “What this probably means is that I’m not in the market for a guy. If I ever found a guy with a beautifully lit house I would propose — although probably his wife would have done the lighting.”
In the Afterglow of Love, Nobody Ever Reaches for a Hammer
Michael Longacre is a New York graphic designer. He believes that design people are aesthetically demanding, but in the case of one brief affair, the problem was a more basic sort. “This was a great looking guy, who worked on Wall Street,” Mr. Longacre says. “He wore like $2,000 suits, but his great pride was really, really expensive shoes. He told me he had 50 or 60 pairs of these Italian shoes that are $750 a pair. I go to his apartment, there was no framing on the doors, there were like test colors on the walls. He’d started work on it several years earlier. I said, ‘You’ve spent $30,000 on shoes, but you’re gonna renovate your own apartment when you get around to it?’ He also showed me his waterless bong. Having high-tech marijuana equipment is another deal breaker for me.”
We Aren’t Kidding About the Klimt
Adam Handler, who is 35, lives in Atlanta where he does grass-roots organizing for CARE. He is now married. But five or six years ago, when he was single and living in Washington, D.C., a nascent relationship was destroyed when a woman he’d been dating invited him back to her apartment.
“On her walls she had my two most despised pieces of art,” Mr. Handler says. One was “The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt. “I happen to hate Klimt, but ‘The Kiss’ is the most trite and overdone and what made it worse, it was in her bedroom. Then there was the Robert Doisneau photograph of this couple kissing.”
That black and white photo taken on a Paris street in the ’50s? That’s kind of romantic.
“It’s romantic when you’re 16,” Mr. Handler says. “At some point you need to outgrow it.”
The romance, while it did not end that evening, ended soon after.
“She was attractive, she was smart, she was all the things I thought I would have liked in a woman, but I decided I didn’t trust her judgment,” Mr. Handler says.
What was his wife’s place like when they met?
It was a studio in Manhattan, Mr. Handler says, with a few really nice antiques. She also had a very impressive set of Le Creuset cookware. He had just about the same amount of All-Clad. It worked.
A Touch of Raffia Might Have Helped. But We Doubt It
Evan Lobel knows how to put together a welcoming apartment — in addition to being the owner of Lobel Modern, a vintage furniture store in lower Manhattan, he’s a designer. But even that doesn’t guarantee success.
“I was dating somebody very seriously,” says Mr. Lobel, who is 42. “He went away for a year to work in the Peace Corps. The two of us were in love. I said, I’m gonna wait, I’m not gonna be with anyone else, and I lived up to that. When he came back, we were supposed to live together. I thought, wouldn’t it be a nice surprise, after a year of living in huts, to live in a nice big, beautiful apartment.”
While his boyfriend was posted in Swaziland, Mr. Lobel sold his 1,200-square-foot Chelsea apartment and bought a 2,500-square-foot loft, with a fireplace and stone bathrooms. It was a frightening financial leap. While his old apartment sold for $1.5 million, the new one cost almost $2.4 million. He brought in beautiful pieces: a cabinet by the midcentury designer Tommi Parzinger; a Karl Springer chandelier with an estimated value of $25,000.
Then his boyfriend returned.
“He said, ‘What is this? I can’t live in a place like this, I was just around people who were hungry and dying,’” Mr. Lobel says. “In the end we were breaking up. For a while I regretted even buying that apartment.”
It’s Not My Place, It’s You
Matt Heindl, who is 34 and does Internet marketing, remembers two terrible dating experiences. The first involved a woman who was a nail biter — he discovered this in the cold light of morning when he found bits of her nails on the bedside stand. He also has a vivid memory of the mildewed towel she offered when he took a shower.
“It kind of smelled like dog,” he says, with a tone of disgust. “I can smell it now.”
The second experience involved an artist who lived in an East Village tenement. As he entered her apartment, a free-flying parrot relieved itself on his head. Then a large rabbit darted out from somewhere and licked his feet. A baby gate separated a second rabbit from the first — there had been a nasty penis-biting episode, his date explained. Also, the kitchen wall was covered with antique egg beaters, which looked to Mr. Heindl like weird tools.
Mr. Heindl and his date, Breck Hostetter, have now been married two years, and have a 9-month-old daughter, Greta. She operates Sesame Letterpress out of their home in Carroll Gardens. It is named, Ms. Hostetter says, after a parakeet who passed away at age 12.
Can Mr. Heindl explain how a deal breaker turned into marriage?
“I seriously thought, ‘Shall I run? No, I like her, I like her, I’ll check it out,’ ” he says. “I thought about it, I asked myself, ‘Why are you doing this?’ and I decided it showed she can really nurture, because one was like a really old rabbit, a geriatric rabbit. And she baked, obviously.”
So there it is — if your date doesn’t get your rabbit or your seal or your light bulb, he or she is not the person for you. Mr. Handler, the Klimt hater, now believes he was probably looking for a reason to break up with the woman he was seeing because she wasn’t right for him.
Mr. Podell, of the cartoon animal sheets, proudly fills a page with the household complaints of his dates. They include the size of his apartment, the lack of a coffeepot, the nonexistent stove connection, the lack of closet space. His love life, however, is great. He has a 22-year-old Russian girlfriend, whom he met in Malta. They have taken vacations to Asia, Europe and India, with Mr. Podell footing the bill.
Mr. Podell’s girlfriend lives in Moscow.
She has never seen his apartment.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
We never seem to get tired of rehashing the subject of “Who pays?”
From InsideBayArea.com, an interesting discussion on the age old “Who pays?”
Rule 1: The Guy Always Pays. Rule 2: Change the rules later
Q:SHOULD the guy pay for the date? I’m struggling with a money issue with a guy I’ve been dating a few months. We make similar money — not much, but not minimum wage. We were splitting the bill when we started dating.
After we had been dating for a while, I asked if we could treat each other to dates rather than split the bill, because it’s nicer. We started doing this, and he does take me out sometimes, but not all the time. Now I’m anxious every time we go out: Is he going to pay? Isn’t he?
The truth is, I prefer to be taken out by the guy. I know it’s antiquated, but it makes me feel wanted, taken care of, special. I don’t mind paying for dinner or drinks every second or third time. Most guys seem to take it as a point of pride that they’re paying. This guy doesn’t.
Even after several months, and my paying every other time for nicer dinners, etc., he still makes it known at times that we are going Dutch or that he’s not paying for the entire evening. It brings him down in my esteem, but I don’t know if I’m being overly demanding. Is he a tightwad? Or am I ridiculously old-fashioned?
— S.A., San Jose
A: This is an endlessly fascinating topic, since it raises all sorts of questions about fairness, feminism, the shackles inherent in a patriarchal society, mathematics and, perhaps most important in the long run, monetary policy at the Fed.
Luckily, we won’t go anywhere near most of those issues. What do we look like, Mother Jones? No, we prefer to keep things simple, because that’s just the way we roll, and also because we have no idea what “the Fed” is, anyway. Does “Fannie Mae” live there with “Freddie Mac”? If so, who pays for dinner at “Trader Vic’s”? Never mind. We don’t really want to know.
First things first, S.A. Yes, the guy is a tightwad. He also must have missed the first day of Guy School 101, where he would have learned that The Guy Always Pays (at least at first).
We didn’t say it was fair; it just is. For some reason, feminism was able to stamp out inequality in many areas, but this one hangs on. Why it remains — and, for instance, smoking-hot stewardesses have disappeared — is a mystery and, needless to say, a disappointment to us.
But most guys (though not, apparently, your McCheapo) will set aside the incongruity and go with tradition. They want to make a good impression, and they know part of that entails paying for those first few Beef Burrito Supremes, even if it means diving into the nether regions of the couch for spare change. (Tip for guys: Unscrew the top of the agitator assembly inside your washer and lift it off. You’ll find at least $1.50 in quarters under there, plus maybe that Paris Hilton flash drive you thought you had misplaced.)
So yes, S.A. — if indeed that is your real name — your position is antiquated and ridiculously old-fashioned. But we mean that in a good way. In your case anyway. Because you at least offer to pay some of the time. Nothing turns a guy off more than a woman who never ever offers to chip in. And, just FYI, the opposite is true as well — a guy who hears, “Honey, tonight is on me ... OK, no, not actually ON me, but I’m paying,” is likely to be very appreciative of the gesture. If you know what we mean. If not, ask Freddie Mac.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
First dates, later dates, and who pays? Big topic of discussion amongst both men and women. Guys watch what women do, ladies. So be ready.
From InsideBayArea.com
Rule No. 3 (see last week): First date has to be cheap
WE GOT some interesting feedback on last week’s column about whether a guy should be expected to pay for most everything in the initial phases of courtship.
(Our position: The guy pays, especially if he does the asking, but we encourage even a halfheartedly mumbled attempt by the woman to spring for something — a round of drinks, the tip, 10 percent of the bail bond — mainly because such a gesture works wonders as a relationship, um, lubricant.)
Nearly all the responses were from guys, most of whom felt victimized to some degree by women who wanted a free lunch or dinner or gourmet picnic in a verdant meadow (more about that later). Interestingly, no women wrote in outraged about how our opinion perpetuates the stereotype of men having to coddle and take care of the opposite sex because they can’t take care of themselves. But then again, maybe our postman — er, letter carrier — has been ill lately.
In any case, one of the missives stood out from the rest, and not just because it sailed through the transom affixed to a brick. It was from a guy named Rob (we won’t identify him further, in case he might ever want to try dating again), who felt we weren’t hard enough on women who seem to expect to be wined and dined ad infinitum. To illustrate his argument, he broke down his expenses for a recent first date, from $7 for parking to $95 for a comedy show and drinks. Oh, and with a high-end dinner in between. The total was around $200 for, he said, “someone I barely even know.”
To which we can only respond: What, no private jet to Maui for a hot-stone massage in Hana?
Say what you will about who should pay for first dates (please discuss among yourselves, because we’re officially sick of the topic), but Rob caused his own problem by going too far, too fast. And that’s not something you’ll hear very often from this space.
Which brings us to today’s lesson: What is an appropriate activity for a first date?
Let’s stipulate that this is not an online-dating first date, for which the only acceptable venue is a Starbucks or a crowded bar with two exits, preferably one near the restrooms. No, this is a true first date, arrived at only after a certain amount of flirting, e-mailing and driving by her house 50 times.
-The movies: No. Too much time spent in tortured silence. There will be plenty of opportunity for that later in the relationship.
-Gourmet picnic in a verdant meadow: No. This smacks of trying too hard. And what if she doesn’t even like beefalo jerky and Coors Light?
-Parking, drinks, dinner, comedy show: No. See above. And Rob, enough with the dating cost/analysis spreadsheets. OK? Thanks.
-Dinner: Yes. Provided it’s at a modest place (sometimes known as a “joint") that doesn’t serve a diminutive entree on a plate the size of a manhole cover. The fact is, most women are uncomfortable with first dates that are too lavish. (Or have we been misinformed yet again? Ladies?)
-Bowling: Yes. Because if one of you is demonstrably better than the other, you can put up the gutter bumpers and increase beer frames from one to three. In fact, we recommend that from the outset.
-The Boardwalk: Yes, if it’s at night. Everyone looks better in the glow of pulsating neon. Particularly those who’ve just come from a grueling session at the Stardust Lanes.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Now that the coffee date is institutionalized into the Internet dating routine, here are some suggestions via Chemistry.com on how to make that coffee date a winner:
Ace Your Coffee Date
All of us go on coffee dates these days. They’re quick, relatively cheap, and casual. But as relaxed as they may seem, they have the power to jump-start a terrific relationship…or leave you both feeling like the dregs at the bottom of a mug of joe. The truth is, in order to go from latte to love, you’ve got to ace that let’s-meet-for-coffee moment. With that in mind, we culled advice from experts to help you brew a positive first impression.
Do appear laid-back. It’s just coffee! That’s the appearance you want to give. No pressure, relaxed, ready to meet and chat. In other words, if you dress the part of “fun date,” you’ll have a better chance of having just that. If you’re coming straight from the office, consider wearing a less conservative outfit that day or taking off your jacket and unbuttoning your shirt a little so you don’t come across as all business, says Nancy Slotnick, founder of Cablight.com and author of Turn Your Cablight On: Get Your Dream Man in 6 Months or Less. “You shouldn’t arrive looking like you’re about to have a job interview,” she points out. “Nothing about this should feel transactional.” It’s about getting to know one another.
Do stake out the joint. If you’re the person who suggests the meeting place, make sure it’s someplace that will have adequate seating, a comfortable environment and won’t be too crowded. “Make a list of the independent, fun, funky coffee houses in town in addition to the standard chain-type places and check a couple out ahead of time if you can,” suggests David Wygant, author of Always Talk to Strangers. “Some of these will also have things like poetry readings or music so you have a chance to broaden the date if you want.”
Don’t be late! “Some people think it’s OK to be late if they call, but it’s just not OK because you’ve still made the other person wait,” says Slotnick. “Maybe you can do that with your best friends because they’ve known you for a long time, but this is about first impressions and you only get one chance.” In fact, be five minutes early if you can and grab a table, preferably one with a banquette or soft chairs, so you’ll have one less thing to worry about once your date does arrive.
Do maintain eye contact from the get-go. Coffee houses can be busy with lots of distractions. The trick is not to get overwhelmed, because those first five minutes are important. “Put your focus on your date even if there are 17,000 things going on around you,” says Slotnick. “Keep in mind the goal which is connecting with this person and maintaining eye contact, even while waiting in line together.” If you don’t, your date may have formed an opinion of you before you even get your drinks.
Do order what you want. Are you one of those people with a rather complex drink order? Are you afraid to request your usual venti triple-shot no-whip light-water extra-foam vanilla latte in front of your date? Don’t worry. It’s how you order, not what you order, that matters. “The important thing here is how you interact with the barista,” says Slotnick. “If you’re really demanding about it like, ‘I want my half-caff, no whip, blah, blah, blah done like this,’ you might look high-maintenance or rude.” A better bet? Make a joke about it like “Are you ready for this?” and then thank or even tip the barista for getting it right.
Don’t make an issue over who pays. Though the general dating rule is “the person who asks, pays,” with the coffee date most experts felt the man should foot the bill no matter what. “I love a coffee date because it’s affordable,” says Wygant. “Too many chew-and-swallow dates leave a hole in the pocket but with coffee, there is no reason for the man not to step up and pay. It just looks good.” Wygant suggests avoiding the whole money shuffle by having your date sit at the table, asking what she wants and then getting it for her. Another slick move? Have a pre-paid coffeehouse card—one swipe and payment has become a non-issue.
Don’t freak if you can’t find a table. If you do have to wait for someplace to sit, don’t let it throw you. “It’s not like ‘Oh my god, we don’t have a table so we can’t have a date,’” says Slotnick. “You can have a date standing up and be relaxed about it!” Another option is getting “to go” cups and going for a walk or seeing if you can find a bench outdoors somewhere, weather permitting, of course. “It’s about not letting your anxiety get in the way of getting to know the person you’re with,” she says. Being calm and flexible will make a good impression, without a doubt.
Don’t arrive famished. Don’t assume that the date is going to turn into dinner, so don’t turn up absolutely starving. If things are going well, ask if your date would like to share a treat. “You can extend the coffee date with a snack if you like each other,” says Wygant. “Just skip the food option up front, but if things are going well in a half-hour or so, offer to share a cookie or a sandwich, which shows you want to keep chatting.”
Do suggest another meeting. If, at the end of the date, you know you two are clicking, don’t be afraid to book date #2 right then and there. “If you like your date make sure you tell them and secure the next date immediately,” suggests Wygant. “Say ‘Coffee was great and I’d love to hang out with you on Saturday if you’re free’ or whatever.” In other words, at this point, you probably know if you want to see this person again…so if you do, let it show to make that great coffee date an even better experience!
Flirtations a-brewing at coffeehouses
Minneapolis — Justin Fogel usually can spot them. One comes in first, sits near the door. “Can I get you something?” Fogel asks, even though he knows the answer.
No, thanks. Just waiting for someone.
Someone arrives. They shake hands, order coffee, try not to look shell-shocked if the online photo that screamed “dreamy!” has turned into a caramel-Frappuccino-no-whip drinker whose reality screams “dreaming!” They find a seat and, they hope, common ground. Fogel said it’s sometimes hard not to assess from afar.
“I see if they’re laughing or having a good time,” said Fogel, 25, a graduate student at Bethel University who has worked on and off at the Dunn Bros’ in Minneapolis for two years. “Sometimes they walk out after 10 minutes. Maybe they’re going somewhere.”
Uh-huh.
Coffee shops are choice stops for an increasing number of internet daters ready to meet face-to-face. The biggest perks: They’re safe, cheap and easy to exit quickly.
Coffee shops are choice stops for an increasing number of internet daters ready to meet face-to-face. The biggest perks: They’re safe, cheap and easy to exit quickly. (Laurie Harker/Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
Coffee dates aren’t new. But the proliferation of dating dot-coms such as match, perfectmatch, yahoo and eHarmony, coupled with coffeehouses on practically every corner, have taken the quaint concept to new heights. Wired to the Internet, why not do the first face-to-face while wired on caffeine, too?
“Coffee shops are the new neutral zone,” said D.J. Gramann, 39, a Minneapolis clothing designer who met his partner at Wilde Roast in Minneapolis. “It allowed me to get to know him in a casual way that didn’t have the pressure of a first date.”
Cynthia Parker, 58, chose a Starbucks for her first date with her now live-in boyfriend, Gordon Taylor. That was after another blind date she met on the internet not so blindly reached across the table at a restaurant and adjusted her blouse “to see if I had cleavage.” Coffee shops, said Parker, a real estate agent and makeup artist in Bloomington, offer a hubbub of people and activity. “You find a chair and have a not-so-intimate conversation.”
Many people still meet in bars, of course, where noise and dim lighting can be very precious things. Some optimistic souls even insist on first-date dinners. But, as Jason Koltes, a 31-year-old physical therapist, said, the coffee shop “takes the pressure off. If the date goes poorly, there’s a little less commitment than if you had to try to fill a whole evening.”
Well, not all the pressure’s off. Like everything else, there are rules of engagement, even in a Caribou. Internet sites for singles are full of advice on how to make the most of a coffee date, or whether you should.
One lively thread on coffee dates offered the pros ("Let me get to know them first before I find out if they can keep their mouth closed while eating"), the cons ("I always feel as if I am at a job interview") and the amusing ("Never dated coffee. I did have a brief and intensive affair with a half-pound of Darjeeling tea. Dark. Brooding. Mysterious. Sexually ambiguous. ... “).
Coffee date tips
Want your coffee date to be smooth? Here are some tips from chemistry.com’s contributing writer Kimberly Dawn Neumann:
• Appear laid-back. It’s just coffee. Take off your jacket, unbutton your collar.
• Check out the place first. Make sure there is adequate seating, good lighting, a nice ambience. Find out if there will be music or a poetry reading, in case you do or don’t want such a thing.
• Don’t be late. It’s that first-impression thing.
• Look him/her in the eye. Don’t let your gaze wander to other people walking in. It’s rude.
• Don’t make an issue over who pays. It’s just coffee! The general dating rule is, “the person who asks pays.” One idea: Have a pre-paid coffee card ready.
• Don’t freak if you can’t find a table. You don’t have to date sitting down. Or get to-go cups and take a walk.
• Don’t arrive famished. Coffee isn’t great on an empty stomach. But arriving a little hungry is OK. If things are going well, you can suggest sharing a sandwich. If things are going really well, you can suggest moving to a restaurant. If things are going south, you can excuse yourself for a dinner “commitment.”
• Close the deal. Did you have a good time? Then say so. And suggest another date at a specific location.
Gregg Millett, founder of Singles Outreach in Albany, N.Y., recently asked members what they can learn on a short coffee date. In a word: alatte. Did they lie about their age? Do they make eye contact? How do they treat the server? Do they tip? Do they only talk about themselves?
One single woman cut to the chase by saying she wants to see what kind of car he drives, something that’s easy to assess from the coffee shop window. “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be happy with a person who drives a gas-guzzling supersized SUV or, heaven forbid, a Hummer!” Another writer was more practical. Forget the coffee date. Want to really learn about someone? Take “a three-day camping trip, preferably on a rainy weekend.”
Bean there, done that
Or consider something a little less drastic. Tammy Hauser, 43, owner of a management consulting firm in Minnetonka, Minn., doesn’t drink coffee. And if she did, she’d avoid coffee shops, which she feels shortchange those looking for the experience of a real date. “I like the romance, the evening out. It just elevates it from lunch or coffee.” Her top choice: happy hours for a drink or two, where she’d always have a friend meet her after an hour or so “unless I called her from the bathroom and said, ‘Don’t come.’ “ She met her fiance on Yahoo; they’ll be getting married in a few months.
Judy Malmstrom, 65, of North Oaks, Minn., preferred a nice glass of wine, too, in the many years she enjoyed or endured more than 100 dates. “Wine is a little more intimate, relaxing,” said Malmstrom, who married Douglas Malmstrom, 67, this past November.
During her post-divorce dating days, Heather Wells, 37, considered herself the “anti-coffee” dater. Wine didn’t quite do it, either. She only met men for first dates (and a few seconds) in fine restaurants, after heavily screening them via the Internet and telephone.
“I’m a foodie,” said Wells, owner of Executive Events. “It was really important to me that my mate appreciated the fine art of dining.” Besides, she said, you can tell a lot about a man by his menu etiquette: “How he treats the waitstaff, how he orders or admits that he doesn’t know how to order.” Wells met her now-husband at an Italian restaurant. “He was very chivalrous, very classy, but also had a humility about what he didn’t know.”
Ultimately, though, the coffee date, the dinner date, the bar date or even being fixed up by well-intentioned friends can’t guarantee success. The best recipe is probably trying a little bit of everything, and making only one commitment, which is to be open to possibilities wherever you are.
While Parker’s first date with Taylor was in a coffee shop, they actually first met by accident in a less romantic setting: Home Depot, where he works. A phone call got them to Starbucks, but it was that magical je ne sai quoi that turned the brief coffee date into a full day of activities, including trips to Ikea and Menard’s, lunch at Leeann Chin, then dinner and a movie. Soon after, Parker sold her house, moved into his and hasn’t gone on a first-date coffee rendezvous since.
“Internet dating can be safe,” said Parker. “You just have to be smart about it, and one of the ways to be smart is where you meet, like at a coffee shop. You can always move on from there.”
Isn’t it interesting, what we are needing guidelines for these days?
Never text while drunk and other dating advice
1. Don’t use a work e-mail address immediately, even if you have a business card it’s printed on. Either get permission or wait until the other person uses it first.
2. Don’t regress media in responses, or feelings might get hurt. For example, if you get a phone call, don’t text back. If you get a text, don’t e-mail back, or your potential partner might feel slighted.
3. No one is infallible, but watch for typos in written communication. Confusing “to” and “two” or “your” and “you’re” will take the correspondence back to junior high. And not in a charmingly innocent way.
3a. Leave abbreviations like “ttyl” and “L8r” to your younger sister. Non-grating shortcuts like “where r u” are acceptable, even encouraged, in the brief character counts of texts.
4. Never text drunk. Repeat: “Never” text drunk.
5. Don’t expect someone to sound the same face to face as when swathed in the safety of the Internet. It’s not uncommon—not even for you—to be less articulate, flirty and witty during the first few meetings than online, especially if the person is shy. Cut the person a break and allow some time to warm up.
-- McClatchy News Service
In an article from the Examiner.com we find two nice folks talking about their online dating experiences. The article is in red, my comments in black.
BALTIMORE - This week, the intrepid Joan Allen has braved the wilds of online dating and returns from her dangerous expedition to tell the tale.
Joan: I went on my first Match.com date last week and would like to share some red-flag signals. First of all, the man asked very personal questions, such as “Why have you never gotten married? You’re beautiful and intelligent,” and “What red-flag signals have you observed about me?” This was our first date, and I felt like he was interviewing me. I decided I had nothing to lose, so I answered him honestly. I said, “The first red-flag signal is you’ve just had two double martinis, and I would be concerned about your drinking.” His answer? “My sister is an alcoholic, but I’m not. And I’m not going to change.” Needless to say, I never heard from him again.
Dan: Sounds like the date worked out perfectly. For me, a first date IS an interview situation: who are you, what are you about, now stand up and give us a spin. I don’t think his questions, or yours, were out of line, as you both learned what you needed to know — and isn’t it better to do that right off the bat rather than down the road after you’ve been dating this person five or six months?
I’d agree with Don about this. The first meeting/coffee date should not really be seen as a date, but as a screening to see if you WOULD want to date this person. It is a time for gathering facts and impressions, just like the email and phone contacts before the meeting.
Joan: When I told my friend Carol about my date, she offered a few of her favorite red-flag signs about Internet dating: men who’ve never been married, men who don’t call when they say they will, men who are very critical, men who say negative things about their former spouses, and best for last — after a third or fourth date with the same man, when you get home from that date and check your e-mails and find that he’s already online chatting with other women.
Beware, both men and women: It is very common practice for online daters to check on the dating site to see if their date is active on the site. Of course, checking makes you active too, so your date may be doing the same thing: checking on you. But until you have had the “Let’s be exclusive” discussion, do not assume that your date is being exclusive, even if you are. In fact, dating more than one at a time may be a very good idea. Having sex with more than one at a time may not.
Now ladies, sing it to the tune of “My Favorite Things.” “When he’s negative, when he’s sneaky, when he won’t call back, just let your account expire from Match, and then it won’t seem so bad.”
Dan: Then I’m a walking red flag, as I’m 44 and never been married ... and neither have YOU! Actually, all of these apply to women as well. And here’s a few more: women who write, express interest and then disappear off the face of the earth. Women who take you for granted. Women who can’t deal with a man’s female friends. Women who say you’re great but then start dropping comments about your clothes, hair, home — ladies, men may be lumpy, but we’re not lumps of clay for you to mold; take us as we are or take yourself elsewhere. Women who see perceived slights in every word or gesture and demand apologies, free dinners and pedicures, but have no problems dropping atom bomb-sized insults about aforementioned clothes, hair, home, and if WE demand apologies, are informed we’re being wimpy.
And I don’t think to never have been married counts as a red flag. This is usually espoused by people who HAVE been married, realized they made a dumb mistake, got divorced and now embrace that “misery loves company” concept, encouraging everyone else around them to do the same dumb thing. I think, my dear Joanie, that you and I are too intelligent to marry just for the sake of being married. We want that person who is best for us on all levels, emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, so that if and when we do marry, it is once and for all!
Joan: Amen!
The suspiciousness about never marrieds is really about never having had and maintained a long term relationship. A person learns skills in a long term relationship that they cannot learn anywhere else. And if you have had long term relationship experience, you should be wary about someone who had not. Particularly if they are 40 or older. How does one live that long and NOT have a long term relationship? In our culture that values and pushes relationships so, not getting involved takes real work.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Here’s a letter to Dr. Joyce Brothers from the Seattle Times:
DEAR DR. BROTHERS: I started talking to this guy on a dating site on the Internet. At first, I didn’t think I would like him or meet him or anything like that, so I gave him the standard pack of lies about myself. I mean, I lied about my age, my weight, my name, my education and other facts you don’t want to tell a stranger. But now, after a month of chatting together, we are about to meet. It turns out I am very interested in him, based on similar interests and hobbies we have (these I didn’t fake). Should I confess about my lies before we meet, or just surprise him?—M.C.
DEAR M.C.: Before we deal with your upcoming meeting, I’d like to talk a little bit about giving strangers on a dating site a “standard pack of lies” about yourself. I think it is wise not to reveal things like real names, phone numbers, addresses or employers to just anyone, and I’m glad you are prudent. But you should use the type of dating site where you can feel comfortable telling the truth about your age, weight and hair color—in other words, one where there isn’t a lot of pressure to present yourself as looking a certain way.
It sounds as though your incipient friendship is not based on those things you lied about, but on the hobbies and activities you might enjoy together. That’s excellent—and if your new friend can get past the fact that you lied about the other things, it sounds as though you might have a chance to develop a real relationship. But be prepared for him to be disappointed or even angry—especially if he didn’t lie to you. Tell him now, so you can meet on an even playing field.
Standard pack of lies??? Is their a pack of lies that is “STANDARD” nowadays? This woman should fess up, apologize for her caddish behavior, and beg forgiveness. And the guy should NOT agree to meet her, if he cares about his future, at all.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Here’s a collection of little bits and pieces that have been collecting on my desk and are not long enough for full article treatment:
“Guilt coffee”—what you agree to when you can’t say “no,” even when you know this is not a match.
“Don’t ask for anything that you can’t bring to the table, and beware of those who do.” Like good finances, youth and vigor, good health, basic truthfulness.
Especially on the first date, turn off your cell phone, pager or Blackberry and do not talk about you ex. Do not make or take phone calls, answer a page, or check or send emails during a date.
Act and dress your age, in other words, like an adult, and one who is on a date. Spare the flip flops and cutoffs.
Ask questions. You want to find out as much as you can about the other person. And people like it if you ask about them.
Be honest so that you can back up what you say later if you have to. While you shouldn’t be afraid to mention accomplishments, do not brag.
Be attentive and listen for clues about your date. You may need or be able to use them later.
Do not use a date as a confessional.
Not everyone is going to like you. In fact, at least 95% of people won’t. You don’t like everyone, do you? So why do you expect everyone to like you, or get upset when they don’t? Get real. And if everyone DID like you, you would be completely overwhelmed. Thank the universe for doing much of the sorting for you.
Know the expression “No pain, no gain”? In dating, it’s more like “No risk, no gain.” Falling in love means taking risks. Sometimes you get brusied. It’s part of the game. And then you are back to the pain part.
Dare to make the first contact. If you don’t, you will be limited to those few weho contact you first. You are much more likely to get what you want if you do the picking.
Try to get some distance on the whole “Looking-for-Love” business and not get too attached to the outcome. Particularly with specific individuals. Always send out multiple first contacts and do not allow yourself to get focused on one potential candidate. You have no idea if they will respond to you at all until they do, and even then, take your time.
You can’t win if you don’t play the game. And your chances are much better than winning the lottery.
Singles often lie or distort in an attempt to get an edge over others, to “get their foot in the door,” with someone who might otherwise not contact them. It’s a waste of time, because they are much more likely to get the opposite reaction: anger. People who discover they have been lied to feel tricked.
Have an exit strategy.
If you lie, you can’t complain that others do.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Ellen Gammerman writes for the Wall Street Journal and seems to be their onsite expert on online dating. She wrote a lengthy piece called “An online nightmare: Becoming ‘Undateable’” that is worth a look. It’s so dense with stories that I won’t summarize it here. other to say it describes a good idea gone bad.
I know that when I was doing online dating, I wished there was some kind of reporting system so that others could be at least warned about caddish behavior. And some sites have developed systems to do so. But like any good idea, people are always around who are ready to misuse it (like the scammers who are now such a part of everyday Internet life). And people have figured out ways to abuse and manipulate rating systems.
I guess the only route is the middle one: Behave yourself and use good manners, do the best you can with your online profile, making sure it also accurately presents you as you are now, and keep you antennae up and in the “receiving” position. Don’t be a cad yourself, and learn how to spot them.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
PS Read my blog postings on “Mind Your Manners” for help with etiquette.
PPS I do profile reviews and workups. My clients LOVE the results. if you would like me to do yours.
I’ve had an article sitting on my desk for a few months now, “We have a duty to be respectful and truthful” by Bruce Weinstein, who bills himself as The Ethics Guy. I can’t find the link to a web page with the article so that you can read it yourself, but here goes my take on it.
While Weinstein gets a bit heady and philosophical, the bottom line is “You have a right to be respected and told the truth, and therefore others have the responsibility to be respectful and truthful to you.” And I would add, you have similar duties to everyone else. With Internet dating, we have an obligation to present ourselves accurately and not lie. Others with whom we may be involved have a right to know anything that may effect them.
Good, solid, lasting relationships are built on a foundation of trust. Respect and truth build trust. Practice both.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Dating tips from an article at Wistechnology.comhttp://wistechnology.com/article.php?id=3379:
Before going on a date:
• Read a newspaper or a popular magazine so you can have things to talk about.
• Choose an inexpensive restaurant or cafe, and suggest this location to the other party. Don’t waste time saying, “I don’t know, where do you want to meet?”
• Augment your profile with a recent photograph of yourself, no more than a couple years old, taken in a room with good lighting.
• You should be the only person in the photo.
• Try to look open and engaging.
• Try to convey that you are an upbeat and considerate person.
• Wherever possible, indicate that you do have friends.
• Don’t have sex on the first date.
• If you do have sex on the first date, the second date is likely to consist of you cooking dinner at your house and then spending the rest of the night sitting on the couch, watching television.
• Look for someone who is similar to yourself. Opposites attract all the way to divorce court.
• Every man you meet online is married, unless he proves to you that he is not.
• If a man won’t send you his picture, it means that he is definitely married.
• All supermodels, both male and female, are already taken.
Beyond that, if a woman asks you to leave the site you are on and join another dating site that requires you to pay money, then she is a professional and you are not going to wind up in a genuine love relationship.
Don’t mention the fact that you are lonely and depressed, even if you are. If you are truly lonely and depressed you should not attempt Internet dating. People who are truly lonely and depressed represent a huge psychic risk, since they are unlikely to be able to recover from the rejection that occurs when dates don’t work out.
If a relationship isn’t working out, find some way to say so. If you can’t break up in person or over the telephone, at least have the courtesy to deliver your message via e-mail.
Although breaking up is hard to do, the easiest way to break up is to say “I don’t think this is working out between us,” and to avoid giving out any more details.
“There is no way that it is not going to hurt or be insulting,” Huber said. “But even though it’s hard, you are doing the person a favor.”
In other words, if it isn’t right for both of you, it isn’t right for either of you.
Breaking up with someone who is not Mr. or Ms. Right allows the other person to spend their energy dating other people who appreciate them more. “Unless you feel really great about a person, let them go,” she said. “It’s part of responsible dating.”
Including responsible Internet dating.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Way before I was in high school, it sounds as if dating meant going out with more than one person at a time. That sure wasn’t my experience: People paired and stayed that way, sometimes even marrying the first person they ever dated. My brother and sister both did that, and are still married to the same people, so maybe it wasn’t so bad an idea. I didn’t exactly have a slew of boyfriends—married #2 actually—and even when I was dating online, I did one at a time and really was only serious about Drew. There just weren’t that many eligible guys on Match.com in 1998. Boy, have things changed.
Jessica Yadegaran in the Contra Costa Times writes about the new dating etiquette brought with lots of choices: Corresponding, seeing, dating more than one person at a time. It reminds me of when I had a mental health client who was in a committed relationship and having an affair at the same time: She was “very busy.”
Here are some pointers from the article:
• Do ask, do tell: It will come up. If it doesn’t, ask. Are you dating other people? Listen to yourself. Are you jealous? Or unaffected?
• Untimely encounter: If you run into Date B when you’re with Date A, be courteous and friendly. It might be the catalyst for having that confrontation, “Should we be exclusive, or not?”
• How long is long enough? Generally, you date lots of people between relationships or to actually find that special someone. But if you’re on the dating treadmill for years, it might be time to start asking why.
• Milestone mania: All relationships move at a different pace. So don’t rely on a week or month mark. You’ll feel it, once you’re spending the night or meeting the parents.
• Dating memory: You can keep a journal about your feelings or progress, but if you can’t remember the details of your dates, you’re probably seeing too many people.
Most important, don’t conceal information. And if any of the relationships begin to get intimate (ie sexual), it’s certainly time for the conversation about exclusivity. For everyone’s safety.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
And cheaters never win—have you heard that one? Evidently, not everyone believes it, since cheating of one sort or another is pretty common. One reason people cheat is because they can: Folks are much more likely to lie or cheat if they think they can get away with it.
The Internet (and Internet dating) has oddly made it easier to cheat and easier to get caught. The seemingly private nature of your computer, sitting alone and typing messages onto a machine, encourages people to bend the rules if they think it will suit them. It’s a vicious circle: Online daters hear and experience the lies and distortions of other singles online, so they often feel that they have to lie too, just to stay competitive.
If you are trying to find a mate online, lying is totally a losing game. For absolute sure, don’t say anything in your profile or early conversations that will make you out to be a liar at your first meeting! An out-of-date photo is the most common sort of lie, or shaving pounds off your weight or adding inches in height. People get angry when they think you are trying to trick them, and most do not want to continue a relationship with someone who clearly lies. Do not lie! It is not worth the risk.
People who lie are getting caught in other ways than by sight at the first date. Many folks now know how to do background checks for criminal records, divorce records, house and land ownership, and they do them—routinely. Often my clients tell me things that they have found out about potential dates. Other sources of information are Google (common practice to Google someone’s name to see citations), sites like DontDatHimGirl.com (where women can post “reviews” of men they have dated, using real names and photos), and even dating sites (like Consumating.com, whose charming tag line is “A new way to find people who don’t suck”—read about a Consumating user’s dreadful experience here).
Don’t lie, distort or evade in general, because if you do, you will know it, even if your date/partner does not. You will be worried that he/she will find out, what you will do when they do, and your secret will get in the way of your relationship’s development.
And not only don’t lie: Behave yourself, too. Bad behavior can get you bad reviews. As easy as it is just not to answer an unwanted email approach, on some sites, it can get you branded as rude.
Just as I said at the beginning of this post, people are more likely to lie or cheat if they think they can get away with it. Don’t get lulled into thinking your online (or offline) behavior is private. Not anymore. Folks are watching, even if you can’t see them doing it.
From Your Romance Coach,
Kathryn Lord
New technologies shape new behaviors. Did you know that “Hello” as a greeting was sort of invented because telephone users needed some sort of greeting that signaled one had answered the ring?
Internet daters have had to develop whole codes and shadings of behaviors not in existance before online dating. Men and women are now on equal footing as to who makes the first contact.
How long do you email before moving to the phone? I’d say within two weeks, not longer than a month or two, because that leaves too much room for fantasy.
When and how do you meet for the first time? How long do you allow for that meeting? What about safety rules?
An altogether new wrinkle is when to take down your Internet dating profile. Do you leave it up until the both of you decide to be exclusive? It kind of has the feeling like the old-fashioned being “pinned.” Do young folks still do that? Not like getting engaged, but a sign of seriousness.
The underside of leaving your profile up is that your date can go online and check if you are still there and looking. Of course, you can do the same for her. Here’s what Shirly Malove had to say in the Miami Herald:
Q: I’ve been dating a great guy for three months, BUT he still has an active profile on http://www.match.com. I took my profile down after we started dating. I casually asked if he was still seeking dates online and he said, ‘No. I have you.’ Why is he still checking his profile every night? And why am I checking to see if he is checking his profile? Am I insecure?
A: You have some specific questions about your boyfriend and yourself that are difficult to answer without being able to see inside of you. However, what I do notice is that you seem to have sensed something was amiss between the two of you, which led you to check up on his online activity.
For some reason, both of you are reluctant to candidly express your feelings or concerns about where your relationship stands and where it is going. Because you are both engaged in activities that are kept secret from the other, establishing a trusting relationship becomes difficult. Trust and communication are the building blocks of a solid relationship. Feeling uncertain about his commitment to you is both uncomfortable and puzzling and probably explains your tendency to secretly monitor his online involvement.
However, if you each continue on this path, your relationship will be mired in deception and doubt. You must find a way to openly express your concerns and needs in this relationship, along with your hopes and dreams for the future while encouraging him to do the same. By doing so, you discover things about each other which will likely give you better insight and enable you to decide whether investing in a long-term relationship with this person is right for you.
No matter how awkward it may feel to raise the topic, it would be more harmful in the long run for these issues to be ignored. Unless you can openly talk about the unspoken feelings between the two of you, a barrier will continue to grow and interfere with the establishment of a caring and fulfilling relationship, which is most likely what you were both searching for when you began dating. Perhaps this is the source of the insecurity you are experiencing.
What do you think?
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Steve Friedman writing for Match.com’s online newsletter tackles “Why must men always pay for dates?” If you’re interested in the man’s point of view on this controversial issue, take a look at what Steve has to say.
Basically, Steve understands the meaning behind payment, particularly for women. And he does pay, for up to three dates. But then he introduces money into the conversations they are having about hopes and dreams, and if all goes well, the two start sharing the expenses of getting together.
What’s really informative is that it is clear, through Steve, that men are watching the women, too, and how they handle (or don’t handle) who pays for what. These days, when women easily can be making as much or more than their date, sharing not only seems fair, it seems expected.
So guys, expect to handle the costs in the beginning, but ladies, step up to the plate early on and plan to pony up some dollars.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
PS And see what I have written before on this topic here and here.
My loyal chum, reader, and frequent critic The Geezer sent me another volley this week on the subject of “Who pays for dates?” Here’s the link to the article that The Geez sent, and a link to the article referred to there. I’ve written about the etiquette of who pays before, a number of times, actually, and even run workshops on the issue. Seems like this is the top place that the pre-feminists, feminists, post-feminists, and all sorts of other varieties that men and women fall into fight out their differences.
The Geez (and his favorite author Glenn Sachs) argue that men should not be expected to pay on dates. Frankly, I agree. But whether or not they SHOULD, men ARE expected to pay and many fine judgments occur if they do or don’t, or have any hesitation about offering when the check comes.
By the same token, men watch women closely, too, and will form opinions about their date’s character, based on the woman’s assertiveness (or lack of it) around money issues.
The best idea for how to handle this awkwardness that takes care of the matter in the most proactive way comes from my money coach friend Lynn Hornyak: Lynn suggests anticipating the dilemma by bringing it up before the check arrives—we all know the check is coming sooner or later.
I can’t imagine a guy who would not be impressed by a woman saying “The check should be arriving soon. How would you like to handle it?” This gives a guy warning that he has a date who is willing to negotiate around financial issues. This also would be an opportunity for the man to make a generous offer (much appreciated by women) to pay this time, and then set a precedent for future dates by saying “Next time, you can treat me,” or “Next time, we’ll split the bill.” Even if the man pays, a w |
