RULES OF DATING

Hey!

You want to go on dates! That’s so awesome! The thing is, you seem to be completely oblivious to the rules of dating, the rules of being a gentleman and the general laws that come along with being a normal member of society. You seem great – you really do – so I’m gonna help you out. Here are my rules of dating. Read them. Learn them. Understand that I’m just trying to help. Don’t get pissy.

RULES OF DATING:

1- If you meet someone online, don’t suggest meeting up in a month. If you don’t want to meet someone right away, it will set off alarm bells in their mind saying “DING DING DING! LOSER ALERT! THIS PERSON OBVIOUSLY HAS SOME SORT OF HIDEOUS PERSONALITY/FACE!” Yep, for real. It looks like you’re just trying to trick them into liking your personality and developing feelings via emails and texts, and then when you meet…BAM! Six fingers on one hand, perverted comments to the waitress and a horrible body odour. Meet someone within two weeks of first contact. Grow some balls.

2- Speaking of balls, just because a girl is really funny and easy going, doesn’t mean you can just tell dick jokes all night. She may be vulgar on stage or with her friends, but it doesn’t mean she wants to spend Sunday afternoon listening to you tell the hilarious story about that time you came on a girls tits while your mom was in the other room. This is not good first date material. Treat a woman with respect. Imagine what dating was like in the 1950s and try to be like that. A gentleman.

3- Don’t ask her how many people she’s slept with. Just don’t. Unless you’ve been seeing each other for a while and she brings it up, don’t ask her that question.

4- If you *do* somehow manage to wrangle the answer out of her, don’t comment on it. Don’t say that she has you beat. Don’t start getting jealous or pissed off. Don’t start fishing for compliments and saying “so how do I measure up against the other 30 guys?” It’s not a competition.

5- Stop talking shit about yourself. A little self-deprecation is okay; hey, we all do it and we all find it funny! But to constantly say things like “Oh, you’re not going to want a second date with me”, “I’m pretty ugly” and “I’m not very good in bed” is just going to piss someone off. I’m not saying be a cocky motherfucker and act like the king of all kings…but the more you talk-down about yourself, the more turned off someone will be. Sell yourself!

6- People don’t want projects. When we were 17 we were okay with dating people who were depressed, cynical and complained all the time, but now we are adults. We all have our own shit to deal with and we all have our own insecurities, so we don’t need to take on anyone else’s problems. Of course when you’re with someone you can always lend a supportive shoulder…but that shoulder has to go two ways. When one person is constantly supporting and the other person is constantly whining, the supporter gets pretty tired pretty quickly. If you have so much to work out that you start spilling your guts on a first date, you should probably take some time and get to know yourself before getting to know someone else.

7- In the same vein, don’t let the crazy show. Women are nuts. Men are nuts. We’re all nuts. Don’t let the crazy show too soon. If they don’t respond to a text right away, don’t send another one ten minutes later asking why they’re ignoring you and calling them a bitch. Maybe they were just sweeping glitter off the living room floor or having a shower. Just. Fucking. Chill.

8- If you are missing an arm, tell the person before meeting them face to face. It’s rude to shock someone like that.

Have any other advice? Add it. Don’t think this advice applies to you? Think again.

Toronto Star link

A link to the Toronto Star article I mentioned in a previous post.

How to say No

Online dating is a tricky thing. On the one hand it’s a great way to meet people, but on the other hand it doesn’t follow the same rules “normal” dating does. There are things you can get away with when you meet someone online that just wouldn’t fly if you met the person on the street or at the bar (or wherever it is people meet these days).

Back in 1997 online dating was thought to be weird and daring; what if the other person was a pervert? What if they say they’re 21 and single, but are really 55 years old, balding and married? What if that person is actually a murderer?! But today it seems that everyone has tried, or has known someone who’s tried, online dating. It’s hard to meet people in Toronto! Between work, rehearsals, an indoor sports league and trying to maintain a social life, who has time to date? Online dating offers a convenient, selective and easy way to meet people and fit them into your calendar. It also offers an easy way out if you’re just not that interested anymore.

So what’s the best way to tell someone you’re not interested in them? To me, the answer is simple: if you haven’t met them face to face yet, either stop replying to emails altogether or start sending shorter and shorter emails, ending them with something non-committal like “all the best” or “have a good week”. To some this may seem harsh, but it’s the option that many people choose.

Just three days ago I saw a personals ad online that seemed promising, so I sent a reply to it, knowing that it could potentially be lost amidst a hundred other emails. As it turns out, he wrote back and we had a couple email exchanges. “This guy seems cool!” I thought to myself, even if he did keep weird hours. When a day went by without hearing back from him I let it slide. When a day and a half went by without hearing back, I decided to not check that email address quite as often (I have a separate email address for dating stuff). When two and a half days went by without a response, I decided he had made the decision not to continue to get to know me. Was I disappointed? Maybe a little. I mean, after so many exchanges he could have at least send a cursory “thanks but no thanks” email. But am I broken-hearted and did it ruin my day? No, because I know I’ve done the same thing. When there is no “face to face” or “phone call” commitment, in my books you’re okay to simply stop replying to emails.

When you meet the person in real life, however, you’ve entered a new territory. You’re no longer “talking to someone online”, you are “going on a date” and, to me, the whole “ignoring” thing just won’t fly. Once you’ve met someone face to face, you can’t just pretend they don’t exist. Sometimes a simple email saying “I had fun yesterday, thanks again, all the best” is fine (because really, you should always say thank you, regardless of whether or not you want to see the person again). Sometimes, however, things can get a little messier.

Take J, for example. I met J on an online dating site and we decided to meet up for coffee. Halfway through the date I knew that he was much more interested in me than I was in him...but he wasn’t totally horrible and I did want to give it a chance, so at the end of the date we shared a small kiss and said goodbye. By the end of date number three I realized that there is no way I could have had a relationship with this man (boy) and decided to break it off. Since we never talked on the phone and communicated mainly through email, I sent him an message saying I was sorry but I just wasn’t feeling it. I apologized, wished him well and braced myself for whatever came next.

After four hours I still hadn’t heard anything back (which was odd, as he worked with computers and therefore was online all day) so I sent him a text asking if he had received it. He replied back (via email) saying “I have received your email.” Huh. Alright, sure...you wanna be a brat about it, then fine. Have a good one.

Days later I receive an email from him, ripping me to shreds. I was called a bitch and a slut, and was accused of using guys then throwing them away. I didn’t understand; I had paid for every single one of our dates, let him down politely instead of just ignoring him and even apologized for feeling the way I did. How did this make me a bad human being, worthy of being called names?

About two weeks after that short and fuming email exchange, I was doing a “clean out” of my friends list on Facebook and decided to delete him in the process. I got a message days later asking me why I had deleted him off Facebook. What?! He had called me names and gotten angry with the fact that I didn’t want to date him. Our last exchange ended with him saying something akin to “thanks for nothing, you stupid bitch”. I didn’t think we were friends anymore and told him as much…which led to more name calling and more of me sitting on my hands and biting my tongue just trying to be the bigger person and not call names back.

Months go by and he sends me a message on the online dating site we originally met on. “Hey, what’s up? I’m bored.” I chose not to reply; no real reason, I just didn’t want to deal with drama again. A week later I receive a Facebook message asking why I hadn’t responded and what my problem was. That was it. J had finally crossed the line and I was not just going to sit idly by and take his crap anymore. I wrote him a scathing message explaining that I didn’t think we were friends as friends don’t normally call one another “bitch” or “slut” repeatedly. I told him I was sorry that I hadn’t fallen completely in love with him after our three dates but felt it was nicer to end things there than two months down the line when he developed significant feelings for me. I told him that if he truly wanted to be friends I’d be willing to give it a go, provided that he stop calling me names and making me feel bad for not wanting to go out with him. I apologized again. Once again this exchange ended with more name calling and a “good riddance” from him, as well as a complete delete and block on Facebook. I haven’t heard from him since.

The thing with dating is that you’re going to get hurt. You will meet a fantastic person and fall head over heels, only to never hear from them again or get ‘phased out’ or something…it sucks and it can be hard, but it’s life. It’s dating. And the worst thing is, you’ll do it to someone else too! We all get hurt and we all do the hurting. Dating is not for the weak.

So how do you say “no”? The same way people have been doing it for a few hundred years – politely. Whether it’s through email, a phone call, face to face or Facebook, there’s a chance you could be hurting someone’s feelings and it doesn’t cost anything to be polite. Like I said earlier, if you haven’t yet met the person face to face then it’s okay to just stop emailing back. It happens, and there are plenty more emails to choose from. But if you’ve spent time with them, the only decent thing to do is let them down gently and quickly – don’t draw it out into a three paragraph message about how and why they turned you off (honestly, it happens. I have hilarious proof). Just a simple “thanks again, but I’m not sure we’d click” would suffice.

Unless they call you a slut. Then all rules are out.

**originally written for this Toronto Star thing**

....***not that I was published in the Star (yet), it's just this guy researching something***