Prognosti-gator
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I don’t see a problem with no 2nd date after a 1st date that you weren’t happy with. I mean, everyone likes to feel desired, but if it wasn’t working for you anyway, why prolong it.
The disconnect I see is that you’re getting first dates. That means either:
1) your profile isn’t accurately representing you. So, the “real you” isn’t what the other person was expecting.
2) you’re doing something offputting during the date that’s causing an otherwise “matching” person to not want to continue.Since you felt “meh” about a number of the dates, why is that? What did they do that made you uninterested? It may shed some light into where the process is breaking down. Are you just matching too many people? Maybe you need to be more selective in the match process. It’s really hard to tell without being there, so it’s up to you to try to read the situation ass best you can.
Robert, I know this can all feel like we’re “piling on”, but you have some of the longest threads on the site. People are here trying to help.
It feels a little like conversations are something you feel you need to “win.” Part of this comes from the combativeness here, and also due to clues like your weight loss coach saying you’re “intense.” Conversations with someone who always needs to win the conversation are tiring. If you’re doing this on dates, it will definitely be a turnoff.
Conversations are a collaboration, not a competition. Maybe the lessons of improv will be helpful here. Improv works off the concept of “yes and” when interacting with the other artists. I feel like you may be doing a lot of “no, actually …” when dealing with your dates. (The one who offered you a ride, but you “no, actually I’ll take the bus back” being a piece of evidence.)
“Yes and” means you don’t come in and completely negate what the person before you did. You take it and build upon it instead, but don’t just “no” it. That causes things to just stop. This doesn’t mean you just agree to everything anyone says, but you need to keep the flow going. If you just throw a “no” out there, it’s like hitting a wall. The flow of conversation just drops flat and there is effort to pick it up again. This effort is work. And nobody wants their dates (leisure activity) to be work.
“One woman did tell me that I was a gentleman and a pleasant person to talk to, but she felt that I showed no interest in her on the first meet.”
The “show no interest” part sounds a lot like whatever she talked about just got ignored rather than “yes and”-ed where you actually listen and follow up. It sounds like you may have taken the conversation and driven it where you wanted as soon as she stopped talking, rather than keeping it with her and showing that she interests you. (But, of course, going too far ends up in the “interrogation” land, which is also no fun. It really is a delicate dance.)
One thing you don’t mention: how did YOU think the dates were going?
Did you actually feel enough connection with the guy to want to continue seeing him (specifically)? Or, are you looking for a 2nd date because you just feel like you need to be going on 2nd dates because you’re committed to finding a lasting relationship?
You may be getting a string of guys who’ve been doing this longer than you, and are at the point they aren’t going to waste time on extra dates if they don’t feel a specific spark.
You didn’t mention any sparks in your letter, so are you possibly just upset at the abstract idea of not getting a 2nd date, rather than the loss of a 2nd date with any of these particular dudes?
Also, notice how:
if a woman declines a date with you – you are the wounded party.
if you decline a date with a woman – you are stepping aside to not waste her time.You’ve made yourself out to be the noble party in either situation.
These are the types of things that are picked up in conversation by others (whether you mean it that way or not.) It’s these little subtleties that others use to form their picture of “the real you” since we all know that what people put out there (dating profiles, facebook, insta, etc) is a curated version of “the best you” and not an accurate picture.
You’re getting contacted, that means your profile is not a problem in itself. You’re failing in the “retention” part of dating.
If your date was ok with your profile, but picked up on clues that tipped her off on not wanting to go further, then asking her to enumerate the reasons is asking her to help you find ways to evade her selection process. Sort of like telling the thief exactly how you caught them. All you’re doing is training a better thief, not teaching them not to steal.
[edit: this sounds harsh. it’s not saying you can’t get better. what I’m saying is don’t look for “these specific things” to change, but work on yourself with your therapist to improve your overall outlook. if you don’t come across like you’re trying specifically to do the things necessary to “get the girl” – you’ll likely come across friendlier and less likely to trip the warning bells]
Robert,
You tend to look at things in a very robotic way. So, let me try to add in where you are going wrong.
You made the “2nd date” formula out to be:
sm + ok = d2
where “sm” equals the chance the person is your “soulmate”
“ok” is the chance you’ll have an “ok” time on a 2nd date
“d2” being the result: whether you should go for date twoSo, if you don’t have any big “spark” for “sm”, but think you’ll likely have an OK time, then d2 works out above 50% and you think you should go again. You don’t understand why she would feel differently given those parameters.
BUT
Here’s where your math is off. For a woman, there’s a hidden variable, “a”
“a” is the chance of being assaulted by your date.(sm + ok) * (1-a) = d2
For YOU, “a” is typically so close to zero, that it just nets out to mean you’re multiplying by one, so your original formula works for you.
For women, “a” is never zero. The exact value of “a” is unknown. So, unless “sm” + “ok” are unusually high, any little bit of “a” brings that value of “d2” down below the acceptable threshold. The “math” just doesn’t favor women continuing on a “meh” date, even though it works out for you. In fact, the more contact, the more entitled the guy typically feels, so a 2nd date can actually raise the value of “a” higher.
Second dates seem fine to you, because there is (practically) never a time where they could be dangerous to you. Your date doesn’t have that advantage.
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Re: mechanic math
Even if your calculation was correct on the amount to budget each week, because you never know when the payout can be, the correct way to do this would be to PRE-FUND the account. You need to put a buffer of cash in place to cover the full year’s expenses, even if that payout is early in the year.
Why do you think insurance companies exist? Most people will pay more into insurance than they get back. The whole reason they do it is that they may need that money NOW and can’t wait until after a lifetime of paying into the system before they can extract the benefits.
@Kate, well obviously. And that’s why I say mutual friends are off limits. But depending on the definition of “friend” – they may be people he knows that she never comes in contact with. Especially if they are along the lines of “facebook friends” or “gaming friends” – people he may not ever see in person and aren’t really any concern of whether their opinion of LW is good, bad, or indifferent – since they’ll never actually meet.
I think if you’re badmouthing your spouse, you’ve gone way too far. But sometimes friends do talk about problems, if for no other reason than to get a second opinion to see if they are out of line themselves. Without knowing what he said, it’s just up to us to conjecture how bad it was.
I get the idea of not talking about your problems to mutual friends, as you don’t want to put them in the middle.
But, asking advice/talking about problems to your own friends … how is that so much worse than doing the same on a website like this? Without seeing exactly what he said, it’s hard to tell how out of line it is. I will admit that the LW’s description of “bad mouthing” does not sound good … but the LW also says “I’m not blameless and have faults of my own” without going into any details, so I’m hesitant to completely go all in without thinking there may be some bit of an “unreliable narrator” thing going on.
The “not standing up for me when his friend pretended to not know her name” is just weird. If he’s pretending, there isn’t really anything to stand up for. It may just be part of how they joke. This wasn’t a conversation she was part of, but one she saw by reading his texts.
The most damning thing is that they don’t talk to each other. The rest is just kind of fluff.
