It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Actually getting to a date when you're active on an online dating app is tricky to begin with. First, he either has to "like" something on my profile, which notifies me that he's interested, or I have to notify him by "liking" something on his profile. Kinda like your friend going, "Hey, that guy/girl keeps looking at you." Then once the "like" is received, I get to peruse his profile to see if I think I'm interested in him (and vice versa). If I respond to his "like" or if he responds to mine, we can then "match" and start messaging each other. After matching one of two things happen, you either chat for a while then lose interest and move on or you chat for a while and decide to meet up. I've now proceeded to that point with 2 guys. I've had 2 dates that I thought went well at first, but I'm not sure what exactly happened at the end of date 2.
Guy 1, we'll call him K, and I met up at a restaurant. We had a nice conversation over a very good dinner and then were both reluctant to end the date. I suggested going for ice cream at Brahms. He agreed and then we discussed driving arrangements. He said he would be glad to drive separately, and he didn't mind if I wanted to drive us both. He made a point to tell me that he didn't want me to feel like I had given up my autonomy at any point, so he would decline to be the one to drive us both. I thanked him, we ended up going together in my car. A conversation about boundaries and comfort and being sure to discuss things before they happened also occurred, and it was refreshing for me to see the man be the one to initiate such conversation. He never seemed insulted or angry if I said I wasn't totally comfortable with something, just suggested something else instead and the evening was quite pleasant. We are going out again next week.
Guy 2, we'll call him T, and I met up at a brewery. We had a nice evening of trying different beers, walking though the old train station that the brewery was in, seeing the other shops and things that are there. We talked to a couple of his friends who own a shop in the station, and I even got to check out a bookstore that was also there. We had a good conversation about what brought him back to the area, where he was living before, all the normal first date stuff. The station was really cool. Seriously, beer, food, books - this place has it all! It was getting late in the evening and we started talking about getting food. He suggested coming to his place where he could cook for me and we could have some of the beer he had picked up. I said I wasn't quite comfortable with that, but that I'd buy us some tacos at the brewery and then we could head out. He seemed ok with that, we had our food and then we headed out to the parking lot. This is where things get weird. He offered me a ride to my car, which I declined as it was just around the corner. He then said, "Chivalry is dead and you killed it." Which seemed like an overreaction to me because, literally, my car was RIGHT THERE. He walked me to my car and again offered the invitation to come back to his house to get some pickle beer. I declined again, and mentioned something along the lines of sometimes bad decisions are made when there's privacy involved. He kinda freaked out on me, said he only intended to give me a few cans of beer to take home, show me where he lives, and send me on my way. I ended up feeling like a jerk for a couple mins and then when I was on my way home I got a bit angry because I felt like I didn't need to feel like a jerk.
The flight of the beers.
So I've decided that the end of date 2 is a prime example of why dating is so difficult. I was not trying to insinuate that anything untoward was going to happen if I went to his place. I certainly wasn't trying to accuse him of being a rapist or a murderer, yet that seemed to be how he took my unwillingness to see his house and be alone with him. In my defense, I did tell him that I'm a fan of true crime and anyone who watches or listens to any of that knows DON'T BE ALONE ON THE FIRST DATE! You don't even need huge red flags, I mean, Ted Bundy did a great job of being charming until he MURDERED you! The safety lady at work even told me "Never go to a secondary location because that's when the crazy comes out." She'll be so proud of me on Monday when she sees that I'm still not murdered. I haven't decided if his was an overreaction based on things in his past or if he really thought I was afraid he's some kind of violent psycho. I guess time will tell how things go with T, as he actually has responded to my text this morning... I had assumed he was going to ghost me. I guess there is still time for that, tho.
The thing is, I see his point. I wouldn't want someone to automatically assume, based on my gender, that there's a possibility of rape and/or murder if they were alone with me, either. However, the fact that he became so offended was not helpful. On the other hand, K was sympathetic and understanding and made me feel 100% at ease. Even bringing up the loss of autonomy thing, which I would have only been aware of after I'd lost it! So men, if you really want to be an ally for women, don't be offended when she doesn't want to leave the public eye on the first few dates. Trust me, there is a reason. Most likely it's a very specific reason that she doesn't want to go into. Nothing like trauma dumping on the first date, eh?
I just wanted to share some of these thoughts/insights and the opportunity to rip off Charles Dickens was just too good to pass up. I'll leave you with what I think is a "WTH" situation. As you know, I did FB dating last year. Well one of the guys that I had gone on a couple dates with last year popped up on Hinge. I didn't reach out to him, then a day or so later, he reached out to me. I was wondering if he even remembered that we had already gone out and had both gently faded into the background of each other's lives. I decided not to match with him, as it would be incredibly awkward to ask something along the lines of "am I really THAT forgettable?!" Well, kudos to him for the persistence because he found my # and texted me. After an hour of internally debating, I texted back, and we've been chatting ever since. He is aware that I'm dating around at the moment, and I agreed to let him know if/when things start getting serious with someone else. I'm still kinda going "WTH" because he insists that he didn't lose interest in me or blame me for the intestinal distress he had after we went to a Mexican place that I had chosen, which is what I assumed happened. I did tell him that I had cleaned out my contacts and no longer had his # saved. No clue how he found mine since I lost all my messages when I deactivated my dating profile on FB. MODERN DATING IS WEIRD!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment