Are we going on a date or hanging out? (ModRom Ch2.1)
While reading this chapter of Modern Romance, I was reminded of the moment when I realized that there was a change afoot in relational communication. It was in college with my second crush, way back in 2008. She was a few years younger than me and the change I noticed was the reliance on text communications (gchat back then, lol) for the vast majority of our communication.
It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was different. What I disliked about text communication is the lack of social cues. You have to be careful with texting to try and make sure that what you say can’t be construed to mean something else, which can feel impossible at times. Reminds me of that Key & Peele sketch.
As much as I knew that texts were “different”, I think what this chapter did teach me was to just be more careful about messaging women in general. It is advice I’ve heard from female friends as well. It’s probably cause I’m the (somewhat unique?) type of person that enjoys conversing with anyone who’s open to actually having a conversation. So, it seems that my friendliness and openness with women often gets construed as something beyond my level of interest in that person.
the ‘hanging out’ vs. ‘dating’ question
It relates to one of the bad text examples he gives about the “hanging out versus dating” question. Recently, I’ve pondered this idea a fair amount. I like to say that I don’t have much dating experience because until recently (with the advent of dating apps), I’ve never been on an expressed “date” with someone.
But I have “hung out” with girls one on one a fair amount over the years. I enjoy meeting new people one on one. I love learning about what drives a certain person and what it is that they want from life. So I think I get dinged on both fronts, both which can be signs of “interest”: meeting people one on one & trying to learn about their passions.
The other problem for me is that I can’t say that these “hang outs” never lead to some interest, cause a small minority of them do. But it’s a pretty small minority. I’ve easily met 300+ people one-on-one in the past 4 years? Of those, probably about half women. In that time, I’ve “asked out” 1 of those girls and had some interest in maybe 4 or 5 of them?
There are other problems with trying to define what the meaning of a certain meetup is.
- People can have different definitions of what a “date” means. Is it the first time two people meet? Or is it only when one person has definitive interest in pursuing the other?
- People may not want to define things when they themselves are unsure of their intentions.
- People can meet as friends and only develop interest thereafter.
The problem lies in the fact that there’s just no predefined process of getting to a successful relationship.
I do feel like I’ve missed out on potential relationships due to missing the timing of asking someone out on a “date”, whether it was too early or too late. That’s one way to look at it, but at the same time, for someone like me, the failures of asking “too early” could also be related to the Brad Pitt Rule.
What is the Brad Pitt Rule you ask? It’s simple: “What would this girl do if Brad Pitt just asked what you asked?” (I understand that this reference may be a bit out-dated…who would be a good new reference?)
The Brad Pitt Rule is more about how much the other party makes the effort to meet your request or not. Here, though, I’m looking at it more from whether she says yes or no period. Meaning, if you’re a really good catch, you’re not going to run into “timing” problems as much.
So someone like me, I feel I’ve run into “timing” problems, but I also feel that it’s more of a reflection on me feeling that I’ve not been that great of a catch :\. I’m working on changing that, though!
The two pieces of advice that I’d give myself after reading through this section are two-fold:
- Be more careful about meeting with women one-on-one for purely social reasons.
- Work on yourself, so you stop blaming “timing” as the reason it didn’t work out :).
