How not to have a DTR

I’m absolutely amazed that I’ve made it this far into the blog without writing about the Determine the Relationship (DTR). I suppose the reason that I haven’t written about it is because I avoid having DTRs at all costs. Talking about a relationship inevitably involves talking about my feelings and talking about feelings falls into the category of yucky love stuff. Yucky love stuff is not my thing.

So I can’t complain that I’m pretty confused as to what the status of my current relationship is. If you’re counting, I’ve been dating my boy toy (BT) for about a month. (Anniversaries less than a year also count as yucky love stuff, but in this case we met the night of a monthly event so it’s easy to keep track. And it’s not like I celebrated it.) I wouldn’t even be wondering what the status is except that I accidentally brought it all up. But being me, rather than taking it as an opportunity to clear things up, I just proceeded to mulishly refuse to commit to anything one way or the other. But let me take you through the sequence of events.

The BT and I spent our first full day together this weekend. We have a lot of scheduling conflicts that typically mean going our separate ways the morning after. That night, over dinner, he was telling me all the things that make him a good roommate. I pointed out that for all the good he does, he also got caught making out with his girlfriend in the living room when his roommate came home. Which, of course, would have been a totally innocent thing to say if it were a story he had told me about some other girl. Being the girl in question, however, I just sat there thinking, oh shit. That's not what I meant. I spent a couple of seconds thinking, should I say that's not what I meant?, then opted not to draw further attention to me unceremoniously dumping girlfriend into a conversation after we'd spent our first whole day together. And the very awkward moment passed.

Then later we were talking about when we first met and he finally admitted he was just trying to get laid that night. Well, duh. But he couldn't (or wouldn't) really explain why he called me later. I got the chance to admit I was seeing someone else. But then that's where I got myself into trouble again. I should have kept my mouth shut because one thing led to another, and I think I agreed to be exclusive. It's all kind of hazy, but he said something about not wanting to see other people and I tried to counter with do whatever you want, just don't have sex. I said I didn't care, but he said he did. So this is where I was supposed to say, women in their 30s dating guys in their 20s cannot in good conscience agree to be exclusive. Except I didn’t. I didn’t say anything at all.

And then, to cap it all off, he did the same thing back to me. I can't remember what he said, but it was the same abstract use of girlfriend that also related to us personally. So, to sum up, I may or may not be dating someone who considers himself my boyfriend and might expect me to be exclusive. If I weren't such a coward, I'd learn to do this right.

Find me a find

So the topic for today’s blog is matchmaking (what, you don’t know the lyrics from Fiddler on the Roof?). This came up when a friend of mine looked into a matchmaking service that cost $800 for five dates. She balked at the cost— a single woman’s gotta be smart about putting money into savings. I said she should pay it although I think there should be some sort of guarantee with the money. I mean Match.com will give you another three months free if after six you don’t find anyone.

Apologies to the accounting geeks, but I’m not going to try to come up with a present value calculation of a spouse. Needless to say, it’s considerable, especially for men who for some reason get paid more once they’re married. So $800 is cheap when you think about it. However, considering some of the bad dates I’ve been on, $800 to do something you’re not assured you’re going to like is way too much money. Maybe that’s where the matchmaking does come in though. I’ve had plenty of good dates that I didn’t want to take further, but was happy I went on. If matchmaking can at least make sure you’ll get along, that’s something.

It all comes down to whether or not matchmaking is a valuable service. I like to believe it is, Millionaire Matchmaker aside. Sorry, but she pisses me off with her regressive views about dating. Not that I’ve actually seen the show, just heard her on Tyra. But I believe in the work of specialists, of hiring someone to do something you can’t or don’t feel like doing yourself.

But then I question whether it is a skill. Does a matchmaker really match? Or is it just someone who knows enough people of both sexes and puts them together based on all the things we’d do anyway—similar backgrounds, educations, values, etc. In which case, you’re just paying for a vetting service. Not worth $800 unless you’re the type of person who constantly finds themselves going out with losers and sleezeballs.

At this point, you may be wondering why I think she should do it. Well there’s a stereotype about us focused, ambitious career gals that we’re willing to pursue a ring with the same determination we put to our careers. I reject that stereotype because frankly, if I wanted to get married that badly, I’m sure I could. However, I don’t see anything wrong with pursuing love with that level of determination. Advancing my career took great personal sacrifice, years of unmitigatable stress, and a hefty chunk of change. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to do the same to find someone you can have a long-term relationship with.

Compare and contrast

If you’ve learned anything about me by reading this blog, it’s that I take a pretty rational approach to dating. Pros and cons, red flags and bonus points, test questions, and feelings all figure into the mix when I’m trying to make up my mind about a guy. It’s not a coincidence that feelings are last on that list. Part of it is out of necessity. My gut luvs a wounded bird. Show me a nice guy who’s struggling to get it together and my gut will call out to help him. No, gut, no! So you can see why it’s best to substitute rational thinking when my feelings get involved.

When I compare the two guys I’m dating, I find I’m going in opposite directions on each. Rationally, the glasses guy has the advantage. He has long-term potential. It’s stupid to get involved with someone whose priorities are completely different than mine. But my feelings are telling me something else. I am in full-on crush territory with my boy toy while glasses guy’s assumption that I’d accompany him home after our last date left me very uncomfortable*.

Head or heart? Is it ok to have an inconsistent policy? In terms of the glasses guy, the decision is easy. My rational mind is not dumb enough to ignore my gut when it sounds an alarm. With the other guy, my gut is having no problem ignoring my rational mind. It’s not a fair fight, either. Rationality stands alone; Feelings gets to bring along Hormones into the ring. And we all know how much of a punch hormones can pack.

Ok, enough torturing that metaphor. This is all going to end badly. Hopefully it will make for some good blogging.

* I wasn’t altogether sure if I’d hear from the guy again after refusing his offer, but I got an email from him today. I never get an easy out.

Since when do things work this way?

I seem to be living in an alternate dating universe where I do everything wrong but it all comes out ok in the end. The first wrong move was giving my number to some guy I met in a club. But I ended up having a great date with him. Next, I did something that somewhat goes against my personal standards. I don’t believe in giving my dates tests. Generally, testing on dates means setting someone up to fail. And my test fits that rule too however honestly I present it as a choice between two viable options.

Option 1: Have sex with me on the first date. Run the very high risk that I will freak out about it, get awkward, and never want to see you again.

Option 2: Don’t have sex with me and be assured of seeing me again.

The first time I issued the test the guy chose option 1. He was utterly convinced that I would not freak out and would want to see him again. This was a strange conviction since I had never agreed to go out with him in the first place—I was attending his house party as a friend when he basically attacked me after working up enough liquid courage. Needless to say, I block-sendered his ass the next day. The conviction was doubly unfounded when you consider he had no skills in bed.

The second time I issued the test the guy chose option 2. He took me at my word and definitely wanted to see me again. I gave him the choice not because I had no real interest in the guy like last time but because I liked him and didn’t want to fuck it up. So rather than being told to grow up and ask for what I want, I got all the foreplay that had been missing from before and then some.

What do I do next? Invite the guy out to trivia night with my friends before our planned second date. Let me just double check myself here. Yup, in my list of relationship milestones you should definitely have more than one date before meeting the friends. The guy should not be up for this (oh god, she’s going to give me a drawer for a third date!!!), and he should not come out, have a good time, get a shitload of questions right, and then want to see me again. Lucky for me, the reason he came out was that almost none of my friends showed. I spent the night in awe of his skills and waiting for someone to figure out he was only 23.

The date where I show up and I’ve already met the guy

I was very nervous about the traditional date for a couple of reasons. First, what would we talk about?! I didn’t have a whole profile on the guy that I could study from beforehand. Second, he did not cop to his age when we met at the club. I knew he was getting a master’s degree, but not how long he’d been at it. I guessed him around 25, which moved out of my age range last birthday. Third, I mean seriously, how could this possibly turn out well. You do not meet a guy in a club, exchange a handful of shouted words at each other, and then find out you’re a good match. You’re supposed to meet a guy in a club, exchange a handful of shouted words, and then have him text you two nights later for a booty call. 

Well, I guessed wrong on all three counts. There were lots of things to talk about. We managed to cover politics, religion, our upbringings, our families, and lots of other things. It was the kind of date where you’re so excited to bring things up, you end up interrupting yourself. And we are a surprisingly good match (so far—early days). Despite having completely opposite backgrounds, we’re well matched on our beliefs and values. Also, we both know what it’s like to be saddled with glasses in elementary school and to never have a date in high school.

Of course there’s a catch. I don’t have a problem dating younger men. But much younger men? What am I going to do with a 23 year old? Ok, I can think of some good answers to that. All joking aside, I'm not one to throw back what the universe sends me, and right now it has sent me the first guy in a long time that I can connect with. The relationship has no future so at some point if exclusivity becomes a problem I'll have to deal with that. In the mean time, I'm doing myself a favor by seeing someone whose company I really enjoy. Stupid universe.

Raining again

It’s annoying how dating is feast or famine. Ok, so after meeting a couple of duds, I ended up going out on a good date. As much as I curse this evil time of year for making me sneeze and cough, the high pollen count did do me a solid. The guy I was meeting changed out of his contact lenses because his eyes were so irritated and wore glasses to our first meet up. Mmmmm, I love me a guy in glasses.

Then that weekend a friend and I went out dancing at the hipster club in my neighborhood. It’s fun to go dancing there because they play music I like and the guys don’t try to grope you. My friend quickly got picked up by a guy and sort of left me dancing on my own. This eventually led to me being approached by a guy. He kept a respectful distance, so who am I to complain? My friend ended the night making out with her guy; I ended it turning down an offer for a "guaranteed good time" (it was sincere and cute in person). But I gave him my number. I used to never give out my number until I tried it a couple of times and realized they never call anyway.

To my utter shock, he did contact me. We swapped a couple of texts then kicked it over to email. From there we got into the pattern of swapping several short emails throughout the day. To my even greater shock, his emails were funny and smart. So we agreed to go for drinks that weekend. At which point I got incredibly nervous. No kidding on how pervasive online dating is, I can’t even remember the last time I went out on a traditional date.

Conversational black hole

I guess the vetting process works pretty well for online dating, because I’m actually surprised it took until now for this to happen. I went out with a guy and ended up in a disagreement about animal welfare. Uh-oh. The one issue that I just can't get behind at all. For the continuing anonymous record:

Animals can’t talk. That makes them inferior to people.

Doesn’t mean I’d eat a developmentally disabled person. And aren’t you an idiot for trying to equate the two.

I would, however, eat a chimp. Animals is animals; peoples is peoples. It’s not a spectrum.

All of those points came up in our discussion. So I defused the situation by hedging and saying that we can agree that choosing more humane ways to raise animals is better than less. Which is almost a complete lie, but storming out didn't seem like a good way to go. And it was irrelevant because he had smaller hands than I do and no lips. So we parted ways and then he emailed me the next day asking me out. But he made this big thing like it should be a date and someone should pay. Someone? You asked me out, how is the payer unclear? Apparently, one can love animals but eat them and like me but not buy me dinner.