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Happy Hour Dating Dilemmas

It’s time for two Happy Hour Dating Dilemmas. More and more, I am asked questions about Internet dating. In the grocery store, when I’m picking up my dry cleaning, at my aerobics class, by email, on Facebook, Twitter, and even at my daughter’s middle school. I guess once you’ve been on over 250 online first dates, you get to be known as something of an expert.

I am happy to help. For one thing, I don’t think anyone should have to go through what I did. Dating stalkers and lawyers is not a great deal of fun. Secondly, if vicariously we can learn through the mistakes of others who are experts, then isn’t that better? I mean, the self-help book industry is making millions off of it for a reason.

So here are two Happy Hour Dating Dilemmas (they are two-for-ones), and I plan to feature two more every couple of weeks. Of course the names and identifying details are changed to protect the innocent and, sometimes, the very very guilty.

Dear Tiia,

I have been corresponding with a girl from one of the online dating services. We seem to have quite a bit in common, so we set up a time to meet. Then, out of nowhere, in an email she asked me, “Do you think you’ll like me? What happens if you don’t like me? What do you see happening at our first date?” Her picture seems fine (though that’s not the most important thing to me), and she has many good qualities like a sense of humor and intelligence, but this put me off. I’m not sure how to respond. Do you think she’s looking for a one-night stand?

Signed,

Worried William

Double W,

She sounds really insecure more than anything. I doubt that she’s looking for a one-night stand. I DO think that it’s really bad Internet dating etiquette, however, on her part for exactly the reasons you’ve described. It makes her seem desperate which is never attractive and is confusing. You have two choices: try to reassure her and go ahead with the date or back out now and consider this a red flag. I know which one I’d pick. But then, I’ve seen a lot of flags.

Tiia

Dear Tiia,

I really would like to start online dating. I have been divorced for over three years, and I’m a single mom. I’m attractive and well-educated. But I don’t know how to write the profile and I’m scared of getting rejected. Help!

Nurse Nightengale

Night,

For one thing, in the US today as many marriages are begun on the Internet as in church (one-fifth). What are you waiting for? What is the worst thing that can happen? You don’t meet someone? Well, you already AREN’T meeting someone! So…duh, this is a no-brainer.

Believe me, there are so many men out there who want to meet you or someone like you. It takes courage and determination, but so does raising kids on your own and you’re doing that. So either watch another episode of “iCarly” and feel sorry for yourself, or start writing that profile.

As for that profile, remember my adage, “Online dating is a lot like a job interview and should be treated as such.” The dating profile is similar to the job application. You want to present yourself in as positive a light as possible without lying. Save the reptile collection and acid reflux for later…much later. You are marketing a product--yourself. In that respect, you are writing advertising copy for a very desirable person so your profile copy should be catchy, funny, intelligent, and warm. Above all, it should NOT have spelling or grammar errors. For more on profile writing check out the relevant article on the Discussion tab of my Facebook Page or email me. Good luck and happy dating!

Tiia

And now, the results of the latest blog survey. The question was, “As a single parent, how do you approach dating someone with/without children,” and the results surprised me.

• 42.9%  don’t screen potential dates based on whether or not they have kids but on other factors
• 28.6% prefer potential mates who have kids but if other factors are great they’d consider dating them
• 28.6% also said that they prefer daters who do not have kids but if other factors are great they’d give it a try
• 28.6% (a three-way tie) said that it really just depends on the individual person.
• 14.3% reported that they only date people who have children.
• 0% said they only date men/women who do not have children

A new survey starts this week, and the topic is: First Date Pet Peeves! Please make sure to register your vote.

copyright © 2010  Tiia Jones

Nurse picture courtesy of gryphonscry.wordpress.com

love.com: Internet Dating Rule #15 Never Date Anyone Without a College Degree

 

PROFILE trevor69 Funloving, Easygoing, Heavylifting—its all who I am. Active within 24 hours 30-year-old man Colorado Springs, CO, United States Seeking women 25-35 Within 50 miles of Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States Relationships: Divorced Have Kids: Yes and they live away from home Want Kids: Not sure Ethnicity: Caucasian Body type: Athletic and toned Height: 6’1” Hair Color: light brown Eye Color: blue Smoke: No way Drink: Moderately Education Level:  High School My Job: Sales/Marketing Interests: Weight training, watching sports, health and fitness, campin, music and concerts, movies and videos, fish keeping

I dressed carefully for this date because, improper use of the word “its” notwithstanding, this guy was a hottie. He had beautiful blue eyes and obviously spent a LOT of time at the gym. One of the pictures showed him lifting weights, and the muscles in his arms were positively bulging. He wanted to meet at the bar in The Outback Restaurant so I arrived in my new tight black skirt and a red blouse. I also put on some sleek black heels that were to die for. There was quite a bit of leg and cleavage action going on.

I have to say he looked good. His large chest filled out the button-up shirt nicely, and the rolled-up sleeves left enough forearm showing for my imagination to take hold. He stood up and took my hand.

“I’m sorry I’m late. I warned you about it though,” I said when the introductions were complete.

“That’s ok,” he answered, “do you want something to drink? I’m having a sparkling water.”

“Actually, I’ll take a glass of Cabernet,” I said to the bartender.

Trevor looked at the bartender. “I have to watch what I drink. Training you know.”

“No, not really,” I said and looked steadily at him. What happened to fun-loving?

“So tell me about your job,” I said starting a topic of conversation that almost always successfully starts dates discussing themselves; their aspirations; their likes/dislikes; generally revealing their personalities.

He shrugged, “It’s a job.” I knew that he worked in sales at a manufacturing firm of some sort, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what kind of company it was, and he wasn’t being very forthcoming with information.

This wasn’t productive. “Oh, well I work as a teacher. I teach sixth grade.”

“I know,” he said.

We sat in painful silence. “What do you do for fun? Obviously you like to work out,” I smiled.

He seemed to warm to this topic, “I work out twice a day for an hour. It’s what gives me purpose. In the morning, I do cardio and a cycle of abs and shoulders. Then in the afternoon, I do legs, arms, chest, and back. I have a light day on Saturday and just work out in the morning and do some boxing drills.”

“Wow,” I said hoping to sound interested, “that’s a lot of working out. Do you have any time for anything else?”

He leered at me, “Sometimes I make time for girls.”

Sheesh. He was cute but this conversation was painful. “Have you met a lot of women in internet dating?”

“A few,” he answered, “I don’t got a lot of time with workouts and my job. Plus, you gotta get a lot of rest with this sort of training schedule.”

“I bet.” I figured I’d try taking a more assertive approach, or maybe you could say it was passive-aggressive. “I’ve met quite a few men off of the internet,” I began, “but it’s difficult sometimes because a lot of them only talk about themselves and they don’t ask any questions about me.”

“Yeah,” he said as he signaled to the bartender for another round without looking at me, “good thing that’s not me.”

The bartender informed us that our table was ready for dinner, and we made our way through the crowded restaurant. My cell phone rang, and I excused myself to talk to the babysitter who was watching Leah (not my Dad).  As if my life wasn’t crazy enough, now my Dad has decided to live “off the grid” in a Yurt (read fancy tent) in New Hampshire. Luckily, everything was alright and the new sitter just needed to know if Leah could stay up later (she could) so I returned to the table to have some more titillating conversation with grammatically-challenged Trevor.

I took a deep breath, “Well, what would you like to talk about?”

“What makes you happy?” Trevor asked. This was progress. At least he was asking a question, and it didn’t involve squats or bench presses.

“Hmm…good question. I guess lots of things. My daughter makes me happy. My students make me happy when they learn something—when they finally grasp something we’ve been working on. The sunshine makes me ecstatic. How about you?”

Trevor smiled and I noticed that his eyes really were an amazing shade of blue. “Adding more weight onto my reps. Pushing myself harder than the day before. Making love to a beautiful woman. Watching a funny movie.”

I took a bite of my shrimp cocktail, “Ok then, what makes you sad?”

“When people who supposubly are in charge don’t got no idea what they are talking about. When the Broncos lose. When 7/11 is out of my protein drinks,”

These were right up there with brain cancer and children dying of AIDS in Africa. He hadn’t asked, but I figured I would just go ahead and share my list anyway due to the dearth of conversation topics.

“It makes me sad when parents don’t care for their children,” I said. “And I am very sad when I can’t help someone who is hurting themselves. I also hate natural disasters.” (This is true, and I thought of some sarcastic comments to share with him about how my love life was one of them, but didn’t figure he’d get the irony so I refrained.)   “I feel melancholy a lot, but I guess that’s not the same thing to me.”

He cocked his head to one side on his muscular neck, “Huh?”

I thought about how I could get out of the date early. Our dinner hadn’t even arrived yet so it might be somewhat difficult to extricate myself. I wondered what sort of karmic forces were at work that made it so difficult to find a semi-intelligent man with whom to spend an evening. Was it because I wouldn’t go out on a date with that repulsive fat guy named Norman (they are always named Norman) in college?

In the end, I suffered through the rest of a very agonizing evening and went home to watch “Blind Date.” I derived some fiendish pleasure in the fact that their dates were at least as bad as mine.

copyright © 2009  Tiia Jones

Writing Your Internet Dating Profile Part I: love.com

 In general, writing an internet dating profile is a lot like a job interview.  You want to create a favorable impression of yourself without giving away unnecessary, negative information.  All this, while not actually lying.  For example, at a job interview you don’t want to say “I’m a compulsive neat freak who can’t stand change, all of which drives my co-workers crazy,” (even if, in my case, that’s mostly true).  Instead, you would say, “I’m a type A personality who is highly organized and works well in a structured environment.”  See, doesn’t that sound better?   It’s a tricky business, and I continually see people who do it badly.

A pitfall here that is difficult to avoid if, like me, you seek to please is to avoid becoming a social chameleon.  It took me a couple of years to realize that, in the interest of putting my negatives in a positive light and not offending potential dates, I was often changing the essence of who I was to mirror the person I was with.  This will never lead to the necessary “spark” required by all successful relationships because it’s based on a false pretense.  So be yourself, just maybe don’t give all of yourself away right up front.  They don’t need to know that you collect Christmas Barbies in your profile narrative—save that for later, much, much later.  And in my defense, I’ve heard they can be a really good investment.

To begin with, you need a headline that goes next to your picture.  This is the first thing prospective dates see, and I have seen some hideous ones.  Even if your first and only reason for dating is finding a rich husband, don’t make your headline, “I want a sugar daddy.”  I use that as an example because I saw it—no kidding.  Make the headline something that is catchy but is the essence of who you are and what you want.  You also need a screen name or identifier that is your “name” for internet dating on love.com.  Use common sense here too. 

I have to stop for a minute here and emphasize what is perhaps the most important thing of all.  In all of these long years, talking to both men and women who are out there in the internet dating scene, the one thing I hear more than anything else as a criticism of people’s profiles is that they contain spelling and/or grammar errors.  There is no excuse for this.  Run spell/grammar check.  Have someone proofread.  It makes you look unintelligent.  So unless that’s the type of person you want to attract, avoid this at all costs.

Your narrative section is where you have an opportunity to let your personality show through.  It is a little bit hard to write.  I have written and re-written mine lots of times, and I encourage this.  For one thing, every time you re-write or edit your profile, it gets moved to some cosmic “higher order” in the love.com scheme of things so that people see it first.  That’s good, right?  Also, you change and evolve even in a relatively short period of time.  And once you see the fruitcakes who are out there, you’ll definitely want to refine your search.  Don’t worry, though, it’s worth it!

Now, I have noticed that sometimes people’s narrative profiles tend to sound pretty negative, and I think that is off-putting to most.  Another thing that tends to be difficult to read is when a person puts themselves down.  One profile I read said (and I am sorry to say that I went on a date with this guy) “I am sure I have some good qualities but I just haven’t found very many of them yet.”  Keep it light, and remember to put your negatives in a positive way. 

Upcoming Topics:  It’s OK to be Picky in Internet Dating; Answering Questions for your Online Dating Profile

copyright © 2009  Tiia Jones