relationships

I’m known for ranting about various subjects with my friends, and one of the common themes (especially during Martin’s stay) has been about attraction and relationships. Why do so many girls complain that they’re going out with yet another jerk? or ass-hole? or perhaps something involving even more colourful language? One hypothesis is that it is all too easy to confuse self-confidence for self-centered arrogance, and so one misses the rarer qualities of a secure and caring individual and ends up dating the jerk.

A message in my mailbox today:

Please tell me [this] means you aren’t talking about sex on the first date..! :\

Actually, yes, I was talking about sex on a first date. “Talking about” is quite different from “soliciting”. Some thoughts I’d written about this in an email exchange with a friend began as follows:

Last week I emailed “the date” to say, “ok, you said to email when I’m next coming down to London — well that should be 8th and 9th; will let you confirm for sure closer to the time”.

Thursday I finally managed to sort out all the details of when I was going, where I was staying, etc, so I emailed her, “Saturday 11am till Sunday 5pm; here’s a few ideas of places we could go, things we could do; here’s my number because I’ll be email-less; get in touch!”

Friday: no reply.

This user is not compatible with Internet dating. He is like that really cool game you bought ages ago - the one that won’t install or play properly on your new Windows Vista laptop. Meeting him will be like that moment when, having brought your GHDs to America, you realised that the reason they weren’t heating up was because that continent operates on a different voltage to Europe.

Today I received an email from match.com’s customer service department asking that I rewrite my profile:

Unfortunately, we are unable to approve it at this time. Please submit another profile or alter the text you previously sent by following these steps:

It reminded me of last night’s date, where we had conversation about all sorts of perverted acts of pleasure. And yet, when it came to asking for my number, she had to qualify the question with, “I hope this isn’t too forward of me but…” I don’t know about you, but when you’ve had a chat about [censored] then swapping a phone number doesn’t seem to be a big deal. Or did I miss a lesson in sexual health where I’m meant to be less promiscuous with my phone number…?!