Archive for July, 2011

Dear Tamar,

What’s up with these men who show interest in me but don’t act on it? I admit, sometimes I need to be a little more aggressive, yet there’s a fine line because some men do not care for that. Then there are some perfect matches, but there’s no contact. I had a lot of success receiving emails and follow through emails in the past so this is turning out to affect my self esteem. Any advice?

Dear Self-Esteem Smashing,

Dating is tough on the ego. The old saying “whatever does not kill you will only make you stronger” comes to mind. Telling you to be resilient would be the understatement of the century. You’re going to go through dry spells but you’ll only come out the other end if you stick with it and keep your positive mentality intact. Believe me, I know it’s tough. I went through times of despair when I would take breaks, but simply put — and you know this — you’re not going to meet someone if you give up first. Remember not to take it personally. You’re not going to be everyone’s type just like not every guy is your type, even if you do seem to match up on paper (or rather, on screen). Try to widen your net and see if there are other guys out there who may not seem like a perfect match but have just as great traits (or better!).

Online dating works. It really does. Every site loves to advertise the success rate its “clients” have, not only meeting people and going out on dates, but also how many of them end up getting married. Of course I knew these testimonials I was seeing on television and reading online weren’t fabricated. Yet, they really didn’t hit home with me until someone close to me met a woman on 100hookup he eventually married.

Many of my friends have used online dating as a tool to meet people for far longer then I have. But this was the first time that I knew well got married to a person they had met online. To be honest this struck me in a slightly different way than when my friends have married their college sweethearts or gotten married to people they met at work or through friends. I don’t mean to imply that that difference is negative, but rather just that it’s new.

Over the past several years online dating has become mainstream and forever influenced and changed the way that people meet, interact and date, which is something many of us are currently benefiting from. In the end I don’t know if I will find my future wife on 100hookup, through a friend or at a coffee shop. But I do find it comforting to actually know someone who is a true online dating success story.

I don’t know if anybody else on earth can identify with this, so I won’t preface it with “Don’t you hate it when…”

Don’t you hate it when you’re bored at home on your computer and not thirty minutes into chatting with someone you have never met and she invites you over? You know you should not go. First, you have a job interview the next morning.  Second, you’ve never met this person and not only could she not look anything like her profile pictures, but she could really look nothing like her profile pictures. Third, you have been drinking and definitely should not drive. However, you go anyway.

You have trouble finding a place to park at her condo, as all of the visitor spots are taken. You somehow get into the parking garage and find a space. You get out and immediately get lost in the garage. You finally find an elevator and get in. The doors close and the elevator doesn’t move. You hit all of the floor buttons but it still doesn’t move. After about forty five minutes of being stuck in the air-conditionless elevator, you start to contemplate having to meet this women covered in sweat.

You begin to go through the seven stages of nervousness. First is shock and denial. Second is pain and guilt. You blame yourself, and rightly so, for driving to a strangers house in the middle of the night. Third is anger and bargaining. You tell G-d that if he lets you out, you will always use your turn signal. Fourth comes depression. Fifth is the upward turn. You start thinking about all of the good things in your life that do not involve elevators. Sixth is reconstruction. Finally comes acceptance. Just as you are beginning to accept the fact that you are going to die in an elevator, the doors open and your date sees you.

This is, of course, all theoretical, and all of these events never actually happened to me last night.

We all know not to drink and drive and we all know to fasten our seatbelts, but how about driving while your hot date is sitting next to you in the passenger seat? The rules for that may not have legal recourse, but they should be followed just the same. I know its girls who are supposed to be the bad drivers, but you’d be surprised the stunts guys would pull to impress a woman. Just because it’s considered chivalrous for the man to drive, doesn’t give you a free pass to put the pedal to the metal.

Some tips on how not to literally drive your date crazy in the car:

-Have a clean car with a full tank of gas. It’s more important than the type of car you’re driving. Late one night many years ago, my date drove around for half an hour looking for an open gas station. Another date had to clear debris off my seat but there was still tons of clutter under my feet. And if you have the time, go to a carwash or wipe the car down quickly. Seeing a thick coating of dust on the rear windshield with the words “wash me” written into it is not attractive.

-That said, guys who are overly obsessed with their cars are also a turn-off. One guy picked me up in his teeny-tiny luxury convertible freshly waxed with personalized plates. A friend’s ex-boyfriend was a fanatic about his car, but it wasn’t even like it was a 1957 Corvette Stingray, it was a 15-year-old foreign import! And he wasn’t trying to keep it in pristine condition for resale value, he just thought his car was the cat’s meow.

-Driving safely is a major turn-on. Don’t drive like your Grandma, but this isn’t the Indy 500 either. If I end up with whiplash because you slam the brakes at every red light, I’m probably not going to make out with you. Let me know you care about me by making me feel safe in your car. Reclining your seat all the way back and using your knee to guide the steering wheel is not cute. Asking me to be the deejay so you aren’t distracted from watching the road… is. Cursing at the guy who cut you off while you flash your brights and tail him, not so hot. Using your turn signals and waving to the guy who let you in… hot. Slowing down to let an elderly couple or a mom with a stroller safely get on the curb before turning… very hot.

-When it comes to music, program a setting to the Top 40 station and make sure the volume doesn’t impede conversation while at the same time diffusing any awkward silences. I don’t understand when a car full of people pulls up beside me with the base so loud it makes my car vibrate. Who can talk?

-Besides the obvious tips of opening the door for a lady, there are other things you can do to make your date feel comfortable: keep a box of tissues handy; make sure your car’s not making any peculiar noises; and if there’s no parking nearby, don’t be too cheap not to pay for valet sometimes – I wore these sexy stilettos for you, so please don’t make me actually have to walk in them!

People often don’t think about the fact that the woman or man they are talking to belong to a large group of people. This extensive network of people can include family, friends, and professional acquaintances. This excess baggage can have a profound effect on your future relationship with any person.

It is easy to dismiss this fact on a first date. All that you see at the restaurant is a lovely woman. This does not seem so bad at all. What she is not telling you is that her ex-boyfriend is a psychopath and her parents are overprotective. She also has a brother in prison and a baby sister. She routinely goes to the prison several times a week to see her brother. When not at prison, she is busy taking care of her baby sister, who is quite literally a baby. Her parents are notorious hoarders, and cannot take care of the baby by themselves

Also, you are not thinking about this woman’s extensive network of friends. Her best friend lives in Canada and they put aside an hour every night to talk on Skype®. Your date’s roommate is a man with an on again off again relationship with her. You will meet him whenever she invites you over to her place. That is going to be an inevitable nightmare.

Since she is a dog person, she owns five Rottweilers who live in her apartment. She has a restraining order against two other ex-boyfriends that are both in love with her. You do not know this yet, but once you are in a deeper relationship with this woman, you will be forced to deal with these two men as they constantly try to reconnect with your girlfriend.

If no man is an island, then no woman is an islet.

Even though I have never had a problem being Facebook friend with a woman while we were dating that doesn’t mean that there weren’t problem with us being Facebook Friends after we broke up…

The problem one faces when you seriously date someone you are Facebook friends with is that when you break up you are left with two, equally poor, options.

Option #1

You de-friend the person you were dating so that you don’t inadvertently learn any new information about them through the Facebook News Feed. Additionally de-friending them saves you in the event that you succumb to temptation, and view their page in order to see what they’ve recently posted or if they are dating someone new you, by giving you a fail safe which prevents you from the agony that inevitably results from such actions since you will no longer be able to view their page because you aren’t their Facebook friend any longer.

Drawback to Option #1

If you decide to de-friend the person you recently broke up with there is a strong possibility you will look like the smaller person in the situation and may receive flack about it from mutual friends. De-friending on the surface seems immature and might make it seem to the other person or people with knowledge or your break up that you aren’t handling it well.

Option #2

You remain friends with then and hope that you enter into a new relationship or post interesting information and pictures to your profile before they do, so you aren’t the one left feeling as though the other person is doing better without you, or doing better than you at that point in time.

Drawback to Option #2

You may inadvertently learn things about the person you broke up with you don’t want to know, which may lead you to feel bad about yourself or fixate on as a result. Information you may not want to know includes that they are dating someone knew, any information that makes it seem like they are doing better than you, or pictures that show them having fun, particularly with mutual friends or at places where you used to have fun together.

In the end there is really no good way to handle this situation, and to some the whole idea behind my past two blogs may seem ridiculous; but I was once in that camp and have through experience come to realize the potential unintentional psychological damage that being Facebook friends with your ex can inflict. Ultimately social media, and specifically Facebook, aren’t going anywhere, therefore we just going to have to adjust to this new aspect of dating, relationships and break ups, as well as the potential consequences or situations that they might present to us.

Dear Tamar,

My boyfriend of three years passed away ten months ago and I’ve just now gotten back into dating. I already met a great guy. We were smitten, he was very into me, loving and affectionate, but after eight weeks I felt a disconnect.  He told me in a text that it wasn’t me, but wanted to get out of our relationship before he felt trapped and it would be best not to see each other at least for awhile. It wasn’t me, he said, but after awhile he feels that dating is more work than enjoyment. HUH?? I took his lead with our relationship so what is that all about?

Dear Disconnected,

I’ll be blunt — it sounds like he’s not interested in you anymore but is trying to let you down easy. You didn’t do anything wrong; from what you’ve told me, he simply discovered after 8 weeks you’re not his Beshert. At least he figured it out after 2 months and not 2 years. It sucks that this is your first experience after your loss and returning to the dating game but, unfortunately, it sounds like you’ve been initiated back into the club. As a side note: This guy doesn’t sound like he’s going to be getting married anytime soon!

Have you ever told a story on a date you thought was funny/interesting/unique/heartfelt/etc only to never hear from your date again? Yeah, don’t tell that story on 1st dates anymore. Live and learn. You know which stories I’m talking about, the one about your parents eating so many carrots that their palms turned orange (real line I heard from a guy), or the one about your family of sleep walkers who’ve all gone to the bathroom in rooms where there isn’t even a toilet (a friend who will remain unnamed), or the one about that date you went on where the guy had a long thick hair growing out of the tip of his nose (a date I went on). None of these stories need to be told on early dates. Don’t tell stories about how your family is odd just yet, don’t talk about dates you’ve been on and don’t talk about anything having to do with the bathroom. Talk about you. The best you. Leave the embarrassing stories for later… there will be plenty of time, believe me!

Going out and meeting people on your own is so easy.  Everything is handed to you and women approach and engage in conversation with you because you are so great and know how to rub cologne onto your neck.

Nightclubs are therefore the perfect environment for this series of events to occur.  First, they are notoriously quiet.  It is often compared to a library, but instead of books for free, you get alcohol for your life savings.  There is no awful music pounding through the walls until you feel that the blood running through your veins is going to explode into an orgy of flesh, bones, and organs.  Just walk up to any girl and start talking in a soft voice.  Not only will she find this endearing and not creepy in any way, she will probably hand you a pre-written seven-digit code on a napkin.  Be sure to either memorize this code or write it down as soon as possible.  It is the only way that you can ever get access to any woman outside of the quaint, homely nightclub.

Nightclubs are also known for being free from the hectic, overpopulated lifestyle of urban America.  They are uncrowded, providing free movement for everybody inside.  People walk about and care for one another’s personal space without simultaneously making their bodies pulsate in a non-repetitive fashion.  People are self-conscious about how stupid they might look if they started dancing like idiots, and often become very self-aware. Feel free to walk up to other men and spill your soul.  Tell them how pretty their female companions are.  Walk up to them and ask them if they feel as horrible as they look with their pink shirts tucked into their shorts.

Or do none of these things and not die.

Social media and, for the purposes of this blog specifically Facebook, has transformed the way we access information about other people. Even though most of the information we are exposed to about people isn’t particularly relevant to our lives, or even information that we necessarily need to know, we are nonetheless inundated with it every time we access the Facebook site.

Personally, I assume everything I say, do or write is going to eventually be heard, seen or read by someone, somewhere, and therefore I try to limit engaging in activities I wouldn’t want people to see pictures of the next day, or write things on my blog about myself that I wouldn’t want other people outside of my close circle of friends and family to know about me.

After college I got my first job and during the time leading up to my first day I did my best to track down the pictures other people had posted of me that weren’t, shall we say, flattering. It was during this exercise when I began to realize the true extent of how much my, and pretty much everyone else from my generation’s life, was on Facebook for (depending on your privacy settings) everyone, or at least all of our Facebook friends, to see.

It wasn’t until my junior year of college when Facebook made its’ way to Indiana University. Yet, this still left me with plenty of time to fill my Facebook page, and many of my friends’ pages, with “interesting” pictures, comments and other information. Through the Facebook newsfeed I am inundated every time I log on to the site with information about what my Facebook friends are doing, where they are, and what information and pictures have recently been posted about them or they added to their profiles.

As a result of this newsfeed, and the access that my Facebook friends have to the information and pictures attached to my profile, I have definitely been more careful with who I accept to be my Facebook friend, which includes not only people I meet but also women who I’m seeing. Initially the thought of being Facebook friends with the woman I was dating seemed like a no-brainer since, after all, it was only Facebook; it wasn’t until after going through a break up that I realized being Facebook friends with your ex was a potentially complicated situation.

Even though I have never had a problem being Facebook friends with a woman while we were dating that doesn’t mean there weren’t problem with us being Facebook friends after we broke up…