Sharing a funny but true article a friend sent me.
dating
The Games We Play
I was in a strange mood for the past few days, induced by reading melancholic books (Middlesex – hermaphrodite meets Detroit) and watching some melancholic movies (Le Concert – Russian poor musicians in Paris and Blue Valentine – Ryan Gosling, finally a real man but is going through a falling apart marriage). It made me even more contemplative about life, which was further exacerbated with the abundance of free time on my hands.
I was thinking about men-woman relationships and how it used to be easier when I was younger. You like someone, he doesn’t like you, you mop around a bit and get over it as there are plenty of other fish in the sea. Guys used to be much more romantic. They would buy flowers, write long letters (and later on e-mails) and would put a genuine effort in catching your attention. But at some point in time, things reversed. The long letters shortened themselves to that “what r u doing?” text message sent at 1am, when it’s clear that the party in stake is not playing badminton or knitting, or that the sender is expecting an answer to an altogether question. We also started playing this weird games of availability that somehow are aimed at indicating a serious intent – don’t answer on the first ring, don’t reply to texts until the next day, don’t call the girl for at least a week after the date. And these are just the very mild forms. I can go into the way worse ones but I would maybe keep this for another time. It also seems like men became picker and started going younger and younger in their tastes (and behaviors), while women became more flexible and started accepting so many things that would have been completely unacceptable before.
When recently a nice younger guy asked for my number, I obliged, despite being quite uninterested. He called and I was busy, and then he called again and I was travelling and he sent some texts, which I ignored. I was expecting that he should be well versed in the protocol of opposite sex communications but he kept persisting. I then felt bad because I hate the above games and wanted to encourage a young soul to continue putting an effort in obtaining its potential subjects of interest. I agreed finally to meet him for lunch. He was 15 minutes late and arrived just as I was about to leave. No apology. The conversation was extremely dull as he proceeded to tell me about the recent Hulk movie he had seen and laughing about stuff that was utterly not funny. We went through several subjects and which produced similar anecdotes on his side. Not to mention he had ordered spaghetti dish and was slurping his noodles during the conversation. Horrible. I somewhat felt motherly at some point and wanted to give the guy some advice for the future but then decided that I will reserve this glorious role for his actual mother. I felt so relieved when the hour had finished and we parted our ways. After all of this, I had expected the guy won’t bother me anymore. After all, it was clear that we had nothing in common and besides I am leaving so soon. But, no, he texted the next day to ask for my plans for next week. Ehhh.. if it was only the right guy.
I decided to stop answering. I just couldn’t bring myself to telling the guy the honest truth. Oh, the games we play!
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
In a chic rooftop bar downtown Austin, myself and some B-school girlfriends, ran into some interesting types from the male gender. One guy was insisting on asking me when I am from, and so I decided to annoy him and just not give him the answer (“I am from planet earth,” I said), hoping he would come up with something original. His original comeback was “You are from Mars”. “Women are from Venus”, I told him. He didn’t get it.
From my guy friends I know that it’s also hard for them to pick up women, but last night made me think that either the guys became dumber or I became dumber. There was the “where are you from?” guy. There was “My friend has a bottle of whiskey, do you want to join our table?” guy. There was the really drunk guy trying to impress us with his falling about on the dance floor, who also tried to buy us a drink by saying “I would really like to buy a cute girl a drink”. There was a “stare-at-you-creepily-hoping-for-attention” guy. There were the “We have a British accent and therefore you should be impressed and join our table”, middle-aged guys. And the list goes on and on…
At least the bartenders were very attractive, didn’t talk and gave my friend free drinks.
This also reminds me of an interesting dating solution my California friend told me about. Being skeptical about online dating, she is considering a less “awkward” option (according to her), a site called DuoDater. This site asserts that “friends don’t let friends date solo” and allows pairs of friends to create profiles and go on double dates with other pairs. I guess this is a good idea for all of us that like to have a wing-man/woman in a normal life dating situations. Way to go DuoDater! I have no idea if this service actually works, but I will report if I hear anything. Maybe I will start the Brazilian version and test it out there.
Grobetrotter 