advice file #8: don’t read self-help books

I hate self-help books.  I do my best to avoid reading them.  But I was weak.  I got sucked into one not too long ago, and darned if it isn’t making me second guess myself way too much as my latest e-dating relationship progresses.  Self-help books, all too often, seem to make people crazy.  This one is having a bit of that effect on me.  So my latest advice to all my fellow edaters out there is: DON’T READ THEM!  :-)

advice file #7: rejection flooding.

Down to one. One of the guys from the last post is out. Ah well. 

Which leads me to my latest advice file about how to keep your spirits up while e-dating. Borrow a technique from psychologists who treat phobias: flooding. Basically, flooding means exposing someone to what they fear so much that they lose their fear of it. A friend that had a dog phobia, for example, was once trapped on a couch at a friend’s house with a broken leg and a very friendly dog for company. After a couple of days of aggressively friendly slobbering (the dog’s), he no longer had that fear of dogs.

In the e-dating context, when I start to take it personally that people don’t want to meet up because “the chemistry just isn’t there” or “the physical distance is too great” or whatever reason, I send out a slew of emails to interesting looking people on one site, or “start communication” with a bunch of the ones that I’ve been matched to on a different site. (Sometimes I even join a new site!)

On eharmony, for example, one of the sites I’ve used, I try not to even look at the profiles of the guys I’ve been matched to before I start communication. This is due to two reasons: 1) I’m fairly sure that 2/3 of my “matches” aren’t actually paying members for a variety of reasons I’m too lazy to list here, and thus 2) it’s much more time efficient to just start communication without studying the profiles of those potential matches that might not even exist. What I end up with is a bunch of people who never respond, a smaller but still quite large number who “close” me, and a smaller number who respond to my “request for communication.”  By not filtering on the the first round, it depersonalizes the large number of rejections I get. It also lowers the number of little (but disheartening) disappointments that come when you read a really interesting profile but don’t get a response.

On other sites where there isn’t the same computer-run system for matching you, I do actually read profiles carefully, but I try not to overanalyze them. Are they interesting? Seem sane? Meet other basic criteria like not showing obvious evidence of racism and meeting my own highly personal standards of attractiveness? Then I initiate communication. Not only does this keep you from filtering out people who are quite lovely but don’t know how to write a good profile, but more relevant for this post, this makes you take it less personally if they ignore you or tell you they’re not interested. Only invest in a relationship if you actually start one!

By the way, it’s funny how four guys responding “yes, let’s meet” out of 40 communications initiated feels so much better than one guy saying “yes” out of four emails sent, even through the the percentage interested is lower (10% versus 25% for you who math phobes.) 

So…initiate enough online contacts and go out on enough dates that it just doesn’t hurt that much when you’re rejected. This technique works really well for me. Sure, I’m disappointed when someone with a profile I really liked or who was super fun to meet for that first or second date flakes or lets me know they’re not interested, but it’s pretty easy to bounce back.

(A nice side effect of rejection flooding is that you end up with more potential partners-in-crime in the pipeline.)

edater don’ts.

Don’t put 69, 666, or 420 in your username (unless your age clearly indicates you were *born* in 69).

Don’t put anything mean, angry, sexual, or gross in your username.

Don’t myspil thangz ahn yer profil or en emales. Not even on purpose.

Don’t be sarcastic in early emails. It’s impossible for me to hear your voice tone and know it’s meant to be funny.

Don’t put pictures up with an expensive car, without a shirt, in a swimsuit, with your arm around a woman, with someone obviously cropped out of the picture, or where you look mean or cranky.

Don’t have a beard. (Okay, you can have a beard, but darn it, why do so many men have beards? I hate them. Even when they look okay I hate them. They’re scratchy. I shave. Can’t you shave? Okay. Moving on now.)

Don’t mention your love for and skill in Guitar Hero over and over in your profile. Seriously.

Don’t “wink” or “woo” or “send an icebreaker.” (I know, I’ve said that before, but it’s worth repeating.)

Don’t show me how bigoted you are. (On second thought….)

Don’t make negative comments about other people’s profiles or past relationships until I start to know you better. Then it’s probably still better to hold off on the “she’s a crazy bitch” comments or “all women want to date super heroes” for a bit.

Don’t go on a date when you’re contagious.

Don’t read too much into it if I disappear for while; it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m not interested.

Don’t neglect to put a photo up on your profile. I’m too lazy to “nudge” or “ask” for people’s photo, so your numbers will suffer if you don’t put up a photo. Don’t worry, not all straight women are looking for a Brad Pitt. Really.

And finally: Don’t rant on your profile. That’s what friends (and blogs) are for.

i finally caved.

A couple of days ago I started a spreadsheet to keep all these “potential matches” straight. There’s just too much going on in the rest of my life to devote brain cells to that particular activity. And it’s kind of embarrassing when you’re talking to someone and you refer to a trip they didn’t take or a talent they don’t actually have. *blush* They do blur together a bit after a while, though. Since computers created this problem, it’s nice that computers can fix it!

(I only use the spreadsheet until I’ve actually met in person. I only go on second dates with the ones I like enough to devote brain space to. )

free and easy.

I mentioned in a previous post that I signed up for another dating site last week. (More precisely, I re-signed up, as I’d had a previous, partial profile from some time in the past that I deleted in order to start from scratch.) Anyway, I’m starting to think that free = too easy. The signal to noise ratio is not as good on this site. I get too many random IMs (I’ve now disabled IMing), too many suspicious or creepy emails (people with no picture who think I’m the woman of their dreams, some of whom live in other countries…uh, right). I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence or not, but I suspect that having to pay a little money to join a site keeps out a fair number of people who are on the site for reasons other than finding romantic partners.

you’ve got to be kidding me.

Are people really this gullible?!? A couple of nice tips in the article, though, if you tend to believe what people tell you.

Crazy.

humor on profiles.

One of the problems with putting too much funny on your profile is that it is really easy for your reader to misunderstand it (limited context, no ability to use voice tone to communicate that something is meant in jest, etc.) One “match” used an interesting strategy to filter for a similar sense of humor. He posted “If you get a laugh out of this, I think we’d get along.” You’ll notice that the “this” is a link to a youtube video that some people would find funny and others would certainly not. An excellent strategy, particularly if you have an especially quirky sense of humor. (Remember, the goal is to provide enough information to “potential matches” that they can do the work of figuring out that you aren’t a match, thus freeing up lots more time for you to do more interesting things, like watching silly videos on youtube.)

edater’s edating rules, part 3

12- This next rule can be a really tough one, because, as a friend of mine pointed out recently, most of us aren’t used to being rejected in such quantity as we get during the online dating process, but if you can remember the following, the entire process is much, much, much more pleasant: If someone doesn’t respond for a week or more, don’t take it personally. Feel free to send a lighthearted e-mail similar to the one in this earlier post, but you just don’t know what’s going on in the other person’s life, and it’s fairly safe to assume that when someone doesn’t respond, it’s not about you. You know why? Because they don’t know you. What you can assume is that they don’t yet know you enough or trust you enough to tell you all the petty details of their life, including if they’re traveling, or when they have a family emergency, or when they’re unexpectedly swamped at work, or when they’re just in one of the normal ebbs of the online dating process that seem to strike most edaters (the ones where people just can’t get themselves to sign onto a dating site to do anything except, perhaps, to show a friend their profile). So if you’re struggling with this one, repeat after me: “It can’t be about me, they don’t know me, it can’t be about me, they don’t know me, it can’t be about me, they don’t know me….”

a bird in the hand is worth?

The major problem with dating, according to a friend of mine, is that it’s like shopping for a pair of jeans in the mall, except that you can only try on one pair at a time, and you then have to decide if this is the pair for you, or if you want to abandon this pair and go to another shop to see what they might have. There’s no “can you hold this for me?”. And very rarely are we permitted back into a shop once we’ve left.

And a funny thing can happen when we’ve invested time and energy staring at the current pair in the mirror — sometimes we start to downplay the flaws (perhaps this pair does make our butt look a little bigger than we’d like, or the color is a little off, or we won’t ever be able to bend over in public without some of the wrong kind of cleavage showing because the idiot designer thinks low-rise is hip), but other than that, we tell ourselves, they’re nice jeans. It’s easy to end up really wanting to just buy a pair of freaking jeans and be done with it.

There is a delicate balance between letting a relationship develop and honoring that process as an emergent one with no guarantees, and the very different act of staying in a relationship because, well, this relationship just happens to be the one you’re in. And sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. Because it’s tiring to move on to another store. What if this pair of jeans was the best pair for me in the mall? On my mind as I process my last date with that almost-missed-connection.

I stumbled across this gem the other day:

Marriage is not a ritual or an end.
It is a long, intricate,
intimate dance together
and nothing matters more
than your own sense of balance
and your choice of partner.
- Amy Bloom -

We should be doing everything possible to develop and maintain our own sense of balance, because I think this is the best space from which to make that choice, or more precisely, to continually choose, to buy (or not to buy) those jeans.

too many!

A possible consequence of the running those numbers in the edating process is that you have too many “potential matches” in the pipeline. About a month ago, on one of the two match sites I’m on, I sent almost 50 emails like the one found in this post. (I also did the site equivalent of “winking” or “sending an icebreaker” at 10 or so others, but that was before I had figured out what a ridiculous waste of time that is.) So now I have a number to whom I owe a second date, another set with whom I was planning to set up a first, and one guy that might be turning into a reoccurring engagement. Time to squash some of the long-shots. (There are only so many hours in the day, and I have much more going on in my life than e-dating.)

Here’s the e-mail I sent to one.

Hi X,

Okay, I’m slightly overwhelmed by both the volume of potential matches and the time this internet dating thing takes. I also have “real life” to keep in check, so I’m radically slowing down my online dating. Good luck, and once things slow down, perhaps we can have that coffee.

Cheers,
Edater

Here was his very sweet response that struck just the right balance between flattery, interest, and confidence.

Hi Edater,
I’m disappointed that we won’t be meeting soon. But given all that you have going for you, I’m not surprised that you have plenty of prospects. And life does tend to get in the way at times.
Anyway, good luck, and I’d be happy to meet for coffee if things slow down for you before I find my match.
Best regards,
X

Worth noting (and copying!) his mastery here. He did lots of things right:

1) He expressed a proper degree of disappointment. (Not too much, not too little.)
2) He let me know he thinks I’m a catch (and we all want to think that we’re a catch!).
3) He showed that he understands that e-daters most likely (hopefully) have a full life outside of e-dating. (Advice note: if you don’t, fix that right away. Balance is important in life, and it has the nice perk of making you a better date, as well. Double rewards!)
4) He showed that he’s confident enough to *not* take it personally that I picked him to not see.

And by doing 1-4 above, he increased his chances dramatically that if things slow down, I will grab that coffee with him.