In December, 2007, I joined a dating service called It's Just Lunch. After setting me up with twenty-one women, the service had fulfilled its obligation. Sadly, as I write in March, 2009, no girlfriend stands beside me. I do not, however, regret spending my $1,900. As I look back on my meetings with Danielle, Sylvia, (another) Danielle, Mamie, Courtney, Erin, Nancy, Faranak, Leslie, Naava, Dharol, Debbie, Tanya, Frances, Laura, Courtney, Patti, Milena, Heather, Lindsey, and Stacy, I ask myself: What did I learn?
I was raised by women. One of them once told me, "You shouldn't sleep with more than one person at a time." It was the remark, as I understand it, of someone who hated to see women used by men who didn't care about them. I found no reason to disagree. If anything, I then became even more protective of other people's interests. As a child, I had seen the wreckage my father left behind in my mother's life; I had watched her endure the ordeal of dating as a single mother in her forties. Repeating my father's infidelities seemed inconceivable. If things were going well with one woman, I stopped approaching others. I even turned away women who would have seen me at the same time, in an attempt to look out for the woman I was pursuing.
Dharol changed all that. The problem was that, through my conscientious effort to date one person at a time, I was cruelly exposed to the departure of that one person. By contrast, I now date as many women as possible. This improves security quite a bit. The more women there are on the scene, the less special or irreplaceable any one of those women will be. Until a conversation about exclusivity takes place, a woman has no privilege to assume she is the only person in your life, whether or not you are sleeping together. And, in fact, most women today will not make such an assumption.
Between your obstinate selectivity (to use Schopenhauer's phrase) and her own, we can almost guarantee that your connection with this person will be temporary. Learn how to enjoy someone for a month or two without expectation and, therefore, without the pain of failure. "Can we do something about our obstinate selectivity?" you ask. I haven't found a way. A man will seek the best looking woman from whom he can obtain a commitment, and a woman will--well, who knows what women want. But we know that not many men satisfy any particular woman's requirements, placing women in a similar dilemma.
Lest I be identified with other boob-obsessed men who are trapped in a perpetual adolescence, we should also ask whether an intelligent man could fall in love with a woman lacking conventional good looks. Imagine a woman who were larger than life intellectually, whose original opinions about books or movies were an oasis in the California desert. Yes, an intelligent man would fall in love with her. The question is why only one of the twenty-one women from the service could be described in those terms. Since she was also attractive, the issue was never put to a contest. On the other hand, at least five of the women I met were good-looking. I'm obliged to conclude from It's Just Lunch that intellectually interesting women are even rarer than good-looking women. (Perhaps life is different for men in academia?) I don't seek out smart women as a matter of practice, though brains are certainly a plus where they can be found.
In the meantime, both men and women will date the best match that happens to be on hand. This can have comic, or rather, tragic, results. How many stories have we heard about men who have dated someone three or four times, only to crash and burn around the time physical intimacy should start? "Everything was going so well!" It was not. She just didn't volunteer her reservations. Neither will you, the next time you find yourself dating someone about whom you are on the fence. Things should be going very, very well before you let down your guard or allow yourself to return to a naive optimism about your prospects.
I didn't learn this lesson from It's Just Lunch, but I learned it around the same time. Women despise supplicating, flattering men. No matter how sensitive you might be, how articulate you might be, how interesting you might be, a woman will run from something that is being given away for free. I always held the term "confidence" in rather low regard. It seemed silly in the men who possessed it and crude in the women who sought it. In the world of dating, however, we face the reality of what works. One must learn the value of what one possesses in order to present it attractively. You must make her think she is getting the deal of a lifetime, even if you think you are getting the deal of a lifetime. She cannot get the deal of a lifetime from someone other women don't like. If you make her feel irreplaceable, she will leave. If you make her think you are irreplaceable, she will stay. It's a hard lesson to learn, especially for those romantics who dreamed of mutual ecstasy as teenagers.
After one, two, three, or four dates, if you want to stop seeing someone, just don't call. You might feel someone deserves an explanation, or, if you're a woman, that a guy at least deserves an acknowledgement of his last communication. Take it from me: I don't want to hear about my imperfections from you--not until I have invested more than a month of time and emotion with you. If you don't call back, I get the idea. (Besides, a person who were dating several people at once would not care that much about a single outcome, right?) If I ask for an explanation, err on the side of providing a kind one rather than an honest one. I aim, of course, for the same care in my dealings with others. The cases where candor will help someone are much rarer than one might think.
I will meet people in my life who never had to face my obstacles. I will meet people who think dating is easy. Such people have the luxury of ignorance--just as I ill appreciate the ordeals relationships can entail once they get off the ground. Whether hard or easy, though, we should strive to make dating fun, or what exactly is the point? Twenty-one women down the road from Danielle, I can't say I'm chomping at the bit to meet number twenty-two, but we dare not give up on the struggles that have defined us. --March 2009
