Dating is hard. You know it is. Negotiating a tricky social situation with someone you may not know at all is simply difficult. It’s just uncomfortable to go and spend time with a stranger with expectations and hopes and feelings all raw and in the open. It’s unnatural and often painful. It’s just hard.
And what fascinates me about the process is that people constantly strive to make it even more difficult. One person will tell you to make immediate contact after a date, another will tell you to wait three days, still another will tell you you shouldn’t make contact at all but should wait to be chased. What is the right thing to do? Which rule is hard and fast? What should we all be following?
The bottom line is that everyone and every situation is different. So why on earth don’t we allow for that? Why don’t we do what is right at the time? Why do we insist on creating rules and regulations that in the end only frustrate most of us?
Recently I’ve been getting a lot of advice about men “liking the chase”. I should sit back and wait. My inherent air of mystery will bring them running. They will chase the unknown. And if they don’t, they’re just not that into me. And to some extent, I will admit there is wisdom hidden in there. Many men do like to pursue. And if they simply won’t, it can be a sign.
But the wisdom fails as well. Many men do not. And what about when they catch you? Because the goal of dating is not to dangle yourself out of reach for eternity. It is, presumably, to be caught. Will your man instantly leave then? Will they lose interest? Do you really want someone who can’t be bothered once they have your full attention?
And what about the fact that these generalities do not cover all situations? Each person is different. They have different needs, see things in different ways, want different things. There is no one blanket they all fit under. No one stereotype that will always apply. We can joke about typical men or typical women, but at the end of the day we don’t all fit the mold. And someone is getting very pissed at repeated attempts to be shoved in there.
If a man tells you up front that he will disappear if you don’t show some interest, do you honestly believe sitting back and making him chase you will work? Similarly if a woman tells you she will say exactly what she means, do you think constantly reading hidden meaning into her words is going to help you understand her?
The point is that dating is hard enough. The pressures, the fears, the hopes, the failures…. we’ve all been there. And as we get older it gets harder. Dating at every age has new challenges. So why do we, as single people, insist on making it more difficult? Why do we not just pay a little attention? Why not pay attention to what people say and try to meet them on common ground? Why do we not communicate with a little honesty so we can understand? Why not just listen?
If all men or women were the same, then it wouldn’t matter who we end up with. But we do not all come from the same cookie cutter, or even the same batch of dough.
PS – PP called. He is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, interested. And he would have called sooner had he not been working until quite late every night. He knows how early I get up and didn’t want to wake me. I already knew most of that, which is why I practiced a little patience. I
