Having come out of a year-and-a-half relationship that didn't end so well I think I am in a position to offer some advice about how not to go about dating someone.
1. Don't date someone at work - there are others to add to this list, climbing and dance partners (unless marriage is guaranteed...), people you can't avoid and relatives. If you have to ask about that last one, you need more help than a list on some idiot's blog can give.
2. Don't move in with them. Really, don't. In fact don't move in with them before you go on your first date with them, sealing you into a relationship that is now physically as well as emotionally difficult to extricate yourself from.
3. Once you have moved in with them, do not under any circumstances express that since you work together you should make that part of some kind of poorly thought out business plan. This will probably seem like a good idea at the time, but trust me it's not. You're already going to be having enough trouble establishing roles for yourself in your personal life at this point and arguing about the utility bill, adding more roles and more types of money arguments is really more masochistic than anything.
4. Once you're working together, don't let your frusterations bubble over into your personal life. Don't bring up work-related flaws in the person's work around their family during holidays under the guise of "just trying to understand more about how it was to raise them." It's transparent and tacky.
5. Once you've started getting personal, don't let your squabbles occur at the workplace. Your customers and clients don't need to know what so-and-so does wrong with making an attempt at the dishes that you're both too tired to do, or how they overuse oregano when making lasagna.
6. At this point I should mention a big one. Don't get them pregnant. Really, don't do it. Chances are good that the person you think, "ahh maybe we'll break up after awhile, but for now it's kind of nice..." is the one with the bundle of joy on the way, not the one you had passionate sex for three weeks below decks on a sailing trip in Greece despite running out of birthcontrol early on and not figuring out Greek for, "condoms."
There are only two explainations for this that I can think of: A) if we had kids with those who were best for us in the long run we would become so powerful that eventually we would grow proud and try to take on the gods themselves, and B) God has a really, really good sense of humor. But you know, in the dry, cruel sense.
7. When you do break up, don't keep living with them. Especially if you are the dumper. It's just mean. Also, they may think (perhaps accurately) that they can keep you with the promise of sex. If it works, it will only prolong the inevitable and make the ensuing breakup all the more nasty.
8. When you are dating someone, do not stop doing the things with your friends you would normally do. I mean, yes your DM is less likely to give you an oralgasm (nice word huh?), but you don't want to be that person. The one who stops hanging or working out with everyone just because you are seeing someone and then to have to come back with a bunch of war stories and a hang-dog expression when they rightfully and mercilessly make fun of you for having been whipped and blowing them off for a year.
9. Do not get a pet with them. if you do, make sure that one of you pays for everything, including the cost of the pet, so that when the breakup does occur, no custody battle over the mangy creature ensues. Although, provision should be made if the animal bonds more strongly with the other person because A) the one who bought them is too busy for an animal and gives them less attention, B) the puchaser is a douche or C) the non-purchaser can make it seem like case A by being smart enough to carry bacon bits in their pockets. (Note: please don't really carry bacon bits in your pockets. It's gross)
10. When you are finally free, don't continue to do any of the following things with them: Live, sleep, Work or Hang out. Although the last one can start to happen when you have each moved on through at least one other person. This prevents the incredible reforming couple from occurring, which is especially deserving of ridicule if combined with any of the other aforementioned relationship pitfalls.
11. Date someone with a radically different worldview. Opposites attract, but similars stay together. If they have too different a philosophy, religion, upbringing than yourself this is likely to serve as grounds for more arguments and fights. This is especially true of Sex, Religion and MONEY.
12. Date someone with an IQ more than one standard derivation greater or less than you. You'll end up going bald either from scratching your head trying to understand what they just said or because you constantly have to repeat yourself using smaller words and slower, clearer pronunciation each time until you tear out chunks of your own hair. If you do decide to do this, please take my advice and buy stock in pharmaceutical companies. They're going to make a lot of money off of you in the near future and you may as well get in on the action.
13. Date someone too much better or worse looking than yourself. This leads to insecurity, insecurity to anger, anger to macho or bitchy behavior, and the path to the dark side that is.
Avoiding these traps should help make it less likely that you'll do something stupid while dating someone. I'm sure being human you'll all come up with your own, but this is my list based on the lessons I've garnered from my most recent dating experience.
20070412
Alone Together
There are times a person feels friendless and alone.
Ironically, tonight this feeling comes after hanging out with a few very good friends. I ran into two friends from the dance scene that I haven’t seen in awhile- a reminder of what I’ve been missing out on over the last few years (another story) and my dad is out of town in Chicago on a trip I was supposed to make, but couldn’t.
I suppose the fact that I was out with my lifting partner listening to a Hank Williams/Johnny Cash/Waylon Jennings tribute band probably added to the feeling of emptiness that is taking over right now.
Just as I feel the drama within me rise, Dylan, my thirteen-year-old battle-scarred pit bull and long-time amigo, rescues me. He misses my dad too. They spend every day together in the office with my Dad at the computer and Dylan resting in the corner.
He whimpers at the door as if wondering what I’m doing here alone. After a second, perhaps realizing it’s just the two of us, he turns toward me – slipping slightly on the smooth wood floor and galumphs sadly over in search of attention.
I gladly oblige.
I don’t know why it is that it’s possible to feel so alone after being with other people. Perhaps it has something to do with a difficulty in relating to them on the whole.
I’m not antisocial mind (neither is Dylan, he’s come by his scars mostly through surgery from cancer); it’s just that I have a different way of seeing the world.
One that many people have a hard time with. I should have realized that this was a likely outcome of following the maxim, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” when I read the apology at age 12. Of course, I was so persuaded by his arguments that stopped reading before the and and I missed out on the most important lessons from Socrates’ apology; namely, that happy endings are rare in the extreme for philosophers.
You see, the unexamined life has a lot less impact on your neighbors. A person who gladly goes through their day without thinking too much about more than their next paycheck doesn’t make people around him think. Except maybe with the odd joke, of course.
This leads me to my next belief: People hate to think. For some reason, laziness I suspect, people hate thinking more than they hate taxes. For proof of this, look at all of the people who take general deductions from the 1040EZ forms the IRS puts out, instead of “bothering” with getting the sum of all of their legitimate deductions.
Think about that. People would rather lose hundreds of dollars per year than take an extra three to four hours to do the thing properly.
This isn’t the only place this happens. Ticketmaster is notorious for overcharging, but because they are convenient, for years they had a defacto monopoly on ticket sales to any major event. Of course, then you don’t have to take the 20 minutes to actually buy the ticket at the venue…
I don’t know if it’s a sign of depression or just of awareness that when I’m with people I want to be alone and when I’m alone I want to be with people. Probably both. I tend to notice things about people that drive me crazy and that they, quite understandably, don’t want to hear.
This doesn’t stop them from complaining however. No, it seems to be another rule of human nature that people want to tell you all about how they can’t get in shape, they can’t meet the right person, their job is terrible or any number of other inconsequential things and they expect you to listen with rapt attention (of course that’s no shock and many people have remarked that a man’s favorite subject is himself), but if you offer solutions to these problems, in most cases the person will jump down your throat protesting that they don’t want to be criticized or that they just wanted to be understood.
Heaven help the person who is not so banal that they wish to discuss something other than celebrity gossip, who is currently fucking whom or you know, the person you’re with.
Do so and you are immediately taken for an insufferable, tasteless, tactless bore for wishing to discuss something other than that person’s favorite subject (see above).
Of course we put up with this. We put up with this because the alternative is worse. A lifetime of the thoughts in your head (admittedly mostly about yourself) whirling around and picking up speed is horrifying.
It takes a chimpanzee only six months of isolation to go completely and irreversibly insane. How researchers are able to discern this, given that they’re studying a species willing to fling its own feces raises some important questions.
How much time does a human being need then? It couldn’t be much more than that, surely, I mean look at the cat ladies of the world. Every community seems to have at least one and often several. Poor souls who are so warped from loneliness that any remaining people in their lives are afraid to spend time with them and they believe their cats can speak to them.
Of course there is a surprising correlation between people testing positive for schizophrenia and having more than four cats.
It seems that if unable to successfully socialize with our own kinds we form bonds with members outside our species. Pretty open-minded. Which reminds me, Dylan is probably waiting for me to come to bed.
Ironically, tonight this feeling comes after hanging out with a few very good friends. I ran into two friends from the dance scene that I haven’t seen in awhile- a reminder of what I’ve been missing out on over the last few years (another story) and my dad is out of town in Chicago on a trip I was supposed to make, but couldn’t.
I suppose the fact that I was out with my lifting partner listening to a Hank Williams/Johnny Cash/Waylon Jennings tribute band probably added to the feeling of emptiness that is taking over right now.
Just as I feel the drama within me rise, Dylan, my thirteen-year-old battle-scarred pit bull and long-time amigo, rescues me. He misses my dad too. They spend every day together in the office with my Dad at the computer and Dylan resting in the corner.
He whimpers at the door as if wondering what I’m doing here alone. After a second, perhaps realizing it’s just the two of us, he turns toward me – slipping slightly on the smooth wood floor and galumphs sadly over in search of attention.
I gladly oblige.
I don’t know why it is that it’s possible to feel so alone after being with other people. Perhaps it has something to do with a difficulty in relating to them on the whole.
I’m not antisocial mind (neither is Dylan, he’s come by his scars mostly through surgery from cancer); it’s just that I have a different way of seeing the world.
One that many people have a hard time with. I should have realized that this was a likely outcome of following the maxim, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” when I read the apology at age 12. Of course, I was so persuaded by his arguments that stopped reading before the and and I missed out on the most important lessons from Socrates’ apology; namely, that happy endings are rare in the extreme for philosophers.
You see, the unexamined life has a lot less impact on your neighbors. A person who gladly goes through their day without thinking too much about more than their next paycheck doesn’t make people around him think. Except maybe with the odd joke, of course.
This leads me to my next belief: People hate to think. For some reason, laziness I suspect, people hate thinking more than they hate taxes. For proof of this, look at all of the people who take general deductions from the 1040EZ forms the IRS puts out, instead of “bothering” with getting the sum of all of their legitimate deductions.
Think about that. People would rather lose hundreds of dollars per year than take an extra three to four hours to do the thing properly.
This isn’t the only place this happens. Ticketmaster is notorious for overcharging, but because they are convenient, for years they had a defacto monopoly on ticket sales to any major event. Of course, then you don’t have to take the 20 minutes to actually buy the ticket at the venue…
I don’t know if it’s a sign of depression or just of awareness that when I’m with people I want to be alone and when I’m alone I want to be with people. Probably both. I tend to notice things about people that drive me crazy and that they, quite understandably, don’t want to hear.
This doesn’t stop them from complaining however. No, it seems to be another rule of human nature that people want to tell you all about how they can’t get in shape, they can’t meet the right person, their job is terrible or any number of other inconsequential things and they expect you to listen with rapt attention (of course that’s no shock and many people have remarked that a man’s favorite subject is himself), but if you offer solutions to these problems, in most cases the person will jump down your throat protesting that they don’t want to be criticized or that they just wanted to be understood.
Heaven help the person who is not so banal that they wish to discuss something other than celebrity gossip, who is currently fucking whom or you know, the person you’re with.
Do so and you are immediately taken for an insufferable, tasteless, tactless bore for wishing to discuss something other than that person’s favorite subject (see above).
Of course we put up with this. We put up with this because the alternative is worse. A lifetime of the thoughts in your head (admittedly mostly about yourself) whirling around and picking up speed is horrifying.
It takes a chimpanzee only six months of isolation to go completely and irreversibly insane. How researchers are able to discern this, given that they’re studying a species willing to fling its own feces raises some important questions.
How much time does a human being need then? It couldn’t be much more than that, surely, I mean look at the cat ladies of the world. Every community seems to have at least one and often several. Poor souls who are so warped from loneliness that any remaining people in their lives are afraid to spend time with them and they believe their cats can speak to them.
Of course there is a surprising correlation between people testing positive for schizophrenia and having more than four cats.
It seems that if unable to successfully socialize with our own kinds we form bonds with members outside our species. Pretty open-minded. Which reminds me, Dylan is probably waiting for me to come to bed.
20070411
Dating Discussions with Dad
Recently, I got into a discussion with friends about first break-ups and was remided of mine. For some reason the breakup itself wasn't nearly as memorable as the post-relationship analysis I received from my father.
The following exchange really occurred after I was dumped for the first time:
"***** dumped you huh?"
"Yeah"
"She say why?"
"No, though I'd be willing to guess by being away at camp for the last two months had something to do with it."
"Did you sleep with her?" This wasn't as odd a question as it may seem. ***** was 24 years old and something of a party girl and I was 15 at the time. We met because of my habit of going to establishments that don't usually allow people under the legal drinking age to come.
"No, I didn't." I said truthfully.
"I see..." There was a pause, "...Well, let me just say as your father I'm proud."
"Thanks Da-"
"But as your best friend, I mean, what were you thinking??"
"What do you mean?" I asked, more than a little surprised.
"Well, ***** is fun and everything, but sleeping with her would have been the most logical reason to date her."
Now, my dad isn't usually anything near chauvinistic, so I was understandibly perturbed.
"Let's see, she smokes, drinks, is a pizza delivery girl at 24, is dating a teenager, and has multiple piercings. She may also be the hottest girl you've ever seen in real life. So if you weren't planning on sleeping with her, what were you doing with her?"
I mumbled something indistinct and the conversation continued.
The rest of the conversation wasn't nearly as memorable, but it gave me something to think about.
That's also when I learned the rule of human behavior that if someone dumps the person they're with to be with you, they will dump you for someone else. Remembering that has saved me a lot of pain in future breakups and something I encourage everyone to remember.
The following exchange really occurred after I was dumped for the first time:
"***** dumped you huh?"
"Yeah"
"She say why?"
"No, though I'd be willing to guess by being away at camp for the last two months had something to do with it."
"Did you sleep with her?" This wasn't as odd a question as it may seem. ***** was 24 years old and something of a party girl and I was 15 at the time. We met because of my habit of going to establishments that don't usually allow people under the legal drinking age to come.
"No, I didn't." I said truthfully.
"I see..." There was a pause, "...Well, let me just say as your father I'm proud."
"Thanks Da-"
"But as your best friend, I mean, what were you thinking??"
"What do you mean?" I asked, more than a little surprised.
"Well, ***** is fun and everything, but sleeping with her would have been the most logical reason to date her."
Now, my dad isn't usually anything near chauvinistic, so I was understandibly perturbed.
"Let's see, she smokes, drinks, is a pizza delivery girl at 24, is dating a teenager, and has multiple piercings. She may also be the hottest girl you've ever seen in real life. So if you weren't planning on sleeping with her, what were you doing with her?"
I mumbled something indistinct and the conversation continued.
The rest of the conversation wasn't nearly as memorable, but it gave me something to think about.
That's also when I learned the rule of human behavior that if someone dumps the person they're with to be with you, they will dump you for someone else. Remembering that has saved me a lot of pain in future breakups and something I encourage everyone to remember.
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