Expectations
I’ve been hitting the online dating websites, on and off, for about three and a half years now, and I’d consider myself to have had pretty good luck. I mean, I’m not getting married or anything, but I’ve met some remarkable girls, as well as a few that weren’t so remarkable. And until Tuesday I’ve never had any of the horror story experiences you hear of from time to time (he didn’t look anything like his photo, she lied about her age, married, etc.).
One evening late last week I started talking to a girl over IM that I’d come across on one site. In my experience IM can either go really well or really poorly — not like a telephone conversation or actual meeting which usually has lots of gray area; IM is either clicking or feeling strained — and this one was clicking like a streamliner running down the tracks. As it got late we moved to the telephone and continued our conversation until an even later hour.
I spoke with her almost every night for four days, getting more and more excited about her after each conversation. She had a beautiful voice, a wicked sense of humor that seemed unnaturally in tune with mine, and a cute photo. I marveled that she had time to talk to me every night. How is it that such a funny, smart girl has all of this free time? My expectations were high. We arranged to meet on Tuesday evening.
On Tuesday I arrived at her apartment complex (we felt comfortable dispensing with the usual “meet outside the cafe” plan) and almost couldn’t believe my eyes. The girl I was opening the car door for didn’t at all match my expectations, the vision I’d created in my head. After three years at it I’ve learned that expectations don’t always match, but this was different. I remembered her mentioning that her photo was about a year old. I responded supportively: “Well, I wouldn’t think you’ve changed that much.” She had. I remembered her selection for the profile field Body Type: “Average.” No. Not by any standard.
I rolled with it, though: we could just be friends, and so we proceeded to have a nice evening, enjoying a conversation over a cafe table before the hour grew late and the conversation ebbed. I drove her home and came in for a little more chat while watching television. We made plans to talk the next day about an event later this week and I left, convinced that we could be friends.
On Wednesday morning I realized the degree to which I’d been misled — by carelessness or willful withholding — and the disparity between my vision and the reality set in. As well as we had gotten along, how could I be friends with someone I felt had essentially suckered me? I could tell by the look in her eyes as we headed to the cafe that she was embarrassed; she knew that she was not the person she had let me believe she was. Meeting someone with the expectation of being friends is one thing. Meeting someone after hours of flirtatious phone conversations and then downshifting to friends is quite another.
As far as I’ve been able to tell the modus operandi of the post-first date for those who are not interested in the other is to A) not contact the other, or B) not answer the other’s phone calls. I’ve done A, but never B. I resolved to do B, as there would definitely be a phone call, but a friend convinced me that the right thing to do was to tell her how I felt. I came around to his point of view, in part because I’ve never particularly liked it when somebody says “I don’t care to see you again” by never answering the voicemail you leave them. (I furthermore resolved to tell her how I felt over IM. Spineless? Perhaps, but in my mind one “date” doesn’t warrant a phone call rejection.)
I informed her of my decision diplomatically and as politely as possible: “I’ve really enjoyed talking to you over the past few days, but I can’t get past the fact that you let your profile misrepresent yourself to me.” I didn’t want to hurt any feelings, but I did want her to know why I didn’t want to continue with her. She did not take it well, informing me that the term “Average” is “relative,” that the photo was indeed of her (which was not in question), and that I am a shallow, stupid asshole for not wanting to be friends with her.
I’ll be the first to admit that I wanted to be let off easy, but my instant vilification smelt of a deep-rooted immaturity and insecurity. Any good qualities I might have had were out the window because I felt she had misrepresented her physical appearance to me and said so. I stopped responding to her berating messages and soon enough they stopped too. It all seemed so sad: five days of very nice conversations had come to this.
Once again I find myself tired of trying to find someone special on the internet.
“Excuse me, Mr. Clarence! Where does one go to meet nice girls?”
“Oh, you got to go lookin’ for them — they won’t just fall in your lap. Yes, you can find nice girls at the library, or in church, or in… or at this here benefit I’m going to tonight!”
I don’t see any mention of “internet” or “.com” in that list. Hmm.
June 10th, 2005 at 6:40 am
Man. I’m so sorry you had to go through that, but you did the right thing. Good for you! She’s crazy if she thinks deceiving you is okay. Well, a lesson learned, which only goes to prove our point- meet ASAP to prevent (or even shorten) that nasty IM conversation. Do you think if you didn’t talk to her at length for four days even, that she wouldn’t have grown so attached to you, and therefore may not have gotten so psycho when you gave her the boot? Or maybe so…? Chicks…you can’t ever figure us out.
June 10th, 2005 at 9:26 am
That’s a tricky thing. I do normally like to meet as early as possible, but in this case I was having such a nice time on the phone that I didn’t want to artificially put the brakes on communication until an actual meeting (which, due to schedules, was going to be several days off).
What’s strange is that even after this, I think I actually miss the person I’d worked up in my head.
June 11th, 2005 at 9:33 am
Oh, no! Not this experience!
I remember walking up to an apartment door, knocking, one oppressively humid summer night. A girl answered, obviously not the girl I had been talking to for a week and a half, but perhaps a roommate or friend. I began to look around behind her, expectantly. Where was the girl who’s picture I saw? The self-described “average” girl?
“So, where is ?”
“I’m __!”
“Oh, hi.”
…when in my head the words “oh, hell!” were what were really trying to get out. I was suddenly battling the same fight you were involved in: sure, we could be friends, but there wasn’t going to be any chemistry here for the relationship I suspected she might be expecting. Yet, I had to give this all a chance, even if it was to find someone new to talk to and hang out with. Everyone wants to meet new friends, right? Why couldn’t this be the same thing?
I sat down on her couch to chat and she slid in next to me. Her roommate walked in and I attempted to stand up to greet her, while ____’s response was to not even give me a chance. A hand ended up on my leg. A giggle. A lean in close. Suddenly, I was being held hostage by a pair of googly eyes and weight. Ahem: a LOT of weight.
This is what brought about a much larger battle in my head: was I being horribly shallow because of this? The answer, I think, is “yes”, but there is nothing I could do about it and I came to terms that if I couldn’t find any attraction to her, physically, there was no sense in wasting both of our time. It was pretty clear that she was very intent on fostering a relationship I had no interest in and this was going to end in a really, really bad way. I’d have to implement damage control, somehow, before this started to go bad.
“I have a vase full on condoms in my room.”
Oh, SHIT.
As the party she had invited me to slowly grew to include a large number of smartass, cranky college freshmen interested in only alcohol, I decided to slip into the bathroom for a moment. Trying not to drop my cellphone in the toilet, my shaky hands carefully SMS’d three close friends with an emergency message to call me and fake a work emergency as soon as possible. I returned to the couch.
Squish.
For what seemed like hours but was probably only a couple minutes, I began praying that someone would get my message and call me. Suddenly, my hip began to vibrate. ____’s eyes grew large and interested at this.
“Hello?”
“Uh, yeah, um, this is your boss. Uh, stuff is broken and need your help. Can you come into the office right away?”
“Oh, what? The cluster is down? What happened?”
“I don’t know. Uh, there’s smoke and stuff.”
“Oh, really? The code drop went that badly?”
“Yes. We need you right away.”
“Okay, thanks.”
____ stared at me as I hung up, but the phone immediately rang again. Oh, yes, this would help. I stepped outside to take the call, talking loudly to ensure that my voice carried through the closed patio door.
“…and you’re saying all the users are in an outtage? Oh, this sucks.”
“Yeah, don’t it, though…”
I explained that the phone calls I had just gotten were important and I had to go to take care of some serious issues. She nodded sadly and asked when I would be back. In telling her that I wasn’t sure, she demanded my phone number and I told her that I would, instead, call her when I was done. She grabbed my hand, looking extremely pissed off. “Well, call me right now so we can test that it works!” And have my number end up on her caller ID?
“Sorry, I have to run RIGHT NOW. Bye!”
“Um, bye.”
Yes, Internet dating can be a disaster and that night was nearly enough to make me give up. recently, I met Mia and I can say that I would go through that scary date with ____ all over again if it meant that I would end up with the wonderful girl I’m currently with.
Don’t give up, Adam.
June 11th, 2005 at 3:33 pm
Vince, that might be one of the greatest comments this blog has ever seen. My hat’s off to you — particularly because it sounds like I got off (er…) much easier than you did.
Somehow the concept of a vase full of condoms is about 10 times as terrifying as the notion of any other container-full (burp-able Tupperware, for example). I can just see the little corners of foil packets peeking over the rim…
June 11th, 2005 at 3:37 pm
I don’t think either of you, Vince and Adam, were “shallow” or “selfish”. If two people are looking to get involved with one another under the pretense of a romantic relationship, then they MUST be attracted to one another …and attraction, of course, is a sack of many cats: emotional, mental, and lest we forget, physical. Especially for guys. Girls would do well to remember this fact — just as us guys would do well to remember that girls emphasize different things in a relationship from the things we would.
Having said that, both of these girls deserved to be abruptly dumped on their apparently ample posteriors. I’m sorry — at least in the abstract — that they have to “deal with” more of themselves than some other females, but my ability (or lack thereof) to “appreciate” how difficult that must make dating for them doesn’t extend to them the right to keep me from making a decision about my interest in them by faking me out with a decoy photograph. There’s a word for that: deception.
June 12th, 2005 at 12:20 am
Ladies and gentlemen…. I found a few of the cats that Morrissimo speaks of. I give you Emotional, and his sidekick, Mental