Paul Roth

or “Things I’ve Learned From Reading Women’s Blogs”

Men don’t understand Women. We’re usually surrounded by examples of how it happens all the time. There were a few very popular self-help books that claimed that we speak Martian and Venusian rather than a common language. There was even a Mel Gibson movie about it! But since we actually can speak the same language, maybe a real extraterrestrial would wonder, “Why don’t you just ask each other questions?”

I like the idea of just asking people for the truth and getting it, but purposefully or not, everybody lies. We’re all trained to hide things from the opposite sex, our own gender, and ourselves.

But when we write down things in blogs, we don’t have to experience the immediate reactions of our audience and I think sometimes we reveal more that way. I’ve probably read a dozen or more different sites written by women, where the target audience is either implicitly or explicitly other women, and it’s a very different world in there. For me, anyway.

My friend “Hilarity In Shoes” asked me if I could write up what I’ve learned along the way. Most of it was just finding out that some things I got out of my college survey psychology classes were accurate. Who knew that stuff would actually be useful? But maybe you haven’t thought of some of these.

“Sometimes, talking about it is the solution.” This is the obvious one, right? I’ve heard it said that when men and women talk about something emotional, the man usually wants to offer up solutions while the woman just wants someone to listen. Blogs seem to prove that true. Not when the post is about a significant problem, but if it’s about general frustration or anxiety or a transient difficulty, just writing about it and getting supportive comments really seem to help the blogger.

“She needs a nudge to get started.” There are bloggers who are great at motivating themselves to move forward to the next thing. But even a woman with great self-esteem may find herself staring at a choice or a point of progression and suddenly doubt whether she should keep going. Even if she thinks it’s the right thing to do! Will I make this career change? Should I call this guy? Do I move to this neighborhood? Whether she’s certain or not, a little feedback on her blog could make her decide either to ignore everyone’s opinions and do what she really wants, or realize she was already on the right track and keep going with those words of support.

“She can’t see the forest for the trees.” You know when you watch a horror flick and you realize the character on screen is going to do something bad but she’s oblivious to the danger? That happens in real life, too. I’ve seen a blogger write about series of dates or series of adventures and seem unaware of any impending doom in each post. But other readers and I start pointing out the possibility of disaster because we’re not in the middle of it. Sometimes it helps to point out the pattern to her, other times it’s not going to make a difference. Either way, it shows women are susceptible to tunnel vision.

“If she believes it, it’s true.” This tends to be the case for both positive and negative ideas. Once a blogger gets her mind set on an interpretation of something, she generally doesn’t waiver. Not in the case of things where the facts can be proven one way or the other, but in matters of opinion, she takes her own as fact. “I think he’s just in it for sex” becomes “He’s just in it for sex.” … “I feel like we’re really connecting” becomes “We’re really connecting.” … “I think I did well on that job interview” becomes “I kicked ass on that job interview!” This elevation of opinion to fact can motivate women to achieve crazy difficult goals or conversely to suffer shock when things don’t turn out as they anticipated.

The more likely a woman is to get emotionally invested in a situation, the more extreme this will appear. It’s just something that’s good to know, because as far as I can tell the only way to counter this pattern is for a woman and her friends to keep her perceptions in check. Yeah, that might keep her from some sadness, but it might also keep her from really enjoying some great adventures, too. I think many women would prefer the excitement over the safety.

“Stereotypes are bullshit.” Clever, responsible, healthy women might blog about having lots of casual sex. Emotional and neurotic women might blog about making smart career choices. Introverts might blog about socializing. Women’s blogs have let me in on the fact that such-and-such people might do and think things you wouldn’t associate with them if you believed in a stereotype.

“Women don’t always pursue what they say they want.” I’ve seen blog posts about being more confident get followed by posts full of timidity. There are bloggers who say they want to date casually but then go on to assess each date for marriage potential. And conversely, I’ve read posts by women who say they want a long-term relationship, but then have one-night stands that’ll obviously go nowhere. Is there anything wrong with that discrepancy? Nope. But it’s there.

And here’s one of the most important things. It’s something that seems ridiculously obvious to me, but plenty of men seem ignorant of it, oblivious to its consequences, or so cocky that they think it won’t affect them:

“WOMEN TALK TO EACH OTHER.” They did it in school, do it over the phone, and do it face-to-face. The advent of the internet saw them doing it in chat rooms, then on livejournal, and now on twitter (just a few of the dozens of methods they use). Women tell each other about their feelings and thoughts and problems. They tell each other about great things to experience and horrible things to avoid. They give each other tips on life, love, politics, fashion, money, food, and anything you could imagine. And they talk about me and you and everybody else.

This isn’t an advice post, it’s just about my opinions and observations. But this brings me to one bit of advice that I think applies to anyone. Treat every woman with care and respect and behave as though anything you say or do to her will travel through a vast network and get to every other woman you meet. Because that actually is pretty likely. And isn’t that a good lesson to learn?

If you follow my twitter or ever talk to me about television, film, or stories in any other format, you’ve probably witnessed me saying that I disliked such-and-such because of how a woman is portrayed in it. It’s not that I always want women to be displayed in a positive light, it’s that I dislike what I consider to be belittling ideas of who women are.

Make the villain a woman, sure, but don’t let her origin be a breakup or some vague bitchiness of character. Yes, those women do exist, but they’re no more worthy of storytelling than the guy who aged out of a sport and then resented being old, or the guy who just dislikes women because none of the hot ones were willing to date him. Those characters are a bit reflective of reality but are too one-dimensional to be the core of a story.

No.

So when I see an awful television show like Covert Affairs or the justly-canceled-before-it-began Wonder Woman reboot, or a movie like Sucker Punch or Scott Pilgrim Versus The World, or try to read a book like Twilight (I couldn’t get more than a couple of pages into it) where the whole premise is: let’s accept that women are awful in _this_ way–I get irate!

Joss Whedon’s works, Philip Pullman’s books, The Hunger Games, Hanna and many other of my favorite stories teach me that women can be complex and amazing without being perfect or nice. They can be as complicated in their evil as their good, and as possessed of layers to their characters as a Sherlock or Gandalf.

Yes.

But perhaps the one-dimensional-female is just too entrenched in our social psyche for the average writer to escape that trap. I think I’m fairly decent, but I’m at least an average writer. So, I put myself to the challenge: Can I write a story containing multi-dimensional women?

For the past few years, I’ve competed in the National Novel Writing Month event each November. I’ve previously gone into NaNoWriMo with no prior idea nor research for what I’d write and it’s been fun. This year, though, I’ve a germ of an idea that will include those female characters.

But, in case you didn’t know, I’m not a woman.

Because of the germ of the idea I’ve in mind, I’d like to interview at least three different women before the end of October to give me some material from which I can draw my characterizations.

Ideally, I’d like these real women to be in the Washington, DC area, strong, independent, single or recently single, and over 21 but under 40. NYC, London, New Orleans, Seattle, and LA are also fine locations for these women, because of the story I want to write. DC would be best, though, so I can conduct the interviews in person. Otherwise, I guess I can do a phone or skype interview. I guess it would take an hour or two.

I’ve actually several women in mind already, but they could all say ‘no’. So, are you up for such an interview? Do you know some woman who fits the description? Please let me know!

Last year, I had no real awareness of dating bloggers. Eight months ago, I read an article I found through twitter on TBD.com about Dating in DC that was about Katie of the Date Me, DC blog.

I was immediately drawn to the concept of date blogs. At first, it had the appeal of stumbling across an exhibitionist and I’ll admit to having a bit of a voyeuristic streak. As I read through her blog posts, I came to feel like a sneak combing through someone’s diary, except with tacit permission. And then I came to realize there was a real and talented person behind the words, albeit one who experienced a lot of drama.

She had a twitter account of her own as @DateMeDCBlog and I started folllowing her to see the live updates between her blog posts. Very shortly after that, she followed me back and we began to chat online.

A few things came clear to me very quickly:

1. Katie is human. That means she’s passionate, imperfect, and vulnerable.
2. Katie is clever. Sometimes it’s a bit blue, but she puts together her posts in as punchy and readable a fashion as any veteran editorialist, I think.
3. Katie is social. She wants to connect with people to a degree that almost frightens me. (Of course, I’m somewhat antisocial so…)
4. Katie feels a LOT. If I experienced any one of the bad things she’s gone through, I might think it sucks and hurt a bit. She gets battered by it.
5. All of the above combines to make her need a creative outlet. She NEEDS it. If she didn’t have some way of expressing the ideas and feelings inside her, I fear she might have a nervous breakdown.

You know what she’s not? She’s not fake.

She didn’t start her blog to make money and then start looking for guys to date so she would have material to write about. Rather, she hit a point in her life where she underwent massive changes and that need to express herself drove her to create the blog.

As far as I can tell, she blogs for herself and for her readers. She dates for the prospect of connecting with someone in a real way. Those are two separate things that she’s just put together. This is not someone who’s opportunistic, this is a capable woman who has combined some things she wants in her life in a cleverer way than most of us.

I do think it’s possible that knowing she has a blog helps motivate her to keep going on dates, even when she’s had some crap ones or a dry spell. But how can anyone judge her harshly for that? When I’ve had bad dating experiences, I’ve wanted to hide in my room for months! (not recently. I swear. mostly.) The idea of making something that you can use as your own encouragement system to conquer social obstacles is one that I wish I’d thought of years and years ago.

And from the gregarious face she exposes to the blogging and twitter communities, she’s formed friendships and networks with some amazing people. I’m lucky to be one of the lesser folk she’s added to her following. And I’ve followed her lead to try to be more social, myself! I think I’ve probably made dozens of pretty friendly acquaintances who I might have missed out on if I hadn’t learned from Katie’s example.

Plus, when Katie makes friends, she makes friends HARD. I’ve tried to be there for her just because I like her, but I have no doubt whatsoever that she would be there for me. Do I agree with everything she thinks and blogs? Nope. Sometimes I worry about the way she looks at dating and the choices she makes. But I worry because I know, as she herself has said, that she invests in those dates and the people she meets. I worry because I think of her as a true friend.

Later today (September 20th), I’m going to go to the launch party for the Doing The District blog, which is a collaboration of Katie and four other impressive yet dissimilar women who go by the collective label of Gamma Girls (of DC). Do you want to know how many meet-new-people get-togethers I attended before I met Katie? I honestly can’t remember any since university.

She maintains anonymity yet exposes herself not for fame & fortune but to connect with people and to help other people connect with each other. She gets hurt because of that exposure but she keeps going. I don’t know if I’d be strong enough to handle all the stuff she goes through. I sure as hell couldn’t throw a party after it.

But Katie can. She and most of the other dating bloggers I’ve had the fortune to encounter (see my friends’ blogs for more) are amazing. Not because they write up a date or two, but because unlike many of us, these public people keep getting back up and keep trying to connect–while under scrutiny! They all motivate me to keep trying, as well.

But none maybe quite so much as that woman behind Date Me, DC. I heart her so.

—

P.S. I didn’t ask for permission to write this, so I hope Katie doesn’t mind.

P.P.S. Come out and meet these amazing women at the Doing The District Launch Party.

Online dating is full of lies. Some of the statements you read in dating profiles are outright falsehoods, others are half-truths spun to get more interest, and still more lies crop up when people think they’re being honest but are really lying to themselves.

Do you want to know where people are horribly honest? Their twitter accounts and sometimes their blogs. Especially if those online personas are created and maintained outside of a dating site. My one friend insists that you just can’t know everything about a person by what they tweet and I agree. But I’m just as insistent that you’ll learn more about them in 140 character posts than you would by reading their self-authored profiles or how they’ve answered public multiple-choice questions.

And if someone does you the favor of writing blog posts? That’s like being handed thesis papers entitled, “How I think about the world.” Sure, the posts might be about a restaurant or a movie, they might be about dating or moving from one apartment to the next, but unless the articles are written for consideration by a professional publication, they’re going to reveal as much about the author as the topic. Maybe more.

Twitter and Blogger sitting in a tree… or on a bench…

When you get emailed or instant messaged on a dating site, the whole point of the interaction is to try to get you to buy the product that the other person is selling. The product’s just themselves, but they hype it up and present it in as nice of an advertisement as they can manage. Um. Even then, sometimes it’s just not that nice.

But when you get @replied on twitter, most of the time people are just responding to something you said that’s triggered an honest reaction, be it enthusiastic or critical. And comments on blog posts might be the very best way to weed out trolls from real people. For the record, in my experience, a troll is a troll whether online or offline.

Now, I’m as shallow as the next guy (perhaps shallower than some) so I do want to date pretty women. But do you know how hard it is to get a pretty woman to respond to you as an average looking male on a dating site? It’s not easy. And if I do get a response from one, I immediately suspect it must be a guy scamming as a woman.

Or it’s a prostitute.

On the other hand, so long as I have an intelligent or funny thing to say on twitter or as a blog comment, I’m pretty sure I get a better than 50% response rate. From pretty AND articulate women! Who live near me! This is just amazing.

Plus, most people tweet or blog photos of themselves in addition to putting photos of themselves up as avatars! And if you to go to tweetups or other twitter-based get-togethers, you can see these people in real life! Without even having to ask for a date first! I’ll stop using exclamation points!

Now I’m not saying that getting dates is why you should use twitter or post blogs. There’s a great deal of good you can get out of both, wholly independent of looking for dates. And using these channels just for dating is…creepy. I’m just saying that there are some amazing and datable people out there. I, personally, find dating bloggers really enticing right now.

But it’s not as simple as just making a twitter profile and putting your turn-ons and turn-offs in the bio (don’t do this–ew). The way to get people to interact with you, both eligible singles and others, is to put something interesting of yourself out there. A friend described online dating in general as something like flirting out into the universe, but twitter is more like that than any other medium.

From twitter, I’ve made friends and found dates. I’ve gone to happy-hours and other get-togethers and made even more friends that way. Not only can I find locals because of the location field and what they tweet, I get a reassurance from the fact that people can see what we’re doing on twitter (and I can see what others are doing).

If there’s anything that’s unfortunate about the social interactions of twitter, it’s that I end up befriending wonderful people in NYC or Ohio or Colorado or the UK and then I CAN’T readily hang out with them in real life. Or date them. Because I avoid long-distance relationships like the IEDs they figuratively are.

Metaphorical long-distance relationship: avoid at all costs!

It’s also a double-edged sword to expose things about yourself that are interesting enough to attract others. The same tidbits you tweet or blog about that make you seem like fascinating company comprise some information that you might not want to share with someone by the first date. This isn’t really a problem for me as I tend to approach my social life with a sort of radical honesty, but it’s definitely frightening to others.

I don’t generally censor my ideas, but I do try to be careful enough with my words that anything that I put on the internet is something I’d say to people’s faces. I can say I dislike something without being a dick about it and that’s beneficial to everyone. I also try to make sure that anything I’m going to say about someone online is something I’ve already said to them. And finally, if someone doesn’t want me to tweet or blog about them, I respect their wishes. I suppose that could all be considered under the umbrella of not being a dick, but I like specificity.

I’ve dated and had casual encounters with women who’ve specifically told me either not to tweet about them or that they didn’t want to continue because I knew about their blogs or twitter accounts. I don’t blame them for their concerns. Just because I’m not a dick doesn’t mean I’m oblivious to the majority of people who are.

It’s a shame, because I’ve really liked some of the women I’ve met via twitter and blogs. More than in any other arena, lately! But it just can’t work if you can’t trust each other.

So, if you’re going to try to date someone who has an online presence, maybe mutually agree not to stalk each other. If you get to that Define-The-Relationship talk where you become monogamous girlfriend and boyfriend, then I figure there should be nothing you need to hide from each other at that point. But before? Respect the boundaries.

It’s a recent realization that if I want to date someone and I know about their online posts, I need to trade one for the other. Even if reading such things wouldn’t bother ME, it could certainly bother her. And so that’s what I’ll do. Besides, if she posts something she wants me to read, she can just send me the link.

Now, will I ever find anyone who’s on the same page as me, regarding social-media-based dating? Your guess is as good as mine. But you’ll probably find out right here on my blog.

—
Invisible couple. © Copyright william and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
The title of this blog, in case you have no idea, is from a 1960s Kubrick movie.

“You write these signs, don’t you?” she asked me as I made yet another awful zoo-related pun. I don’t, actually, though I do feel like I’ve the skills to do it. But the National Zoo in DC was the second part of my date on Saturday and when rain was pouring down around us in New Orleans during the first part, I wasn’t sure we’d make it there.

Here’s where a TV show would flash: Four Days Earlier…

This has nothing to do with Leverage, but they do the # Days Earlier thing all the time. 

We hadn’t made solid plans, but there was a casual, “I’m going to be there on Tuesday night.” “Oh, well, I’m going to be there, too. It’ll be good to see you there!” sort of conversation beforehand, so I was planning to finish up work at a reasonable time and go out to meet up with her. But I was requested to go into Baltimore for meetings during the day. And then I got junk food while I was there. And then I felt useless by Tuesday night. Dammit, Baltimore!

I texted her with apologies that she wouldn’t see me after all, but followed up with a request to see her some other day while she was in town. As it turned out, she hadn’t been able to go out anyway, so it didn’t matter! She also told me the neighborhood where she was staying and that she’d have free time on Saturday.

I’d previously wondered on twitter whether it’d be reasonable to jump right to a brunch date for a first date and people seemed to think that was a fine idea. She was excited by the idea of brunch (a good sign) and then I asked whether she’d like more details or just to be surprised.

Look, most women like surprises, but I definitely know a few who want to be able to plan exactly what they wear and come up with escape routes and other contingencies. If I knew this woman better, I could have just guessed her preference, but I didn’t, so I asked. Turns out, she likes surprises. I left her with the advice that she should bring her camera and the date was made.

“The Southern Photographer” (SP) and I have known each other for a few years now, but since she lives so far away I normally only see her once or twice a year. The rest of the year, we stay in touch the modern way: mutual facebook stalking. When we have been around each other, it’s always been in big groups of friends. Now, I’m not opposed to asking out one person in the middle of a group, but I never quite got the vibe that it would go anywhere.

This year, she’s been having to budget tighter and it seemed I might not see her at all if her usual travel plans got canceled. In order to persuade her to keep the trip and also to get the ball rolling, I started telling her that I didn’t want her to skip her plans because I was intending to make out with her when I saw her next. Of course, there was the danger that this announcement could have been seen as a threat, but what the hell.

She flirted back. There was talk of making out and dating and orgasms. And then, she told me that she was going to be coming through DC this week. And then there was that Tuesday night and then here I was, needing to figure out where to take her for brunch.

SP was staying near Adams Morgan and I’m not too familiar with the brunch options over there. As I usually do when faced with questions about food, I turned to my friend, The Kitchen Wench. When she went back to grad school here in DC, she stopped updating her blog, but she’s still crazy knowledgeable about where and what to eat around town. When I told her about my search for a Brunch-First-Date in the area, she gave me a nice big list of options and I went internet hunting.

Here’s what I decided I’m looking for in a Brunch offering, for first dates: 1) a variety of interesting egg and not-egg options. You can get omelets and scrambled eggs anywhere, and waffles and pancakes and even french toast are pretty common fare. Even if that’s what my date chose, I wanted something unique. 2) Coziness, not romance. There’s a difference there, you know. Romantic is readily captured in all the cheesy movies, but cozy is a space where two people can be close and hear each other speak and might feel all alone, but without something in the setting that screams “this is a date place!” 3) Mimosas and other brunch drinks. Look, I might not partake myself, but I’m well aware that imbibing of alcohol is an important aspect of the brunch experience.

I chose Bardia’s New Orleans Cafe, particularly because of The Kitchen Wench’s note that seating at the front window makes for a particularly cute date. Also because of the beignets. As The Kitchen Wench pointed out to me, if she didn’t like beignets, then SP probably isn’t someone I’d want to date anyway. Accurate.

I’d seen rain in the forecast as a possibility, so I drove rather than taking the metro, and I went to pick her up from the corner she requested. On the way to brunch I asked if she’d ever been to New Orleans and she told me she had, but hadn’t explored it much. We got to 18th street, I parked easily and quickly, and we walked across to the café, which met with her approval.

I scanned around and saw a small table near the front of the restaurant that was free, but not the choice spot right at the open front window. Still, it was nice enough and we sat down to order. I immediately told SP that one of the surprises was the presence of beignets on the menu. And when I suggested we get an order of three to share, regardless of the rest of our choices, she seemed happy with the idea. Excellent!

Their menu has plenty of options, even for a vegetarian like me, and I made sure to let my date know that mimosas, bloody marys, and similar were available. She ordered the Eggs New Orleans: poached eggs on fried oyster, covered with crabmeat and topped with hollandaise sauce. I got the Bayou Croissant: scrambled farm fresh eggs, served on a butter croissant with pan fried ham, melted provolone and home fries, except I asked for it with no ham.

That basically made my choice an egg and cheese croissant, but that actually didn’t occur to me until later. I mostly got it for the name. Oh, and I also asked for those beignets and we both decided to stick with water. Hey, I offered alcohol!

In a stroke of good timing, just before our server came to ask us for our choices, the couple who were sitting at the front window got up and left. So as soon as we finished telling our waitress what we wanted, I asked if we could also grab the front table and it turned out that we could. Picture-perfect brunch setting: ACHIEVED.

During the rest of our stay at the cafe, we watched people and babies and puppies pass by while we had our delicious food. I pointed out some of the neat sights just across the street, particularly the Madame’s Organ mural and The Black Squirrel bar. We caught up on each others’ lives, made jokes and teased each other, and I found out what she’d been doing while staying in DC.

One of the things she’d done was to start exploring the Zoo, but she’d only had a short while in there. She was a bit sad about that since she hadn’t had the chance to explore a zoo in years. It’s a good thing that this was my second surprise: that we’d be going to the zoo next! That is, if it stopped raining. I did, by the way, have backup plans for if it didn’t stop raining — but the sun came out so I’ll keep those plans for another time.

We packed up and drove over to the Zoo, where I impressed her with my ability to parallel park in a tiny space on a hill, and explore we did. Now, as you may know, the Zoo in DC is a decent size. I’m not going to tell you everything we went to see, but we did explore a lot. She took plenty of photos with her very nice camera (um, her pseudonym is for obvious reasons) and I took plenty with my…phone.

Along the way, I kept firing up the date SONAR to see what I could get back. That’s when I do things like complimenting my date, teasing her in mildly sexual way, emphasizing jokes and conversation by placing a hand on her leg (when we’re sitting) or her arm. If I get a negative feedback, I immediately stop. If it’s positive, then I escalate a bit. With SP, I felt like she didn’t mind but that’s it. That could have meant she wasn’t interested after all, or it could have meant she was just not fond of public displays of affection.

Now, I’m not one for playing games or guessing at uncertain situations. So, somewhere between The Nut Seekers and the Beary Cute Andean bear cubs, I asked her if I was barking up the wrong tree by asking her on a date. She wasn’t really sure how to answer, so I suspected this wasn’t going to go any further. Still, just to clarify, I tried another phrasing of the question and asked if we were going to stay just friends or maybe turn more than friends. That one gave her the choice she was looking for and she went for just friends.

So then I turned and ran!

No, I didn’t do that. Geez! We kept exploring the rest of the zoo! Because I like the zoo and I like her and why not? If we’d cut short our visit, we never would have made it to the Kid’s Farm petting area wherein she spotted the sign that read, “Are Cows Tools?” And my answer was, “Only if they wear their collars popped up.” Obviously.

Plus, we stopped at the Dolci Gelati stand (wow, in the zoo? nice!) on our way out and got their flavor of the day, Pina Colada. She got hers straight and I got half that and half Mango sorbet. The Pina Colada was delicious and creamy and the Mango was fresh and flowery. I offered her a bit of the Mango and she agreed that it had that flowery taste that really makes the difference between good and mediocre. What? I like mango!

One thing that I didn’t bother asking, because it’s not that important, was “Why not?” We had spoken in no uncertain terms about dating, making out, and yes even orgasms before the date. I’d said explicitly that it was a Date when asking her, and she even commented to me how it was good that I did so that she was sure about it. Had I failed to measure up? Was I not as attractive in person? Was it because she was in such an uncertain place in her life?

Here’s why it doesn’t matter: Because I shouldn’t force it. If she started off wanting to kiss me and changed her mind mid-date, anything I did purposefully to try to change her mind would most likely just make her even more certain that nothing was going to happen. So, instead, I just teasingly warned her that I might still try to make out with her the next time I saw her because she’s so pretty. She didn’t tell me not to!

After I drove her home and we hugged good-bye and went our separate ways, I contacted her to ask if I could blog about the date. She responded, “I thought you did a pretty nice job on putting that date together, so you should get some internet credit.”  Well, thank you, SP. I hope the internet agrees with you!

* many photos are creative commons from flickr, click through to source.
* photo of Adams Morgan from wiki commons. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

When I posted my last piece about the date I had with “S”, I saw that I got a few visits and that was fun, but the only comment I got was from my friend, Sam of Yogitastic. So I figured that just about nobody cared about it.

Then, much to my surprise, every time I spoke to a friend in real life or via email, they’d ask what happened with that woman. They asked if there was a second date or if we were dating now. Huh.

Now, I’m aware that people are more inclined to complain than compliment online, but I was still taken aback that so many both seemed to have read my overlong account and gotten invested in it. That sort of readership makes me feel like I owe all of you info about the rest of the story.

Let me be clear from the start that I still really like S and think fond things about her and that first date. So, at the end of that date, when I thought we’d be going out again later that week, I was… I thrilled at the thought of it.

And then, before the night when she and I were supposed to have our second rendezvous, she contacted me to let me know that stuff had come up and we’d have to postpone a bit. I offered a few options but she just said we’d figure it out. Okay, that didn’t sound promising, but I’m generally willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.

 
I went about my week and went to visit a friend one night to help her with some computer stuff (connecting a printer wirelessly). On my way home, I realized I was passing not far from where S lived so I pulled over and gave her a call to see what was up. She didn’t take my call, but texted back to let me know that we weren’t going to have that second date.

 

It turned out that upon consideration, the fact that I read her blog and twitter account unsettled her. Now, she gave me more detailed reasons, but there’s no need for me to share them here. I’ll simply say that the elaboration she gave made sense and it wasn’t cruel or flippant.

But I liked this woman. Still do. So, I told her that I’d unfollow her and never look at her blog again and she could even block me. And I clarified that she could stalk me all she wants, I just wouldn’t do the same in return. She told me again that she would like to go on another date with me so she’d think about it.

And that’s it.

I really haven’t looked at her twitter feed or her blog since I told her I wouldn’t. I think she might still follow me on twitter but I’d have to look at her account to find out.

It’s been long enough now that I don’t hold out hope that she’ll ever contact me for that second date, but that’s not going to change my behavior or how I feel about our one night out. Because what happened later didn’t change what happened before, and I liked what happened before.

Now, if I can just find someone who’ll go on two dates with me, that’ll be great.

I’m still grinning like a giddy fool from the first date I had last night with S, a woman I follow on twitter but had never met in person. I usually suggest something casual but conversation-friendly for my first dates, but S had let me know via DM that she liked movie dates. That’s great for me because I really enjoy going out to see a movie on dates, too. Besides, we were going to Gallery Place in DC for the show and I knew that there were would be tons of things we could walk to afterwards where we could chat.

I went on a date with someone I’ve never met after only communicating with her on twitter? Yep. And she follows me, too, so when I tweet out a link to this blog post, I strongly suspect she’ll read it. Of course, I asked her for permission before I published this. But yes, S is now the fifth person I’ve met from twitter: I dated the first and second and fifth. Just friends with the third and fourth. I’ve a half-written post about how this might be my favorite form of “online dating”. But that’s for another time.

S is one of many DC tweeps who also blogs. Or maybe that should be: one of the many bloggers who also tweets? Either way, she’s one of them and she blogs about stuff that she wouldn’t necessarily want family and coworkers to read so she does it anonymously. Hence, I’m calling her “S” here.

I’d started following her twitter and reading her blog posts several weeks (months?) ago. From them, I thought she seemed open to new experiences, sexy, fun-loving, geeky, wary of the city, but not yet hardened by the urban life, caring, sweet, a little shy, and yet determined to try to make good choices in order to take care of herself. I also knew that grammar and spelling were not her greatest skills, but I thought she offset that by liking zombies and ice cream. Not… Not at the same time, you guys. That would be weird.

Separate? Yes. combined? Weird.So, a couple of weeks ago on her twitter account, she mentioned to someone else I follow how she’d like to go to the zoo. The zoo! I butted in to say that even though she had no idea who I was, I’d be happy to go with her because I always enjoy going to the zoo. I’ve taken hundreds, maybe thousands of zoo photos over the years, I like it so much! That, by the way, was not me explicitly looking for a date. That was me just expressing a shared interest. But then she responded very amiably to me, a complete stranger and I decided I would like to ask her out after all. To the zoo! Unfortunately, she told me she worked weekends past the time of day when the zoo closes (I sympathize with that, since I tend to work long hours that cause me to miss tons of cool stuff), but she didn’t shoot down the idea of that zoo date. Maybe when her schedule shifts and she has a weekend off.

That’s where things stood until this past week, I got the opportunity to go see a screening of a UK movie (Attack the Block) here in the US, for free! Look, I can pay for movie tickets, but free makes an experience seem even better. Like it’s a gift that you can just relax and enjoy. And I thought of S not-shooting-me-down, so I tried again. This time, she turned me down because the screening was on a night when she was already committed to attending a party, but with the sentiment that otherwise she’d be happy to join me for a movie date. At two date rejections, I might have thought she was just telling me to go away in gentle, passive fashion–but she didn’t give me that “leave me alone” vibe. So, I struck again while the open-to-a-movie iron was still hot and she agreed to come out with me to a movie after work on Saturday!

At that point, we’d still never met. So when she DM’d me her real name, I dutifully internet-stalked her. I mean, she basically invited me to do it. I found photos of her (cute!) and a personal blog about things she did share with her family, and a couple other little things. All fine, good things. I’m not shallow enough that I’d have called off the date if I didn’t think she was cute in her photos, but at least that way I could recognize her. And some people look better while others look worse in photos so… basically I was saving my shallow evaluation for the actual date.

I had to prep for it; we were going to see Cowboys and Aliens at Gallery Place, and though I knew there were tons of things around there, I haven’t really explored much of that area outside of Muse Lounge where I’d gone swing dancing occasionally. Google maps and yelp are great for this sort of thing, especially with my Android phone. I found a bunch of places to eat various types of food as well as a couple other things to do and starred them on the website. That sync’d to my phone so I could just pull up the starred places on my Maps app later.

Here’s where we met for the date. View Larger MapWe both showed up just before the movie started; we walked into the downstairs at the same time. I was finishing texting her that I was there and starting to look around when a pretty woman waved to catch my attention and came up to me. She had just come from work, ridden an annoyingly delayed metro train on a line with which she was not that familiar, was looking around to meet a stranger… and she looked great. Just freaking adorable. IIRC, she wore a green top that showed off her *neck*, a white flowy cardigan over it, black pants, a light blue purse, and something like black ballet shoes. I guess women don’t need to carry much to work? If I showed up right after work, I’d have had my laptop bag with me. Without compromising her identity, I think I can safely say she had beautiful blue-gray eyes and a button nose that would crinkle when she smiled and laughed. I wanted to bite that nose, it was so cute. *SPOILER: nobody got bitten on this date.* Instead, I gave her an inadvertently awkward Voldemort hug (which I’m going to blame on the bag draped in front of her) and we headed in to the movie.

I’m glad she hadn’t had to wait for me because the tiny theater was packed. And ANNOYINGLY, people were holding empty seats even though it was mere minutes to the start time. That shouldn’t be allowed! 20 minutes before? Sure. 5 minutes before? Their loss! Anyway, we didn’t end up in the very front but maybe the 2nd row. Eh, if that was the biggest hurdle on our date, I wasn’t too worried. We chatted a bit before the movie, and as the lights turned down for the preview, I leaned close to her ear and told her I thought she was cute. She seemed happy with that. Since I wasn’t sure if she liked commenting back and forth during films, I tried to keep quiet from then on. But I couldn’t help it! A few times I occasionally leaned close to her ear again to make a comment. Still, she always seemed pleased by whatever I said so I think that part went well. At the end, we were both of a “It was fun but no big deal” opinion on the film.

Now, that was all she’d agreed to, but I did not want to walk away from this woman. I wanted to get to know her better because I was already feeling attracted to her and wanted to find out whether that was something to pursue or not. I suggested we get something to eat and she was up for it. The trusty smartphone came out and without interrogating her too much or forcing her to make too many decisions, I found that she was not a big fan of spicy food and hadn’t had too many experiences with ethnic dishes, but was willing to try new things. I decided to take her to Momiji Japanese Restaurant for sushi! We walked the couple of blocks to it from Gallery place. I was nervous that it might rain but we made it safely.

There were two aspects to our after-movie dinner: the dining experience and the flirting experience. I think I made the dining experience a fun one when it could have been difficult. She was pretty unfamiliar with sushi and its ingredients, didn’t care for spicy food, and didn’t feel comfortable with chopsticks. None of that bothers me. Really! I ordered veggie gyoza appetizers so that would start getting prepared while we looked through the menu. I found out she likes tuna, so I looked for something that would be exotic and tasty without being too scary, based on tuna. And then I ordered a special roll for her with the spicy sauces requested on the side, and avocado roll and sweet potato roll for me. When the server only left us with chopsticks, I gave S a cheating way to use them until we could ask for a fork — that worked out fine and I hope I didn’t make her feel awkward about it. She did seem to like the gyoza, the sushi roll I chose for her, and my sweet potato sushi roll that I offered her. So, I think that part was good.

This is not what we ate but it is from their website. Isn’t it pretty?

 

Then the flirting experience was just so much fun. S constantly had a twinkle in her eye and it felt like our conversation flowed easily between food and movies and family and work and blogging and so on. I joked, I teased, I complimented, I listened and though I think I probably followed good date etiquette rules, I didn’t have to try very hard because she made it easy for me. She was open and thoughtful and had solid opinions and made jokes and it was fun. And we closed out the Japanese restaurant. That may sound more impressive than it was, since they closed at 11, meaning we’d been there for less than two hours. Still, that’s a good sign, right?

We headed out into the musty evening air and started slowly strolling back toward Gallery Place. I came right out and told her that I didn’t want our evening to end yet and she seemed right there with me, but had to work the next day. I asked if I could at least drive her home so we could keep talking and she was a little hesitant. But since she’d been thinking of taking the bus home I think I didn’t have too hard of a time persuading her. Let me take a moment here to say if all she’d wanted from me was a drive home with no funny business, that’s all I’d have done. I take no for an answer. Was I hoping to make out with her? Absolutely. But my own hope is nobody’s consent.

Anyway, we kept talking about things like my swing dancing and her lack of rhythm and other topics as we walked into the parking garage. We hunted for my car (she made the Seinfeld reference!), and when we found it, I walked around to let her in on the passenger side. And before we got in the car, I checked to see how she felt about how the date was going. She felt good about it, it turns out. … And then I drove her home.

We kissed good night. That was… Well, I thoroughly enjoyed kissing her good night. And she made clear to me that we should go on another date, so I must have done a decent job. That date was last night. Today, I’ve made plans with her to go on another date this week. So, of course, I’m still grinning.

P.S. Again, I don’t think this is giving away too much, but she lives not very far from Jam Cellar. Where I often dance on Tuesday nights! I don’t believe in “signs” but come on! That’s cool.

The ice cream image is from flickr and so is the zombie image.

I got to see this wonderful documentary at Silver Docs* this morning. It’s only about Elmo in small part, and if you’re one of the many adults who finds him annoying, that shouldn’t stop you from seeing this film. It seems silly to suggest I’m about to spoil a documentary, but I suppose I should be considerate and say SPOILERS.

It’s actually about Kevin Clash‘s mostly happy journey from backyard shows to Captain Kangaroo and The Great Space Coaster, to working in Labyrinth and meeting Jim Henson, to making Elmo a muppety symbol of love, joining The Muppets, and taking over Sesame Street, and finally to looking forward to the next generation of Puppeteers.

You may know that there is a trilogy by Philip Pullman called His Dark Materials that’s about a universe where it’s implied that people’s souls live outside of them in animal forms called daemons.

It seemed clear to me as I watched this documentary that the best of the puppeteers show us their souls through the characters they bring to life. Certainly there may be some who are just working a job, but this film highlighted the best: the Hensons and the Clashes. Their work touches us because it’s as unadulterated a glimpse into the hearts of caring people as most of us will get to see.

The one thing it’s not is: it’s not a documentary about horrors and tragedies. There are no dark obstacles here, merely a Dark Crystal. But I enjoyed it more than I can properly say. I hope you get to watch it, too.

I cried, I laughed, and it’s not just a movie.

* It’s no longer playing at Silver Docs**, but during the post-show Q&A, two of the people behind the documentary said there would be showings in NYC and LA in August in order to be considered for the Oscars, and then hopefully wider distribution after that.

** BUT, the schedule of the AFI Silver Docs festival continues! You should attend!

Does any other nation in the world go by a name that begins “United States of”? I know of the UK and The United Arab Emirates, but nothing that distinguishes itself as a collaboration of individually governed States.

I ask because “United States” sounds generic and vague even if I guess we might be the only one. I wish we had a Proper name like Spain or Japan or Brazil. I don’t mean those names are necessarily better (though I think they are) but that they are singular names that mean singular things. Australia is Australia and you wouldn’t say that protesters are australian together in a cause or that someone’s been driven to an australia of panic. Even our friendly Northern neighbor, who is also composed of individual… uh… things?… regions?… has the lovely name of Canada to group them all together. Provinces and Territories! That’s it. Anyway, nobody ever says a bedroom’s in a canada of disarray!

I guess the US is no worse than the UK, but Great Britain sounds AWESOME. They have “Great” right in their name! And though it doesn’t apply so much any more, the word Britain actually has an etymology that describes its people. I like that. I suppose in some ways, we are united, but the rest of our name (our units of government and our continental location) is boring and not terribly descriptive of us. The fact that it includes “of America” seems to indicate that otherwise we’d confuse people.

“Wait, are you from the United States of Luxembourg? Oh, of AMERICA. Well, no wonder, then.”

I’d like to propose a national name change. My proposition? The Wide Consumption! It describes us perfectly in so many ways. I’d be a proud Consumer. (I already am, informally.) And yes, I know that consumption is also an archaic name for tuberculosis, and yes I know that WC stands for water closet. Doesn’t that just add more merit to my suggestion? As for “Wide” — self-explanatory.

I think it would make much more sense for Europeans, Africans, Asians, and other Americans to spot travelers from our nation and be able to say, “Oh, look, it’s a Wide Consumer.” That would be SO EASY to translate! They probably wouldn’t even need to be taught anything about us in advance to be able to name us.

Now, who do I talk to about this?