7 months into a serious relationship, I’ve been having little epiphanies about my single life…perhaps I’ve gained some distance and wisdom on it, rather than reporting from the eye of the Dating Hurricane.

I believe a bad date happens because of at least one of 5 elements:

1. BAD INTEL: You go out with someone and you find you missed important info or weren’t given it. For instance, my friend was set up with a guy with a missing arm – and no one thought to give that poor girl a heads up, “Hey, by the way, he’s missing a major appendage. FYI.” That’s a severe example, but it can also be when someone posts unusually flattering pictures of themselves or their pictures are blurry, far away, in dark bars, etc. and you hope for the best (I’m sure she’s hot and she’s just had terrible, terrible luck being photographed)…which brings me to….
2. LACK OF DUE DILIGENCE: You didn’t vet this person enough before you agreed to a date. Maybe you didn’t talk to them on the phone and relied on your “text chemistry” or “e-mail banter” or how much you seemed to have in common (on paper). I had one of the worst dates with a girl who seemed perfect for me – quirky, young, into pop culture, but she had blurry / far away / sunglasses on / no smiling photos (see Rule #1 above) and we never talked before meeting. I could have caught her weird, socially awkward personality on the phone and wouldn’t have suffered through a painful, painful dinner I, of course, was on the hook for.
3. DIDN’T TRUST YOUR GUT: An acquaintance of mine had a terrible date with a guy who was verbally abusive and mean the entire night. When I asked if she talked on the phone with him, she said she did and there were no red flags. None at all. When I pressed her, she finally admitted he was really sarcastic when they had talked. Perfect example of ignoring a red flag. I talked to dozens of girls who were boring (but nice) and hoped for some kind of personality miracle when we met for coffee and it never happened. People don’t make huge personality shifts between the phone and in-person.
4. IGNORED STANDARD DATING PROCEDURES: Evan Marc Katz had a recent blog about the 10 worst dates people had and more than half could have been avoided by sticking to common sense stuff when meeting a stranger (especially a male stranger) – like always meet in a public place. Many of these people were coming over strange guys’ homes on date 1 or worse, inviting them over to their home (“So, if you don’t want to assault me on Date One, here’s where I live so you can do it at your convenience.”). One even robbed some lady in the middle of the night when he asked to sleep on the couch. In his blog, there were a lot of bad situations that wouldn’t have happened in Starbucks on a Saturday.
5. BAD SURPRISE: These are cases of just bad luck – wrong place, wrong time — just couldn’t have seen it coming. Like when my validation ticket failed and I couldn’t get out of a mall parking garage and cars were backing up behind me honking and my date shut down (granted, she could have been nicer about it) or when a date took me to a party where the host attacked me with garlic baked squash or when I met a girl at a diner and her devastatingly handsome ex-boyfriend (or ex-or-current lover – I couldn’t tell) happened to be seated next to me at the counter when she walked up and then was rattled to the core for our entire date…while he ate his meal right around the corner from our booth. And then came over to say goodbye. And they kissed on the lips.

Back in the pre-internet / pre-e-mail days, getting a number meant nothing.

You had no other option but to ask for a woman’s number and unless she said “Actually, let me get your number” (which meant she didn’t like you, duh) you got a number.

I imagine it was much easier to give a guy your number and then just ignore his message when he rang then say ”No, sorry, not interested” (most women were never, ever that mean — to your face) or deliver the ‘no-let-me-get-yours’ salve.

It meant so little that when I got a woman’s number, I would wait a day or two, then call it, leave a message (on an answering machine!!!) and then immediately throw it in the trash so I wouldn’t bother her again (and so I wouldn’t be reminded of her / the rejection / be tempted to ring it again).

I say all this because until recently I would get really, really annoyed when I would exchange a bunch of promising e-mails with a woman online, ask for number, get it (often with an encouraging note to call), call it and then get blown off (no returned phone call).

I found this rude, especially when they could have just faded away / ignored me when I asked for their number. The medium’s perfect for that, unlike a face-to-face.

I would just imagine them listening to my message and then snorting in disgust and/or immediately deleting.

BUT ALL OF THAT WAS IN MY HEAD.

Then I realized I had my own dating rule floating around in my brain no one knew / could know about: “Women who don’t call you back after they give you their number on Match are rude, insincere, game players, not serious about finding someone” etc.

When I took myself out of the equation and stopped taking their unresponsiveness personally, I understood that getting the number still / just means nothing — the women are still in a state of PRE-INTEREST. I was putting much more weight on it than women are / do.

They might of have lost interest, didn’t like my voice, started dating someone else, Googled me when my name came up and found this public radio story I told about dating, got busy, meant to call me back but then a guy they liked more reached out, who freakin’ knows.

And like the El Paso girl once told me, “The right woman will think, ‘Whoa, whoa — I have to do everything in my power not to let David / this guy get away.”

I’ve had two women recently give me a “No talking on the phone” ultimatum.

Meaning, we exchanged a handful of nice e-mails and when I asked for their numbers, they threw down a big barrier as if I asked for a very delicate and touchy sex act on Date 1.

The excuses range from “I’m not good on the phone” (What? Oh, you mean that thing in your hand all the time?) to “I don’t like talking on the phone.” (Again, what?) to (an exact quote) “I am not much of a phone person – especially when I first meet someone. I like to just meet a person and take in the entire energy of the experience.”

I usually counter with that I just like to talk to someone for a few minutes — 10 or 15 — before I make a Date Date.

You know why? I’m a big believer in Phone Chemistry. Because Phone Chemistry often translates into Real Life Chemistry. And Bad Phone is a canary in the coal mine for Chemistry.

I’d rather have 10, 15 minutes of Bad Phone than 30 – 60 minutes of Bad Face-to-Face — plus travel time, drink costs, etc.

And I’ve had bad phone — a few women who were drunk, the woman who made the joke about calling the morgue, the woman who offered to ‘tea bag’ me, women with voices that could qualify as torture devices (I once talked to a woman who knew a friend and when I asked the friend about her voice, she said, “Ooooh, yeah….there’s that.”)…

At this point, the conversation has to be good to get me to go out on a real date — nice, passable, boring talks don’t inspire me for a get-together anymore. I don’t care how good looking you are in your pics.

So, I made kind, charming appeals to these two women — the one mentioned above thought about it and made more excuses and the woman on e-harmony CLOSED ME out. (Meaning, I was banned from communication).

I am being too rigid? Or are they?

I mean, if they are so rigid about something so small and reasonable so early on, what are they going to be like later? Like my mom, where EVERYTHING must be her way? (“I know it’s your birthday, but your mother wants pancakes for dinner…”)

I’m a little self-conscious about posting since that Mystery Reader e-mail — the self-fulfilling prophesy and all. I’m going to try and write about universal themes (and maybe even some non-dating stories), rather than more ‘then-this-lady-done-me-wrong’ tales.

The Art of The Cold Call

When you make or receive a call from someone you met an online dating site, this is a very tricky and delicate proposition.

Some suggestions:

• Don’t take the call if you are busy and then act annoyed when you discover it’s just some guy from a dating site you happened to volunteer your number to.
• Some suggestions of when not to pick up (actual examples) when you don’t recognize the name / number: While you are picking up your dog’s poop, on a bike with your friends, at the ICU with your dying mother, in the shower (I’m talking to you, girl who was in the movie CLUELESS), driving your dying dog to get chemo (woman who wrote a very famous rom-com they run on TBS every 5 minutes), making a deadline at work, in a car with your girlfriend/s.
• Try and sound pleased I called…and not annoyed.
• If I catch you at a bad time, please say so instead of muscling through the phone call.
• Don’t MULTI-TASK — and if you are, do it quietly (paint your nails vs. putting dishes away, rearranging your closet, packing for a trip, cooking something complicated, pumping gas, ordering coffee, driving in heavy rain (“OMG, I almost hit that guy”), babysitting young children)
• Have something to say. Don’t rely on me to keep our talk afloat. “So, what else?” is not a good icebreaker. Sometimes I feel like I’m giving CPR to a conversation.

Because as I’ve learned in close to 300 dates, if the phone sucks, the in-person will blow too.

Two interesting things happened in the last two days — two incidents where I expressed my displeasure about someone’s dating behavior — TO THEM (and not to this blog or 3 of my friends).

I usually let these kind of things slide and take the high road and go out in a way I think is classy. (“I will not dignify that with a response, ma’am!”). Plus, there’s sooooooooooo much bad behavior and my job is not to be Dating Infraction Cop — I’ve got too much other things to do and pursue other good “leads” to be concerned with having the last word.

And also I never want come across as “The Angry, Burned Guy” and give Match.com and guys dating online a bad name.

But Carrie and my BFF Mindy and two particularly outrageous acts inspired me in the last 48 hours.

1st STORY:

An attractive woman e-mails ME on Match.com. Her headline “Warm and Kind.” Nice profile. Great pictures / great look. Lives nearby in Santa Monica. We e-mail back and forth for 1.5 weeks or so. She VOLUNTEERS her number. I e-mail and say I will call that evening. At 10:30  I write and apologize for it slipping my mind and I will call the next day. She writes back ‘no prob’ and gives me a specific time to call (after 6) where I will have quote “her undivided attention” (she is driving to the desert). I call at 6:15 and it goes to VM. AND SHE DOESN’T CALL ME BACK the whole night.

Alright, maybe that was bad timing, phone died, whatever. She calls days later (and I think she called during lunch even saying something like “Ohhh, maybe you are out at lunch”) and tells me to call again, a specific time and day. That day and time comes and AGAIN, RIGHT TO VM and no returned phone call. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Okay, I’m done. This is stupid.

Then last night (maybe 6 days after the last attempt), I was looking at my diminishing “prospects” and thought, hmmmm, maybe I should try her one more time. She was really cute. I call at 6:30 and GET HER (OMG!)

ME: Julienne?

HER: David?

She sounds taken off guard — I don’t think she meant to pick it up and prob. looked the caller ID quickly.

ME: Yes, hey — did I catch you at a bad time?

HER: Yes, I’m still at work — can I ring you in 45 minutes?

ME: Sure, of course. I’ll be here.

45 minutes comes and goes. THREE FUCKING HOURS LATER (after I called, 2 hours fifteen after the 45 minutes) at 9:30 the phone rings while I’m on with Mindy — I click over and it’s a TEXT TO LANDLINE MESSAGE.

ROBOT VOICE: Sorry-David-I-forgot-I-had-dinner-with-a-girlfriend-can-I-call-you-after?

Okay, this is a steaming pile of bullshit on so many levels. At 6:30 you forgot you had dinner with a friend? And if this lie WAS TRUE, you couldn’t call me in the car on the way? Or text this pathetic lie at 7:00? Or even 8? And like she’s really going to call at 10? Like she’s still at dinner at 9:30?

Mindy says “Text back ‘Don’t bother.’”

ME: It’s not me right? She’s playing games, right? I am nuts?

MINDY: She’s playing games. I know — ’cause I’ve been HER.

So I text back on my cell: “It’s okay, don’t bother, good luck, David.”

THEN MILI-SECONDS LATER A RESPONSE:

“Wow, I was totally wrong about you. Thought you were easy going. Good luck to you. Sounds like you’re the one who needs it.”

I so wanted to write back: Say hi to your imaginary friend for me. Mindy says in a few weeks she’ll wonder if you were ‘The One who got away.’

I call a woman this AM — get the VM — she calls me back while I’m leaving a message…but she’s with a friend, on her bike and our few minute conversation was interrupted every 30 seconds by her talking to her friend, other bikers, random people on the street…I felt like I was joining her in an Old Navy commercial.

“So, what are you doing today?”

“well, I have to work on this — ”

“Make a left now!”

This is a real pet peeve of mine. I’m not your friend. You don’t know me. I’m try to make a good impression and get to know you and it’s hard when you’re on your cell and got ADD and I’m just another distraction.

But after about 6 minutes, she says she’ll call me back later.

***

She calls at 7 and it’s better. And she’s tells me about her friend’s lousy boyfriend. I give a brilliant assessment of the situation. She’s impressed. And laughs.

She asks me where I’m from. I say Philly. And then I lived in New York.

And she says “Manhattan?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we had a house in Long Island, then a house in Queens, then a house upstate, then a house in CT, then a house in________, and then a condo in Greenwich Village….”

“Wow. That’s a lot of houses.”

No laugh.

(We’re losing pressure, Captain.)

Then she corrects me on the difference between The High School for Performing Arts and Art And Music in NYC.

(Ship’s going down, Captain.)

She then volunteers that she was married when she moved to LA. And now divorced. And gave me short synopsis on her marriage and her ex’s professional failures (was a top chef for the studios and now cooks in a hospital) — she still sounded disappointed in his choices. “I saw potential in him he didn’t see himself.”

(I don’t like the sound and tone of this, Captain.)

“What about you?”

“What about me what?”

Silence.

“Oh, was I married? No, nope…”

More silence. More rope to hang me with. This is starting to feel like a bad job interview.

I very, very briefly talk about moving her for a woman and that didn’t work out.

“Then what?”

I get what’s happening — she’s trying to conduct a RELATIONSHIP AUTOPSY. This is not going to be pretty — either way — if I go into great detail or I avoid it. Either way I’m dead.

“Then I was with a girl from Italy and she had to move back for school and her family.”

Silence. Then:

HER: “Well, thanks for sharing that. I have to make dinner and have a lot of things to prep, so I got to go.”

ME: “Oh! Okay, then.

HER: See you later.

ME: Okay.

Time of death: 17 minutes and 20 seconds.

She left in the morning and then texted me later: “I’ll call you later in the day.”

I texted back: “That’s okay, I think we are on the same page.”

The immediate response: “What page is that?”

My text: “The page where I think we broke up over the course of 5 hours last night.”

Then the phone rang. It was her.

Then the most amazing thing happened — I VOCALIZED MY FEELINGS. And not in a victim-y, blame-y way either — it came from a very strong, confident, calm place.

I remember saying things like: “I don’t know what’s going on — I don’t understand what your needs are — I can’t even figure out what kind of guy you need — you won’t respect the beta who takes your shit and an alpha won’t put up with it and I feel right in the middle….I don’t deserve the mistreatment you heaped on me last night — it’s clear you are pulling away, may I ask why?….”

And then another amazing thing happened: She admitted trying to sabotage the relationship (!!!!)

So after 20 minutes of me taking the lead on this and her agreeing and listening, I said, “Why don’t you take a few days and figure out what you need / want from me.”

****

EIGHT DAYS later she calls. I pick up because I don’t recognize / remember the number — when she identified herself, I was a bit shocked. “Oh, hi!”

Then she NEVER MENTIONS ANYTHING WE DISCUSSED. Just talks about the weather and the traffic and shit. Finally after 15 minutes, I had to make a conference call, I said, “Well, I gotta go” and we hung up.

It made me sooooooooooo mad — it reminded me of every relationship before this and growing up in my parents house — SHOVE THE UGLY STUFF under the rug and pretend it’s not there.

That was about 2 – 3 weeks ago.

Then I got a text yesterday: “I had a bizzare dream about you — are you alright?”

Whatever.

It’s been a while since I dated her (4 years) and even thought about her….

Her name was (let’s say) “Renee.” I met her at a Feminar (Female + Seminar =  Feminar).

I had been on a “Men’s Panel” during the seminar, where they brought in 4 guys, put us on stage and then we answered honestly from cards the women had pre-written questions on. (I have since been banned from doing this panel anymore — it may have been because I dated this woman — I never found out).

I KILLED at this thing. I was hilarious, but poignant. A woman even stood up and with tears in her eyes apologized to me for dismissing guys her own height when dating.

I happened to stay at the hotel to eat an early dinner after the Feminar team rushed the men on the panel out like we were The Beatles after a press conference. An hour later, I bumped into Renee on the way to the bathroom. She was taller than me, maybe 5’9, kinda cute in a quirky, average girl way. She took my card and was nervous like I was Davy Jones and she Marcia Brady.

She e-mailed me about a week later and then disappeared but then gave me her number after that. She lived in the Bay Area. The next time she came down, we would hang out.

We did — we went to eat, where she looked at me googly-eyed all night and ended up back at my place…and ended up staying for 5 days.

Which wasn’t a bad thing – it was fun and different and like a vacation from own life. And it was nice having someone to sleep in bed with, take naps with, make dinner with, etc. An Instant Girlfriend. Add water and mix. We had fun and laughed. A lot. And she was very sexual free. Experimental. Daring. Non-judgemental.

THE BLOOM COMES OFF THE ROSE:

Classic situation of getting too sexually involved with someone before you really know them (I don’t think anyone would date/have sex if we waited around for every character flaw to arise — I mean, think about it)…

What I didn’t know was she was SOCIALLY A LIABILITY. Blurted things out in public. Embarrassed me. Was socially unconcious. It was like having a child — she would do or say something I would have never seen coming. (“How did you get your head in the banister in the 2 seconds my head was turned?”)

Worse yet, it was like BEING WITH MY MOM (who does the same thing).

Some examples of the stuff that annoyed the shit out of me. (now keep in mind when they came up, it kinda of annoyed me but not enough to say something, but when a million of these things piled up and then one last one hit the pile — I WAS DONE).

• Taking her to lecture that was being recorded, she stood up at the break and (without warning) announced to the whole room, “Anyone wanna get a pizza?” The lecturer had to quickly speak up and say, ‘No, no — we can’t do that.’)
• Once grabbed me from behind in Whole Foods after I said something she didn’t like and wouldn’t let me go (this was a technique she used with her nursery school toddlers when she was working). And refused to let me go despite repeated, whispered, angry warnings.
• Once grabbed my nipple really, really hard while having sex — my animal / automatic instinct was to punch her — I actually had my fist raised.
• Once put on my jeans when I wasn’t looking and stretched them all out of shape (she was taller and curvier than me, so getting them on must have been a real feat — it never occurred to her, “Oh, these are way too small, I better not keep FORCING them on”)
• Once said, “How come you never tell me I’m beautiful” This was like week 3. A needy line (and the needy way she delivered it) made her LESS beautiful.
• I could never get her on the phone when I called / needed her. Always went to VM. (“Oh, I forgot I had my phone off…”)
• When we did talk on the phone, she went on and on and on about her horrible childhood. Endless stories of this.
• Was always LATE. Like, missing PLANES late. Which often fucked up my schedule (and she wasn’t working at the time) — there’s was a whole incident when she missed her plane in SF and had me pick her up at LAX and RUSH her to a hair appt in West Hollywood — freaking out in my car the entire ride — she was 2 hours late for (and then I had wait around in WH for 1.5 hours in the middle of the working day).
• Tended to stay one day too many when she visited (and didn’t ask me if was okay to stay a FIFTH day), she would just miss her plane.

There were other things too — I HATED, HATED her other LA friend and her boyfriend, but the above are the “bad” highlights.

I broke up with over the phone on the sixth week when she proposed coming down for another visit. There was all these little things I could have spoke up about (“hey, don’t touch my stuff” after the jeans thing), but how many times do you have to tell someone to correct their behavior (to your liking) when it’s really that YOU JUST DON’T LIKE THAT OTHER PERSON.

http://screen.yahoo.com/confirmation-28488596.html

Unfortunately, I don’t know how to make this play in my own blog, but trust me — it’s amazing….

Why? Because’s it’s happened to me and it’s one of my pet peeves….

Just the other night I was closing an OK phone call with an interested woman and I said, “Well, we should get coffee or something sometime…” (Meaning: Let’s get together)

And she snaps: “I don’t like coffee. It’s like a job interview. I’d rather do something active.”

“Like bowling?”

“No, ha, I hate bowling. I mean, like a walk down the Promenade.”

I think she heard the screeeeeeeeccccccch sound in my head of me pulling onto the side of the road cause she quickly added, “But whatever you want to do is fine.”

I was on the fence anyway and this just tipped me over. I don’t like when the other person has their own little first date rules they try and impose. It feels controlling. And not fun.

Why can’t coffee feel like when you just hang out with a friend?

Plus, I like to wear my nice shoes on a date and they ain’t meant for long walks.

After that last disaster date, I am trusting my gut. Thanks, Carrie!

Sometimes people have Aspergers. Sometimes I end up on dates with them.

Yesterday I talked on the phone with a really cute, nerdy girl who had I been e-mailing and IM’ing on match — once we started talking, the red flags began to go up — she began to take over the convo (“Where do you live? I live in Silver Lake!”) get really excited about small details (“There’s all these handwritten signs around here and a guy with no teeth who sells corn from a trash can he wheels around on a cart and also…”)

Uh-oh. I think she asked me one question in a 25 minute conversation — where I lived.

And when I got off the phone it started to make sense more — especially her job, academic researcher. And she sounded like a hyper 12 year old, not a 35 year old woman.

Anyway, that wasn’t the worst one.

In early 2010, I went out with a woman who was a well established film director in her native county (actually kind of famous, like had magazine articles written about her) — we had talked before meeting and she did talk a lot and wasn’t picking up my vocal cues but I just chalked it up to her being nervous and the Skype we were using instead of the phone.

We met at a cafe in Venice — and she was very striking — and tall — BUT TALKED NON-STOP FOR AN HOUR AND FIVE MINUTES. And maybe asked me one thing (that had a short answer). The last 15 minutes were her telling me EVERY DETAIL about the new screenplay she was writing. So LA. Sooooo Asspergers. It felt like my face was on a stairmaster — just the barrage of little words.

I drove her to her car where I noticed she seemed to want to kiss me and that she had what seemed to be a small cold sore growing on her lip. I hugged her, she got out and I drove home and took a nap.

The sad part is, MONTHS LATER (like 4 or 5), she e-mailed me a long-ish letter (a couple of paragraphs) and asked me if I wanted to be FRIENDS. This just crushed me. This girl is so alone, so lonely, she reaches out to a guy who didn’t call her for 2nd date months earlier?

I didn’t know if I should reach out with a polite, no thanks (where would I begin?). I was dating someone at the time and ran it past her and she said forget it.

So I did. I still feel a little bad.