Datecrime - I'm going to

Datecrime - I'm going to take you to a place that few want to go - a place where a strong stomach is as priceless your Mastercard.

That's right. My personal life. Do what you need to protect the children, then get back here.

I've alluded in a few posts to some experiences I've had while dating. An email corresondent wrote in response to one of them:

I believe you are missing something on this. The date who can't go on dating you because you are
a Republican does this because, to her, you are evil. I mean that. Most people cannot see being romantically
involved with someone who is inherently immoral.

You and I define someone's morality by what they do - how they act - but not everyone does, especially modern
liberals. Their morality is defined by what you believe. It is a fact that Bill Clinton treats 21 year old women like garbage
and is at least probable that he is a rapist. Nevertheless, he is a good person because he is pro-choice and so forth. He
believes the right things. Garrison Keillor is nasty to people in person because treating actual human beings with dignity
simply is not part of his definition of what makes a good person.

All fair points for discussion.

Here's how it's played out in that comedy of errors called "My personal life".

The first was a woman who, near the end of a very nice second date, started talking politics. Bear in mind, we'd had two superb dates, and things were looking just fine. But once I said the "R" word, she looked at me with the look a parent gets when their toddler has plopped next to the toilet. "If you'd told me that before we went out, I'd have never dated you!", she said. She'd had just enough good breeding to almost, but not quite, cover the hissing incivility between the lines. We had one more phone call - the very definition of "perfunctory". And I learned my first lesson.

But not in the sense that it did me any good!

Different woman: while discussing perhaps going out, she did a Google search for my name. Sh found a few references to my conservative ideals. She sent me an email: "You seem like a nice guy, but I'm a peace-loving DFLer who believes in peace and justice and equality". An email protesting that I am equally in favor of peace, justice, equality, love, brotherhood and truth went unanswered.

Yet another woman, with whom I'd clicked pretty famously in person and by phone. She also Googled me, and sent me yet another "Dear Mitch" email: "I think our differin political perspectives would cause us a lot of problems. I will not be writing you again".

Now, I know that the situation is reversed at times - but in every case I've personally heard of, it's been on the grounds of some deep emotional issue: Christians angry over abortion; former Marines who'd never date an anti-war protester; stuff that was personal and attributable to something a person had explicitly done, not just beliefs. I have yet to hear of a Republican dump a Democrat purely on the basis of broad beliefs. Has it happened? Sure, but not to anyone I know. In the meantime, I and several conservative, recently-divorced friends have had exactly the same experience.

Could it merely be that we're all ugly and lousy dates? Well, me, sure. But not all of them!

At any rate, the swiftness and vehemence of the disengagement reminded me in every case of, for example, a Jewish person cutting off contact with a goy, or someone who had discovered some drastic difference in lifestyle or worldview - like if they'd discovered their suitor was a felon!

But in no case was there any vast, gaping divide in education, expeirence, life story...no, just political party.

Am I wrong? Has anyone had a vastly different experience? I can't collect much hard evidence on this, but anecdotes are more fun anyway...

Posted by Mitch at December 2, 2002 09:54 PM