Things I Should Have Said, Dating Edition (Part II)
By Mitch Berg
In honor of Valentine’s Day, this is a follow-up to one of my most popular posts.
CASE 1: Flinty fortysomething executive type – let’s call her “Lynnette”. Kicks off a conversation with “I tend to be too direct”. As she’d only been divorced less than a year, after nearly twenty years of marriage, I expressed some concern – I’ve been bitten by that whole “rebound” bug too many times. This brought on a litany of pique, the upshot of which was her contention that, despite conventional wisdom, plenty of research, and oodles of my own personal experience, she really was an emotionally-available, completely-recovered outlier to reality.
WHAT I SHOULD HAVE SAID: “Er, what you call “Direct” most of us call “rude and self-absorbed. And I don’t think you’re nearly as squared away as you think you are. Check please…”
CASE 2: Cute, if somewhat way-too-thin-for-my-tastes accountant. Let’s call her “Ann”.
After two fairly nice dates, a phone call. “I’m narrowing down my list of guys to [names another guy she’s also been going out with]. Sorry”.
WHAT I SHOULD HAVE SAID: “Are you Paula, or Randy? Because I do a much better Simon…”
CASE 3: “I am crazy about vampires”
WHAT I SHOULD HAVE SAID: [clattering of chair, cloud of dust as I ran for door].
February 14th, 2007 at 6:38 am
Mitch–
You meet some awfully scary-assed women over there in Minnesota.
Whyn’t you take a drive east and try your luck in WI? I’m not saying that they’re all plums over here… but jeepers, m’lad, I did a spell of dating meself a few years back and I never met a woman (well, okay, one) as scary as some of the prima donnas you keep running into.
That is all. (Heh.)
February 14th, 2007 at 7:35 am
Mitch, it’s obvious Case #3 just wanted you to bite her neck. Don’t you get role playing?
February 14th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Happy V-Day, Mitch. I’m one of the lucky ones happily married, but have family members in the same boat as you. My brother isn’t even trying.
If you watched “House” last night, you caught a classic line he delivered to his boss as he interupted her date from an online service, ‘Single Ballroom Dancers.com’. He whispered loudly in her ear, “This guy is much better than your ‘Wiccans Seeking a Daddy Figure.com’ date!”
February 14th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Hahahahaha!
February 14th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Dude! The LME and I have a theory that everyone considering a divorce should attend a few adult mixers and get a really good idea about the dating pool out there. We figure that should scare at least 1/2 of the people back into conseling.
Dating past 30 is tough, but dating past 40 is torture. You have to get really comfortable with the steamer trunks of baggage they you and the other person are bringing to the deal. Maybe you should hang tight until your 50’s when the kid issues start to fade.
February 14th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Hmmm… I got divorced at 44, re-married at 50. The dating wasn’t all that bad (and yes, I did date women more or less my own age) but some of the ladies were understandably gun-shy about getting seriously involved again. You had to take that as part of the bargain.
Was I just lucky or something? People told me that I was in for a very rough ride. Actually, for the most part, those were some pretty good years.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Alois,
Actually, it hasn’t been all that bad for me, either (divorced at 38, gleefully single now). They’ve been “pretty good years” for me, too.
But I’ve had at least first dates with a lot of women in the past seven years (and a quite staggering number in the first three years). There’s gonna be stories.
Tracy,
Enh. I like meeting people. And after six years, my baggage fits into a small gym bag (kids aren’t “baggage”). If it takes me ’til my kids are gone to meet “the right one”, I don’t mind.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Mitch–
Glad it’s working (mostly) for you. Women are (mostly) wonderful.
Now let me tell you about my one nightmare date: A STALKER.
I think (I hope) she doesn’t know where I live now…
February 16th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Alois said: “I got divorced at 44, re-married at 50. The dating wasn’t all that bad (and yes, I did date women more or less my own age) …”
“People told me that I was in for a very rough ride.”
That’s what they make KY for, Al.