i am dealing with it on a date to date basis

i think brians idea for everyone to workshop (post) modern dating theory is a good one. although to a degree it has already been accomplished. dating standards, ideas norms, mores and values can be extrapolated from the previous posts but one must make a lot of assumptions and read between the lines (not unlike dating) in order to come to any conclusions. i think it would be interesting for everyone* to write about the different stages (i think brian did a great job of outlining those) and the problems in each stage and in general.

anyway i thought i would discuss predating. or my ideas on predating. situations i include in the predate are people you want to date, people you are actually dating (initial stages) or maybe even that guy at the bonfire on saturday who wants to ask you out when all you want to do is talk about autism and fire safety.** my analysis of the predate also has a great deal to do with gender roles. it seems like traditional gender roles are emphasized during the predating stage.

perhaps my disdain for dating derives from my disdain for gender roles and i am afraid if i participate in formal dating it would be endorsing traditional gender roles. a traditional date consists of a man calling a women and the following activities occur (if he wants to get kissed goodnight (on the third date)): picks her up at her house (maybe meets her parents, seeks fathers approval), opens her car door and any door she may encounter through out the night, pays for the food and and the movie (i do like movies), and then takes her home and walks her to the door. during the night the man may discuss his ambitions and education and his ability to provide and the women will discuss her family and hobbies.

the whole activity is designed because men have traditionally shown respect to women through a series of meaningless or close to meaningless acts (such as walking on the side closest to the road). furthermore providing for a women used to be paramount to any marriage relationship (so the boy pays). meanwhile these actives encourage the woman to take a more passive role to the date (perhaps so they can showcase their supportive role to their potential spouses ambition and ability to defer to his reasoning).

my problem with the whole system if i dont feel respected when someone opens my door. i feel respected when someone listens to my opinions and values my ideas. i dont care about earning potential or a man providing for me i just want someone who is there for me. i can be supportive of someones goals/careers but in return i want someone to be supportive of mine. i think the perfect first date is when two people go out and their conversation isnt marred by expectations and their actions arent dictated by the their chromosome alignment. if dating was like that i would do more of it.

*we are open to people writing guest posts if you would like to submit one please email me (contact info on my profile) and we will consider it.

**the guy kept trying to ask me out and i kept not letting him. finally the smoke from the fire started blowing our way and i had to move away from him and he asked if i telepathically asked the fire to do that so i could escape and i said i didnt think so....but am i telepathic? with fires? this could open a lot of doors.

what will future anthropologists say about our love?

i've been taking notes for this post for a week now. instead of gaining some focus about what and how to write i've got pages of ramblings in my notebook. i'm afraid this post my be all over the place and boring. but whatever. you gotta write something.

this post is inspired by natali's post about her friend who got email-dumped months after hanging out with some guy. (i thought email-dumped was a funny thing to write, but obviously that's not what happened since she was already engaged to someone else and that guy was hurt about something and decided to take it out on her.) but the questions i see growing out of this incident (and out of many of the stories related on this blog) is what are the different types of dating, where are the lines of demarcation between different types of dating and what gestures are appropriate within which types of dating?
(on a side note: how come when you save drafts it reduces all your double-spaces after periods to a single-space? i know it's not a big deal, but i really like the look of double-spaces between sentences)

i actually wrote like twenty different questions related to understanding, identifying and negotiating different types of dating, but i'm not going to list them since they're sort of repetitive. they all have to do with the problem of changing feelings within (somewhat) fixed relationship categories, the pressure of fitting personal dating experiences into idealized cultural/historical dating norms including nostalgic dating models that prove ineffectual in the information age (maybe because digital communication changes dating relationships) and the relative fluidity of gender roles which challenge older dating models.

but you get it, right? or maybe not. maybe this is my difficulty with dating: articulating feelings.


so i think our blog (rather than me alone cause i don't know what i'm talking about) could and should workshop this. we'll collectively develop a loose theory on post-modern (mormon) dating. i like the very generic classifications of pre-dating, dating and post-dating. maybe something of a continium like pre-dating -> dating ->post-dating where each category blends into the next (with sometimes post- blending into to pre- in the case of dating someone for a second time). it'll be difficult, but i think we can do it. we'll need to seriously challenge our current notions of dating and get rid of actions and attitude that don't hold to the scrutiny. i mean, if you want to.

i need help

25 and-a-half years ago (happy half-birthday to me yesterday), i laid in the hospital nursery batting my little eyes and crying an inherent flirty cry to the little boy babies around me. (this is actually a lie – i was in an incubator with jaundice for two weeks..) the point is, we’re all born with the natural ability to flirt. some of us lose it between about first and second grade when pinning your love interest and spitting in his/her face all of a sudden seemed like the best way to show your affection. others lose it later in life when they never grow out of spitting on their dates. anyway, i’d like to think i’ve kept a fair amount of my flirting ability over the course of my life. i can’t tromp the best of them, but i recently grew out of my spitting phase, so i guess i’m about average. i can hold my own – we’ll say that.

and then, enter the internet (boo! hiss!) i’m yet to get into the whole internet dating thing – not for any particular reason – i’m not anti or anything, i just haven’t delved into it. but i do know this – online flirting is definitely not included in the inherent-flirting package. we weren’t born knowing how to online flirt. and that’s recently become painfully obvious.

see this random boy (if you want to know his name, ask me. there’s a good chance you might know him – crazy small mormon utah internet-savvy world. then you can just hook us up in person) wrote me on the ldslinkup saying something brilliant like “hey what’s up.” i’ve gotten messages like this before, but this time, the boy seemed not only fairly normal, but also fairly attractive and fairly my type. so i wrote back something equally as brilliant like “hi you’re hot.” we exchanged a few emails in a very short period of time (like hours) and then he gave me his beloved email address, so i immediately (per the norm) emailed him…and then nothing…so, i wrote back to him on the linkup just making sure he got my email because how silly if we stopped talking due to msn thinking i was spam-a-lotting. he wrote back immediately “yeah i got it. sorry, i’m busy with school now. i’ll email you soon.” perfect. how heavenly. but then nothing for awhile. and then he found me on facebook.com and asked me to be his friend. and i immediately responded yes and then wrote something flirty(?) on his wall. and then, he removed me from his friend list…and i haven’t heard from him since… (p.s. i think my pictures look normal, but i might be wrong)

so here’s my question. what the hell am i to do? it occurred to me that i’m probably seeming way too excited to talk to him given my immediate responses and should play harder to get, but he’s cute and i WAS excited to talk to him and it was only like 2 sentences at a time so i feel like that doesn’t even count. plus, how do you play hard to get over the internet? but now he hates me. and i can’t write him again and tell him not to hate me because then that’s just sad. so what is normal online flirting protocol? what should i do next? i’m probably supposed to marry him but because i’m not wired to online flirt, my destiny is kissing me goodbye (only without the kiss, which is too bad…unless he’s a bad kisser…how am i even to know?)

sorry i have a thing for energy consumption

the past two days i came to a couple of realizations. first is that i hate basil more that i knew. my office kind of smells like basil. the second is that breakups can happen at any time regardless of your current relationship status. in fact it bears little relation to your previous relationship status. you never know when you will breakup. i think i always knew this but it really hit home after THIS happened to my friend. you should read THIS. its pretty good. just because you are engaged it doesnt mean some guy you went out with 7 and 1/2 times eight months ago wont send you and email with a belated clarification that you were never dating and you were just hooking up. and that his new girlfriend is a model. and although he didnt mention how big his new girlfriends breasts are you can only assume large and perky. he will probably clarify that later.

i admit its hard to know if you dating. but there are classic signs. holding hands, calling each other tiger/kitten/muffin and going to movies with each other more than other people. so if its hard to know if you are dating its equally tricky (perhaps more) to know if you should break up. the world is kind of complicated and undoing relationships proves a challenge. but its a skill that you should really try and develop because most of the people you date arent going to be in your life in two months (weeks). i am not quite sure what the best approach is to breaking up. i did get best breakup ever nomination once so i feel like i have some insight into the matter. i think you should ONLY break up with someone you havent kissed/touched/dated in three weeks (or however long) and no one has said anything about it (because the phase out was appropriate) if you dont like them and you are feeling kind of spiteful. otherwise i think you dont need to break up.

why does my office smell like basil?