Saturday, March 26, 2011

Dating 3-26-11

I had date number... 24, I think, since the divorce. It went well, and I hope for another at some point. Met her through eHarmony. Outback and "Limitless." Main problem is that she lives out of state. I did the sport jacket thing and bought her some golf balls at the local sporting goods store. I think that sort of thing works much better than roses. I mean, anyone can buy a flower [and yellow is probably better on the first date], but the golf balls were part of a conversation she and I had a week or two ago. I was complaining about not being able to hit the things and she had said the dimples were cute. So, golf balls on the first date and DON'T go into the aerodynamic reasons for those same dimples! She doesn't want to know about hard and soft air pockets and  how projectiles should spin if they're going to be stable in flight for any distance longer than a few yards! I wanted to talk about spin, but I refrained. I was careful to tip well and, since there is no way I know to be sneaky about paying the bill with cash, I just counted out the change and acted like it was normal [which, of course, it was].

A note about "Limitless." It's a feel good movie. I'm not saying the human interaction portions were entirely unrealistic, but I am saying the producers probably test marketed this thing to get that ending. If you've seen the previews, then you know he's a junkie, and that point is driven home repeatedly, until they have the ending. It reminded me somewhat of pretty woman with that change of ending. You know they were supposed to fight at the end over her drug habit until the producers realized they wouldn't make much money that way.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Dating 3-5-11 and class work

I'm still doing the online dating thing and it's still going well. I think I'm down to only two women I'm emailing now rather than the five I had. I'm debating getting some more so I'll have more "depth" in my selections when they start disappearing, but I like being able to concentrate on one or two. I spend about an hour a night on this as it is, what with researching, writing the email [or emails], and then revising to make it sound better or at least more like a kind of idealized "me." 

I think I know how to describe myself on those dating websites. I learned through trial and error, and I took lack of responses as negative feedback because I certainly never got any kind of logical critique. I think I would have liked to have had the women reply with comments like "I was not impressed enough by your self description. Good luck in your search." If anything, I usually got "Good luck in your search." Not helpful. So anyway, some general rules about writing the profile: 1) never admit anything bad. I think the idea here is that everything you write will be exaggerate one way or the other, so anything bad must, logically, be REALLY bad or it wouldn't even be on the profile. 2) always think of every possible way something can be misinterpreted. I think I mentioned the aspergers thing in another post? I least I got some feedback with that one 3) try to take a picture of yourself with your car [unless it's like mine and just a Corrolla]. Is this some sort of hint that I'm a good provider? I could just rent a sportscar for the day and get my picture taken next to it. I don't use thing one. 4) Birds of a feather flock together. That usually means people that like motorcycles and/or tattoos, religion, their children's sports, or something similar. I don't belong to one of those, so I break that rule as well.

Hmmm. The rules could use some work and further refining..... Most times I know what the rule is, but I don't know how to explain it unless it's in context. It's sort of like she said she likes blue, so I know that means something like she wants to take a trip to Spain based on this and some other clues I saw. That's what I mean by context. She won't say Spain, of course, and that's what makes this so difficult.  

I thought about trying to get a date with a woman from class last week. We had spoken previously on the way to the cars after the previous class. Well, she spoke and I listened. That's what I'm supposed to do, right? Anyway, that day I just didn't care as much about long term dating strategy and so I didn't try very hard to get her attention after class and she wasn't trying very hard either. I'd like them to pursue me, and I suppose that could be what she was thinking. Or maybe she was just thinking about what she had said during the class: "This course is killing my GPA." I was surprised by that. I don't worry about my GPA because I'm not trying for a degree [I have one already], but many of the other students complain about how hard it is to learn a new language. To be honest, I was concentrating more on learning that day rather than dating, so maybe I should have joined in the gripe session instead of feeling like they were just being whiney the way I am now. No class next week becuase of the Spring Break thing, there's a test the next week, and the last day to drop is about then, so the class may get smaller....