Dear H

Dear H,

I'm not sure I conveyed how upset I am about how things have turned out. I'm not sure exactly what I wanted, but in retrospect something casual would have probably been healthier and more appropriate to our compatibility. If a misstep on the level of seriousness was made, I suspect it was mine.

I think my impulse for pursuing things more seriously came from a recognition that I could learn things from dating you and maybe teach you a few myself-- things about ourselves and about people and our relationship with the world-- y'know, the usual.

That said, I think the biggest reason I'm upset about losing what we've had, is that for the first time in a year I'd found the trifecta-- good conversation, good sex and good cuddling (the last of those only at the end). I approach servicing those creature comforts with a degree of seriousness that others sometimes find foreign, but I'm excruciatingly aware of how fundamental they are in my life. I think we'd gotten to a point where we could actually get quality sleep together, which is also very important, and was probably a requisite for any kind of low-pressure sexual relationship.

I've been thinking about our conversation last night, and envisioning what I would want to talk about when we meet for coffee a couple of weeks from now, and I realized that at this moment it would mostly be asking you for more detail about what you said, and, tentatively, seeing if your situation had changed after midterms and your move to Oakland. That seems like kind of a shitty thing to start a friendly conversation with and, more to the point, too long a time to wait to ask that stuff, so I thought I'd broach it here, where I can lay out my thoughts without the adrenaline that has accompanied our last couple of conversations.

You said that you didn't feel like a casual relationship would be possible. Why is that? That question can be taken as an appeal, but I also hope you take it as a more basic question about what makes you tick.

If you had said that you were also interested in trying to see each other casually last night, my next question was going to be what seeing each other casually meant to you. I would have asked about your past casual relationships and how they worked. I'm still curious what you were envisioning when we talked about a casual relationship last week, though perhaps the answer to the first AND second questions of this email is that you couldn't envision it.

If I had to guess the reason you don't think something casual would work, it's that you're concerned that it would be an additional complication to your life, and add to your stress rather than relieve or provide an outlet for it. Maybe you also can't imagine back-stepping a relationship's level of seriousness-- that's an open question for me too, since I haven't tried anything like that yet. I'd guess you're also worried that even something relatively infrequent and decidedly uncommitted would distract you from your priorities, but I have difficulty relating to that. The idea of ever being in a place in my life where I didn't have time for even occasional sex is foreign to me. I tend to think of sex, at least on its own, as beneficial for focus and coping with stress.

I envisioned a friendly sort of thing where maybe once a week when there was a break in your obligations and I was free, you'd come to my house and we'd have sex and curl up together and chat and go to sleep. The idea wouldn't be to build anything, but to provide a respite from our respective lives-- your school stresses and my own stress from work or, frankly, other dating. It would be something to look forward to, and I know it would center me in regards to the aforementioned stresses. I know the way we handle our drives and responsibilities is pretty different, so I wouldn't be surprised if that paradigm wouldn't make sense in your life, but that is what I envisioned.

Anyways, I hope this email wasn't unwelcome or unpleasant, and I wish you the best with the busy life before you. I don't think I've said this to you out loud, so I will say it now: I am and have been impressed with your dedication to the pursuit of your goals. Hopefully the fact that I've only said this once will compensate for it being a cliche that I'm sure you've heard many times. Anyways, I mean it. I'd still like to meet you for coffee in a while, I'd just like to get these questions out of the way beforehand.

Sincerely,

Frank

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I'm ok to date again, I swear

To paraphrase a conversation with my friend:
N: I feel like I'm falling into a minor depression because of this guy thing.

Me: Well, it's probably not just that guy. Long relationships have a funny way of exacting their toll after they've failed whether or not you've "moved on", will do so via the new person if there is one. You know, rebounding.

N: Yeah. Exactly. I miss intimacy and I'm frustrated he can't provide.

Me: I miss intimacy and I'm frustrated this girl I like wants to wait practically forever to have sex. The good news is she's totally into kissing and cuddling and sleeping together, but then I'm just frustrated she doesn't want to hang out every day.

and live at my house...

...

sigh

I'm ok to date again, I swear...

Romantic Calculus Part 2: The Dating Game

At least with this round of singledom, I've only had one strategy for finding a girl. I haven't hit on girls at work (to the best of my abilities) or at parties and I don't smile at girls sitting across from me on the train. I've never been much for that sort of thing because I've never had much talent for it. Also, I hate it. Also, I'm probably going to continue to run into them and be awkward forever after. As previously discussed, my tastes are pretty specific, so even when my charm is turned up to full blast my hit rate is abysmal, because either the girl isn't feeling it or two minutes into talking to them I realize there's nothing there or both, and in all cases I've made my world just a little bit colder.

So I use OKCupid, of course. It's the largest free dating site, which means that it is lighthearted, well-built and populous as fuck. It has mechanics for matching based on user-solicited questions and it has produced some fascinating blogging.

The question, of course, is how do I use it? Because I have a process, you see.

Granted, this is going to be a simplification. Granted also that such a simplification will make this sound cold because A) it systematizes romance and B) it sweeps away all the dirt and fluff that makes anyone endearing. To this, I have to say A) systematizing romance is the perverse joy of this series and B) if you want to see me all warm and fuzzy you're in the wrong place.

The first step, particularly with OKC since the questions are essentially a customizable matching algorithm, is answering some questions. Actually, quite a lot of questions, especially the ones about sex. Here's how they work: you answer the question, list what answers you would prefer a potential partner give and the rate how much you care about how they answered. Also, if you want you can explain your answer or even go off on a diatribe. Here's an example.

The special beauty of these match questions is that you can use them to ask questions you couldn't ask directly and wouldn't find out until much later. There are a number of questions I've rated "Mandatory", and the algorithm manages the balance of ignoring what I say just the right amount. Here are the questions I rated "Mandatory":

Once you're intimate, how often would you and your significant other have sex? Every day
I prefer to sleep ... Embracing / cuddling my partner
Are you either vegetarian or vegan? No
How well do you handle criticism? Really well
Do you like the taste of beer? Yes
Not as in whips and chains, but in general, do you prefer your partner to be... Balanced
Rate your self-confidence: Higher than average
How much can intelligence turn you on? A lot!
Guys/girls who are tall and lanky: Love it! (or neutral)
When it comes to art, do you prefer works that are abstract or representational? Representational (or neutral)
Do you enjoy intense intellectual conversations? Yes
Which is worse: starving children or abused animals? Starving children

Of these, I do a manual hard screen for "How often would you have sex?" since this particular issue has been thorn in my side for a long time. By that I mean that I won't consider someone who answered something other than "Every day", I won't message someone who hasn't answered the question and if someone messages me who hasn't answered the question I will ask them directly right off the bat (with apologies). I do a soft screen for sleeping style and vegetarianism. The vegetarianism thing is a litmus test for a lot of other ideological stuff, but it's also important because eating at a restaurant with a vegetarian will drive me crazy. I love to share meals. I *need* to share meals. Both directions.

Since I usually consider people with 80+% match ratings, chances are they match me on most of my mandatory questions if they answered them at all. After that, it's how pretty they are and how smart/interesting they come across in their profile. What also factors in is how much they've given me to work with when writing them a message. Many people say nothing of substance on their profile. If I wanted to message them, I'd be reduced to something like, "I see you like the Beatles too... what is your favorite album of theirs?" Definitely suboptimal. Even if everything else looks good, they've given me no basis on which to judge whether or not our personalities/intelligences will be compatible, so I likely won't get around to sending anything (unless they're REALLY pretty).

Now that I've messaged the person, the chances that they will respond are pretty low. The most relevant reason for this is that I have intentionally written my profile to screen girls. Why, you ask? Because I hate bad first dates. I have strong opinions, I'm socially ungraceful, and I am a misanthrope. I like everyone theoretically, but I respect relatively few, and I won't be able to have sex with them if I don't respect them, because it will be emblazoned across my face and they will not appreciate it. All of this said, some girls message me back. Some even message me unsolicited. And I tend to like the girls who do.

Once they've messaged back, I might poke them a little if their profile was light, but most likely I will suggest we meet for coffee. There's really no reason to spend a lot of time messaging back and forth. If I'm going to discern compatibility that wasn't evident in their profile, it will probably be in person. People often come across very differently in message anyways.

The purpose of a coffee date (beer works almost as well) is for something short and cheap that provides an opportunity to talk. If I were pro, I'd intentionally schedule coffee dates such that I had to leave after the first hour (as a friend once recommended). In practice my first dates have run two or three hours, but they are still pretty short and sweet. This is because the point of the coffee date isn't really to hear the person's life story, it's just to see if we have chemistry and if they're smart. I already know they're decently attractive and match me in a lot of personal ways. If things go well, at the end of the date I will say that I like them and am going to ask them out again. I might even set up the second date right then and there.

The second date is for real. The goal is to get to know the girl and, if we continue to click, to at very least kiss her. By the end of the second date, I have always felt like I had a good idea whether or not this was a person I could really like. Whether or not we will have a successful relationship is something that I won't be able to determine for a good bit longer, but the question of whether or not I want to have sex with them will have been conclusively answered.

This might not be the best dating strategy for everyone, but it is definitely working for me. I suspect online dating will continue to gain in popularity. I hope OKCupid will continue to be the beneficiaries of that trend.

Since I'm on the subject, I might as well link you to a friend of mine's sadistic OKC experiment.