MetaChat - sooo this lady from okcupid

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16 September 2009

sooo this lady from okcupid →[More:]
what am i supposed to be talking about with her anyway? [kid gloves plz!]

background: i wrote to her a quick summary like "i like your profile check out mine" [a paragraph though]; she writes back (says she finds me 'articulate without being pedantic', which sure warms my cockles); I agonize about what to send back, send back something stupid commenting on her profile and trying to be clever/funny; she dallies for a couple months(!) but adds me on gchat and now wears me out¹—we talked in the morning for 1.5 hrs on the phone, on IM for a while, at night for 1hr on the phone, all about stupid abstract stuff that I talk to people about² [okay at night she talked more personally about her dogs & ex so that was better]

She's very open and talkative and has serious vocab skillz which I find great but I wish things were more.. playful you know? fun? Am I supposed to be hitting that switch? How? Oh god.

i did propose meeting up in a couple weeks after she kept saying things like "so where do you hang out? do you hang a lot? what sorta people do you hang out with?" [she said "of course". this was on im. she'd told me she finds most men boring after 10 mins and i said, after she said of course, where i stand on the boring-after-10-mins index; she said "i'm still talking to you am i not" and I'm like "touche"]

¹ okay it's 8am here and I'm slightly annoyed that I wasn't harassed by her this morning :/ But basically there isn't a lot of "dude yr awsum" on my part and on her part I don't know what I represent—she seems kinda pseudo-depressed. She tells me it's unfair if she keeps talking about herself and I say nothing but .. you know .. there just isn't much for me to say about me. I feel like.. I feel like if I wasn't me, her continually hitting the "i'm so down these days" cymbal would be rather unsexy but I don't mind people being transparent.
² her name, india, delhi, a bollywood movie, feminism, politics, rape law (?!?!?), cowboy movies, marlon brando, austin tx, cars, landlords, cooking, roommates, motivation, neatness…

(also, she pulled the "I'm North Indian so I'd never marry a South Indian" angle. SIGH. is there anyone in my country who isn't stupid about these things?)

post by: Firas at: 22:17 | 9 comments

Being a veteran of online dating, I strongly recommend meeting as soon as possible. Once I talked to a guy for several months, got emotionally attached, and then found out we had no chemistry. Which was especially awkward after he'd spent several hundred dollars on airfare and hotel.

I met my husband within 2 weeks of his first email to me.

posted by desjardins 16 September | 22:41

I don't feel that sort of urgency for a decision on chemistry though? Like I wouldn't mind just taking her around.. she's all like, 'I need to get out more' etc etc. Obviously I'd have to be clear to her about what I think. But yes meeting in 3 weeks is what I'm shooting for.

posted by Firas 16 September | 23:00

Why wait three weeks? I'd say sooner is better, especially if you've already had a rather lengthy phone day.

posted by Specklet 17 September | 06:40

I'm with Specklet and desjardins. The longer you talk, the more invested BOTH of you become. It's better to meet early on, something low key like coffee where you can chat for an hour. If you really like her, you can suggest another activity or another, lengthier meeting. If you don't feel that spark, you can make an excuse about work (etc.).

And while you need to be clear with her that you would be OK with a just friends situation, you have to find out what SHE wants. She may not want to spend a lot of time talking up a guy who ends up as just a friend.

posted by miss-lapin 17 September | 07:38

I'm not getting the hesitancy to meet either. My wife and I met after only about a week of chatting. I recommend meeting in front of a full-size statue of a Diplodicus, which worked for Mrs O and me.

posted by octothorpe 17 September | 07:41

Would meeting up change the conversational dynamic necessarily though? I don't get this "spark" idea. And miss-lapin, right, what I meant by being clear is just about being honest, not about it being a one-way street.

posted by Firas 17 September | 07:49

The "spark" is the immediate feeling you get when you meet someone face to face. It's not necessarily romantic, but it's about connecting with the other person on a deep level. For example, one of my oldest friends-when I met her, we immediately felt at ease and comfortable with each other. I met her because she was a fellow blogger, and I liked her style. I did, however, meet several other bloggers before her, but didn't become friends with any of them. While their online personas appealed to me, in person it was clear that we didn't "gel". What was it about them that was missing? I couldn't say, just that it wasn't THERE and it was clear to both parties that it wasn't there. And this wasn't for romance, this was just to meet other writers/bloggers.

If you meet in person who have a wider range of feedback from the other person. Not only can you see a person's facial expression, but you can touch them, smell them, etc. It engages more of the senses instead of just one or two. Besides she might be more playful in person than she would be over the phone or via IM.

posted by miss-lapin 17 September | 15:24

Give her the chance to be funny or to at least laugh at your jokes. Tell her something funny that happened to you today, or email her a joke or cartoon (keep it clean).

the "I'm North Indian so I'd never marry a South Indian" angle. I know nothing about this, but, jeez, people get so caught up in discrimination on stupid stuff, and sometimes aren't discriminating at all about important things.

posted by theora55 17 September | 15:25

you folks and your dastardly ideas :) now I feel like I want to meet up ASAP, check to see if there's redeeming sparks, and let us both off the hook if not.

Theora, her idea of a joke is to reply to me saying "write somefin" with the word "somefin". But yeah I think I should take some responsibility here to see if I can introduce the dynamic I want. Suddenly her "it's unfair if I just keep talking" makes sense to me if I look at it less from a "talk to me about you" angle and more as a "say interesting things."

posted by Firas 18 September | 03:01

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