A Pair and a Spare

I've been learning SOO much since living in the city. A lot of my experiences are teaching me how to look at the dating world through the male perspective. According to some author, who wrote some dating advice book, a woman should always keep a pair and a spare of guys and rotate through them. The author's reasoning was that when you are dating 3 guys, even if you come to like one way more than the others, when the one you really want acts up (which of COURSE they will) you won't be too hung up on it b/c you'll be too busy having fun with the 2 other guys. You'll be having so much fun that the time flies by and before you know it, the one you want has straightened up his act.. um yeah.

Well since I've moved to the city my dating options have increased by like 1000% and dating advice that I was a bit hesitant about now makes sense. For instance, lets take the 'He's just not that into you' classic. One piece of "wise" (ha) advice the book gives is "if he's not calling you, he's just not that into you." And at first I wanted to contest this. I mean there were a sea of men in college so intimidated by women that they'd pine away for years and the woman would be none the wiser! In this case the guy was into the girl, just too chicken sh** to say so. But recently, I was supposed to go on a date with.. lets call him Mr. Shortie. Mr. Shortie is a really nice guy. I mean he doesnt make me buckle over with laughter but he gets my jokes. He isn't the most well dressed guy but he tries. He treats me like a princess and I get a kick out of it b/c it's clear to me his ideal woman is someone like his sister.. somehow I'm like his sister.. yeah funny how that whole family modeling thing works.. Anyway Mr. Shortie is not a bad guy. He's just..well.. too short. I've never asked him but I estimate he's about 5'8". Yes i'm only 5'5" but with heels we're practically the same height, and something instinctively tells me he would not be a good protector of our "brood" (lol, i swear this is all biological) so I'm just not that into him. And my behavior shows my ambivalence quite clearly. He calls and leaves messages.. I get back to them whenever I feel guilty enough to feel bad about not calling him back. I was supposed to call and confirm a date and completely forgot until he called and reminded me the next day.. I say whatever comes to mind b/c I'm not trying to impress him. I have no urge to ever call him, etc... So now in examining my behavior I can then get a sense of when a guy just isnt that into me.

On the other hand, in many ways I acted in the same fashion with Mr. Protege. I never called him, I never tried to impress him, he constantly called about confirming dates, etc. The difference? I REALLY liked Mr. Protege. I don't know what it is about feeling that you've met your match in someone, but it draws you in like a moth to a flame. A flame that will singe the hell out of you, but you won't be satisfied until you get burned.. so you keep flying closer.. Mr. Protege pops in and out and while the games were a lot more subtle in the beginning of this crapola they've become beyond blatant and for whatever reason I choose to participate. I really think the game playing is out of boredom on both our parts. No one is really playing to win as much as we're bored enough to tease each other. A friend, who clearly has a better memory than I, brought up the fact that in 6 months of knowing each other we've seen each other 4 times. I'm sure we could have seen each other more buut.. I'm a bi*** and he's an a**hole. A match made in heaven if you ask me. I really believe that the only reason this has been going on so long is that we both have so much other stuff going on in our lives that the behavior of one doesnt really affect the other. Whatever, the situation warrents no further discussion..

Then there is Mr...Net. I met Mr. Net through a dating site during the time my friend and I thought it would be soo much fun to tease guys on the internet. After all that teasing my friend got a boyfriend and I got a date with Mr. Net, who currently lives in SD and is moving to San Fran in October. Mr. Net was up in SF one weekend to look at places to live. We decided to meet up and at first I must say the date was less than stellar. First off he was really fidgety during the first 5 minutes. Then our conversation was neither bad, nor great. So I figured after dinner I'd be on my way. But Mr. Net wanted to take a walk. We chat for a while and I discover that Mr. Net isnt as completely boring as I originally thought. He walks me to my car and leans in for a kiss. As if! He gets a kiss on the cheek. Then Mr. Net decides to send me a txt message 5 minutes after the end of our date.. am I that bad at reading people? As much as I feel that Mr. Net and my lifestyle's are too different to mesh - he's over the party/bar scene and I've just started - whenever Mr. Net contacts me I act as if I'm super excited.. its almost an experiment to see how guys react to certain behavior. Yeah I know its not the greatest to experiment on unsuspecting individuals, but I can't help it. As October approaches, hanging out with Mr. Net seems more like a possiblity.. we'll see where that goes..

And so in summary:

The pair - Mr. Shortie and Mr. Net
The spare - Mr. Protege who has long since fallen to the waste-side (pun intended) in terms of expectations.

My interest vs. My behavior:

Mr. Shortie - ambivalent/ambivalent;
Mr. Net - Not so interested/super excited!;
Mr. Protege - Highly interested for whatever stupid reason/I couldn't care less if he fell off the face of the earth.

So what does this teach us folks? Advice is stupid! People like me (i.e. 90%) of the population live in some crazy screwed up world where we can't be upfront with people. Therefore a person might be into you, or NOT. You just gotta go with the flow, follow basic advice - i.e. let the guy chase you - and enjoy the ride. Otherwise you could end up and emotional nut case trying to figure out someone's motivations when in reality, only they know why they do what they do (or not) and may keep these reasons from you and themselves indefinetly...

In conclusion: I'm retarded and so is anyone else who puts up with my antics :)

Good night! ;)