The Second Date Syndrome

Although my dating experience is limited, my research seems to have uncovered a new affliction affecting many of the world's daters: The Second Date Syndrome.

The best horror stories seem to be about the First Date. They are the ones that involve multiple personalities being introduced over multiple dinner courses, that time when your date brought their cat along with them, or casually verbalized how he thought your name would make a great tattoo on his body (all true stories by the way). Maybe it is because the first date gets so much hype that we tend to forget to talk about the second date and the potential disaster that also lies within.

I believe that the second date is just as important as the first date, and maybe even more so due to the inherent potential for the dreaded Second Date Syndrome. Here is how SDS can strike:

When you go on a First Date with someone you don't know (i.e. off of an online site), you have no expectations. Personally, all I am hoping for before a First Date is that they aren't stark raving mad and won't steal my wallet. If you end up finding yourself across from someone who appears to be mildly balanced (or at least medicated) and isn't going for your purse, you are already impressed. If they actually display signs of intelligence, wit, ambition, or compassion, you are over the moon. So, all is seemingly going well and you agree to the Second Date.

Initial post-date reaction is elation and excitement! You met someone (off a dating website nonetheless) that isn't crazy and can carry a conversation! Hurrah!! He must be fantastic!

Cue SDS. The Second Date rolls around and all of a sudden, you have expectations. He can no longer impress you just by showing he can string together words to form a sentence, you know that already! Turns out that he may check the boxes of smart, witty, and ambitious, but with those he also get a check mark beside pretentious, offensive, and rude.
Had you had any expectations coming into the First Date, these characteristics would have been apparent. But jumping into the unknown has the side effect of making everything seem new and wonderful...until the Second Date rolls around. And Ta-Da! There you are, stuck with the Second Date Syndrome.

Needless to say, my first online dating experience brought on a bad case of SDS. I didn't get hacked into bits on the First Date, so I deemed it a success! The bar had been raised from axe murderer to legitimate person, and the person I met on the Second Date failed to make the cut. The wit that I was introduced to on the First Date turned evolved into depressingly negative sarcasm and snarky comments on the Second Date, and the kiss that I steered away from on the First Date (a generically moral decision on my part) produced approximately the same effect as kissing a cardboard cutout.

Unfortunately, SDS has a worse prognosis than if the first date were to go horribly, because you have indicated that you are somewhat interested in this person by agreeing to the second date, and possibly done something stupid like give him your phone number. This is exactly my situation right now, and I have to say I am taking the shameful route out of a third date by ignoring the text message that requested it... I'm not proud, I just have no idea how to go about any of this!

Meanwhile, it's time to keep fishing...

Gone Fishing - Week 1

I would like to think that I'm a fairly normal person. I don't have any massive skeletons in my closet, good relationships with family and friends, and impeccable personal hygiene habits. Since I made it through a degree program, I might even venture to say that I have a brain in my head. It's got to be kicking around in there somewhere.

I also don't have a huge problem with getting dates or meeting men, that's not the issue, the issue is getting dates I want and meeting men that don't live in their parents' basement at the age of 26. I decided that a screening process was needed, and where best to find that but online? I can find out all the important information right away, like "Do you have an education?" "Are you a crazy right wing Christian?" "Can you spell?" The latter being the most important, of course. So, about a week ago, I dove into the insane, messed up world of online dating.

First twenty four hours were madness! I hadn't quite figured out how to adjust my settings so I was bombarded with messages, about 50 in the first four hours. It was fairly overwhelming, but fun at the same time. Imagine walking into a bar and getting fifty winks right away? That's going to make you feel pretty good!

As I strolled around this virtual bar I maximized the filter feature on my messages. I have a whole slew of requirements (geographical, age range, etc) that one has to meet before messaging me. In addition, I need at least 200 characters in a message - gotta make them work, right? That slowed down the pace a little bit and let me actually sort through my inbox.

I have to say, I'm pretty quick with the trigger. Don't use capitals? Out. No education? Delete. Have a picture of your car in your profile pictures? UMNOTHANKS. This cleared out a lot of space and let me narrow down my responses to only two people who actually intrigued me. One had a well written message and profile, and actually sounded smart! A smart guy! I have so rarely run into those, especially in my dating life, that I figured they must be a breed near to extinction. The other guy seemed nice and like he was just on the site to meet people, as he had just moved to my city about a week before me and like me, knew close to no one. I responded to them both and got replies back fairly quickly. This continued over the course of a few days, and I looked forward to checking my inbox to see what they had written - this was turning out to be pretty fun!

But of course, online dating isn't about dating solely online, at some point your will be asked to meet IRL. In Real Life. Ohgodohgodohgodohgod. Ensue panic now.

After a number of messages, one of them asked me out. I said yes and we arranged a time and a place to meet in a couple of days. It was a well lit, public place, and my roommates we were well aware of where I was and what I was doing, and I agreed to text them and let them know if things went to hell.

I had no idea what to think while waiting for this date to begin. Not only am I new to all of this and coming to terms with the possibility that I have agreed to meet up with a random stranger who could very well have plans to hack my body into bits, but dating in general scares the living hell out of me! It seems like a concept that is not applicable to my generation. For us, relationships go in one of two ways:

1) You meet through friends, you get to know each other, you start dating. Subsequently you break up and it is awkward within your friend group for the rest of eternity. You have to find new friends because of this, and because you need to find a new dating pool.
2) You drink too much one night and end up sleeping together (knowledge of this person's identity before this night may or may not exist, it doesn't matter). You feel like you 'should' meet up again afterwards so both parties can convince each other they are not sluts. You may have a reasonable time and begin dating. You break up because one of you drinks too much one night and sleeps with someone else.

This whole 'getting to know a stranger so you can possibly have a relationship with them' is so foreign to me, which is why I was putting so much effort into not running away before this date. But, success! I didn't run away, I didn't get hacked into bits, and I actually had a pretty good time. Online dating: 1.

Of course, dating and relationships are messy and complicated things. Even when you narrow it down to a search field. Let's see what else these waters hold...