Laugh, don't cry, on the first date

I like the phrase, 'Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone'. I think it's important to project a cheery image. It attracts cheerful people. It does not attract fellow depressives. You don't risk portraying yourself as a loser. You don't risk upsetting yourself. I've spoken to one man whose ex-girlfriend was suicidal.And met two others (twenty years apart) whose exes had committed suicide. So often suicidal people are over sensitive and they are trying to help others who are worse off than themselves. Lending money to people who are insolvent. Helping friends who are in relationships with people who make threats. I used to wonder about people such as Evita who wanted to move on. After WWII some women who had lost husbands who were pilots married again and never mentioned their first husband. Man number two had to be made to think he was number one in the woman's life, not second best to a dead man. I've always found people with secrets they can never mention slightly worrying and scary. But now I'm starting to take the opposite view. During a first phone call, or on a first date, before I've established a relationship, I don't want to hear a long tale about the ex girlfriend or wife. I suddenly become an outsider, an onlooker, not connecting with, no a conversation, not a dialogue a monologue. Because you cannot comment. I could ask more, because I'm fascinated. But it is just sucking me in deeper, and pulling them under too. So much better if they'd said, 'I'll tell you about that next time. Let's talk about you.' You can't say too much. You haven't got the full story. Of course it does explain things. One man who is heavily overweight and blames it on a road accident leaving him inactive. I think he still has issues with the past, guilt at not being able to save his fiancee's life. He took on too big a task. And if I were to take on him, I would be taking on too big a task. I suppose everybody over the age of 40 has some baggage. But on a first date you should leave it outside. A Toastmasters manual about conversation shows how conversation follows four levels, from the impersonal to the highly personal. But I think you need a lot of closeness to progress to the last level.

Stories of suicide on a first date - better to stay optimistic

Here are three scenarios I've come across and I'd like to know your reactions: 1 The date is a university lecturer tells you he was living with a student. He stays out all night with other women. She threatens to commit suicide and one night does so. He is agitated and insists that she had no right to try to control him and she was always threatening him. His friends and even her family told him it was not his fault. And if you want a relationship with him you must be prepared to give him his freedom ... 2 The man on the phone says he nearly married a girl her met at a dinner party, who had problems with a childhood of abuse and he thought he could help her and did everything he could but she took herself off. She ran out one night and drank an entire bottle of whisky and got gang-raped and he visited her in hospital but clearly he could not solve her problems and though he loved her dearly ... 3 The date says his fiancee died after slitting her wrists. She had had a childhood of abuse and her two siblings were also abused by their stepfather and her brother had taken an overdose and her father had committed suicide in prison after she took out a restraining order and she felt guilty. The date said there's a lot more I could tell you, but that's probably enough on a first date. As a child he broke he accidentally broke his arm ... 4 Man four has a disability pension and suffers from depression ... Would you date one of these but not the others. If so, why? Would you date all of them? None of them? Why? Should they have told their stories differently? Or said less during a first conversation? Have you ever said something on a first date and felt the other person was not sufficiently sympathetic? Or that you had revealed too much? Do you think you are known by the company you keep? (meaning Him and his ex; and you and your date.) Do these stories show that the men are a) Kind people who help others b) Sensible in dealing with common problems c) Losers who attract losers d) Attention seekers e) Living in the past f) Don't know how to be cheerful on a first date g) Are good at telling stories to find out how kind and sympathetic the listener is h) Drama queens - if this is the first date it can only get worse - stay away.

Without going into any judgements on what was said, I feel that on a first date it would create a much happier impression if one were to stick to impersonal subjects on a first date or first phone call. Leave stories of the deaths of close friends and family and the times you accidentally injured yourself to the therapist. As a Washington DC taxi driver once said to me, 'Ma-am - I have problems of my own.'

I am not saying you should lie. I am saying that you should treat a date like a job interview or an interview with a bank manager. You should look bright and cheerful and not tell him about your greatest failures and worries. You want to leave him thinking you are a bright, cheerful, successful sort - if you want him to see you again and risk sharing his money and his future with you.

Marriage As A Mutual Admiration Society

Often at Toastmasters I listen to speeches and note what people say about their families. 'I have a wonderful wife and children' is heart-warming, though hardly original. (Perhaps it is increasingly nowadays!) 

What effect does it have on the audience, the listener? One danger is that the listener feels left out, excluded, second best, no hope of competing. I've read profiles which say, with varying degrees of aggression - 'you must understand that my children come first'. 

On the other hand it can strike you as rather flippant and disrespectful if you were to say something such as, 'The only person I really hate is my spouse,' or 'I came out to get away from the ogre at home'. For somebody sitting fantasizing about being your next spouse, it's not encouraging. 

A safer bet might be, 'I've tried, but I've finally had to admit that we can't get things back together. But I think I've learned enough to get things right second time around.' Or, 'We were incompatible, but next time I think I'll be able to choose a partner with the right essential qualities.'

The three most helpful books I've found are:

a) The Art of Speed-reading People (Tiegger-Barron)

b) Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

c) The Five Love Languages.

Love languages are about how you express love, by giving material goods, services, or quality time. 

Let's look at 'Barbra' who is married to a rich man called 'Johnny'. Johnny is a multi millionaire but he insists on eating in a pub to save money on Barbra's birthday. Barbra feels devalued. She feels that all their money might disappear overnight. She is not secure. She does not feel Johnny loves her.

Let's take the next situation. Johnny comes home and ignores her. They go out in jeans. When she wants to buy a lipstick he tells her that she doesn't need it because she already has one. 

In a restaurant he might tell her that she's the prettiest woman or that she has the smartest clothes. But he doesn't take her hand or look her in the eye and smile. He looks round the room and appraises her coldly as if he's taking an inventory of his possessions.

She may go out out and buy a new designer blouse and hat in the hope of pleasing him. But he never gives her reassurance. If he complains, 'Why are you spending all my money?' she starts shopping in charity shops. But she can't stop buying. Because however much she buys, she still isn't getting his approval.

Diana started as a shy average weight girl in nondescript clothes. After she married Charles she starved herself, exercised, made herself sick, wore designer clothes, welcomed everybody, smiled at everybody, was as charming as she could be, but never got the attention of her husband. He was an introvert and did not want to praise her or see her getting praised. It did not make him feel proud. He did not want a trophy wife as a possession. He was already king. He wanted praise and attention.

The famous picture of Diana and Charles sitting side by side but almost back to back sums it up. Neither of them is admiring the other.  Sometimes you see a photo of a proud man with a pretty young woman clinging to him and gazing at him hopefully. He has what he wants. A hanger-on. A woman to admire him.

You also read plaintive letters from widowers who are lost. Like Queen Victoria they could have any person in the world if they went out and looked or made the effort. But they only wanted one person. They are obsessed with one person. For the devoted slave, sometimes a second partner can do the same trick. Sometimes nobody else is found, or even sought.

They had a mutual admiration society. To my mind that is much better. Sometimes it starts one sided but ends up becoming a reciprocal arrangement. One devoted partner is so kind that the other person ends up reciprocating. One of the newsletters advising married couples how to improve their love life suggests that a husband or partner should aim to satisfy his wife three times and after that she will be so happy and grateful that she will gladly do almost anything he wants, within reason.

Gratitude - that's how a mother child relationship works. The mother gives unconditional undying love. She listens. And approves. She can be the poorest woman. Her son can be a heavyweight boxer, a millionaire, but he values her above anybody else. 

Listen to grandmothers, too. They can't all have the brightest child in the class. But they all seem to think that they do.

If it works for mothers and grandmothers, it can also work for fathers, grandfathers, spouses - wives and husbands, and lovers. Romeo and Juliet. Darby and Joan. 'Til death do us part. Isn't that everybody's dream?

   

Attention-getting humour - how much is too much?

I have read several profiles of men which are negative, occasionally humorous, but you are left wondering whether they are ranting or humorous or just plain weird. 

They start:

'I am not a millionaire who ... I have three yachts and two heads.

or

'I am a millionaire who - only joking. Actually I am unemployed.'

or 

'I do not play with dolphins and ride into sunsets.'

or  

'Two elephants met on a dating site and ...' 

or 

'I like sunsets with yellow dots. My hand wanders over the mouse and ...' 

One ended with, 'I hope you appreciate my humour'. 

I didn't. I wondered what he was high on. Or would he sit grumbling about the world? Or would he start verbally attacking his date for her conventional or outlandish clothes and expectations? 

A man who calls himself your dinner date or your ideal man may be boasting. But that is what a woman is looking for. 

If he calls himself Mr Wild, Mr Nasty or Mr Fed Up, or says the site is a waste of time he sounds like a loser. At best he may be somebody who has no enthusiasm and joy in inviting the female reader out to dinner.

By all means include the odd - yes, even odd, remark. Maybe you think that you cannot mix humour and serious sentences without making the serious ones sounds insincere and the humorous ones too unexpected. Then put the serious stuff in another paragraph. But make sure at least half your profile or email is sensible. Finish on an invitation to action. 

At least say something like, 'If you find my humour amusing, write back and we could have an evening of banter together.' 

But if you just end with only one sentence, the reader is left wondering if it will be an entire evening of monologue humour. Will she meet somebody incapable of coping with life? What sort of job can they hold down if they cannot give a straight answer to a question? 

Here are my thoughts on one profile and email:

This does not sound like an invitation to a dinner date or a relationship. It is not an invitation to conversation, more a monologue. A profile and email consisting entirely of offbeat jokes is unnerving first thing in the morning when one is at work and hoping for a sensible letter like a CV telling you the other person's good qualities and what you can easily do to satisfy their criteria. Nothing but humour sounds as if the other person is high and in a world of their own, rather than interested in the reader and matching the reader.

As a stage performer myself, I read a 'funny' monologue and feel that perhaps we could do a comedy stage act together. But could the writer be relied on to have a sensible conversation about arrangements to turn up on time? 

If your title does not promote yourself, it is not good PR.

Sounds like you are making fun of the site and the reader.

Think what you are offering the reader and what action you wish them to take. 

I was scared of getting involved with a nutter. I decided to write a general blog here instead. 

I would reply to the man who was both cheerful and sensible, in control, happy with himself and the site and life. The one who said he was hopeful, or had met some great people but still looking for more friends and somebody special. I bet a lot of readers would agree with me. 

What do you think? Have you written an offbeat profile? Have you tried two of different tones, to see which got better responses? Have you met somebody who wrote one? Were they better than expected or worse?

Smile Please

ANYBODY ROUND HERE GOT A SMILE?  

Some people look like depressives anonymous. Maybe I should start a subgroup for smilers. They say that to run a successful restaurant you need to be able to smile. If you expect to meet somebody you have to smile. I seem to remember that I wrote a post along these lines some time ago. A lot of people sent in comments along the lines of: 'I do so agree with you.' 

I clicked on their profiles and found glum faces. I nearly fell off my chair laughing. So, if you write back saying you agree with me, but you have a glum photo, maybe you could explain why. AND later change it!

PHOTOS OF EYES

LOVELY EYES Most women are looking for a real man, one with a head on his shoulders. And nice eyes! That's the biggest turn on. Lots of studies tell you that animals actually use eyes to turn each other on, reach best orgasms after prolonged eye contact. What's the worst date? The one where the other person won't meet your eyes. And the best date, where the other person just looks into your eyes. The eyes have it. Smiling eyes. That's the biggest turn-on. Eyes. Yum!

Why you should exchange photos early when dating online

I think if you write to a woman and don't send a photo and she has shown even a partial photo you should offer to send a photo eventually/later whatever. You can't envisage somebody without a picture. At least show that you would be willing and able to send a photo if the other person is happy to continue emailing. Or am I wrong? Will a man automatically want to send a picture and find out if she likes him? I think it's better to send and receive photos early on. If the photo is a total disaster, you can anticipate that even strangers who saw you together in a public place would be muttering, 'what the hell do they see in each other!' Better than encourage somebody and then have to find a way of tactfully saying:

'Er, no thanks, I've changed my mind - pity we've both wasted hours on this.''

Yours sincerely, still desperate, but totally mis-matched.'' No photo no answer probably won't bring results, being too aggressive and unfriendly, not encouraging enough for the nervous. I think I'll go with a phrase such as, ' You sound a very nice/interesting person. I'd love to see a picture of you '.

It's very encouraging to be told, 'You look lovely!'