Have you ever met a great guy, who on top of being good, is doppelganger to Jake Gyllenhaal (aka not hard to look at)?
He has career ambition, he’s fun to hang out with, he reaches for your hand and touches the small of your back, and he actually puts thought and attention to planning dates. Not just any dates either, fun ones! A cry above the standard “wanna go out for a drink?”
I have.
And I felt nothing.
Julie! What on earth is wrong with you??? is all I could think. Here is this man who is clearly interested in you and doing all the things you’d want to see, and yet the end of the night hangs over my head like a heavy cloud rather than a welcome break in the conversation.
Popular literature would tell me that this stems back to my dating patterns. And that because I’ve dated unavailable men in the past, a secure fella like this who comes along is not going to feel right, because there’s no chase to be had. In other words, it’s going to seem boring. Not because he’s uninteresting, but because it’s different than what I’m used to…uncertainty, namely.
Despite the nagging thought that my feelings were not where they should be after the second and third dates, I did not give up.
Our fourth date was a lovely evening watching some live music on a perfect Austin summer night, and following, I went back to his place. After I went to the bathroom, we kissed, and I couldn’t help but blurt out: “did you just eat peanut butter?” He nodded. I don’t know if it was a granola bar or if he put a spoon directly into the jar, but either way, I couldn’t get past it! Needless to say, the night ended shortly thereafter.
Now, a poll for the group. Is the PB thing offensive or am I just not interested? I think we all know the answer to this. So, here’s my real question: how does one Jedi mind trick oneself to break the cycle of years of dating shitheads so we can allow a nice guy to win for once?
Or perhaps I need to ask a different question. Is it enough for “it” to be good? Or should it feel incredible? In the words of a popular trope, a ‘hell yes.’ I don’t consider myself to be someone who does good work on the job. No, I want to do excellent work. Work that is memorable. Work that will get me an ‘above average’ performance review. And who remembers decent movies??? No one. But let me tell you about my top five. (It’s, in no particular order: 1) Love Actually 2) Chocolat 3) The Sandlot 4) Remember the Titans and 5) Silver Linings Playbook, by the way!)
So, is it okay for the rules to differ with dating?
I recently got back from a conference, where one night I sat down to dinner with three colleagues who are married. And if you’ve ever been on such a trip, you know it is a weird twilight zone version of life where your conversation can veer straight into the personal rather than the typical office chatter of your current projects or the annoying feature of the new platform you’ve been assigned to use. All three women had a very different depiction of how they met their spouse and how they felt about them.
For the first, they were coworkers, and she said she knew somehow that this would be the man she would marry. Yet, it took over a year before they started dating!
For the second, they were set up on a blind date. It took him a few weeks after to reach out again, saying that he had been “very busy.” They’ve been married nearly 25 years now.
For the third, they met on Tinder (but went to the same college) and went on a successful date or two. But then neither reached back out for anything more. It was only a year later, when they randomly bumped into each other while out at a bar, that they reconnected and started dating.
These are all very different circumstances, and while one has a love at first sight element, none of them feels like a ‘Hell yes!’ off the bat. I get the sense that our navigation systems are a bit off. The compass isn’t compassing. That, and the other common thread is that there’s some element of fate – working at the same place, having adjacent friends, running into someone on accident.
Now it’s no wonder that today, with the prevalence of dating apps, it can feel difficult for a swipe on Hinge to feel destined. And if there’s always another profile to view & person to see, how can we ever re-set or get back on course, as in some of these cases?
Is it possible, in modern times, to find a burning love? Or was this never what it was meant to be? And just something that we’ve been fed by the universe. Does the slow, steady, and perhaps – sans-steamy – win the race?
I hope I didn’t just let a great love get away...
Only time will tell it I get unstuck.
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