I know — usually it’s three strikes before someone is out. But in dating sometimes all you need are two interactions with a man to decide he’s out.
Tonight was a good example. A man from a dating site looked at my profile every day for the last two weeks. In his picture, he wore a hat, sun glasses and had written nearly nothing in his profile. However he was height, age and geographically appropriate. He emailed a funny message 5 days ago. I responded with some banter. He replied with his number.
I waited a day to call. I decided to see if he was as funny live as he was in his email. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. At the end of the 30-minute call I thought I would just release him back into the dating pool. However, he wrote a nice email afterward saying how much he enjoyed our call and looked forward to talking again. Yesterday, he emailed asking if I’d call him since I hadn’t given him my number. I said I was tied up until late. He emailed today asking if I wanted to have coffee this afternoon. I responded that I was booked, suggesting perhaps tomorrow. He asked if I’d call him tonight to discuss it.
I tried to figure out if he was needy or lonely, or if I should just give him some slack. Since I like to give people some grace, I gave him another chance and called him again tonight. After 10 minutes, I remembered why I was going to let it go after our last conversation.
He would frequently change the subject to some rambling thought. Was he ADHD? Or just an unconscious communicator? He focused on himself (are we surprised?) until he realized he was monopolizing the conversation, then asked me one of the questions he’d asked me just two nights before. Were my answers so uninteresting he couldn’t remember from just 48 hours before? When I began to answer, he’d interrupt to share some stream-of-consciousness babble.
When he asked when I could meet him for coffee I made some excuse about having a full schedule for the next few days. Luckily, his self-distraction played to my favor and he changed the subject. I soon excused myself.
Have you found that two interactions are often sufficient to decide if you have enough of a connection to warrant a meeting? Sometimes it doesn’t take three strikes for someone to be out.
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