This Is Why I Don't Date

Dear Gauchegirl,

I have a question for you. As we all know, playing the dating game induces a lot of stupid behaviour. Normally rational and logical people can become complete and utter idiots as they start analysing and over analysing everything. Whatever actual mental capacity they initially possessed seems to take a leave of absence and the results never cease to amaze me. I mean take the example of this girl meeting a guy she’d been communicating with for the first time. You’d think this kind of thing should be easy.

This is the kind of situation where you write and you talk, you agree on meeting arrangements and there you go. If you like each other, you’ll go out again. Uncomplicated. Except for when someone can’t even commit to being in town in the first place and say they’ll let someone know mid-weekend. I don’t know about you but the words flaky, disinterested and to be honest, rude, come to my mind. That might be excused however by them later advising that they will definitely be around and would like to meet up, but coming in an email (somewhat immediately on the back of a phone call and another email)…other words come to mind. Words such as ‘back’ and ‘off’. It should never be necessary to come across as a stalker.

As far as first impressions go though, would that be any less favourable than ‘high maintenance’, which is possibly how this girl appeared when she again couldn’t seem to make up her mind. After agreeing on a meeting place, she asked to change it half an hour later and didn’t really give the actual reason. And this was before she’d even met the guy. Afterwards, probably in the space of about an hour she managed to bring death into the conversation, generally try and talk the man’s ear off and introduce him to her best friend. Not exactly typical. Shortly after that she practically pulled out the family pictures and began telling some of the stories that are probably best kept reserved for a later occasion.

Now none of this is actually the end of the world or anything. Although one might question the sanity of asserting you can be both neurotic and a good bullshit artist – keeping your mouth shut occasionally does have its merits. Surprisingly enough though, her evening actually lasted more than a couple of hours (which is longer than some of her friends can put up with really). At the end she tried not to put him off too much with her driving skills as she returned him to his car but then they parted ways with a perhaps somewhat vague assertion that they should do this again. Since then she has spent time going over what was said and done in an attempt to work out what his impression of her actually was. She’s not getting anywhere funnily enough.

Now my question to you is what breed of moron gets nervous about going out for a drink, makes a production out of meeting up with someone, leaves things kind of in the air and then spends her time worrying about where it all might go from here - by herself? Oh yeah, that’s right, YOU.

Sincerely,
Yourself.

P.S. I’m not talking to you till you get your brain back.

(I would just like to say that I am now over my slight aberration and back to my 'normal' slightly odd self)