I wanted to start this post by thanking all of you who reached out or commented on last week’s initial post to Dating By Wegs: Swim Big or Go Home (http://wegspool.com/2018/09/28/dating-by-wegs-swim-big-or-go-home/). I really appreciate all the support and good humor around me sharing my experiences out in “these streets.” As most of you know, dating is an up and down process with not all the positive stories like my Swim Date last week. So, I need all the support I can get to make it. The other main thing I learned from last week’s post is that people really love to read about dating, which I guess, makes sense, right? Most everyone can relate to interactions with new people and especially in a romantic setting. I have been writing on my blog now for 6 months about sports mostly, but last week’s post was not only the most popular post of all time on my site, but it was like 5-6 times more popular than my best post ever previously. I now understand where the true market is for my writing, so yes, I will be continuing these posts until further notice. I mean we all know I have a ton of stories from just the “Summer of Wegs” alone.
Dating By Wegs
This week I wanted to share a more negative experience in the dating world for me. However, in addition, I thought it would be helpful to cover a different dating app each week for the first few weeks for those of you not very familiar with the new landscape out there. Plus, if you are out there, maybe you can learn from my mistakes fumbling through each and every app on the market.
Rule #2 Trust Your Instinct
Let’s go back to when you were a kid. I remember a local police officer coming to my classroom in 2nd grade to talk to the class about “Stranger Danger.” My memory isn’t perfect from that time, but I remember the officer saying if you are presented with a person you don’t know and you get that feeling in the bottom of your stomach that does not feel right, then you need to run, not walk to some place safe. It’s a simple concept in theory. When you get that funny feeling, you need to not ignore it, but act on it. The human immune system is hardwired that way for a reason. If we follow that guttural instinct, then 90% of the time, you will be right. Well, why should it be any different in dating?
Stranger Danger may be in direct conflict with dating someone new, however, I want to be clear you need to make that leap to meeting new people. That may mean ignoring the basic Stranger Danger instinct. Though, I do not think your instinct about this new person should be ignored. Most people reveal themselves and who they are in the first date or interaction with them. Maybe when you were 16 you tried to act like someone else, but unless the person is a complete sociopath with complete control over their actions without emotion, your date will let down their guard and actually be themselves for 5 minutes. That is when you will get “that feeling” about the person. Now, I’m not going to get into human pheromones and how the laws of attraction work (not in this post anyway), but most of the time you will know in the very first interaction whether you want to see this person again.
Now, for me, I tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I say to myself, “Maybe they were short because they had a tough day at work” or “Maybe they were just nervous and that’s why they never made eye contact.” I am all for giving people a chance, especially if the person seems genuine and wants to get to know me as a person. Obviously, women go through the world with a lot more intuition about guys who may not be safe and that can also translate into finding the right person, but a lot of men, like me, may be more tolerant of that feeling which ultimately is problematic. However, the rule here is that if that “Spidey Sense” or instinct is telling you that you are not into this person or they didn’t seem to be in to you, then DO NOT IGNORE IT!! Trust yourself and that hardwired instinct of yours. There are literally thousands of singles out there. You do not have to go on more dates with a person you don’t feel quite right about.
What you should do is work on your dating game. Make the most of the date you are on, even with the person you have the instinct about. Try your best to make conversation with them. Enjoy the food you are eating and drink you are drinking. In therapist terms, “Stay Present,” because we all can get better at interacting on dates. When the date is over, then you can think about the experience and whether your instinct should be trusted, as I suggest.
You will find over time and multiple dates that your instinct may be more right than you would have thought initially. We all go out with someone that one date too many, which hopefully was not catastrophic. I mean we do not want to be like Jerry Seinfeld or Mike Myers’ character in So I Married an Ax Murder and find the imperfections in every person you date – Close Talker, She Smelled Like Soup, etc. There is a balance between knowing the instinctive feeling you are experiencing and giving someone new a chance to be themselves in order for you to really click with them. Not everyone is a great first date, after all. You will find your balance and hopefully, you will have the opposite problem where you click with several people and then you need to figure out who you would like to pursue a deeper relationship with later (I’m a bit far from that stage at the moment, so be patient).
(No that’s not me, and I promise I didn’t have a mullet, but this was the best image of Dad Jeans beyond Mitt Romney)
Now, let’s get into the story, as that is why everyone is actually reading. When I first decided to start dating, I was living with a friend after separating from my wife. My Buddy, as I call him, was great. He let me stay for as long as I wanted, and luckily enough for me, he had a great place located in a cool part of town. My Buddy was using Bumble (more on this app another post) quite a bit, and we initially hatched this hair-brained scheme to use a Bumble profile to recruit women for our softball team. Once I got on the app though, I thought I should make it a profile for myself. Well, the very next day, I visited a married friend and her neighbor with whom I discussed my Bumble profile and they completely destroyed me about it. “You can’t have a shirtless photo as your lead photo!” I calmly told them it was my best picture and just my head and shoulders, but nonetheless, this lead to a 2 hour consultation on the apps.
When the dust settled, I was on both Tinder and Bumble with a better opening phrase and better pictures representative of me (I guess…I still love that pic of me). I do have to give those 2 ladies credit, as I matched almost immediately on Tinder with 2 women. For those of you who do not know Tinder, Tinder is one of the original swipe apps. It is also free in its basic mode. Probably designed to find someone to hook up with while out with friends, Tinder is really interesting. The app uses your GPS location to locate singles in your defined radius. Once they locate people in that radius, the app presents photos of people which you simply “Swipe Left” if you are not interested and “Swipe Right” if you are interested. Unlike Hinge, which I discussed last week, Tinder is pretty bare bones in terms of information. People can opt to literally put nothing in the description section. Most Tinder-folk put a simple – “I’m looking for a relationship and no hook ups” or “Sugar Baby Looking for Sugar Daddy” (and there is a lot of that – future post idea). Tinder runs the gamut for sure. Once you match with someone, then you can chat with them in a chatroom setting, and either person can initiate the conversation. There are other features on Tinder like the “Super Like” feature which I guess tells the other person you like them even more, but I mainly do that accidentally…. The other free feature is a Boost feature which supposedly increases the exposure of your profile, more than normal. Under the Basic Tinder you get a finite amount of Super Likes and Boosts per month. However, you can pay for other features like Tinder Plus or Tinder Gold that allows you to see who likes you already plus the ability to reverse back if you Swiped Left accidentally. They have added more lately like your Top Matches, which features certain people for you – again under Tinder Plus or Gold.
I was very excited to chat with the 2 ladies and set up dates with them. I’m going to focus on one of the dates, given the title here, but both dates challenged my “instinct” which I frankly ignored. I wanted to date, and maybe that meant my instinct was wrong (hint – it wasn’t).
I had planned to meet my date at rooftop bar in River North on the following Monday. Unfortunately, it was a crummy day, so I had to audible and find another venue. Now, for those not in Chicago, River North is a swanky part of town with a lot of high end bars. Beyond Rule #2, doing first dates in River North is a total mistake especially if you are on a budget. So, when the 2nd venue was closed for a private event, my date told me to meet her at RPM Italian one of the most expensive places in the area. I met her at the bar and we were lucky enough to get a seat at the bar itself. Now, my date did not seem very enthusiastic to see me – which was red flag number one. I mean this was my first date in a long time, so I was excited. She did not share that excitement. We sat down and ordered a drink. She got some fancy cocktail. I stuck with my staple Manhattan. We started a conversation, and I followed my Buddy’s advice of just let her do the talking. However, she literally talked about herself the entire 2 hour date. I am a bit of a talker, as you can imagine, so I patiently listened as she told me story after story about money and her jobs, etc. She really asked me nothing about myself. I paid for the near $200 tab, and knew it was not a great idea to see her again. I mean she didn’t seem interested and also quite superficial. Did that stop me from asking her out again?
Of course not, I asked her out the following week. I guess I didn’t have too much to do, but really I was trying to give her a chance. Maybe she was nervous. So, I had the strategy of picking the date carefully not as expensive and maybe in a setting that would foster more two way communication. In the summers, I have summer hours on Fridays and am off by 12 Noon. I found a great, creative date idea – Lagunitas Brewery Tasting Tour – which took place at 3:30 PM for free. You get to taste a few of their offerings, tour the brewery and on site they have a tap room with food and their beers (https://lagunitas.com/taproom/chicago). I thought it was a great idea. I picked her up, and then we headed down there. I should say at this time that I came from work, so I had a simple button down shirt on and jeans, with my shirt tucked in and a belt – standard Friday work attire. She was dressed casually with a light sweater and jeans on – nothing special.
I should have known the date was not going to go great, when we entered the tasting room for the tour and there were a ton of games in there like 2×4 Jenga, Huge Connect Four, etc. I love games, so I was like, “Do you want to play a game?” She replied, “Games are for children.” Ummmm, I was dumbfounded. So, I suggested we just sit on the plush couch in the corner as they started to explain the beers to taste. Conversation was not great, but luckily, I turned and saw this woman I recognized. It was a friend from high school that I hadn’t seen in like 20+ years. It turns out her and her husband were celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary in the city that night. So, I introduced my date to them, and we ended up doing a double date on the tour. My date opened right up and started talking to them quite a bit. I was happy to see the turn of events. We enjoyed the tour, went to the tap room and got an appetizer. Things were great. Then, my date and I unsuccessfully tried to get my high school friend and husband to join us at another venue. Now, I failed to mention that my date was a bar industry person, so she know all the hot spots. The spot she picked was The Devereaux (https://www.devereauxchicago.com/), which is a rooftop bar in The Viceroy Hotel in the Gold Coast – translation “expensive drinks.” My plan was being thwarted. I rolled with it, as we were enjoying ourselves with some beers in us. The Devereaux is very nice. We drank a few cocktails in this very pretty setting, but cash was flying out of my pockets at this point. The night was falling, and my date wanted to go one more place.
Honestly, I was weighing options. I had another person I could have met out on Tinder after 10 PM, but after conferring with my Buddy over a quick call when my date went to the restroom, I decided to stay on my date. Our next stop was at a place called Louie’s Pub (http://louiespub.com/). Louie’s is actually an awesome place – a dive bar that does Karaoke at night, so I will give my date some credit on introducing me to 2 new places for future dates. The place was completely packed and the line to get to sing was long. You have to tell this guy who is sitting inside one of these half doors in the wall your song. Anyway, we put in “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé and Jay-Z, and got another cocktail – she did pay this time (at the dive bar, of course). I could tell my date was pretty drunk at this point, which was no problem. I didn’t have an issue with it. I had a few myself, but my post-separation tolerance was pretty high, so I felt just fine. It was pushing midnight, and we had been together for like 9 hours now. She asked to go home before our song came up. We went back to her place. I walked her up and into her apartment. Now, I was not expecting anything sexually. Of course, if something happened, I would not have minded. We had exchanged small pecks at the roof top bar, initiated by me. I mean if I’m going to be out I need to “Stay Present,” right?
Well, we sat on the couch. I met her small dog who was very nice. We talked for a second. I was probably instinctively moving closer to her when she said, “I like you. I do, but I can’t be attracted to someone who wears Dad Jeans.” Huh? What did she just say? I’m thinking, “We have gone on 2 dates now. I’ve spent probably $350, including spending 9 hours with you tonight, and you give me Dad Jeans!! What the hell are Dad Jeans anyway?” I was a bit taken back of course, and I tried to talk through it. She did not know I had a child yet, either, but I was like, “I am 44, and I can’t wear skinny jeans. I have a lot of junk in the trunk, so…” She continued to tell me how she doesn’t date dads at all and maybe if she took me shopping for Seven Jeans, then things would change. Incidentally, Seven Jeans are like $150-300 a piece or something, not gonna happen. I literally got up, walked out, and went home. I didn’t text, call or anything. No point.
The lesson here is this. I knew about 2 minutes into our first date that she wasn’t into me – not enthusiastic at all – I also knew when she talked about herself and money the entire time on Date 1, that she was not right for me (in any way). I completely ignored my instinct because it was an early dating experience for me. Well, I got called Dad Jeans, which is still the funniest thing I’ve ever heard so far.
So, learn from my mistake, trust that guttural instinct and find someone who is excited to meet you and be with you even if it is for one date. Trust me there is someone who thinks you are fine, Dad Jeans and all.
Until next Friday.
Wegs