You may recall that I’m not a big fan of online dating. I did sign up for an online dating service once, about the same time that we started this blog, and with a lot of fortitude and chanting of “give it a chance…give it a chance…” under my breath, I was able to hold out for a week. I never deleted my profile, though, and once a month or so I log in and check my messages and maybe post a few comments in the forums.
When I logged in last week, I had a message from a man whose user name seemed a bit odd to me. It just didn’t seem like the kind of thing a grown man would call himself. I even mentioned it to Mike before I opened it, wondering what kind of man would give himself a name I’d associate with a baby or a litle girl’s toy. Mike, of course, had a hundred possible rationalizations–his mission in life is to spray paint red flags a friendlier color so that we can all move forward unhampered by warning signs. So I opened the message and…wow.
He’d included a picture, and he was reasonably good looking. His grammar and spelling were–unlike so many others’–excellent. His message was short and to the point. In just a few lines, he described his preferred lifestyle, and it suddenly became clear to me why his screen name had conjured up images of diapers and baby dolls.
My first thought was that this was an odd way to introduce oneself. But almost immediately, I reconsidered. I remembered an article I read years ago in which women who’d had mastectomies talked about dating and sex. They found themselves in a bind no matter which way they went. If you meet a guy at a bar and say, “Hi, I’m Sally…I only have one breast,” he’s probably going to run like hell. Maybe he’ll run because you only have one breast; maybe he’ll run because he thinks you’re a nutjob for announcing something so personal two minutes into your conversation. But it seemed to be one of those “the longer you wait” issues. Do you tell a guy when you’re ready to leave the bar together? One man quoted said that was unfair, and left a guy with only two options–looking like an insensitive jerk or pretending he didn’t care because it was too late to walk away gracefully. It seemed, for many women, like a Catch-22. If they told too soon, it seemed odd and started things off on the wrong foot. If they didn’t tell soon enough, it sometimes inspired anger and they were accused of misleading men.
I suspect the issues are somewhat similar for my would-be online friend and many others. If something is a dealbreaker for you, if it’s likely to be a dealbreaker for other people (and perhaps in the opposite way), at what point do you share? Mike says you reveal things about yourself slowly over a few dates, and something like that should never be your lead–and if people were getting to know one another in casual contexts, I’d agree. But that isn’t how it usually works today; people shop for mates and date with a mission, and if one of those intimate details is something that seriously impacts a person’s marketability as a mate (or the type of person he’d consider getting involved with), does it make sense to hold back, go through the first few dates, build hope on both sides and then drop the bomb…over and over and over again?
I don’t know the answer. It’s a tough balance and one that makes me glad there’s nothing particularly unusual about me in one direction or the other. What do you think? How much information is too much? Are there certain things that should be disclosed before even beginning to test the waters, or should the big surprises be unveiled over time just like the details of everyday life?
Photo courtesy of Tina Phillips via freedigitalphotos.net
