Dating is like a game of flag football. You don’t exactly get to tackle, just snatch the little flags off your opponent. Lets think of them as little “red flags”/deal breakers. You get it. However many flags you rip off, indicate whether the guy or girl is right for you.
The purpose of dates 1-5 I believe, is like a series of games. Feeling out your opponent, and evaluating where he is both strong and weak in a variety of areas. Now let me say something about red flags; they are there for a reason. It's an indicator of something that you may not find adorable, fascinating, or sexy. Red fags are the turn offs , they make you cringe, feel awkward, piss you off, or whatever. You are allowed to listen to these emotions and act accordingly. More often than not, we refuse to listen to our instincts or count how many red fags we have ripped off our opponent.
Yes, its true that we all want a successful relationship without much effort, but the more you ignore what you don’t like, the more you have to settle with it.
About a month ago, I finally had a really great date. You know like a GREAT DATE. His name was Johnathan, I saw him on OK Cupid and my jaw dropped. So I decided to message him, in the vain hope that he would reply. He did! And after about a week or so of online chit chat, he asked me out on a date to a wine bar. I was excited for my second real date in NYC, feeling like maybe my cliche Sex and the City fantasies would come true.
We talked about everything, it felt comfortable and low key. Blame it on his thick body, blame it on his facial hair, or maybe the wine, or maybe the fact that he paid for the wine, but by the end of our first date (a.k.a Scrimmage #1) I hadn’t snatched any of his red flags away. There were no glaring warning signs or annoying character traits, that bothered me. We all come out winners. High five.
We decided to go out again and I spent the next week, day dreaming about my new “Winter Boyfriend” Johnathan. Floating on a cloud and celebrating the accomplishment of having my Greatest First Date. Ever. Even his method of asking me out again was perfect, it was almost scary.
Johnathan set up our second date, which was to involve a daytime stroll through Central Park on a beautiful autumn afternoon. We were supposed to meet at one of the fountains by the row boats. I was beyond excited for my date aka Scrimmage #2. I didn’t want to get my hopes up but I just couldn’t help myself. I spent hours getting ready, thinking about my outfit days ahead of time.
By 2pm Sunday afternoon, reality hit. I was almost 30 minutes late. For some reason I could not find my way in the park. I was running around, sweating and sending apology texts. When I finally reached Johnathan, he didn’t look like the same guy from THE GREAT FIRST DATE EVER. He now seemed, nervous and awkward, even a little cold (RIPS RED FLAG). He even went in for the awkward kiss on the cheek/hug combination as our greeting...ugh . As I awkwardly caught my breath, we awkwardly chatted by the one of the fountains. I didn’t understand what was going wrong this time! We went from talking about our deepest insecurities, to talk about his deep fryer????? Oh no no no (RIPS RED FLAG).
I felt like I was doing most of the talking; thinking of new ways to ask about mundane bullshit. It was time for us to change locations, but as we got up to leave , a musician asked us if we wanted to hear a song; “Sure why not” I thought to myself, at least it would fill up some of the silence, but before I could give an enthusiastic “YES!”’; Johnathan cut me off and said “WE WERE JUST LEAVING”. Wait…what? You really had to diss this Central Park musician? It’s a minute long show you jack ass and all we have to do is give him a dollar at the end. (RIPS RED FLAG). This is actually a deal breaker for all men. Being rude to street musicians, or homeless people is a no no. Don’t treat them like they are less than, be respectful.
Johnathan was on thin ice….he had already lost 3 flags in about a 20 minute period. Game 2 had just started. I wanted to bail already, but I decided that I had just spent 3 hrs getting ready and had initially been excited, so I told myself I should still give it a go anyway. The rest of the afternoon consisted of awkwardly walking through the park, looking at street performers in silence, standing under trees in silence, me looking at my phone, and me acting like a cold bitch. (About 3 more flags had been ripped off at this point). I almost vomited in my mouth wen he started bitching about how the Central Park horses smelled. Leaving the fucking horses alone Johnathan! (RIPS RED FLAG). After about an hour and a half of this mess, we decided to end the afternoon with of a cup of coffee and meaningless chit chat about cooking and occasionally people watching.
As the date came to close I couldn’t believe what had changed. I had ripped off basically all of his flags, and I’m sure he had ripped some of mine off as well. It just wasn’t working. Who knows what had changed in the past week, but I knew he wasn’t going to be anything more than a good first date and a disappointing second date. The next day I wondered what I was going to do; what if he wanted to go out again?! How do I end this things? Well, fortunately we both mutually agreed we werent' good match, e-mails were exchanged and no hard feelings were had.
Sure, we could have given it another date, but often times we try to make things work instead of finding people that actually work for us. Sure, it was nice having a guy pay for all my shit and take me to a nice place. He has his life together (bonus) and had an apt on the upper east side (check plus!), but if you can't stand the person with all the benefits, then whats the point? I say, pay attention to the red flags and the deal breakers; they matter, because if you try to ignore them or try to fix them, you’ll end up losing the game altogether.
No comments:
Post a Comment