Sorry to have been so quiet this weekend, but since I’m on holiday I thought I should give myself a couple of days off from blogging too. After all, a weekend at home with my parents requires plenty of time for arguing.
The current debate raging in the family home is whether TheGirlGlory is too darn fussy for her own good. In the blue corner, my mother, who thinks I am spiking any number of possible romances by throwing guys off after the second date. In the red corner, TheGirlGlory, trying to explain that there’s no point continuing to date guys you don’t fancy.
Mum has adopted City Chap as the posterboy for her campaign. My second date with him had gone fine, in spite of my unintentional facial tattooing. The sole and fatal flaw that I didn’t fancy him, wasn’t becoming any closer to fancying him, and couldn’t foresee any future circumstances in which I was likely to fancy him, with the exception of a powerful love drug or a parallel universe.
To me, this is not a matter of particular concern. I don’t fancy most of the guys I meet and I believe this to be quite normal outside excitable teenage girls. But when I told my mum I was declining his next invitation out, she sighed. ‘You have to give these men a chance,’ she complained. ‘You’re so quick to say no. Some people take time to come out of their shells. He might grow on you.’ She then went on to list his many good qualities, which was impressive as she has, obviously, never met him.
The problem with arguing with my mother is that I generally end up terrified that she might be right. Maybe I am too quick to judge these guys. But if you don’t find someone attractive on a couple of meetings, how long are you really obliged to give it?
I’ve asked a few friends and had wildly differing answers. Most of the girls say two dates is plenty. A lot of the guys say I should extend it to three or four (they might have a more realistic idea of how long it takes a guy to relax in new company). One of my best friends said seven, although this is a man who pursued his current girlfriend for a year before she succumbed. He is the king of the slow burn, and not everyone can aspire to such patience.
So I’ve turned to science. Having recently discovered PlentyOfFish’s blog – he’s a dab hand with the old dating statistics – I’ve been inspired to try a little graph to express myself. It’s a graph of my own dating expectations over time: the x-axis is what I expect to feel about a guy, against, on the y-axis, the rising number of dates… Any thoughts and comments welcome!
Graph of dating expectations over time
Love the graph, though I think the ‘could be the one’ variable should be much higher, surely you’d go on more than 7 dates with the potential “One.”
You’re right, I think my graph is ridiculously over optimistic in that respect… then again, Christian dating is an odd phenomenon. We tend to go from dating to engaged extraordinarily quickly….
well I think fancying someone is definitely a requirement for “the one” (marrying) or even “maybe the one” (dating) – only you know whether that takes a few meetings or many many meetings from past experience. I do think that people you love can grow on you but there has to be a spark of excitement from the get go (if its not an inferno of lust!)
[...] 19, 2009 by TheGirlGlory I can’t face my inbox. City Chap has replied to my rejection email, and while I’m sure it’s a very pleasant reply, I [...]
[...] like to think I’m discerning rather than fussy. As you know, I always try to go on a second date with the guys I meet, unless the first one is [...]
[...] the sexy, Rihanna-in-barbed-wire kind. But I’m actually quite looking forward to it. As we know, I rarely fancy a guy on first meeting, so a 2”x2” photo isn’t going to do that much for me [...]