I’m having a hard time tonight following my own sage advice about taking it easy. The Canadian hasn’t called me back since I left him a voice mail on Saturday morning. There are several perfectly normal explanations for why he hasn’t called – he’s deathly ill (he was coming down with a cold on Wednesday), a raccoon ate this telephone, he found out I’ve been blogging about him, or he had sex with me and is avoiding me – but the waiting still sucks. He’s never *NOT* gotten back to me before, and has always been reassuring when there was a delay, but still – the dude hasn’t gotten in touch, other than a one line email thanking me for a link to an article I sent him, in the four days since he slept with me.
Women are inundated with all kinds of conflicting information about how to interact with the opposite sex. One magazine tells you, “Go for it, Girl! Unlease your inner she-beast. Club him over the head with your stiletto, drag him home to your lady cave and make him your prisoner of love.” Another publication tells you to remain demure, never call him and let him do all the pursuing: “If he calls you sooner than 21.3 hours after your first date, he’s obviously desperate and kick him to curb immediately. If he calls between 21.3 hours and 42.9 hours after your date, go out with him again, but not before making him wait 24.2 hours before you call him back to say yes. If he takes more than 43 hours to call, fuck him.”
I, for one, have all of these “rules” about how long to wait to call, when it’s appropriate to talk about exes, and who should pay on the first date running around in my head after too many years of reading Cosmo (as well as perusing the pages of Seventeen and Sassy during my formative years). Although I scoff a little at the thought, somewhere in the back of my consciousness there is a tiny, annoying voice (which sounds a lot like Marge Simpson) spouting rules that to some extent or another govern my dating behavior.
Some of the rules are meant to be broken; for instance, the rule to let the man make the first move doesn’t apply in cities like Seattle where the men sit back passively in their Northface gear and pray for a Swedish Bikini Team lookalike to fall in their laps (I don’t care what Marie Claire magazine says about Seattle being the No. 1 US city for single gals, dating here is difficult. Read Seattle Weekly’s snarky response to the matter here.) Others are outdated, and some are just plain common sense.
The point is: maybe it’s time to forget the “rules” and start letting common sense dictate our dating actions – and reactions. I probably should have waited another day, but I broke down and sent The Canadian a “hey-what’s-up-so-are-we-hanging-out-again-or-was-that-for-old-times’-sake” email. It’s fairly lighthearted and fairly eloquent – I do, after all, do this writing thing for a living and it sometimes comes in handy. If he gets weird because I asked a few questions, it’s probably not meant to do, and one email, or one phone call should not make or break a relationship.
But most importantly, it’s helped me to let it go, for tonight at least.
I feel your pain… I’ve always been very good at clubbing him with my stilettos, all the while shushing the voices in my head telling me “no, wait, this is the part where HE should be hunting YOU down”. I think that both you and I are usually more in love of the thought of being in love, than actually being in love with the person per sé. They are exchangable, but sometimes there aint nothing left on the rack in your particular size, which makes it so hard to let go.
Is this the part where we’d do a drive-by of his apartment before heading to the (EDIT: name of restaurant) for a hot fudge sundae? Next time, just call me… unless of course you’re on crazy European time. (I am up earlier than everyone in your neighborhood in the mornings).
I think the “rules” ought to be more like a Lonely Planet book. Decent suggestions and some basic rules of the road, but the real fun starts when you get kidnapped by nomads in the Sahara. And dating is suppose to be fun right?
I will always advocate for the “clubbing with stilettos” approach over the passive “checking email/texts/blogs/tweets ever five seconds to see if there is response” approach. At least you have have the satisfaction of having acted.
Oh and I agree with h on the more in love of the thought of being in love than actually being in love. I’m the same way…
It was fun on Wed. Less fun right now.