Blind Dates. Dates of Blindness

[jchrisobrien]

JT interrupted my dancing in the front room of Excess with a question: A friend of his wanted to know my name, and would I be interested in dancing with her? Why not? I worked my way back into the main room and resumed dancing, and I was soon joined by his friend. Of the two friends he had, the one who asked was not the one I would have preferred. We continued to dance and I took her number down. JT reminded me there was an art exhibit where a friend of mine would be performing.

I've been accused of having too high standards in the past. Of missing opportunities. Of not going outside my comfort zone. My dancing partner was only visiting town for the weekend, so there was no pressure involved. To make a long story short (too late), I called her and picked her up at her hotel. The art show in general was an interested mix of people in a very over priced club. We left the exhibit and I introduced her to Green Street Grill, she shares my love for sweet drinks. The evening progressed, not as far as you'd think, but not without some distance traveled. She was a lot eager for things to go further, but I knew that wasn't happening. I didn't find her physically attractive, at all. And that's OK.

We all are attracted to what we are attracted to. None of us are under any obligation to accept the advance of people we find creepy or intrusive or simply don't inspire any passion in us. I went on a rather expensive date (not even including the ludicrous parking ticket I ended up with), and gave things a try, and took things as far as I was comfortable with. There were no further dates that weekend (but there were exciting nights at Xmortis, and two birthday parties).

This encounter will be a topic of discussion with my doctor on Thursday. I"m a bit put out that I don't attract the people I want to, but it would be interesting to see if there is a pattern of people who are attracted to me. And I can say for the first time that igniting someone's interest, even if the interest isn't wanted, is better than nothing at all.

Comments

[spitcurl.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you can end up with this weird chemical reaction, where igniting someone's interest, even if you don't reciprocate, can spark other interests, or some bit of pheromone...alertness. Not sure what to call it. Those secondary sparks and alertness can bounce around and lead to others, and that increases the probability of shared sparks.

It is like that Murphy's Law thing where two people are at a bar, and the married one garners more attention. I've seen it happen even when no one knows a person's dating status, but people gravitate to someone who just came from recent date while another hadn't.

I think part of it is confidence, but I think another could be chemical...like others sense the presence of competitors, and that amplifies interest. And sometimes, a couple of failed but healthy dates can fine tune your own senses, and then it becomes easier to spot more potentially successful dates. Somewhere in all that is a mathematical equation, but at the end of the day, attraction is tough to quantify.

Finding a pattern in those that are attracted to us does sounds like an interesting and enlightening discussion. I find that who those are, and why they are drawn to us, also changes over time, because we also change and evolve. That in itself can be very telling (are those attracted to us slightly more x, y, z than previous partners, is that variable increasing over the long term, and is that a direction we are happy about? What is it about us now that makes x or y drawn to us? etc.).

[theamazingjb.livejournal.com]

ugh.

[silas7.livejournal.com]

I vaguely remember a T shirt dealing with attraction as an equation, probably from the Questionable Content site.

I used to react badly when people I didn't like were attracted to me, and turned that into negative commentary on myself. After my "date" I was even more happy and eager at Xmortis! That's a nice change.

[spitcurl.livejournal.com]

That IS a really nice change! I hope it marks a shift towards more good changes.

[nepenthedreams]

certainly sounds like a positive change.