Muffin Monday: Let’s Make a Date
I know so many young adult men who are single and I keep wondering why. Before you start whistling the kettle that my pot is calling black, I’m not going to yenta any of these friends unless they ask for it. As president of the “single and happy about it” club I fully respect those loud and proud in their relationship status…but I know not all of them are happy about it. Yet despite being able to say they want something more, they don’t seem to know how to go about doing it. Guys don’t think it’s just you either. It’s 2013 and plenty of ladies can be the ones to initiate a date—and we know it. So ladies get to share in the horror of the asking too and it’s no less terrifying to be a girl in that situation I promise you.
The process of initiating a first date can be intimidating. Does the mere thought of asking a girl out give you sweaty palms and heart palpitations? Are you struggling with just the right, witty first line to impress her? Are you reading every body signal and analyzing if her thanks for picking up the pencil she dropped is a sign that she’s ready to have babies with you? Well STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW.
It’s not that complicated. Trust me. You aren’t going to find some magical pick up line that makes her love you forever and ever and ever…. Sure there are those amazing stories from romantic comedies that make the story of “how I met your mother” seem legend…. But they aren’t real and they aren’t realistic either. I promise you that no girl (I can’t speak on behalf of guys but I imagine this hold true with them) will think any less of this opening line:
“Hi, I’m ____. I’ve seen you around work/the building/wherever and wanted to finally introduce myself.”
Now what? Now you let her introduce herself. If she doesn’t walk away, you move on to the second part of the process.
“It’s nice to meet you her name. I was wondering if you were available at all for coffee or maybe even dinner sometime?”
That’s it. That’s all it will take if the object of your affection, hereto known as the OoA, is at all interested in going out with you. You don’t need to offer any sort of compliment—you can but it’s not needed and things like “you have the most beautiful eyes” can sound cheesy depending on the girl or the delivery. I promise you, you don’t need it. Save the compliments for the date if it’s received. That’s when you want to use them. Trust me you aren’t going to change her mind for a date by telling her she looks pretty; the mere fact that you are asking her out pretty much set the expectation that you find her attractive. Now there are some girls who will love a huge romantic gesture, this is true, but to others it can scare them off. If you keep it simple, stupid, you don’t run into any risk of seeming too…well too anything. Too interested, too apathetic, too boring. Simple is good. Save the complexity for the date.
Which brings me to the most crucial part of the asking out: setting the date. Don’t leave it up in the air. Be prepared with a date, a place and a time. Offer these up but be flexible for her schedule or dietary preferences. “I know a great place for coffee. How about Tuesday at 6?” and then let her respond and beyond all be flexible if she suggests some-when or somewhere else. Unless it’s a local skinhead bar. Then run away.
But Olivia what about if they say no? How do I handle that kind of rejection? *Sigh* Okay I’m going to try to explain this without going past a second page.
“We make time for the things that are important to us.”
There’s so much truth in such a simple little statement like that. Right now my life priorities are still: Family, Work, Health, Passions and Friends…followed by everything else. Notice what’s not on there? Funny business aka romantic interludes. The fact that I’m not willing to make time is a good indicator of how serious I am about it—and that’s not at all. So guys and gals, if the object of your affections can’t be tied down to a time and a place…well then this person just isn’t that invested and you shouldn’t waste too much time on it either. But don’t take it personally and don’t think it means there’s something wrong with you. Just let it be. Make a second attempt to connect if she doesn’t respond to your initial text or phone call about the date–she may have accepted tenuously but just has been too busy to follow up. That being said if she just can’t commit to it on a third try just let it go because as the book title says “He/She’s just not that into you” and it probably has absolutely nothing to do with you. The worst thing is to send a barrage of messages, to get too personal, to get rambly…. Do NOT send a message about your past relationships or how eager you are. Just be simple, flexible and reserved. When you throw too much emotion at someone whose middle name you don’t even know…they’re gonna bolt. You might ask out 100 people and get 1 positive response back and that’s okay because I’m telling you that of those 99 rejections, 99% of them have nothing to do with you. One might. Maybe she saw you picking your nose or getting into a parking lot fight, I don’t know, I’m just playing the odds here.
I mean I’m not dismissing offers for any reason to do with the date-asker-outer. It has nothing to do with appearances, personality or any aspect of their physical presence. I just can’t even fathom making the time to emotionally invest in something that intense and I have so many things to juggle…I can’t have the responsibility of handling someone else’s emotions on that level. Your OoA (Object of Affection) might have too much on their plate for romance. Or you might a gross slob. Look in the mirror and get real and we’ll talk about what to do if you ARE in fact kind of a slob on another day.
In the meantime here’s a surefire way to get some dates into your day honey-muffin. Bwahahaha segue? CHECK!
Honey Date Muffins
An Olivia Original Read more
On one hand I’ve always been “so serious” about perceived injustice. Even as a child I wanted to save the world. I guess mom shoulda named me Ka-ka-ka-Katie. **TRIVIA TIME: Name that movie and win a cookie! PS: my last trivia winner still needs to email me his info so I can mail out a treat! Hey you, yeah I’m talking to you, send me your info and any allergens to my blog’s email addy: rollingsreliableblog at g mai l dot com** I do think part of it is that I’m experiencing more of life rather than reading about it. There are issues that seem far less important than they did and others that seem to be so ignored by people around me that I want to scream. Sometimes I just want to get out a drum and hold it in someone’s face and yell “WAKE UP!” The apathy and willful ignorance that serve as a constant state of existence for some…I don’t understand it. I never have. Some stupid little voice inside me just won’t shut up and I can’t sit by the sidelines and watch and do nothing. I have to do something—even if it’s just letting the people I want to defend know I’m here. I have to do something.
I noticed that there are people in this world just hellbent upon making it a miserable place for the rest of us and I have no desire to be around them. Thankfully this is a minority of folks and I find that most people are generally decent and well intentioned. Even so these decent people have a tendency to “kid around” to such an extent that I always feel very distant from them. The joking, the kidding, the teasing…I don’t know it just gets old after a while. I’ve always been one to provide a good ribbing and I like to think that I take as well as I give—but I’m more apt to get annoyed when the target is someone other than myself. I’ll go up in arms twice as quickly when the butt of the joke isn’t my own. I’d like to think with all the squats I’ve been doing my own ass is pretty springy and most stuff bounces off of it. Provided I’ve had enough sleep and coffee that day anyway. No coffee = no sense of humor. Word to the wise and future significant others. Take for example this joke which I’ve heard far too many times and which seems particularly relevant after the flurry of rape culture commentary in the past few weeks:
Demeter is one of the less popularly known, but still major, Greek Gods. She is the “Mother Earth” figure; the Goddess of Harvest and abundance as well as the keeper of the Eleusinian Mysteries—a series of ceremonies we still don’t know much about save they were related to the concept of immortality in the afterlife and aided by some psychotropic drugs. Persephone is/was the “virgin” daughter of Demeter—an interesting contrast to a Goddess of harvest which would symbolize fertility. The story of the abduction of Persephone always stuck with me I think because of the power of Demeter to bring the world to its knees all for the sake of her daughter. You know the saying about a woman scorned? I think that pales in comparison to the wrath of a mother protecting her child. Here’s how the story plays out:
Demeter, upon finding out her daughter’s fate, dooms the earth to drought and death. She refuses to let anything grow unless Persephone is freed from Hades’s grasp and brought back to the light of the world. As the planet withers and dies, Zeus eventually responds by pleading with his brother to let the girl go however it turns out that it is too late to free Persephone from the grasp of the netherworld completely. A rule of visiting Hades’ realm is that no one who eats there may ever leave. Persephone had during her captivity consumed only a few seeds from the fruit of a pomegranate—in some stories she is tricked, in others driven by hunger and attempts to conceal her act. Regardless those 4 seeds bind Persephone to the realm. Consumed with rage Demeter continues to starve the earth to death until Hades develops and alternative plan: Persephone is bound only for as many months as seeds she consumed. While Demeter relents from her destruction when Persephone returns, she still continued to refuse to bless the earth or harvest during the time her daughter is taken from her each year. A constant reminder to Zeus and any other man precisely of what a mother’s wrath can bring. Thus the name Persephone became known as “she who brings destruction and death” This story was also meant to account for the concept of the seasons as most Greek myths are stories to explain something that we now have science for.
This show was essentially like an X-files for the 21st century—and in my humble opinion, had many one-ups that came from learning what worked and what didn’t work on the previous paranormal series. Where the X-files underlying theme was the existence of extra-terrestrial life, Fringe followed the concept of the multi-verse i.e. alternate realities. While simultaneously embracing some of the harder elements of sci-fi it also was a show about a much simpler concept: love. While there is a romantic relationship between the pretty people on the show (Joshua Jackon’s Peter Bishop and Anna Torv’s Olivia Dunham) the real examination of love is actually that of a Father and Son. It’s a beautiful story that begins with the estranged Dr. Walter Bishop and his son Peter Bishop…and it resolved in a serious tear jerker end.
Dr. Walter Bishop : It’s one of the inherent pitfalls of being a scientist – trying to maintain that distinction… between God’s domain and our own. Sometimes, I forget myself.
