Total Perspective Vortex
What really happened to Trillian? Theories abound, but you can see what she's really been up to on this blog. If you're looking for white mice, depressed robots, or the occasional Pan Galactic Gargleblaster you might be better served here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/.
Don't just sit there angry and ranting, do something constructive.
In the words of Patti Smith (all hail Sister Patti): People have the power.
Contact your elected officials.
Don't be passive = get involved = make a difference.
Words are cool.
The English language is complex, stupid, illogical, confounding, brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating.
Every now and then a word presents itself that typifies all the maddeningly gorgeousness of language. They're the words that give you pause for thought. "Who came up with that word? That's an interesting string of letters." Their beauty doesn't lie in their definition (although that can play a role). It's also not in their onomatopoeia, though that, too, can play a role. Their beauty is in the way their letters combine - the visual poetry of words - and/or the way they sound when spoken. We talk a lot about music we like to hear and art we like to see, so let's all hail the unsung heroes of communication, poetry and life: Words.
Here are some I like. (Not because of their definition.)
Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Smart Girls
(A Trillian de-composition, to the tune of Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys)
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Smart girls ain’t easy to love and they’re above playing games
And they’d rather read a book than subvert themselves
Kafka, Beethoven and foreign movies
And each night alone with her cat
And they won’t understand her and she won’t die young
She’ll probably just wither away
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
A smart girl loves creaky old libraries and lively debates
Exploring the world and art and witty reparteé
Men who don’t know her won’t like her and those who do
Sometimes won’t know how to take her
She’s rarely wrong but in desperation will play dumb
Because men hate that she’s always right
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Life(?) of Trillian
Single/Zero
Thursday, January 25, 2007 It is a small world, after all…
I’ll just jump right into this.
If you are trying out online dating, good for you. It can work. Don’t use my abysmal results as proof that it doesn’t work.
Over the past few years I’ve given out some tips and techniques culled from my experiences and observations.
When I first began this adventure one of my concerns was that someone I know in real life would see my profile. I wasn’t concerned about good friends or some family members because I told them I was going to do this. Some of them even helped me choose men to contact. But. I was concerned about coworkers, colleagues and clients stumbling across my profile. Not that I have anything to hide from these people, not that I would advertise deviant sexual kinks or questionable hobbies on a dating profile anyway, but, you know, I mean, I have to work with these people. I don’t have a lot, but, I do have a pretty good and credible reputation among colleagues and clients. I work hard to keep that reputation untarnished. I am professional and reliable and I want to appear professional and reliable. It matters to me and to the people who hand over large sums of money to me and my company to provide work and services for them. I do not want so much as one raised eyebrow when my name is mentioned in board rooms or offices of clients and colleagues. “Dude, you should see her online profile! There’s a photo of her doing Jel-Lo shots and getting freaky in a hot tub and she says she’s a naughty girl who needs to be disciplined!” If you don’t think it matters who knows that sort of thing about you, guess again.
Right. So. I’ve been careful with my profiles and about whom I contact. I don’t post suggestive or weird photos of myself. And it’s not as if I’m a wild freak with bizarre and perhaps illegal fetishes or kinks anyway. Well. There is that one thing. But. I don’t spring that on men until we’re in an established relationship. So really, no worries.
But.
Still.
Running through the back of my mind is: This is online. On Al Gore’s internet. The worldwide web. Anyone could see this. Anyone. Even my parents. So. You know. There is an ever present element of danger, the fear of “getting caught.”
I try to think of it like I think of resumes: Some pertinent details, a few words which will hopefully separate me from the others and offer insight into my personality and a few basics about what I’m looking for in a job. I mean man.
Long enough to cover the topic, short enough to keep it interesting, as they say in composition 101.
But.
Still.
There is a risk, a very good chance, rather, that someone I know will see my profile. I’m okay with that. I wouldn’t be embarrassed to have my parents or the head of my company read my profile. I live my life and don’t lose sleep over the fact that it’s reasonable to assume someone I know has seen my profile.
But.
Still.
The thing is, I don’t expect, or want, someone I know in real life to contact me via an online dating site. Well, I mean, maybe it would be okay if they were just saying hi and giving me a high five or advice on my profile.
But.
Not okay to have them contact me in that “special” way. Especially when they are the barely legal son of a coworker. Or the creepy guy in the IT department. Or a friend’s brother-in-law.
Those are real-life examples. By the way.
The last one, well, that’s a special case. There are exceptions to be made. We’ll get back to that one later.
The first two, however, are inexcusable. I have been struggling with the first situation for over a month. This has been very difficult for me on a lot of levels. This is a kid, a college freshman, the son of a woman I’ve worked with for several years. I first met him at a company family picnic. He and his sister and his mother and I were paired up as a team for one of the fun events. He was just starting to get into music and I gave him a few suggestions for bands he might like. After that picnic whenever he came to the office with his mother she would bring him to my office to say hello. We’d talk about bands and concerts and his ever changing career choices. All very innocent.
Until last month when he “winked” at me via an online dating site. I normally delete “winks” and emails from 18-year-old boys without a second thought or musing. (If you haven’t tried online dating you may not realize how many young men and women have some serious mommy/daddy issues and “go after” much older dating prospects. It’s staggering to me how many 18 – 20 year-old boys truly want to hook up with a much older woman to gain “experience.” I’ve heard men say the same thing about young girls, although many of the girls are also looking for money to go with the experience. Lucky for me I’m a woman and all young boys want is sex and alcohol.) As I went to hit delete something about the photo attached to the wink caught my eye. He looked familiar. I chuckled over the coincidence of this kid looking so much like the young man whose mother works down the hall from me. I momentarily mused about how sick/funny it would be if someone’s young son contacted me on a dating site. (Insert Psycho shower seen sound bite here.) Okay. Yes. I did it. I was the one who was curious and looked at a young boy’s profile. That is my fault. But he started it. He “winked” at me. I never, ever would have known about his thing for older women if he hadn’t winked at me. But he did. And I looked. And yes. It is the young boy whose mother works down the hall from me. The kid from the company picnic. This Ladlita has an extensive profile and many, many photos. Many photos I think would embarrass his mother. And if the photos don’t embarrass her, the profile certainly will. Or. Well. I would be embarrassed if it were my 18-year-old son. Maybe I’m uptight and Amish.
But. Somehow I don’t think most mothers are really open minded enough to think it’s totally cool that their 18-year-old son is trolling online dating sites looking for “older, uninhibited, experienced women for discreet, passionate and animalistic encounters with a well endowed young stud who can go for hours at a time without Viagra.” He claims he likes older women because they know what they like and are not getting what they want from men their age. He feels he can fill a void in our lonely love starved lives. Oh. And. Go to concerts, travel and enjoy fine wines. Apparently at the ripe age of 18 he’s developed a palate for bold Cabernets and zesty Chardonnays. And indie heavy metal. And yearns to see the world. Oh yes. He’s quite the renaissance man.
Obviously he recognized me when he “winked” at me. Why would he do that? Why would he a) want to “come out” to a woman he knows, and b) want to risk having a woman show his mother his profile? Well, because, that “wink at this member” button is just so gosh darned easy to push. You’ve got loads of profiles spread out in front of you and with the simple flick of the finger you can let these people know you’re interested and send them your profile, your resume, and introduce yourself to them. It’s just too easy sometimes. And this is one of those times. Maybe he thought it would be funny. Maybe he thought I’d think it was funny. Maybe this is a cry for help and deep down he’s hoping I’ll show his mother.
And maybe he has been harboring a crush on me for a few years. I certainly didn’t see any signs of this, but I wasn’t exactly looking, either. As far as I knew he was just a regular kid whose mother works with me.
Any of that is possible.
None of it matters.
He’s put me in the position of learning things about someone I know. Things I didn’t need to know or want to learn. About a boy. A boy whose mother works down the hall from me.
Ewwwwwwwww. Ick. Scream like little girl.
True enough, I did ask for this by posting my profile on a dating site. If I can’t stand the heat I never should have ventured into the kitchen.
However. This kid, disturbing and troubling as it is, is nowhere near as bad as having a coworker contact you via a dating site.
Yep. A guy from work contacted me via an online dating site.
What. Was. He. Thinking?
That after all the years we’ve worked together I’ve been lusting after him but didn’t know how to approach him? That I’ve been coming up with ways to make my computers malfunction just so I could have him come to my office? That I’ve been waiting for him to make his move and now, finally, this is it?
If you’re a guy and you’re sitting there thinking, “Way to go, dude!” you need more help than I can give you. Trust me on this one. Even, even if a woman is interested in a coworker, the last thing she wants is for him to contact her via her online dating profile. Yes, I’m sure there are exceptions, but for the most part, credible, professional, sane, respectable women a) do not want to date men at work, and b) do not want men they know in real life to contact them via a dating site. If you like us in real life, don’t hide behind a keyboard and the internet to let us know. If you wouldn’t let us know in person that you like us then there is no logical reason why it’s okay to tell us online. If you've been playing cat and mouse or just doing a little flirting in real life, taking it online to a dating site is a huge step backward, not forward. The whole point of dating sites is to meet people and eventually meet face to face. Dating sites are just a way to broaden social horizons - the end result is still a face to face date and hopefully a connection that leads to time spent together and ultimately decrease the lonely and isolated hours formerly spent, well, alone and isolated. If you're already flirting with someone face to face why take a backwards step and put cyber barriers between you? This makes no sense whatsoever. (This goes for all relationships - I for one am getting really weary of email and voice mail. Cyber barriers are causing a lot of loneliness and isolation. Yes. We're all busy. Yes. Email and voice mail do help communication efforts, especially at work or in families and friendships where people are scattered across the world. But. If you're friends or potential romantic friends, the point is to spend quality time together building long term closeness and bonds to help alleviate some of the loneliness in life. There's a guy I "met" online who's been emailing me for almost a year. He lives one mile from me and works two blocks from me. We've yet to meet in person. I completely lost interest after six weeks. I like him, I think, he seems nice, professional, intelligent, all those things, but if he's so busy or not interested enough to find time to meet for lunch or a drink after work, clearly he's either a liar, married, not interested in me, or literally does not have time in his life for a relationship. In his case I honestly believe his job demands and consumes almost all of his waking hours. He writes me emails when he's on airplanes or in foreign hotel rooms or unable to sleep at 3 AM. I feel for the pressure in this guy's life, but until he is able (or wants) to make time for personal relationships I'm not interested. Point is: Email is okay, but it's no substitute for the real thing. Too much email and not enough face to face time cause suspicions and disinterest and isolation and loneliness. Don't hide behind it.)
Right. So. You see a woman you already know in person on an online dating site. And you contact her via that site. Huge step backward, dude, and thanks for putting the woman in a very difficult position. Yes. Think this all the way through. By contacting us online you put us in several very awkward positions.
Scene 1: We actually really like you in real life. We’ve been wondering how to make a move and wondering if you will ever make a move. Trust me. If this is the scene, you probably have some hint that she likes you. And you’ve probably dropped a few hints that you like her. Keep the flirting in real life and in real time. I do not recommend office romances, but if Cupid’s hanging around your office, just keep cool, don’t annoy other coworkers and set up a date for one night after work. Do this in person. Not via an online dating site. If we like you and you contact us online, you’ve put us in the awkward position of having to make the first, yes, first move – either reply to you online or bite the bullet and do it at work. You are being a coward and forcing us to respond. Why not be a man and decent human being and confront your hopes and feelings face to face? Don’t risk anger or resentment becoming factors in your workplace and perhaps dating situation.
Scene 2: We don’t “like” you and you know it. We never send any signals whatsoever and in fact go out of our way to avoid you. Sending an online message or “wink” to us will not sway our opinion of you. If we don’t “like” you “that” way there are probably good reasons why. Or we’re simply not interested in you. Or we refuse to be interested in anyone at work. Whatever the reason, if you have never had any real life signals or hints that we’re interested in you, taking it online is not going to spare you any embarrassment or pain of rejection. It’s only going reinforce our lack of affection toward you and worse, it’s going to make us feel gross/weird/embarrassed/creeped out to learn that a coworker is not only watching us online, but thinks we want to go out with him. Why put us in that awkward situation? If you like us so much, respect our feelings and leave us alone. Continue to worship us silently from afar, or, better yet, keep scrolling through those profiles until you find a woman who might really like you, too. A woman who doesn’t work with you.
Here’s the thing. By contacting us on online dating sites, no matter the situation in real life, you force us into the position of acknowledging you. If we ignore your contact we’re being rude and callous. If we send you a “thanks but no thanks” response we’re rejecting you. If we respond because deep down we like you we’re forced to confront the issue, maybe before we were ready to do that with you. Any every case, you force us into the position of acknowledging your desire to know us on a level other than work. This is not usually a comfortable thing to know about a coworker. And by forcing us to respond or ignore you, you are manipulating the situation and making a power play. Every time we see you there’s going to be that, “I know she knows I know” thing between you. There’s no going back to wondering what if. It’s all going to be obvious and in most cases I’m guessing it’s going to be obviously painful and awkward. Don’t do this to a coworker. Respect them and your company. And speaking of your company, no matter what the situation, check the policy on interoffice dating before you make any kind of move.
Fortunately I don’t have to come in contact with my coworker online lothario very often. I might see him in the hall once a week at most. After a few days of ducking and dodging and avoiding common areas, I finally grew up and dealt with the situation. I confronted him. Yes. In person. I printed the email he sent me and went to his office. I put on the best, sweetest, most mature and understanding demeanor I could summon and told him: Hooo boy, this is awkward. You put me in an uncomfortable situation, here buddy. Thank you, but, sorry, I’m not interested in you. I hope this won’t affect our working relationship.
I think we’re cool. I think it’s okay. I don’t think he was really that interested in me anyway. I’ve certainly never seen any signs of it until the online contact. I think maybe it was just a late night musing and he hit that “contact this member” button a little more swiftly than he normally would have and got caught up in the moment of a lonely, bored night looking at dating profiles.
But that doesn’t let him off the hook. There will always be that thing between us. I resent him for forcing me into that position and I’m sure he regrets sending the email. We’ll get over the feelings but the weirdness of the aftermath will always be there.
Okay.
Now.
Here’s a slightly different twist to this issue. I have a friend. Several, in fact. But I have a friend who has been trying to set me up with all kinds of men for a lot of years. She’s well intentioned and some of the guys have been really terrific. But they weren’t interested in me. She got married a few years ago. I went to her wedding. La la la, what fun to be the only single woman at a small wedding with a bunch of couples in attendance. Her groom’s brother was at the wedding, with his wife and young children. The night before the wedding some of us gals took my friend out for a drink. The groom’s brother’s wife came along with us. No one except my friend knew this woman. She proceeded to get very, very, very, very drunk and loudly aired some pretty dirty family laundry about my friend’s soon-to-be in-laws. The next day, at the wedding, the groom’s brother and his very hungover wife showed up at the wedding. 15 minutes into the reception the groom’s brother had to take his hungover wife to their room because she was very ill. He returned to the reception. He and I were now the only unaccompanied guests. We ended up talking and had some laughs and danced a couple of dances. He went back to his room to his wife, I went to my room alone, and we never saw, spoke to or emailed each other again.
Fast forward to now. My friend and her husband are still very happily married and are expecting their second child. The groom’s brother, on the other hand, divorced his loud drunk wife shortly after my friends’ wedding. He’s been single for a while and trying to “get back out there.”
My friend suggested that he try online dating. He wasn’t convinced this was the right thing for him. She said, “There are some nice normal people on there. My friend Trillian, you remember Trillian, from our wedding? She’s been trying online dating for a while. Look! Here’s her profile! See? It’s not scary at all!” So she helped him get a profile together and yadda yadda yadda he contacted me.
He asked my friend to not say anything to me about this, just see if I responded to him and go from there.
He didn’t let on that he knew me in his opening email. But I liked what he said, short, succinct, mentioned a few things about my profile that he liked, a little bit about himself and that was that. I looked at his profile and thought he looked really familiar but couldn’t place him. I responded with an email, he wrote back and then my friend called me and broke the news and jogged my memory about the at the time married man I met at her wedding. She “came clean” about the whole prodding to get him to try online dating. I was a little miffed at first. I’m not sure why but something about the whole thing bugged me a little. Nothing drastic, nothing I could articulate, so no big deal.
He’s a great guy, intelligent, professional, funny, kind, charming, compassionate, the whole deal. And he likes me.
The problem? Because you know there’s always a problem.
We live 6,000 miles apart.
Complete. Total. Nonstarter. He has children and cannot/does not want to be away from them.
I am unwilling to enter into anything which could turn into a long distance relationship. Period. Been there. Done that. Never again.
And that’s what was bugging me about this. It was a total nonstarter from the get go. My friend knew this. He knew this. They know me. She knows me. She knows what I’ve been through and she knows this is not what I need in my life. Yet she encouraged him to try online dating and he went along with it and used me to test the water. And I don’t mean “use” in the malicious sense, but, if it had all been light and carefree they both would have come right out and said, “Trill, brother-in-law here is thinking about trying online dating. You do it, maybe you could talk to him about the pros and cons and help him get set up with a profile.” Instead there was a surprise sneak attack. “Let’s see if she remembers me” kind of thing. Not a big deal, right? Right. It’s not a big deal at all. And after all, I did respond to his email knowing full well he lives waaaaaaay too far away from me.
But. Having now been put in this situation, in hindsight I can advise that it’s better to just be upfront about it from the get-go. I’m not harboring resentment toward either of them, but, I do feel a little like I was ambushed.
So if you’re in a similar situation, rather than ambush someone you already know on an online dating site, drop them an email and say something like, “I heard from our friend that you have been trying online dating. I’m thinking about trying it, too. What sites do you recommend? Would you preview my profile and give me some feedback on it? Do you mind if I look at your profile? Our friend said it’s really good and I’d like to learn from it.”
The way my friends opted to approach this situation very nearly put him in Creep of the Week territory. Had they been honest about it from the start I wouldn't feel "not quite right" and a little deceived by both of them. See how a little honesty can keep a person well out of that Creep of the Week danger zone?
3:16 PM
