A friend of mine made a deal with herself that she would go on a date every other Saturday. When I heard this I thought to myself, "That's something I could reasonably do. I think I could actually commit to attempting to go on a date every two weeks."
So she and I talked about it and she explained that she often found someone to go on a date with on OKCupid. We decided to set a deadline for me that I would go on OKCupid between now and the next time we met. I hemmed and hawed, dragged my feet, was glad when I had to miss our meeting but only because I was feeling so guilty for not meeting my end of the deal: going on OKCupid. About two weeks after our initial deadline, I finally went on. I hadn't been on in five months and I had only one message. I didn't mind it too much, I still hadn't posted a picture and, to be honest, wasn't actually all that interested in finding someone. I told myself I was only going on there to find a date and I was only finding a date because I had made a deal with a friend.
I looked over my profile, checked to see if I needed to add anything, and decided that I really needed to post a picture. I searched my laptop, found a reasonable one, and posted it. And then I immediately signed out.
I laughed at myself for this- how scared I was about someone actually seeing my picture and messaging me. I wasn't sure what I thought was going to happen but I still found it amusing that I was apparently interested enough to post a photo but equally terrified of anyone responding to it.
The following week, I decided to go on again. I knew that I had to keep up my deal to go on a date every other Saturday and the only way I could do it was to find someone to ask out and OKCupid seemed like the only place to ask someone.
I looked in my list of matches and saw a guy who looked cute. On his profile he said that on a typical Friday night, he would go to a restaurant, alone, and strike up a conversation with the people at the table next to him. I thought that was pretty cool so I looked at the rest of his profile. He lived in the South Bay and was only interested in dating people who lived near him. I messaged him anyway, telling myself that I was just being honest, expressing my interest, not being limited by his profile saying that he was only interested in dating locally. And then I immediately signed out again, afraid that he might actually message me back.
As soon as I got off, I imagined telling my therapist about this- about how I had actually messaged someone on OKCupid. And then I imagined her response: You messaged the guy who you knew wasn't interested in dating you because you lived far away. You found the guy who was unavailable and expressed interest in him. That worked out really well for you, didn't it? You didn't take a risk and any rejection on his part can be easily chalked up to distance, not you." And then she reminded me- it's intimacy that you're afraid of, not rejection. You're avoiding intimacy but pretending like you're avoiding rejection. Darn her...
That Friday night, I had dinner with a friend and shared with her my antics on OKCupid. She said that when she was on there, she would try to send 12 messages a month. She explained that it was like playing darts: if you've only got one dart in your hand, you're all nervous and you feel like you only have this one shot to hit the target. But if you have 10 darts in your hand, you just start throwing them, and if you're lucky, you get a bull's eye. (She also said that people don't message back all the time and you just can't take it personally)
And she was totally right! If I was sending out three messages a week, I wouldn't care so much about what happened, I was just sending messages but if I was actually sending only one, with this intent of hitting a bull's eye? I'd go crazy and over analyze and over think and be all disappointed in the lack of returns.
So, I decided to follow her advice and send three message each week- just to throw a dart out of my hand, not so much to try to hit a bull's eye.
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