dating do’s & don’t's part 2: phone and communication etiquette

Welcome back to Miss Right Now’s week-long dating do’s and don’t's seminar, for the romantically-challenged out there. Yesterday we covered some first date do’s and don’t's, and today we’re going to discuss a subject near and dear to my heart – Phone and Communication Etiquette. It seems that despite all the tools we have nowadays to aid in communication, it’s more and more difficult to have a meaningful or productive exchange with a PB (“potential boo, as Angela Brockman says). Or maybe it’s that by introducing so many different forms of communication, we’ve given ourselves more ways to fuck it up.

Anyway, here are some Phone and Communication Etiquette tips:
1. Don’t think that only texting a girl before meeting her is sufficient, and don’t assume that texting is an acceptable substitute for actual conversation. It’s not.
2. A Q & A style interview via text does not count as getting to know someone.
3. Don’t ask a girl to text you pictures of herself. Ever. It’s rude and creepy.
4. Don’t text a girl a picture of yourself, especially if it’s just your naked torso, without invitation.
5. Don’t text a girl telling her to call you. Just call.
6. If you say you’re going to call, call. If you have no intention of calling, don’t say you will.
7. If a girl calls you and it isn’t a good time to talk, just say so. It’s far less insulting to a girl to ask to call her back at a more convenient time than to pause or be interrupted every ten seconds. Even more to the point, if it’s not a good time for you, don’t call her.
8. Sexting is not everyone’s cup of tea, and it should certainly never happen before you actually have had sex with a person. Best to make sure you’re both on the same page about it before you start texting her with descriptions of your hard-on.
9. If you’re not answering her phone calls or text messages, or displaying any signs of seeing her ever again, accepting a girl’s friend request on Facebook is probably just adding insult to injury, don’t you think?
10. If a girl stops responding to your texts or phone calls, take it as a sign that she’s just not that into you, and bow out gracefully.

Come back tomorrow when, in honor of Hump Day, we’ll be discussing Sexual Behavior and Physical Appearance!

contact

Dear readers, if I may, today I would like to pick your brains for a bit (that phrase conjures up some bizarre imagery, but I love it just the same), on the subject of exes, specifically communication between exes.

Last night over drinks with Julie at National Mechanics, we started talking about exes and the ghosts of romances past, and when it’s appropriate to contact someone, and when it’s not. I shared my belief that, following a non-mutual break-up (which is a nice way of saying somebody got dumped), it should be up to the injured party to re-establish contact when and if he or she feels it’s necessary.

My argument for this is that, when someone is dumped, his or her recovery period is usually much longer and more substantial than that of the person who did the dumping.  As anyone who’s ever been dumped knows, it’s a very delicate time; you’re doing everything you can to hold it together, and the slightest push – a familiar song on the radio, the sight of the restaurant where you had your first date, an old T-shirt found buried in a drawer – can make you fall to pieces.  Getting a phone call, e-mail or visit from your ex is nearly catastrophic during this time, until you’re really and truly over him or her.  That’s why I feel, out of respect for those in their mourning and recovery period, those who have been dumped should be left alone by those who dumped them, until all wounds have been healed or at least thoroughly licked clean.

Julie, however, did not seem convinced, so it made me curious – what do you all think is the proper protocol for re-establishing communication after a break-up?  Do you think communication should ever cease during or after a break-up?  Do you think some sleeping dogs are better left alone?  Leave some comments and let me know what you think!

speed bump

Today I was thinking about Microsoft’s recently launched search engine, Bing.com, not only because I don’t know what the hell the difference is between that and any other search engine, but because of the tagline that’s been used in the Bing.com commercials – “What has search overload done to us?”

I thought of that slogan because lately I’ve been asking myself a similar question regarding technology and relationships – “What has living in a world of instant gratification done to us?”

This thought had been forming in my head for some time, but it really crystallized Sunday night during my phone conversation with Ang. We were talking about how, thanks to social networking and dating web sites like Facebook and Match and Twitter, we expect to know everything about everyone and their lives– before we even meet them. It’s like the process of getting to know someone has been reversed; nowadays, we want to be able to get the skinny on people (what they like and dislike, what kind of job they have, what they’re doing), and decide based on that if they’re actually worthy of our time, rather than meet someone spontaneously, and go through the process of getting to know him or her little by little, through conversation and spending time together. Imagine that!

Not to mention the fact that, when you come right down to it, no one in our generation has any patience. How could we? We came of age in an era of instant gratification, with everything at our fingertips. The Internet and 24-hour news stations brought the world right to our homes or classrooms; we watch news and history as it happens. Cell phones, e-mail, BlackBerrys, laptops and netbooks mean we are never more than a click away from communicating, from a friend or loved one, from an answer to a question. And it pisses us off to no end when getting that news or making that connection takes longer than that. Think about it – how many times have you cursed at your computer or closed a tab because a web page was taking too long to load, or asked yourself, “Why hasn’t so-and-so texted me back yet? I sent them a message like, five minutes ago.”

I’ve begun to wonder if this addiction to and expectation of instant gratification has leaked into our personal lives, based on the way people tend to, or at least try to, zoom through relationships at top speed. We are so used to getting everything instantly, I think we’re starting to believe relationships work the same way. I’ve heard tell of a bygone era in which people took the time to really get to know each other before committing to an exclusive relationship or engagement or marriage, rather than agreeing to be boyfriend and girlfriend .5 seconds after meeting each other (exaggeration added for effect).

I understand that mutual attraction is a powerful force and plays a large role in the quick stone-hopping from strangers to lovers. Trust me – I know from experience; when you meet someone with whom you have chemistry so palpable you can practically bathe in it, it’s hard to pump the brakes instead of going full-steam ahead. We’ve all been there, and sometimes, it actually works out, and the couple finds out that there is something more substantial underneath that initial, knee-jerk attraction.

What I’m talking about here, I suppose, is the expectation that so many people seem to have that every relationship should be that way, and the pressure – intentional or not – that it puts on others. The concept of taking it slow, and letting a relationship develop organically at its own pace seems to have gone out the window. Nowadays, relationships have a shelf-life, and it’s shorter than an ice cream cone on a hot day. It seems like, if two people are dating, it’s not long at all before one of them starts checking the clock, wondering when it’s time to make a commitment, or make a break for it, and move on to the next one (the prevalence of ADD, real or imagined, in our generation has something to do with this as well, I imagine.)

If I sound like I’m being condescending and judgmental, I’m not, because I’m just as guilty of these habits as anyone. What I’m concerned with is changing these habits, if that’s even possible. It would be nice not to have to feel the pressure to decide if I want someone to be my boyfriend after two dates, or to put that kind of pressure on someone else. And I would think it would be in everyone’s best interest to actually get to know people before we commit to them, and get emotionally involved and wind up engaged or married, only to wake up one morning and realize, “Wow…I really, really don’t like you.” Maybe if we all took a break from our instant gratification fixation, slowed down and gave ourselves time to think things through and process them, we’d stop getting what we think we want, and start getting what we really want.

Just a thought.