Timewaster's Guide Archive

It's this weekend at the Anaheim Convention Center, same place Worldcon will be in 2 years. I'll be working at least one of the days in some capacity for the TOKYOPOP presence. Anyone else going?

I like Lor. Unambiguous. And it looks like TOR!

urk. Didn't check this forum for a few days. I've been feverishly lettering and retouching a manga book (with some editing as I go) this week and last. But I'm almost done so might have time to read tomorrow.

[email protected] should work fine

Jeff, I guess I DID read your post wrong. I apologize. SOMETHING I read in the thread gave me the impression that people had the opinion my post was in reaction to.

The problem with the alternate route is that you need to be able to tell someone what your expecting and it doesn't sound like thats what's happening.

Well it's not happening because I've never tried it (or expected it) yet. As I said earlier, "Of course it would have to be explained somehow ahead of time, not just dropped in at the end of the first date. I'm still working on how best to do that."

Not especially, considering what girls in their late 20's are looking for in a relationship. Stability, Security and a connection. It would be nice to say ok you pay for half the dates, but expecting girls to just realize that they have to pay on the second date in, or that they have to call you back because they aren't hip to your special plan is a bit ambitious.

I can't offer stability or security (at least financially? what else would you mean?), and I don't know what you mean by connection. That doesn't seem like it's going to change soon, so...I guess I shouldn't date? (And church people shouldn't bug me about getting married without first asking me how secure my finances are?) But as I said, I wouldn't just expect girls to guess I wanted them to call me or pay (only if pay is involved of course--they can arrange non-pay dates as easily as me)--I would explain it before the first date.

So these girls you want to call you back and pay, you really don't want to marry, because you don't get the soul ache that comes from meeting the right person at the right time. None of that dating stuff matters when that happens and nobody else can help you experience that.

Your personal story sounds like an example of divine intervention to me. And I think I already said dating isn't a good way to get to marry someone.

I also think its unfair and patently untrue to say that the church has done nothing to help people out dating.

Okay. Passive help then. But no active help. Just active harassment.

no no, my biggest problem is that the church people make such a big deal about getting married but don't help you at all.

I'm too busy today to respond to the rest but I'll probably get to it in a couple days.

 This is because you are complaining about being able to get a date and you are lowering your chances of having a second date.

Actually, I'm not really complaining about being able to get a date. I would prefer to get married without ever going on a date at all.

If getting a date were all I cared about, I would just ask anyone. I don't WANT to marry just anyone, so I'm not going to ask just anyone. And I am through with putting forth all the effort.

Imagine telling a girlfriend, "Okay, next time you pay, call me..."

Exactly. Just imagine it! Isn't it a liberating notion?

I think my date splitting idea makes FAR more sense than the "guy has to set up and pay for all the dates and if the girl doesn't want to date him she makes up stupid excuses and ditches him and doesn't return phone calls and he's just supposed to guess" (and entirely sexist) system now in place. Of course it would have to be explained somehow ahead of time, not just dropped in at the end of the first date. I'm still working on how best to do that.

Will I actually use this idea personally? Right now, I think I shall. When it comes down to it though in emotional things logic goes right out the window, so even though it makes sense to me now, who knows. And I currently think if a girl is so ingrained in this system that SUCKS that she would be too closed-minded to consider my idea, then she doesn't deserve me.

Why don't I want to work the system instead of fighting it? I don't want to just get married. I want to get married to someone who can get along with ME. And I am NOT desperate enough to want to change myself. I like myself fine the way I am, thank you very much.

I never said my society-wide ideas were actually practical to implement. I'm just saying that if such a system were already in place and accepted by everyone, it would work a heck of a lot better than what we have now. I have an idea, people who are married should wear rings so you can tell they're married! Nah, we'll never convince everyone so why even mention the idea.

Anyway my complaint is twofold: the difficulty of FINDING someone I want to date in the first place, and secondly that dating sucks as a preparation for marriage.

(There was a story in the Mormon SF anthology Washed by a Wave of Wind that explored the church setting up three-month "for time" tryout temple sealings. Am I the only one who thought that would actually be an idea worth taking seriously?)

Stacer:

You have to understand--and perhaps you're different, but very few guys know this till it happens to them--when a girl asks a guy out, he gets all nervous: "Oh, wow, she must like me a lot, I'm not ready for that, I don't like her like that" etc. And they run scared. When all the girl is thinking is what a guy would be thinking had he asked her out the first time--that she'd like to hang out with him more, get to know him. But a girl asking a guy out--nothing good has ever come of it, in my experience.

Maybe that's the problem there. Girls don't know what guys want from dates. If a guy asks a girl out, she thinks he'd like to hang out with her more, get to know her? That ain't what it means for me. I have no desire to date someone I just want to hang out with. Any girl I ask out starts off as someone I want to marry.

"Oh, wow, he must like me a lot, I'm not ready for that, I don't like him like that"--I think this is exactly what girls should be thinking when a guy asks them out. That or "Oh, wow, he must like me a lot, I'm ready for that, I like him like that."

I think dating should be something ONLY people who are specifically wanting to get married should be allowed to do. Anyone who thinks that's ridiculous please suggest something else that only people who want to get married can do so that we can sift through the chaff.

If I ask someone out and she sees no potential marriage, she should say no! Or at least tell me up front "I don't see any potential now, but I'll let you know after the date whether I see any then." Asking me out for date #2 would be accepted as admission of perceived potential. (Of course, the incompetence of dating as mate potential measuring stick then factors in. The deck is stacked, and the dealer isn't friendly.)
 

One thing I've learned in my life: if a guy is interested in me, he'll ask me out. And usually they don't ask me out, so I just have to assume that I'm not the type of girl guys are interested in. As I've ranted about before, I can be the "friend-girl" all I want, but they never want more.

On the other hand, in this regard, I take the same sort of evidence you see and come to exactly the same conclusion as you (but not about you).

----

Right now the best way to me to find someone to marry seems to be: blind luck, and/or divine intervention. And you can't be anxiously engaged in either one of those. (These also seem the best ways to get a job.)

that one may be free, but the "about" thing only says that becoming a member is free--not what that entails or whether they charge for anything else. I've looked a bit in the past and it seems that on most of them you have to pay for something.

The biggest problem though is that with so many sites like this none of them are anywhere near comprehensive, and only a small percentage of the people out there use sites like that.

If there were a site that had EVERYONE on it and charged you $20 if you actually got married, I'd go for that.

Now that I do have an income I'm open to actually looking. It's not a huge high priority or anything...

Gemm, in the LDS church we have this Plan of Salvation thing...getting married is an important part of fulfilling God's plan, so they care about everyone doing it. Well, there is no "they" in the church, since all the church leaders are normal church members, and any member could potentially be called into a leadership position--it's all volunteer based. Well, I don't know how familiar you are with it...stakes (which are geographical divisions consisting of up to 10 or so wards, each ward being a specific congregation based on geography with a set Sunday meeting time [though these times usually rotate yearly among the 2 or 3 wards sharing a single church building]) usually have a branch or ward devoted to young single adults under age 30--the bishop of the ward and his 2 councilors are older people called from the married population of the stake [and bishops serve for up to 10 years maybe, though I don't think I've ever had a bishop serve that long], but all the rest of the positions in the ward are filled by the young single adults themselves.

Anyway... I do like that they have YSA wards, even if I've never felt hugely comfortable in them. I feel much less comfortable in a family ward. I like that YSA wards exist, but I think that if they care so much about people getting married then they should do more about getting them married than just throw them all into a building together and hope something happens. I'm not one of those people who think there's THE ONE person out there for you to marry, but neither am I one who thinks that you'd be compatible enough with 50% of the people that are there. YSA wards ARE quite successful at marrying off a percentage of their members, but it does not work well for everyone. People are different, and what is effective for some is not effective for all.

Maybe 90% of people use Microsoft Windows, but at least there's Macintosh and *n*x for the rest of us.

The LDS Church's genealogy software is available for ONLY the PC. [There was a Mac version before, but it hasn't been updated for 15 years or so.] If you see what I'm saying.

There has GOT to be a better alternative than this stupid system of dating espoused by our modern LDS (and non-LDS) society.

Personally I've decided on something that I will use the next time I see someone I'm actually interesting in getting to know better for the purpose of mate selection evaluation: date splitting. I'll ask her out and provide for whatever it is I want to do on the date. But then if she wants to go out again, she has to be the one to ask. And she has to provide for everything on the second date. And if there is to be a third, then it's my turn. And so forth. Also, if any girl happens to ask me out (Society Forbid), then I will expect her to privide for it and be quite happy to return the favor for date #2. [I have yet to decide whether in this system 2 dates should be mandatory in all fairness.]

Why would I prefer this system over dutch? This also should help to avoid the huge lying game (lying meaning not telling the truth--for whatever reason, even if the truth might hurt someone's feelings) that mainly girls and sometimes guys resort to when it comes to dating. If you get asked out, it means the person is interested in you. If not, they're not interested. (That's why I'm not sure about making 2 dates mandatory.)

And then something that would maybe be enough of a different problem that it would do for a separate thread, but--it sucks how it's impossible to tell if someone is even interested in looking to get married, or even if they are already seriously dating someone else. Now, in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan books there's a very interesting system mentioned approximately twice that is used by the Betans--the very liberal planet--where girls will wear different kinds of earrings signifying their status: looking for something serious, looking for something casual, involved in a serious committed relationship, etc. No mention of whether guys wear earrings too (such would be only fair), but something like this would be a great improvement over our current absence of any signs beyond the engagement/wedding ring thing. I'm not suggesting that earrings would be the best way to do it but it's something that would make the answer quite obvious and it seems to me it would be quite effective.

Okay, I guess there's one more thing. People always criticize me for saying I'm looking for a tall girl, 6'+. Hey, if something else happens, if someone asks me out and I end up hitting it off famously with her and we click and all but she doesn't fit what I thought I was looking for, I'm all cool with that. But that doesn't mean I don't have something I'm looking for. There's things I find attractive, and things I don't find attractive. Not necessarily that I find those things unattractive--though there are some things I find unattractive--but that they're just not things I care about. There's things I don't care about and things I do. Why do I find those things attractive or not? I have only very foggy ideas on that. And I also feel I am opening myself up to even MORE ridicule if I mention what else I look for. What's the big deal there? I'm not looking for someone perfect, but all of the things I'm looking for exist in plenty of women out there, though I've yet found few who have the right combination. Do I expect I'll eventually marry someone who does have that combination? It seems unlikely. Frankly I am dubious any marriage involving me as one of the parties will happen during this lifetime, but there's that one saying--if you can find someone who will satisfy 80% of your needs, you're in very good shape. So hey, miss 80%, if you ignore my hair (or lack thereof) there's surely something I can overlook. (Or if you LIKE my hair (or lack thereof) then there's probably some other need I won't fulfill--perhaps the ability to enjoy Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead, for instance.)

Argh. Here's really what I'd prefer: a national mandatory database of people who want to get married, where you say exactly what you're looking for, and a computer hooks you up. Lying punishable by stiff fines--but other than that it would be free. The church should run it.

Anyway this seems sufficiently ranty. I'd be interested to hear what people think about my website idea. Though I'd prefer not to put effort into a website right now, actually. Alas.