Playing With Fire

Have any of you played with fire? I sure have. I have a love for it and playing with it. But fire is a dangerous thing and must be treated with care. I respect it. I control it. I mange it. Fire is most useful and fun when it is understood and used properly. If not managed it can get out of control, causing colossal damage and injury. But when correctly managed, it can be a great tool. Over manage it and it will never reach it full potential.

So what does fire have to do with dating? Fire is a tool and in dating there are lots of tools that we can use. I'd like to relate it one of the newest tools, the text. Or txt as I will refer to it. Txting like fire is a tool for the use of people. But to use it effectively you need to understand it, manage it and use it responsibly.

Txting can be a great way to quickly and simply communicate with others.  Especially when the content isn't time sensitive or you know one or the other of you can't pick up the phone and talk.  But like fire if not understood and used properly it can cause enormousness damage.  So here are the rules—guide lines if you rather—for its use.

1.  Patience.  Just because you send a text and most of the time it gets to the recipient almost instantly, doesn't mean that they are where they can get, read and reply to it.  You don't expect to send someone an email and expect to get one back in 20 min do you?  Well txts are not phone calls they are mail.  If you need an answer this instant call the person.  If you need it within a few hours call them.  If you can wait a day or don't need a response then txting is okay.

2.  Simple.  Txting is for short simple messages.  If you can't adequately say it in 160 characters don't say it.  I know that most companies will let you string together multiple txts.  But really you never send a message more then 3 or 4 txts.  Rule #1 is 475 characters long.  That's 3 txt messages long.  If can't say it in 200 characters or less and get your point across then doing txt it.  This also means don't try to have meaningful conversations through txting.  You just cause misunderstanding and trouble.  Txts tend to be over simplified due to their short nature.  This means there is a loss of true meaning and emotion.

3.  Reality.  If you wouldn't do it in person don't do it through a txt.  Meaning if you wouldn't call or show up at the guy/girl who you like's place to say good night or good morning don't do it through a txt.  You’re shooting yourself in the foot.  It's easy because you feel detached or like there is minimal risk, but really it's the same risk.  You just don't see the reaction so you never know how badly or good it went.  Probably bad cause you were too chicken to do it in person.

4.  Etiquette.  Some things demand common courtesy.  Don't break up with people through a txt.  If someone calls you call them back or txt them and tell them when you will be available to take their call.  It drives me nuts when I call a girl to ask her out, she doesn't answer.  Only to have txt me 5 minutes later to say, "What’s up?"  I want you to pick up the phone or call me back, since asking you out isn't something that should be done through a txt, is what's up.

 These are my 4 main rules to txting and dating.  Give them a try.  Now that you that you know how to handle txting you shouldn't get burned again.

The gift...

When I first start dating a girl there is a certain gift that I like to give her. It works like a charm. I give her The Gift of Missing Me! It's works great. I know it sounds a little counter intuitive, but it really works. Turns out it is even in line with the Tao of Steve (to be explained in the future). Anticipation builds excitement. One reason kid are so excited on Christmas morning is because of anticipation and waiting. There is a cartoon I saw as a kid--called Christmas Everyday, I believe; about little girl whose wishes for Christmas everyday granted. At first it is great but pretty soon it gets old. So she wishes things back to normal. Anyway back to The Gift of Missing Me and then I'll tie it all together.

Here is the run down of how it works. Pick a girl and take her on a date. Make it an awesome date; one of those I had a such a good time I can't wait to see him again, dates. Then make her wait. Not forever and don't avoid her. Make it so she misses you a bit. Each case is different and needs to be played by ear, but generally I don't text or call them for at least 24 hours and I give it 48 before I see them. That doesn't mean that I don't answer their calls or text or avoid places I know they will be. It means I make sure that I am busy, so when they call or I run into them I can keep it short or wait a bit before texting back. Then when she does see meagain it is refreshing and something waited for.

What does Christmas Everyday and The Gift of Missing Me have in common. Some things are more special when they are a bit on the rare side. Like gold and diamonds. When a relationship is new or you are trying to start one; I believe it is better to keep thing on the rare side. Not too rare mind you but don't wear out your welcome before things ever get going.

Give it a try, can it hurt?

So, to start thing off...

So, to start thing off...

I have always wanted to have a blog about dating and relationships. I don't consider myself an expert, just very experienced. To start thing off I am an engineer--both inside and out--so that means that having much dating experience at all is a feat. It also means that I have applied my analytical mind to dating and have tried to examine it in a logical sense, with deductive logic and trial and error. Lots of trial and error.

I'm going to use this blog to try and share thing I have learn, theories I have come up with and try to answer any questions people want to ask. Like I said I'm not an expert, but I have done my fair share and think that I have something to contribute. So take it for what it is, and with several grains of salt. And please, please, feel free to leave lots of feed back and questions.

Now to really start things off...

My First Rule of Dating: DON'T CRUSH!!!
Now let me explain what that means for those of you who haven't heard me say it before. Don't crush. We all do it. Some more than others. We see meet some who we thing is cute or has a great personality or is just plain awesome; and what do we do? We crush. But what exactly does this mean?

Dictionary.com says the following:
15.Informal
a. an intense but usually short-lived infatuation.
b. the object of such an infatuation.

There are two key words here. Infatuation and intense. When we crush we start to build the other person up to be more than they are. We romanticize them, idolize them, we set them on a pedestal and say WOW. What is the problem with this you might ask? We are setting ourselves up for defeat from the beginning. When we see our crush, get the opportunity to talk to them or interact with our crush, we get nervous, scared, worried, anxious. We don't want to blow it, so we put ourselves under and enormous amount of pressure. This kind of stress is BAD. We aren't ourselves, we freeze up or make small blunders. We all do our best when we are confident. Well most of us are not at our most confident when we think that the affection of our most perfect match in the world is on the line. We tend to chock.

Long story short... we never make it anywhere, the crush fades and we move on; only to crush again. So follow The First Rule of Dating and don't crush. It can be a vicious cycle. So when you feel yourself starting to crush; stop, evaluate and realize that you have a better chance if you stay calm and in control. And if it doesn't work out, all is not lost. Move on to the next great thing!