earn my affection...

i was set up... well not really...  rather one of my friends tried her hand at match making. i think she really did it to get me back into the blogging groove but according to her messages she thought he'd be good for me or me for him...

i was reluctant. for several reasons. my focus, right now, isn't on meeting anyone new or developing anything serious. my match-maker has only seen about 2 people that i have dated, 2 very different men... so i was wondering who in the world would she pick for me. i have never been set up before so that right there is a reason for me to hesitate. lastly, in her initial message, she didn't give me a lot to go on. she gave me his name, his number and told me he's a really cool guy, he's really nice, she wouldn't steer me wrong...

hmmmm...

well there's not much to tell about the set up because the set up fizzled... however, i learned a little more about myself through this experience.

i broke one of my cardinal dating rules... i took the first step.  look here, i am not the pursuer. i am not the one who makes initial contact. call me old-fashioned or whatever but i have my ways and my way is allowing the man to pursue. to appease my friend and stop the text blasts, i contacted him first. he followed up but he really wasn't saying anything... which made me wonder if he was interested in being set up at all. i made another attempt... "a getting to know you attempt" and i was left looking at my keyboard with a questioning look.  by the third message i knew her endeavor was in vain...

i am not cut out for the new age of dating... texting, messaging... no, ummm... call me! let's set a date, let's meet. while we may not have ended up in wedded bliss, we very well could have had a good first date. i explained to both her and him that i had a busy schedule but no effort was made to place a call, hear a voice or even meet face-to-face. i found it odd but not weird in today's social networking climate...but the time it takes to send a message and then wait for it's arrival is just too much time wasted, for me... i know email and other messaging techniques are instantaneous however a phone conversation is way quicker.

you gotta get me at hello... time is of the essence and at this stage of my life, my patience level is almost nonexistent. i did say i'm not looking to be in a relationship so for me to be interested, the man has got to perform a cartwheel, a flip, a magic trick - from the jump! well not literally but there has to be a little something, a wow factor, to captivate me. 

it starts in way someone greets me... a hello, how are you? beats a hey, what's up? any day. the getting-to-know-you questions should be stimulating and inviting... producing more questions and more conversation... to establish similarities and things in common... that didn't happen.

and finally...

after the intros have been made... allow the chips to fall where they may... i am not a fan of set ups because there's seemingly a third party in the mix hovering, wondering how everybody is dealing. in my experience of "no dealing", the third-partier wanted to find out what happened, what went wrong... and then she felt responsible and apologized when she heard my side and i'm sure she apologized to him once she heard his... see that middle-woman figure wasn't good for me. 

i could be overly critical, burned by relationships past, scrutinizing and skeptical... my energy alone could have stunted the possibility... maybe i just didn't give it a chance... perhaps... 

yet...

i am reminded of a song that i think is fitting for this... a song by amel larrieux called "earn my affection"...

"you got to earn my affection / put your back into it / before we get this show on the road / don’t make me lose all my self respect / I ain’t desperate yet so / come on now stop actin’ out and act like you know"