Rule Breaker, Single Person

I'm a homeowner as of 13 hours ago. I have a little one-story bungalow with a mostly fenced in backyard and a little deck. It is adorable and it is so me. And now it is mine - I own it as "[Rule Breaker], Single Person." Apparently Georgia law requires such designation.

I saw that on all the paperwork and laughed a little at the irony. I have never ever been known as "Rule Breaker, Single Person." I am "Rule Breaker, Codependent Relationship Person." Or I was - I am no longer. I am buying a house alone. I am moving into it alone tomorrow.

This is not what I imagined about buying a house, but I have finally come to embrace those deviations life throws at me. For the rest of the day, I entertained my friends with "Rule Breaker, Single Person." And, in spite of everything -- and there was a lot -- it was a good day.

Saturday night date invitation Thursday at 5:00 PM. Facebook guy. Broke my heart to turn it down.

I did so with light and breezy regret. There is a semblance of legitimacy to my decision to decline, because I haven't slept in about 42 hours and I have to move during the day on Saturday. By Saturday night I am probably going to be in no shape for a date.

His response was quick but a little friend-zone-y. In my exhausted state, it crushed me just a little bit. Despite what I just got done saying, there's got to be a statute of limitations after which the guy's going to be like, ok, this isn't taking off for some reason - he either won't know why or won't want to put up with the games.

I just keep reminding myself, if he really wants me he will make it happen. And if I'm wrong and lose the potential because of it, it's a lesson I needed to learn and a feeling of self-deprivation I should be living with on a more regular basis.

Rule Breaker, Single Person is going to be just fine in her little cottage. Come visit!

Ass out of you and me

One thing I've noticed on a fairly consistent basis is that everyone thinks if Guy X doesn't contact you within a certain period of time, he's never going to. That is, your friends will write the guy off as poofed after this magic amount of time, which my anecdotal experience suggests is approximately a week. Trying to take my cues from these vibes, albeit implicit (except when I posted the question on the loveshack forums awhile back), I have likewise assumed (see title) that a poof has taken place after about a week, sometimes less.

Thus far, I have been 100% wrong.

The Rules invented the concept of "poof," but (as I think I've said before), it's abstract. They pointedly do not prescribe a time period after which you are permitted to assume that the guy's not going to contact you again. When they discuss poofing in the book, they are always talking about long-ago lessons learned by girls who broke the Rules, a la "she broke the Rules, and never heard from him again. Poof!" But generally the girls used as examples in the Rules books are now Rules girls who despite their former transgressions, eventually applied the Rules correctly and found Rules husbands. There are no unhappy endings in the pages of the Rules.

If you think about it, the general lack of a timeline fits. You're not supposed to sit around and wonder if so-and-so is going to call tonight. You're supposed to live your damn life, and who really cares how long it takes him to call? Someone else will call sooner and he'll lose out. As long as you follow the Rules, you're not going to end up with him if he doesn't totally love you, so kick back, relax, and let the best man win!

The Rules only starts the "clock" when you become exclusive with someone. At that point the timeline is important, and you are only allowed to give him a year to pop the question. This also makes sense, because when you are in a committed relationship you are losing out on dating and possibly finding someone else.

But we're nowhere near there yet.

Living my single life without regard to whether guys I think might call me call me is easier said than done, of course. I suffer a moment or two of disappointment every night when I don't hear from anyone. For anyone who's counting, that's a moment or two of disappointment every night except three for the past month.

Some recent strange mixed resurrections that have gone on in my life:

• Facebook guy, after I whined to my friends all weekend about how he hadn't contacted me since, facebook messaged me Sunday night.
• Texting guy, after our lengthy PG makeout session last week, called me Monday night. I broke the Rules and called him back an hour later when I was done with my meeting. I left a voicemail saying I was returning his call. He has not called back, three days later. WHO DOES THAT?
  
• Dodgeball guy who e-mailed me randomly in January and failed the four-email requirement e-mailed me randomly again. ???? Even stranger, I'm pretty sure that guy had a girlfriend the last time I saw him. This raises the question of whether I get a four-email reboot with this guy. If he's even trying to date me at all.
  

Speaking of resurrections, although not prospects, my bizarrely brilliant ex-boyfriend found a way to give me a little closure. After over four months of no contact whatsoever aside from that random party, he nominated me for something without telling me, (likely) knowing I would have to call to find out my nominator's name in order to actually apply. I was shocked and annoyed at first. It sank in shortly thereafter and I realized that it was actually quite predictable coming from him. When I woke up the next morning, I felt an indescribable lifting of my feelings of resentment. In packing up my house to move in two days (!), I encountered some sentimental items that three days ago, I would have ripped up or burned. Instead, I just put them in a box with some other sentimental things from family and friends without any wrenching feelings or unpleasantness.

There are a couple of other tiny little things going on with me, but I'll save those for a post I can tie them into the theme of. Interestingly, I'm finding myself in a recursion - the Rules is making me happier and happier with me, but the happier and happier I get with me, the less I feel like I need the Rules and the harder it is to do them because I feel like I'm confident enough to handle the rejection I was previously trying to avoid. Um, I suppose this is also what happens with people and anti-psychotic drugs.

I have started slipping on Rules in various ways as of late:

• The obvious one, flirting shamelessly and making out with texting guy.
• Texting texting guy back when he sent me a post-make-out text (after 24 hours and just a smiley face).
• Calling texting guy back after an hour.
  
• Messaging facebook guy back after 12 hours instead of 24 (on the second round).
• Responding to Dr. eharmony's guided communication twice after 12 hours instead of 24. (This is a doctor I'm on round 3 of guided communication with. I am long overdue for an eharmony post.)
• Being RIDICULOUSLY un-Rules-y with that friend I posted about before.
  
• Having other strong urges to break the Rules and feeling less motivated by my 6-month commitment or my blog not to.
  

I have even thought more than once over the past week or so, maybe I should free myself from this self-imposed incarceration at 3 months.

I think I'll incorporate much more of the Rules into my life once I'm done with my six months, but there are definitely certain things I will do differently. But I won't know unless I keep trying. So that's what I'm going to do. But I'm probably going to fail a little more than I would have a month ago :)

"Oops"

Via (ironically) text message--

A Practicing Rules Girl: last night i accidentally accepted a dinner date for tomorrow. ugh. i was trying to make it afternoon coffee and said i had plans l8r. he asked me what time i had 2 b there & i told him 8:30 or 9:00 so he weaseled in dinner at 6pm. he's nice though. i tried. i'll b more clever next time.
Rulebreaker: last night i made out w texting guy for an hour
A Practicing Rules Girl: wha??? who's txting guy? the first guy right? from the jewish parties. lazy man, yes?
Rulebreaker: yes :) just physical, all clothed. oops :)
A Practicing Rules Girl: oops. lol.

Books > Boys

One week back from out of town, and every single prospect I had seems to have poofed. And you know what? That's okay. I have replaced them with books. On my trip I read four print and two audiobooks. Since I returned I've read 1/2 a print book and one CD of an audiobook. I also find myself diverting conversations with friends from boys to books.

I'm a little bit disappointed, especially about facebook guy; and a little bit hopeful that some might still be interested; but mostly I'm feeling really proud that I don't think about it all the time. Slowly but surely, that pesky association between singledom and desolation is severed.

In other words, the Rules is accomplishing the primary purpose I had set out for it.

But let's go a little deeper into the triple-poofing that I have just endured. There are some mitigating factors at play.

1) In the "tag, you're it" a.k.a. normal world, I am the one whose turn it is to call/text/facebook message/e-mail/whatever. For all three of them. (Technically four, but I'm not interested in the fourth.)
2) I was gone for awhile, and therefore it makes even more sense for me to be the one to call/text/facebook message/e-mail/whatever. Again, for all three of them.

3) Drumroll.... For facebook guy,

• I did not return one text and one phone call in the two days after the date that indicated that he hoped to talk to me soon and had a good time and wanted to see me when I got back.
  
• I e-mailed him three days later and said see you when I get back, have a nice week.
  
• He e-mailed me three days later and said great, and asked me a small-talk-y question.
• Sixteen days passed.
  

Did the Rules require me to be so stingy in my communication with him? I would argue yes, at least the spirit. I wasn't even going to send the one e-mail but college friend convinced me that I should. But it sounds extreme on paper, doesn't it?? Nonetheless, I do tend to believe that if he were thinking about me, he would give me a call when he knew I was back in town (as he must by now unless he's not thinking about me at all). Even though I didn't return his last e-mail.

Upon returning, two friends who know facebook guy, one girl and one guy, asked me if I'd heard from him. I said no. The girl said that I should call him. The guy said he's an idiot, to which I responded, well, he might still call, I hope he doesn't think I don't like him since I didn't get a chance to call before I left or something. Then the guy made the comment that "[facebook guy] has options."

Which made me feel pretty good about the decision not to e-mail him back.

Anyway, I am likely to run into facebook guy, and texting guy, and possibly even guy #3 that I haven't really talked about much, at various events. So I'll probably eventually get a sense of whether the poofing is final.

In the meantime, plenty of novels beckon.

Rules Philosophy: Informal Q&A

Summaries of a couple of recent conversations about finding someone:

PRG: OK, so I'm actually thinking that I have overdone (and not so elegantly) rulesing in such a brusque and unthoughtful way that I have led a couple of people to believe that I am not interested. Humph. How do you undo that if you're not allowed to contact them?... How many dates can a person endure before finding someone who's a good match?

Rulebreaker: I would rather never find a "good match" than expend a lot of mental energy wondering why I don't have one. I think about the pain people go through when they marry the wrong person and have kids with them and have property with them and all that, and I just would rather live my own life than deal with any of that. The only exception is if a truly "good match" finds his way into my life. And if he does, he does. And if he is put off by my acting uninterested, then he's not really a good match. Because as the Rules says, if he is really that interested in you, he WILL keep pursuing you. He's not going to just let you disappear.

The problem is, that's really really rare. Non-Rules girls can get away with saying oh, but that's not the way things go anymore. A perfectly decent guy could get the wrong idea and then you'd LOSE HIM FOREVER OMG.

I don't buy it. If he really wants me, he will come after me. That may be rare. It may never happen. But I'm okay with that. I would rather that than have someone too lazy or emotionally inept or just not that into me to step up. (And yes, I think those three things are different from each other :) - i don't think every guy has it in him to get a Rules Girl, and generally most guys don't need to)

College friend: Are you ever afraid you're going to tap out the dating pool in [your city]?

Rulebreaker: I'm not approaching dating that way anymore. I've spent 29 years dating out of fears like those. Heck, the idea that I might date through all the eligible Jewish men in my city that are remotely compatible with me is not so farfetched - I had actually considered moving away from a place I otherwise really like because of it. Neither is the fear that I might miss my window to have kids (although the actuaries didn't seem to think so at my age). But why would I ponder those things? Nothing good can come of it. I post this mainly because my instinctive response to this question, which came pretty naturally to me, is evidence of a healthy attitude that has always eluded me in the past.

This post has nothing to do with the Rules or dating

I am an avowed Apple-hater. After I went off on one of my typical rants, my Mac friend responded simply by bringing me his ipad to play with.

It is awesome.

GRRR.

I am still offended by the advertising pitch "your mom can't understand those confusing regular computers, she should get something that only requires her to poke at pretty little square pictures."

But, if you stop thinking of it as a computer, it is a brilliant device. Most notably to me, it is a social device. By that I mean that it has the potential to enhance real-world social interactions, not just virtual ones. You can play scrabble at a cafe on it. You can sit around and look at pictures on the couch on it, showing your grandparents videos of your musical performances without making them get up and crowd around a computer. Not that I would advocate bringing it on a date, but still.

I want one.

I still think Apple is an evil company just like Facebook, and I will continue to rant about it until some antitrust lawsuit takes it down a peg.

But, I may get an ipad too.

(second) First date scorecard: A-

I have improved my GPA slightly since my last first date. In any event, although I swear I am trying to do the Rules to the best of my ability, I secretly hope I never get better than an A-. The marginal utility of Rulesiness above A- would probably squash my personality more than I'd like. That said, I did pretty damn well on this one.

Rule #5: Don't Call Him and Rarely Return His Calls: B+

He called on a weeknight, I called back on the next night, also a weeknight. He e-mailed the plan of the date (!), and I wrote back the next day saying that sounded fun -- no exclamation points or emoticons or unnecessary sentences. He texted asking for my address the day of, and I texted him back 2.3 hours later - note that I am allowed to text him because he has already asked for a Saturday night date. Boy, is it liberating to be able to text.

Rule #6: Always End Phone Calls First: B

I was sort of sick of the Rules after the conversation with Rules-resistant texting guy (who really has poofed this time), and I think I took it out on my phone call with this guy. I called him while driving, and talked to him for the length of the ride, 18 minutes. I also spoke fairly freely, and told him what I was doing that week. I didn't really end that call first, either, because after we finalized the date, it sort of ended itself. But he didn't really end it either.


Rule #7: Don't Accept a Saturday Night Date after Wednesday: A

I didn't, but there's not much more to it than that.

Rule #8: Fill Up Your Time Before the Date: A

I worked, I cleaned, I ran errands, I didn't shower until an hour before and was putting my makeup on right up until time.

Rule #4: Don't Meet Him Halfway or Go Dutch on a Date: A

As I have alluded to if not stated outright, this is more of a Rule for him than for me. But he picked me up and never suggested otherwise; he paid and it was completely non-awkward.

Rule #9: How to Act on Dates 1, 2, and 3: A/A-

(A better breakdown of the elements of this Rule is here).

• When nervousness about the date popped into my head, I shut it down pretty quickly and was able to concentrate on getting ready in time - because I almost wasn't!
• I let him do all the work, including running down and getting something for me out of the car, which he offered to do. He didn't pull up my chair but that would have been weird in the setting. He picked the restaurant but asked me if I liked it, he took charge and found us seats in the bar area when the place, which did not take reservations, was too crowded.
  
• I didn't tell him about what I'd been doing all day. When he asked, I responded honestly but didn't give him a big play-by-play.
• I acted nonchalantly, but he was really paying attention to me and would ask me about it whenever I smiled to myself or looked pensive in any sense. I had good answers for him and thought it was kind of cute that he noticed me like that.
• I did not invite him up to my place on the first date, even though he sort of hinted that he'd like to (not in a sketchy way). I was extremely proud of this because pre-Rules me would have definitely allowed the date to continue when he suggested it. (I should note that pre-Rules me would not have had sex on a first date, but I honestly don't think that's what he meant).
  
• The Rules say to try not to get too hung up on one guy. I am dating at least one other guy right now, although it's very hard for me to LIKE more than one at a time. And this guy is the one I LIKE right now. Siigh.
  

Rule #3: Don't Stare at Men or Talk too Much: A/A-

I was REALLY impressed with myself on this one because it's the hardest for me. I didn't make too much eye contact, but there was enough. I made jokes sometimes, but they were clever and generally subtle. Demure jokes, as it were. I talked at length and enthusiastically on occasion (as I am of course wont to do), but only when we were having some good back-and-forth on a particular subject. We talked about politics some, and religion some, but he brought it up. And my biggest triumph of the night - I did not try to fill silences. I waited patiently for him to continue the conversation. I "followed his lead."

Rule #11: Always End the Date First: A

Man was I ever proud of myself on this one. It was after 4.5 hours (but it was a dinner + show date, so not meeting my 4 hour cutoff can be excused), but I breezily said "should we head out?" and we did.

Dream dream dream

I had my first Rules dream last night. In the dream, I was Rules-ing, you guessed it, texting guy. I think I was walking through a library and I knew he was in various places but I refused to look at him and just walked by. I was carrying a lot of books. I looked like a big nerd but I think I was trying to pull off the cute librarian thing. Perhaps this was the result of hearing about my college friend's escapades with various non-Rules-Girls, and having that great "this could never happen to me" feeling that I love about the Rules.

(My college friend is not a sleaz, he's just dating multiple women. There's nothing wrong with that at all. I just personally don't want to be getting very physical with a guy who may be getting that physical with someone else the next night, even if it's more or less expected in the adult sphere after a certain number of dates.)

My college friend posed another question that actually gave me a little insight into texting guy - his weekends are full so he wants to ask a girl out for a weeknight. Problem is, he's already gone out with that girl on a weekend, so he can't really go back to weeknights or else she will feel ratcheted down.

My first thought was, wow, that's so right - and if you're dating multiple women it is much easier to delay the Saturday night date as long as possible so that you delay this problem. This explains more of texting guy's behavior than any of my previous theories. (Don't worry lipman, I know this still means he's just not that into me!)

Here's the advice I gave my college friend: to avoid the slight, find some kind of an event on a weeknight and invite her to that. Make it into a real date that revolves around something that is only occurring on that night.

Anyway, I think that was my first dream about texting guy. I'm sort of disappointed we didn't make out in the dream, since I've decided that's all he's probably good for.

I did dream about facebook guy over the weekend, just one of those silly second grade dreams where you like a boy and he likes you back and you wake up a little disappointed it's not real.

Ex bf makes appearances less and less often, largely because I am less and less disturbed by the fact that I dreamed about him when I happen to do so. Funny how that works.

Rules, welcome to my subconscious.

My IM vice reemerges

I haven't discussed instant messaging in awhile. Back at the very beginning, before I even received my copy of the Rules for Online Dating, I noted that IMing wasn't very rules-y and hinted that I was going to sign off of it for the duration. I haven't really followed up on that, and it would appear that it is now time to do so.

As expected, the Rules generally frown on the practice of instant messaging. Rule #8 of the Online Dating rules is that you should block yourself from it altogether - though this is specifically in the context of dating websites. The Rules don't seem to account for general IM programs such as AIM and gchat. The modified Rules located in the appendix to the Online Dating volume have some guidance for IMing if you absolutely MUST, including counting to 60 before responding, and, of course, being light, breezy, and demure in your responses.

Interestingly, the Rules do allow you to go meet people in "chat rooms" as long as you wait for them to message you, in a chapter that seems a little too AOL-era to be relevant. I may go try to find a chat room at some point just to play around with this Rule - although I really don't know where I would go for that. The last time I joined an actual chat room was I believe on the IRC, in 1998.

(Note that I can't do any Rules quoting right now because I did not pack my Rules on this business trip, but the basic idea is that it's too spontaneous, too available. Maybe I'll go back and edit this post when I get home so that I can be more precise.)

Now, on to applying this to myself. It is fair to say that I have been an avid IM-er since the practice existed. My family was on Prodigy when I was 11, and I dabbled in the bulletin boards (yes, there were sexual predators on the Internet before the Internet existed). A year or two later, a friend and I dialed into each other's computers and typed to each other on a DOS interface, and could not get over how amazing it was. The same friend and I used to play around on AOL chat rooms and screwed with people. I went on BBSs throughout high school, using Legend of the Red Dragon as an alternate social life. In college, I used ICQ, then AIM, basically constantly. After college I lived abroad and used Trillian, which facilitated communications through all major chat programs then existing.

I think it is also fair to say that instant messaging has played a significant role in many of my relationships and is in fact responsible for my ill-fated marriage, and possibly its early demise.

Back one summer in college, I found out the AIM screenname of my co-worker crush and added him to my list just to watch him, never messaging. I found out he liked me too when I asked to check my email on his computer at a gathering and saw my own screenname on his list.

Another college relationship, this one long-distance, relied on IM to keep it going. One night when he wasn't online I became suspicious, freaked out, and started calling his dorm phone over and over until he answered. The next day I drove to visit him and he told me he'd cheated on me.

A little later I was lonely living abroad, not having much of a social life there due to factors beyond my control. I leaned on my good friend who I later married - spending my entire workday (his entire night!) talking to him online. After months of this, he told me he couldn't talk to me anymore unless I agreed to date him when I returned to the country. I had not felt that way about him and told him no, then spent a month miserable because my main personal contact had been cut off from me. I resumed communication with him by agreeing to go on a date with him when I got back. That coerced date, for reasons I need not explain here, led to our marriage. I later realized things weren't working out when I started having feelings for a guy I met in law school, which I indulged through IM conversations.

At various intervals throughout this period of time, I'd generally initiate IM conversations with ex boyfriends whenever I felt like getting male attention.

I walk through my dubious IM-relationship-history not to pour out all my e-drama, but to set a foundation for conquering one of my biggest Rules weaknesses. IM is instant gratification, obtained easily and without much effort. And if IM is chocolate cake, I am a grotesquely obese person huffing and puffing to get up a flight of stairs.

Back to my six months of Rules. What modifications did I actually make to my instant messaging behavior? Well, I stopped using facebook chat altogether, and I have not relented once. Nor I have I looked back at all.

As for gchat, that's a little more of an addiction and not just when it comes to guys. My brain likes to multitask, and I work better when I feel like I'm not completely isolated from the world. There are two people I gchat every day, both girls, and this particular indulgence is not something I felt like I needed to let go of. Solution? First, I removed all potential guys from my "show" list (did not block them, just removed them so that I can't see when they're online). Second, I went invisible myself, so I can just message the two girls I like talking to.

This strategy has been mostly effective until recently. The only shortfall I had was my 2nd most recent ex, who knows I'm invisible because I pulled this sometimes pre-Rules, and chats me. OK, I guess I was bad at the beginning with him because I showed him the pictures of myself I posted to the AO, but that was the worst of it. But lately, I have started falling off the IM wagon. I have initiated IM conversations with this guy when invisible. I have initiated conversations with a previous ex (4th most recent, I think) that approach flirtation.

OK, the ex thing sucks and I clearly need to stop it in the spirit of the Rules, but is not terribly dangerous to my Rules experiment IRL because both exes are far away. But that's not all.

I have made myself "visible" a couple of times to chat with a new guy friend that I am only 80% sure is just a friend. He and I had IMed a couple of times before the experiment so there was some precedent for the conversations. I don't feel chemistry with him, but I have grown to like him a great deal, and am definitely establishing some kind of a bond with him. The first few times I made myself visible in order to bait him into chatting me, which he usually did. Then I stopped caring whether he IMed me first, and just signed on and IMed him when I want to. I actually asked him to go to a movie with me spontaneously one weeknight (as in, "I want to see the 7 PM show of X, let's go") and he did it. And then we went to dinner at a sit-down place afterwards.

And since I've been on the business trip, I've been just horrible about IMing. I miss the life I was building in Atlanta. I've started to feel insecure about having just established myself on the Jewish dating scene and then ripping myself away from it for two weeks and two weekends. I worry that I'll have to start all over when I get back, that the guys who had planted seeds of interest will forget about me, that I'll lose the great progress I'd made toward having a social circle in the Jewish community.

A CUAO is supposed to brush these thoughts aside. There will always be other men. If these men forget about me they never liked me enough to begin with. When I fly into town, jetsetter that I am, I will breeze into any room and light it up. And if nobody notices me, their loss.

But I am not quite in true CUAO form yet. And the result of that is back to old habits, meaning a total lapse on IM, as to ex boyfriends but most relevantly as to my new male friend.

I suppose this would not be a problem if we were truly just friends, but it is more complicated than that. I wonder if there might be interest on his end, though he's never made any overt moves in that direction. A couple of people have suggested that we date, or that something's already going on between us. Clearly I have thought about that possibility more than once. I admit that I have wished that there were more chemistry because I enjoy his company so much. I have even thought that I might be moving towards liking him that way a couple of times. I unabashedly ask him to hang out, on IM and not. I text him and respond to his texts.

After a particularly flirtatious IM conversation, I let my friend read it over. She informed me in no uncertain terms that I was leading him on. This is not something a Rules Girl would do.

So first of all, I think it's time to get my virtual self into shape. Lay off the IM. If I cannot lay off the IM, sign on infrequently and allow guys to IM me, but do not IM them. Apply the Rules of IMing in terms of my response time and length.

Lastly, use the rest of this trip to make some kind of a decision on my guy friend. If he is just a friend, I must treat him as such and quit flirting. If he might be more, I need to start Rulesing him.