Eventually I plan to be more methodical in how I analyze and implement the Rules. However, I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive so I'm sort of riffing here. Plus, the real experiment doesn't begin till Monday but I'm trying to get in the habit of writing every day.
But one thing I've been considering is instant messaging - texting too, but I think that probably warrants its own entry at some point. The Rules never addressed gchat, and its authors are (I'm guessing) too old to actually do any chatting. I am someone who spends several hours a day on gchat most days when I'm strapped to my desk, and I find that a lot of people like me also are, so I am fairly curious as to how to apply the rules in this context.
Clearly, initiating the process of sending chat invites to people is contrary to the rules. But recently a potential interest requested that he be added to my chat list. I accepted, even though I didn't know him that well. OK, as long as I never IM him first? Wait three days and then accept? Reject? The rules about calling don't translate easily to deciding when it is appropriate to IM someone. It also doesn't work to ignore an IM like one would let a phone call go to voice mail.
Am I allowed to have funny status messages? Descriptive ones? News links? Messages that are flirtatious, suggestive, or intriguing? I'm not an avid user of status messages anyhow, but I imagine the Rules would disapprove.
Query whether the Rules would think that being "available" online is appropriate at all; my instinct on this is "no." This would mean that I have to get off of chat programs for 6 months. The last time I did this as a true abstention was to write my honors thesis in college.
Isn't one of the main goals of Rules to teach women to not obsess over men?
ReplyDeleteIn that mindset, don't do anything special on the gchat front. If you usually post political links as your status, keep doing it. If they are funny, keep doing it...etc
And one other note that may or may not be helpful, when you meet somebody, their level of interest is set pretty quickly (in the first 30 minutes or so). Once that level is set, there is very little that you can do to raise it, but there is a TON of stuff you can do to lower it. I am guessing that the Rules are trying to teach women not to do the lowering stuff.
Good luck with the experiment.
Interesting take. The Rules do try to teach non-obsession, but they also definitely teach behavior modification to make yourself less available. I think there's a reasonable argument that can be made that this includes online "availability." Same thing in terms of your proposition that the Rules are just trying to get you not to screw up the initial level of interest. I definitely think there is much more behavior modification involved than that, and that will be the hard part for me!
ReplyDeleteAlso, you speak in gender neutral terms when you say that someone's level of interest is set in the first 30 minutes. Maybe that's true of guys (though I doubt it), but it's definitely not true of me. I think there is some grain of truth to that though, in that when I meet someone something usually clicks in my head that "I could be attracted to him" or "I could not be attracted to him." The one time I tried to force myself to be attracted to someone my first impression told me I wasn't attracted to, it ended disastrously.
See "The Rules for Online Dating", it addresses chat, IM, Online Dating, etc.
ReplyDelete"Maybe that's true of guys (though I doubt it), but it's definitely not true of me."
ReplyDeleteMost people react the same way when they hear about general patterns of human behavior that are less than ideal.