Group therapy in a blog.
Evaluate This: Dating and Constructive Criticism
Last week, I met someone who told me that while he had not met his wife through JDate, but that the process of going out with (200!) women from JDate had made him a better dater. Well, that figures, right? I mean, practice anything 200 times and you’re going to get better at it. He noted that the process had made him better at his job, too, had trained him to listen better to people, even if he wasn’t overly interested in the subject matter.
But I was more intrigued by his description of his process – that he had obtained feedback even from dud dates that made him able to improve to the point of being able to meet his soulmate. He told me that after any woman told him she didn’t think a next date was a good idea, he told her that he respected her decision, but that if he had done anything that annoyed her, he’d love it if she’d tell him what it was.
I was fascinated, and tried to imagine myself as one of these women. How honest would I be? How sincere would I have thought he was in his “desire to learn”? It made me think of the tongue-in-cheek suggestion I made to friends years ago about handing out evaluations (or sending a surveymonkey link) to dates to enable honest feedback on dating technique and reactions to compatibility based on the dating experience.
While it’s very easy to joke about this, many people do a “post-game” analysis (let’s be optimistic and NOT call it a post-mortem) of their dates: this could include self-assessment (“did I talk/fidget/play with my hair/order/eat too much?” etc.) or sociological observations about behavior of the other person (“did s/he like me, or just tolerate me?” “was that banter or arguing?” etc.). But all of this assessment happens internally: is there a value in externalizing, vocalizing, concretizing this analysis as a way to evaluate performance and potential, and perhaps as a learning tool? And are we all man (or woman) enough to accept the criticism?
It’s an interesimg idea. I think anytime you can externalize feedback and prevent a cycle of neurotic self-criticisms that’s a good thing. But I think it all depends on how much you respect and trust the person you went on the date with. How many dates did you go on? Are you asking for feedback on the date or on you as a person? There’s a lot people can miss or get wrong if they’ve only seen you once.
I’ve thought about this before, asking for honest feedback. I don’t think more than a handful of people out of 100 would be willing to give it to someone they barely know. Perhaps it would be different in Israel but I doubt it.
Benji, in Israel, you get feedback while you’re on the date. And afterwards, you get a call from your date’s mother, asking what your problem is. And then later, you get a guilt trip from one of your parents, who knows your date’s parents.
I would like feedback which includes instructions on how to use HTML in comments. That’s pretty cool. (I see it’s above….I guess I need to learn how…)
I’ll give some feedback to strangers, right here.
A date, especially a first date, is marketing as much as it is anything else.
So if you can’t be positive, at least don’t be negative. Your boss may be a jerk, your neighbor may be looking for a fight, your best friend may be a terrible friend…
But if you come looking for sympathy from a guy you barely know, you will come off as very negative. Get sympathy from your friend. Get it from me after we’ve been dating for a while. But if twenty five of the first thirty minutes of our dinner consists of your problems instead of what’s fun and charming about you? It’s our last date.
Yes, I recognize the irony of my complaining about complainers… but then this isn’t a date, it’s dating feedback.
I’d say this is the primary reason why I don’t pursue a second date.
And yeah, maybe it’s at least partially because I’m doing a bad job choosing with whom to go on first dates with. Or maybe I’m just showing too much interest and sympathy when I should be making disapproving faces or changing the subject to cute kittens or ice cream on the beach. But that’s my issue.
Call me cynical, but while one can admire the guy’s perseverance and also his logic (the more you try something, the better at it you get), you also have to wonder why it’s taken him 200+ dates to “get it right”.
Maybe it’s bad luck. Then again, maybe he’s a slow learner.
I’ve heard a similar thing about marriage, i.e. “the first marriage is just “practice” for the second one.
If that’s the case, why do some people stay happily married for a long time (first marriages), while someone like Liz Taylor should be getting better at marriage with each new husband.
Steve, I won’t call you cynical. But what I will say is that I think the radical shift here a man overcoming the traditional “she’s not into me, so there must be something wrong with her,” to “perhaps there’s something I can do to improve.”
Certainly the 200 number is a little shocking. But it’s possible that this number was a slight exaggeration, and the truth is that over the course of those years spent on (mostly single) dates, this man was clearly also changing, maturing, becoming more enlightened on how to talk to women, etc – all that set the stage for him to “get it right.”
People who aren’t fans of online dating will note that the online arena was not the are of success itself: it served as kind of a boot camp for him, preparing him to be fit to meet his wife “in real life.”
Shaun, I don’t disagree with you about negativity, especially on a first date. It’s just that one of the things people talk about appreciating in dating is honesty. Obviously, there’s a not-so-fine line between being truthful or honest and laying out your entire life on the table. Sometimes people are having a hard time in life, and they don’t mean for it to come out on dates, but it just does.
While I think you’re right – ideally, a first date should illustrate how charming the other person is and provoke interest in date #2 – marketing oneself and presenting one’s best side is a good idea, but truthfully. Otherwise, when date #4 or whatever rolls around, and there’s a more truthful reveal of who that person is, you might not even recognize them.
Esther, let me give you another example. When ordering dinner you could simply say “Wow, the steak au poivre sounds good” without going through:
“Let’s see, I don’t eat lobster, they look like giant cockroaches. I’m allergic to nuts, they make me break out and sweat, so I can’t get the sole almondine, I think tuna’s disgusting, how can anybody eat that? And pasta costs fifty cents a pound, why should they get away with charging fifteen dollars for five ounces of it…”
There’s a difference between honesty and airing your dirty laundry when you first meet someone. If a date asks how your day went, instead of saying that your boss is a jerk, your co-worker smells and you hate your job, just say you’re happy the work day is over and you’re looking forward to an enjoyable evening.
Another example– hey, I want kids too and I’ll discuss it when asked. But it’s not something I go around talking about on a first date. I’ve been on dates with women who made it clear that starting a family’s a priority. And they make it sound like more of a priority than the man with whom they’d be starting the family with.
I’d like to have a relationship that eventually (not on the first date) includes sex… but it’s not something I bring up on a first date.
PS having said that, I might send a few of these post-mortem texts for blog material…
I can see it now: a “why don’t you wanna go out with me again” iPhone app.