The Dating Queen’s take on Values vs. Interests
"I love hiking and walking on the beach. Will you join me?"
"I love to dance — I'm looking for a good dance partner."
"I like bike riding, Mexican food, and nursing a beer with some good live music, but it's much better with someone to share."
Sound familiar? It seems like every online dating profile you look at talks about interests. It's all about what you like to do.
Of course it's nice to have common interests. I'm not immune to that desire. There was a brief time, after being spoiled by a 3-year relationship with a talented musician boyfriend, when one of my must-haves was musical chops. Okay, I'll be honest: I was looking for a jazz musician. Until I came to the conclusion that this pretty much limited my dating pool to the size of one of those inflatable kiddie wading units. Plus the fact (albeit a generalization) that musicians aren't known for being the most reliable characters.
But let's not go down that road.
What I'm interested in here is actually not interests: it's values.
You'll notice that very few profiles talk about values, yet if you think about it, common values are way more important in a relationship than common interests.
So what's the difference? Think of interests as what you like to do, and values as who you are.
My friend Fawn wrote a great post about interests and values recently. Which got me thinking about it, and how values and interests play out in my own life.
For example, I value fitness and health. My interests that support these values include long walks by the Bay and doing lots of yoga.
But the fact is, if I met someone who loved, say, bicycling and rock climbing, I could probably be fairly easily convinced to spend less time at my interests in order to join him in his interests, at least part of the time.
Hopefully he'd be willing to try out my interests too, but if not, we could probably still work it out. However, if I met someone who didn't share my value in a healthy, fit body, and who liked to spend his time watching TV, well, it probably wouldn't be a very good match.
I also value open, honest communication and commitment through thick and thin. All the affinity, compatibility and common interests in the world will never make up for a partner who bails when things get tough because he doesn't share my values. (I've learned this one the hard way.)
I've learned that I need to find out who someone is, not just what he likes to do.
How do you do that? People don't always express their values as clearly as their interests, so it behooves you to watch for warning signs and red flags, and pay attention!
If you value generosity, and you notice he's a stingy tipper, that may not be a good match.
If you value family, and he moved out of state from his kids and barely keeps in contact with them, he may not be the right guy for you, no matter how much fun you have with him.
If you value security and he's 45, with not a penny to his name and no plans to save or invest for the future, I wouldn't bet on a lifetime of happiness together.
If you value honesty and maturity, and his stories of past relationships reveal a less than stellar record in this regard, let's just say that past results may indeed be an indicator of what you can expect in the future.
The important thing is to get very clear about what your values are. As my friend Fawn writes,
...my primary value these days is being clear about my values (and then sticking to them, come what may). And anyone who tempts me to violate them is someone I need not to let too far into my life — no matter how many interests we might have in common.
Amen, sister!
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
8 reasons to post a profile on AFF (especially if you’re a good girl)
So why, I've been asked (more than once), would a "good girl" like myself post a profile on a site whose tagline is "meet real sex partners tonight"?
Actually, plenty of reasons. Here are 8 of them.
1) You get to practice boundary-setting
A lot of us good girls are so nice to everyone that we need some practice saying "no," as well as in basic boundary-setting. Dating in general will provide you with tons of opportunities to practice, but sometimes it's handy to have a venue where it's really, really easy to say no.
When you put up a profile on a site like AFF (especially if you include some [tasteful and artistic] nude shots, you'll likely be inundated with emails. Yes, the vast majority of those emails will be from guys you will never have any interest in responding to (as shown in my Great Age Experiment), but that's precisely the point!
When you get practice saying no (or simply ignoring) under very easy circumstances, it strengthens your limit-setting muscles for use in more challenging situations. This is a good thing.
2) You get to be very clear about what you want
This one is interesting, and came as a surprise to me. The very act of composing my profile for AFF was wonderfully liberating.
Because you get to talk about things that would be censored out of a profile on a "legit" dating site, it gives you an amazing sense of freedom to talk about, well, you know, stuff you can't talk about on a "legit" dating site.
In other words, you get to really lay out on the table everything you're looking for behind the bedroom door. You don't have to wait until an "appropriate" time in the dating process to make your kinks preferences known.
Try it. You may find that you even discover things about yourself you didn't know before!
Yes, it's a little weird, granted, to be so upfront about this stuff, but it's also kind of cool. The conversations I had with the men I met on AFF – in emails and on dates – were a lot more matter-of-fact about... well, stuff.
Let's face it, we live in a pretty uptight society, and I personally find it a relief to let some of that uptightness go.
3) You get an ego boost
Okay, a shallow ego boost, granted, and frequently illiterate and/or somewhat (or entirely) disgusting, but what girl can't use an ego boost once in awhile?
If you're not having much luck on the "legit" sites, try putting up a profile on AFF. If you're female and you have a body, you'll likely get a response. You'll feel pretty popular for at least a few seconds.
4) You get a fascinating insight into the nature of men
Um, yeah. In other words, they're very much driven by the little head.
Not always what you want to know, but information is power, you know?
5) You get confirmation of your value on the marketplace
Should you ever decide to turn pro. Just sayin'.
6) You get to see a wider range of penises than you ever thought possible
Yes, it's true. Men are obsessed with them. If you ever prayed to God for a place where you could see hundreds of teeny-tiny pics of cocks, all in one place, here's your paydirt.
7) You get a sense of power
Again, limited, but still. Especially if you feel like men have all the power in the dating world, like you're up on the auction block, waiting passively for someone, anyone, to bid on you, putting a profile up on AFF may help you get back to the place where we women belong: we are the selectors; they are the selectees.
(Which takes us back to numbers 1 & 2. You're in charge here, sister.)
8) You never know, but something really good may even come out of it
Hey, I know this is unlikely, but seriously, you never know!
I personally met some awesome guys, real gentlemen, if you can believe it. Think about it: you're on the site, right? And you're a "good girl" and a really cool person. So it makes sense that some (granted few, but some) guys on the site are also really cool people.
I met a number of guys who also had profiles on "legit" sites, and were (like me) looking for the Real Thing, not just a hookup. It happens.
--
Give it a try – I dare you! Then let me know what happens.
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
The Great Age Experiment: Week 4
Part of an ongoing series, in which your intrepid correspondent offers herself as a guinea pig in an admittedly not-very scientific online dating experiment to determine, once and for all, whether a younger age on her profile will result in greater response to said profile.
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Week 4 Update
(Click here to read parts one, two, three and four in this series.)
For four weeks now your correspondent has braved the match.com trenches with a false age on her profile and posted the results. She'll admit, it was kind of fun at first, but honestly, it's getting rather boring.
Here's the scoop: 7 years' age difference did not increase the number of responses (contrary to the prelimary hypothesis), and in fact, the number of profile views is at this point exactly half the number of views of the actual-age match.com profile during the same time span.
The number of match.com emails from guys who might possibly be worthy of a meeting was exactly the same: 2. So in fact, the ratio of quality men to responses did improve, though the actual number of responses dropped in half.
Granted, the "fresh meat" factor may have contributed to the higher response rate in the previous month, when your correspondent's profile first went up (with her actual age). (Online daters tend to flock to new profiles like flies to honey, whereas they avoid older ones as if they were milk cartons past their pull date.) A new experiment would be required to test if the "fresh meat" theory actually made a difference in this case, but your correspondent is frankly sick and tired of this particular experiment, and is looking forward to being her actual age again.
(In other words, if you want to test the theory yourself, run your own damn experiment.)
The not-so scientific summary of the data
Totally unscientific lessons learned from this experiment:
- If you're interested in quantity of profile views, winks, hotlists and emails, a tasteful black and white nude art photo on AFF will net dramatically better results than an attractive face pic on match.com
- If you're interested in the quality of responses, match.com will return a higher ratio than AFF (duh)
- If you're interested in pure (though admittedly raunchy) entertainment value, and you don't mind unsolicited pee-pee pics and tasteless, frequently illiterate replies, AFF is the way to go
- For all intents and purposes, it sure as hell looks like 7 years doesn't make a damn bit of positive difference in terms of response rate. (At age 43, at least.)
In other words, ladies, stop whining that it's your age, and get up on AFF if you want a flood of email in your box.
Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to take down this stale profile, make some edits, and put it back up in a few weeks to take advantage of the "fresh meat" factor once again.
Over and out.
| Results (Age posted on profile) Time period of data collection |
match.com (43) 30 days |
match.com (36) 4 weeks |
aff.com (43) 4 weeks |
| emails received | 8-10(?) | 6 (plus 1 more from a winker who was then sent a "thanks for the wink" email) |
84 |
| emails from guys who might possibly be worthy of a meeting | 2 (One of which was from a guy who'd gone out with your correspondent a few years ago) |
2 | 1** **(Your correspondent did receive 2 additional emails that warranted replies for the sole purpose of lively, intellectual conversation. Seriously.) |
| winks/flirts received | 8-10(?) | 7 | 126 |
| favorited/hotlisted | unknown | 5 (hotlisted by a new guy, unhotlisted by another, for a total change of 0 this past week) |
99 |
| views | 418 | 209 | 5,329 (1,826 in the past week) (18,599 total views since 7/29/2008, though the profile has only been active less than 7 months during that time) |
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
Resentment: A Tool for Setting Limits
"I had a guy over on date #5, and things went farther than I really wanted. I mean, my body was into it, but emotionally, I wasn't entirely comfortable. Plus he got his rocks off (twice!), but didn't do much to make sure I was satisfied. It left me really frustrated and honestly kind of disgusted. Now he's pulled a disappearing act. What kind of sick behavior is that? What a jerk!"
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"I was dating this really sweet guy who wasn't very sexually experienced. It was kind of fun getting to be the 'experienced woman.' Then one night after we'd been dating for awhile I decided I was ready to go all the way, but when we got back to my place after a long evening out I was really tired and just didn't feel like it after all. I was so afraid of disappointing him, though, that I let things roll along, even though I really didn't want to. The whole experience was really annoying, and now I'm sort of irritated with him, even though he didn't actually do anything wrong."
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Resentment: anger at someone else... or yourself?
The examples above are from real people, and they have one thing in common: resentment. One of the things I discovered during my years of dating for personal growth was that resentment tells you a lot more about you than it does about the person you resent.
In fact, it's not about them at all, much as it feels like it is; it's about you. The truth is, resentment is really anger at yourself, misdirected at someone else, through the lens of victimhood.
Let me repeat that:
Resentment is anger at yourself, misdirected at someone else, through the lens of victimhood.
I first had this revelation when I let a guy I was totally unattracted to kiss me on a first date. He asked if he could kiss me, and although I really didn't want him to, I didn't quite know how to say no (tool #1 in your dating tool box, ladies!) Maybe I was afraid of hurting his feelings. Regardless, I left the date feeling annoyed with him, and resentful for making me kiss him!
But wait – he didn't make me kiss him; he asked if he could kiss me and I gave him permission.
CLICK!
Suddenly I realized that, underneath it all, my anger wasn't actually at him – he was merely following the limits that I had established. I was really angry at myself for not setting the limits I really wanted to set. Sure, I was afraid of hurting his feelings, but in trying to cushion his feelings I totally neglected my own, and then I felt angry at him!
Although I felt like I was a victim here, the fact was he hadn't forced me to kiss him; he'd asked me permission, like a true gentleman, and I had granted it. And then, because it's a helluva lot easier to blame someone else than to take responsibility, I resented him.
In truth, I've experienced variations on this theme more times than I care to admit. But that particular "CLICK!" on that particular date made me suddenly aware of how I wasn't taking responsibility for setting limits.
Resentment as a useful tool
Now, whenever I feel the edge of resentment gnawing at my consciousness, I stop and ask myself what I'm really angry about. Invariably I'm actually annoyed because someone stepped over a boundary that I didn't effectively set. I have to redirect the blame at myself, which isn't fun, but it's pretty darn useful if you're interested in getting out of stuck and growing as a person.
Resentment then becomes a tool to help figure out where I need to work on limit-setting in my life. Handy!
Try it sometime. You may find, as I have, that once you reassign your annoyance at the person who deserves it (ie, yourself), the resentment just dissolves.
You've still got to set the limits, though. No way around it. But I guarantee that if you do, the time you spend stewing in resentment will dramatically decrease.
Dating is such a great tool for self-growth precisely because it forces you to set limits for yourself (unless you want to spend a lot of time stewing in resentment). And setting limits in your dating life is great training for setting limits in every other area in your life!
Give it a try.
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
Size Matters (or Just Call Me Goldilocks)
I went and married the first man I ever slept with. (I don't advise this, in case you're wondering.) I didn't marry him right away – it took me about seven years – but the fact remains that he was still my one and only lover when I stepped under the chuppah.
As it happens, he was also quite (ahem) well-hung. (Probably still is, I imagine, but he's been somebody else's problem for over a decade now, so I wouldn't know.)
It was, stereotypically enough, quite a source of pride for him that I'd never slept with anyone else.
It was also a source of great anxiety. How could he know for sure that he wasn't just the default selection?
One way that he dealt with this anxiety was to tell me – frequently – that because he was so well-endowed he was "ruining me" for other men. How (the reasoning went) could I possibly enjoy sex with a (gasp!) average-sized man, after experiencing his immense (and therefore superior) proportions?
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
On Gratitude: Finding Appreciation for the Gifts Your Ex Gave You (Even If He Was a Total Jerk)
Lately I've been meditating on gratitude for my "failed" relationships. I've learned many lessons and gained many gifts from each and every relationship I've ever had.
Sometimes the biggest gift was finally figuring out the person was just NOT THE RIGHT GUY FOR ME.
And you know what, even if you can't think of anything else from a relationship to be grateful for, that's not to be sneezed at.
Attitude of gratitude, baby!
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
On Boyfriends, Skill, Desire and Following Your Bliss (Which You May Have Thought Was His Bliss, Not Yours)
Funny: at some point in my dating life I noticed that I drew men to me who had a skill I wanted. I admired it in them, and thought I needed to have them in order to have it in my life. It took me a long time to finally realize that maybe what I wanted was not a boyfriend who could do the thing; maybe I wanted to have the thing for myself, maybe I actually wanted to do the thing, not just enjoy somebody else doing it.
A friend of mine, for example, had a boyfriend who serenaded her with his guitar. Oh, how I wanted a man who would play guitar for me! It seemed so incredibly important to have that! I must be a powerful spirit, because Shazam! - my next boyfriend played guitar, dreamily. Even better, he inspired me to pick it up myself.
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
Three Lessons Learned from Dating
If you're a real Dating Queen (or in training to become one), you approach each date with conscious awareness. You probably journal afterwards, recording your mistakes, and how to correct forward, along with celebrating your successes (of course!) You learn from your experiences. Here are three of the most important lessons I've learned while looking for love.
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
How Dating Helped Me Learn to Set Boundaries (and Five Steps for Establishing Yours)
A few weeks into The Four Man Plan I went on a lunch date with a guy I had no attraction to. Okay, I'll be honest – I was kind of physically repulsed by him. Yet after lunch, when he asked if he could kiss me, I didn't have a clear enough compass to tell him "no." I let him kiss me (ew), all the time thinking "Ew, I really don't want to be doing this," but still I didn't stop him. Then, after he'd pulled away, to my horror he stepped in again for another kiss (double-ew!), asking cursory permission, which, I'm embarrassed to say, I granted again, even though I seriously did not want those lips anywhere near mine. Ew, ew, ewwww!
When I finally got in my car and drove away I was thoroughly disgusted with myself! How did I let that happen? Clearly I needed to work on my boundaries! Because I let this guy kiss me the first time, he presumed he had permission for a second time, and now saying "no" became that much more of an ordeal. Much better to say no at the start! Oh, I had some work to do!
I'm grateful to Mr. Repulsive for helping me realize that I needed boundary-setting help, but my biggest problem, more than actually learning to say no, was figuring out what I wanted. It may sound ridiculous,
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
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