Estimated reading time: 17 minutes
Doctor’s Note: Don’t forget, I’m still taking submissions for “April Fool Me”, where I invite my readers to submit letters from the perspective of their favorite fictional characters and see if they can slide it past my radar. If you want to play along, send submit your letters via the contact form at doctornerdlove.com/contact and make sure they follow the rules: 1. Keep it fictional, 2. Keep it as plausible as possible and 3. Make it at least somewhat feasible to guess, rather than following a “describe a movie badly” prompt.
Hey Doc, it’s been a couple of years since I wrote in last, I’ve managed to buy my own place and I’ve recently been diagnosed as autistic, which has clicked a few pieces into place, and in general I’m feeling a lot better about myself!
I would like to run a recent scenario by you so you can tell where and how I went wrong, since it’s decimated my confidence.
At the beginning of the month, I matched with a girl who’s 33, she messaged first and things were going well, she ended up sending novels as texts, which me been dyslexic and not a big fan of texting was a little tricky for me to navigate. She lives just over an hour’s drive away but we both drive so it’s not a problem and she doesn’t mind travelling as she travelled to see a friend who had been ghosted.
We organised a date for 2 weeks in advance since at a place about halfway between us since we both was busy the weekend before, our texting slows down a little between then and the first date went pretty good, we went bowling then ended up going for food afterwards, we spent about 3 1/2 hours together which wasn’t my initial plan. We did talk about a 2nd date at the end of the first, but I need to physically sit down and look at a calendar to schedule anything because that’s how my brain works.
Once I got home, she had already messaged me that she got home safely and thanked me for a lovely Sunday and for buying food, after a bit of back and forth we arranged a second date for the 21st, both times she made super easy which was a nice change of pace!
Once again, our texts slowed down a lot in the run up to the 2nd date and on the morning of, she cancels the date because she was having a massive endo flare. She told me a bit about this before the first date and a bit more when we met up, I made it clear they didn’t bother me, which they don’t.
She mentioned that she didn’t want to cancel the date and that she wouldn’t be able to drive and wouldn’t be much fun to be around while in pain but suggested we could do a discord call, I replied suggesting we could move the date to the next weekend and that I hope she feels better soon and agreed to a discord call, but assumed she don’t want to do it that day because of the pain, which I definitely wouldn’t want to do.
It’s coming up to 2 weeks since I sent that last message and I haven’t heard from her since, I don’t think she has deleted me but I don’t expect a response now, my friends say I haven’t done anything wrong but, in my experience if a woman didn’t want a second date, they wouldn’t arrange a second then cancel it with radio silence.
What can I do better next time I find someone I click with this well and what should I do with her? I was just going to leave it and if she reaches out to see how that goes and try and pick things back up. I apologise that this is a little long.
Thanks,
Champion of Bottling It
First of all, COBI, congratulations on all the progress you’ve been making. You’ve made some huge strides and you should be proud of yourself for what you’ve accomplished so far. It just feels like a shame to dismiss all the ways you’ve been improving because this one connection didn’t go well for you.
Now, with that in mind, it feels like there’s some information missing here. Did you both decide NOT to do the Discord call? Did you assume that it was canceled and just never bothered to try, did you both agree not to bother? Did you hop onto Discord, only together ghosted, or did things end completely after you suggested meeting up another time?
I ask because those all pose different scenarios about how things ended and why.
But if I’m being honest, I think this was going to happen regardless, for reasons that were ultimately beyond the two of you.
Let’s break it down a little. There’s a couple places where it seems that you were having communication issues, and communication is going to be an important factor in a long-distance relationship. Even though you’re only an hour away by car, that’s still a two-hour drive for one of you whenever you’re going to meet up, on top of the date itself. I can tell you from personal experience that this is a significant investment of time and energy, which means that there’s likely going to be a lot of planning in advance. This, in turn means that a lot of your connection, especially early on, is going to be built and maintained through texting, calls, FaceTime and so-on. This makes getting the communication right an even higher priority than it would be if you lived closer.
Now, I think part of what happened may come from the two of you having different communication styles. It sounds like your friend was a prolific texter, while you aren’t; this is understandable, since you’re dealing with dyslexia. This doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, but it can create obstacles in terms of communicating while you’re still trying to get to know one another. When you have different communication styles and you haven’t found a balance (or if you don’t know each other well yet), you can end up having different expectations and thus end up with different takeaways about what everything means.
One of the issues with the advent of not just instant communication, but instant communication that is always with you is that we end up reading intent and meaning into not just what’s said, but how much is said and how quickly one replies. After all, we’re a species that evolved for face-to-face communication, with levels of nuance and meaning that can only be conveyed via facial expression and body language and vocal tonality – things that can’t be conveyed via text. But because we’re a species that also has evolved pattern recognition, we end up reading meaning into everything. When there’s information that we know isn’t being conveyed clearly, we look for other indicators of intent and meaning. This often works to our detriment by creating levels of complication and complexity that ultimately cause more problems than they solve.
As other members of GenX have pointed out, there was a time when it was just accepted that people weren’t going to get back to you until later. Once cellphones and smartphones reached a level of ubiquity, this changed; there’s an expectation of a rapid – if not immediate – reply. Because of that expectation, we see how long it takes to get back to someone as a mark of interest or investment; if they take their time to respond, that’s communicating… something. The longer it takes to respond, the greater likelihood of someone taking that to mean something negative.
(This isn’t always, or even usually the case; often it’s just a matter of being busy or not having the opportunity to respond. But why let logic get in the way of trying to do digital haruspicy?)
Similarly, the ratio of text to reply ends up being seen as having significance, even when the significance is “who prefers to text and who prefers to talk”. If one person texts significantly more than the other, the person who responds with less tends to be seen as being less interested, possibly even bored or upset.
So, while your friend is sending walls of text, you – as someone who deals with dyslexia – need more time to find the most salient info. And since you don’t necessarily like texting, you’re more likely to be briefer and more to the point. This could come off to others as being terse or even unhappy, despite your not feeling anything of the sort. If the other person doesn’t know your communication style and preferences, they could read meaning into this that wasn’t there.
To be clear: this doesn’t mean that you did anything wrong or that you need to devote more effort to how you text; it’s just an example of how different communication styles can bump up against one another and impact things in the early days.
(This, incidentally, is why I like asking people what their communication style is; I find it helps set expectations and cuts down on misunderstandings.)
Now, I bring all this up because I think it sets the stage for what happens next. You had a great first date that exceeded expectations and you had already made plans for a second. All good signs for everyone involved. And then… there’s a last-minute change. She has to cancel an in-person hang out because of an edo flare, but suggests moving to a Discord call instead. You counter-propose meeting up the next week.
This, I think, is where things come to a head. I suspect that if you had just said “wow, that sucks, I’m sorry you’re dealing with a flare up. Yeah, let’s hang out on a video call if you’re up to it”, things would be different. That’s not a guarantee that things would necessarily have worked out and you’d be on your way to happily-ever-after, but it wouldn’t have ended the way things did.
But that’s not what happened; you offered to meet up another time and seemed – at least from my perspective – to be less enthused about a call instead. Now as I said at the jump, I feel like there’s information missing about what you all ultimately decided on, which could change the context of everything that follows, but I think that the combination of your seeming less enthused by a call and preferring to meet up in person another time lead to her deciding that maybe this wasn’t something she wanted to pursue further.
I don’t think it was any one issue, so much as a gradual accumulation of data points that ultimately lead to “yeah, this is probably not going to work for me.” If you’ve already had some potential conflicts in communication style in a relationship where most of your connection would be through texts and chats, other obstacles coming up are going to further make someone think that maybe this isn’t the right relationship for them.
Your offering to reschedule meeting in person may have been from a place of good intentions on your part – you didn’t want her to put herself out if she were in pain – but I think it’s what lead to things seeming to dwindle away. The problem here is that you were responding to your assumptions about what would work for her, rather than listening to what she was saying. She’s a better gauge of what she could handle or enjoy while having that fibro flare-up; if she were still cool with a video date instead, then I would be willing to err on the side of her knowing her limits.
Similarly, if you had checked in the next day and asked how she was feeling, I think you might’ve had an opportunity to turn things around. But I think that mutual radio silence is what sealed it for good. You didn’t check in with her and I think that silence was read as a message.
But again, this was less one big mistake and more just a series of signs that the two of you were not likely to be a good match – not with circumstances being what they were. If the two of you lived in the same city, then it might have been different. But with an hour’s drive between you, I think there was just enough friction for her to change her mind.
While there were a couple things that I think you could’ve done differently, I suspect that, at the end of the day this was just a matter of enough issues not lining up to make this work. While there’re a few lessons to take away – compatible communication styles are important, trust the other person to know their limits, don’t assume facts that aren’t in evidence especially if you know you struggle with social or non-verbal cues – this isn’t something that should ruin your confidence. This wasn’t your fault as much as it was a matter of circumstances making it more of a struggle than she felt it would be worth.
Sometimes things aren’t going to work out, no matter what folks do; you can delay the inevitable but not for long. You certainly can’t prevent it. The only thing you can do is dust yourself off, learn what you can from it and apply those lessons for the next time.
Good luck.
Hello DNL, hope you are doing well.
I am gonna go off the bat as the Americans say and come up front with saying I have no relationship experience. I am a 25 year-old agender man. I have autism and my physical disability effects my mobility (clubbed feet, 2 surgeries). I put this stuff up front just so we have some extra context with my problem.
I worry that I might come off as too boring (and maybe, at times, too strange) to get into an intimate relationship. Now, keep in mind, I have interest and hobbies, but I fear they are… Well I’m not sure, I don’t want to be another nerd complains about his nerdiness letter, so I think its best I explain in detail;
1st – The Occult and Ceremonial Magic. I have adored the esoteric since my youth, I own at least a hundred books on the subject and have indeed found others who share my interests in person. However, these people tend to be much older and are already in relationships. My worry is not the strangeness or outlandishness of the interest, but because, in my heart, it takes up the same sensitive area that the topic of religion is, so I understand it is something that one does not bring up when meeting someone. I don’t want to keep it secret, but I don’t want to “advertise” it necessarily. I think I can be open up to a point but I think people might underestimate just how into this I am.
2nd – TRPGs. I got into DND about 5 years ago and branched out into other systems like WOD and am now a small-time professional GM and have managed to make some money from it. Now I know what you’re thinking, “This is great!” I think so to, but I also think “That’s not enough, I need to be more exciting!” This is both my hobby and my job, but I feel incomplete and quite boring if that’s the only “casual” thing I can share with others.
3rd – Gardening. I am a certified horticulturalist, and did a brief stint working as a freelance gardener and working at a garden centre for a few years. I loved the job but my disability got the better of me and I had to quit due to excruciating pain. I’d want to get back into gardening soon, and I probably will, but my disability will limit me on how much I can do. The fire for gardening isn’t as strong as it used to be, but that may change. Maybe if that returns, I can feel “interesting” but I’m not sure.
With all of the above there is something within me that says I’m not interesting or that I’m boring and that a partner would eventually lose interest in me. I think this stems from abandonment issues I have with my father (why didn’t you say this in the first place!? Give me a moment, I shall explain.) I have done therapy, and I think I’ve done as much mental work as I can work for the time being (money and time is kinda tight for returning, time will tell.)
If the response is to just talk to people and touch grass, I can get that, but I’d like at least a word of advice on the mindset I am to maintain going forward. To get a little poetic, I feel like there’s this light or flame inside people, that spontaneity or charm that draws them together, and that I might lack that. Of course, its all in my head, but my head doesn’t listen.
Too Much, Too Little
I think the issue here is that you don’t give yourself enough credit, TMTL. You’re making a lot of assumptions about how other people “must” feel without actually giving them a chance.
Part of the problem is the classic “you don’t trust in your own value as a person”. The idea that you’re not “exciting enough” is something of a tell – it’s the feeling that if you’re not entertaining enough, people couldn’t possibly like you. While entertainment value is something that people look for, that’s not the same thing as “you must be a dancing monkey in order to get and keep my attention”; that’s “how much do I enjoy myself with them”, which is a different issue entirely.
Another part is that you’re busy looking down on yourself for the things that make you unique and different and assuming that they make you boring or dull. The idea, for example, that your being a professional DM isn’t interesting “enough” for people is an example. First, you don’t give enough credit for how interesting or impressive this can be – the existence of celebrity Dungeon Masters and Game Masters like Matt Mercer, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Griffin McElroy, Abriya Iyengar and Deborah Anne Wohl bely that. It also ignores the massive surge in popularity and cultural relevance that D&D has had in the last decade. Being able to play TTRPGs professionally is no small thing and something that the right people would find fascinating.
Much of being interesting to others is in how you sell it. If I tell you that I’m a writer and occasional podcaster, folks will have certain ideas about who I am. If I tell you that I write a syndicated advice column, that I’ve written for multiple big-name blogs as well as national newspapers, teach people how to navigate dating modern dating, published several books and have guested on very well-known podcasts, that creates a hell of a lot more interest; it leaves a number of open loops and hooks for questions and stories, while conveying the same information. While both examples may be factually correct, the former is about as exciting as dry toast. The latter conveys flavor and texture and invites further inquiry.
You may feel that you’re not “interesting”, but part of that is in the way that you lay these things out as though they’re inherently boring. But if you were to say “I was a certified horticulturalist up until my body betrayed me and I was forced to retire, so now I’ve become a professional Dungeon Master and I’m also a ritual magician with one of the largest occult librarires in the country”, suddenly there is a lot to pique people’s curiosity. Any one of these things is potentially of interest to folks. Combining them together makes people wonder about how it all came about and how they fit together.
(And if you think that isn’t going to intrigue folks, consider that two of the most influential writers of the 21st century are both musicians, authors and practitioners of WILDLY different styles of ceremonial magick, and how they’re both functionally rock stars in their own right.)
But I think your biggest hang up is that you also hold back information that other people might actually want to know – especially people who are right for you. If you want to find the folks who are going to pick up what you’re putting down, you need to make sure that they can find you too. If esoterica and the occult are important parts of who you are then people you’re going to want to date are people who can vibe with that. They’re not going to know that about you unless you’re willing to share that information with them. Being wishy-washy or downplaying it conveys the opposite of what you want; it carries a very different impression, especially to people who would take it seriously.
And to be clear, there’re more people, including people your age, who would want to know this about you. The Venn diagram of pagan and other non-Judeo-Christian religions, paranormal enthusiasts, goth culture, Renaissance Faire fans, BDSM and other fringe communities may not be a full circle, but it ain’t far off either. Shit, as I write this, there have been two paranormal or occult conventions and street faires this month. And those are just the ones I know about.
But as I said, none of this is going to matter if you don’t actually believe in your own value. The point of being interesting isn’t to make up for your flaws or lack of value; it’s that you’re living a life that is interesting because you’re you. You’re not compensating for some lack, you’re being your authentic self and letting others see how unique and different you are. If you can’t see your own worth and feel like you have to perform to get other people to care, then all anyone will ever care about is the performance, and you will never actually feel secure in the relationship.
You need to learn to see your own value and to trust in it – to recognize that people will either vibe with you or not, and that’s their loss if they don’t. Otherwise, what you’re doing is ultimately communicating that you don’t think you’re worth anyone’s time, so why should they think you are?
I think you would do well to get back to therapy and focus on learning to love and appreciate yourself, rather than feeling like you need some external source to be “worthy” of other people’s interest. Until you do, you’ll always be worried that the instant you stop tap-dancing, everyone will just drift away.
Good luck.
