I feel like a princess.
I am tremendously flattered and a trifle overwhelmed by all the attention from Marginal Revolution. Two weeks ago it was just the ten of us around here. Now there are thousands of strangers thinking about why I don't get any. It's like a dream come true.
I am tempted to respond to the comments, but I want to see where they go without any direction from me. I've heard lots of good insights already. Thanks, all!
(Aren't any of you fellas local? Davis ARE, step up.)
I am tempted to respond to the comments, but I want to see where they go without any direction from me. I've heard lots of good insights already. Thanks, all!
(Aren't any of you fellas local? Davis ARE, step up.)
posted by Megan at 10:53 AM
9 Comments:
megan,
great post. This really hit home because I am having the same damn problem. I'm a decent-looking guy in Austin(supposedly the dating capitol of the U.S. To me, it seems a desert) with a good job, coming out of a couple long-term relationships, and I never knew what it was to be a young, nerdy, single, professional until now.
All of my female friends wonder why I have issues in finding a date; that is, they wonder until they see me talking to a woman I dig for the first time. Then the wonderment ceases and the advice begins. So I tried to change my tactics (based on their advice) to more traditional methods of flirting and, lo, that did not work out AT ALL! It was actually more than a little embarrassing, and I finally just started being myself again. Don't get me wrong, I still ain't seeing any action, but I do feel a lot better being the nerd that I am, and hey, being myself has worked in the past, and the law of averages will eventually catch up. I hope.
Anyway, I guarantee you that if you used your normal approach on a guy like me (we do exist! And nerds make wonderful wonderful lovers.) it would be a slam-dunk. Be yourself! You sound fantastic, and eventually you'll make some man out there incredibly happy.
Tony
Pity we didn't meet before I met my wife!
You seem, on the face of it, to be the ideal date person for the guy like myself who channels his inner nerd (my day job is in finance, but by night I am a fearless reader of science fiction, and as my wife can attest to, I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of mid 20th century armoured fighting vehicles).
I suspect men have simply lost their sense of romance. It's like cooking, a key skill that they are no longer taught. It got easy (sort of), so the tricks of seduction got lost.
I'm the guy who said on MR
Megan looks cute in her pic, but writes HOT. (The "not Megan McArdle").
Posted by: caveatBettor at Mar 23, 2006 2:52:23 PM
And thanks for the link to Fresh Pepper. Truly hilarious, in a melancholic way.
Like Fresh, I happen to be a new york city denizen, except I'm married to a hot wife and have two beautiful daughters. Like you, I am an engineer by education and early trade, although working for a bank kind of muddles things up ...
No fair, I saw you first!!
Local?!? Who the hell willingly lives in Sacramento :) I spent the first 17 years of my life trying to *escape* that part of California....
So please... how long has the drought been?
There was a period where I hadn't dated for 8 months, and a young female friend of mine once said to her other friends "and he hasn't dated in a long time!" But to me it didn't seem long at all.
For her, she'd be the attractive type that as soon as she left one boyfriend would find another guy waiting in the wings in just a couple of weeks time, if not sooner.
She recently broke up with someone and *didn't* start something else. She says it's been an amazing experience, because she never really got to know herself being single.
Without knowing how long your drought has been, my inclination is to suggest making the most of your time and seeing it as a period of self discovery. Once you're ready, a quality man, a standard deviation above the rest, will come.
PS (that's me at Post #2).
Have you read Joan Didion's book (not the one about her husband and daughter dying, the one before that) about her family? They were early pioneers who settled in the Sacremento region.
There-- it's titled 'Where I was From' (2003).
PPS generally men are intimidated by smart women. And all of the stuff about the fine art of seduction (being alluring but not necessarily available) may *sound* like B-S, but it does work. Plus the wide eyed look that says 'tell me how smart you are' and let them talk-- Deborah Tannen ain't wrong. Women talk to each other, men talk *at* each other about themselves.
You may have been spending too much time around (male) engineers in their natural habitat, which has caused you to lose some of the 'edge'.
Hi
I read your post about wanting to work solving complex stakeholder problems. Couldn't find it again so I am going to go OT here.
You probably have too much education and never want to see the sight of a classroom again, but there is quite a cool blogger
www.markarkleiman.com
who posts about public policy and he teaches at the UCLA school.
2 groups of people to my mind are involved in the area you describe: public officials and lawyers. Either might find a career path for you into that area:
www.sppsr.ucla.edu/main2.cfm?d=xr&f=news.cfm&s=school&news_id=108
My apologies if the thought is just an irritant, but something in that post said you needed, maybe, to make some move towards it.
J.
(lbsgrad2003 (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) uk)
Megan,
An MR-reader/convert, just wanted to say the following:
If you are regularly thinking and saying things similar to those that you write (particularly those akin to your little comment on the 'absurd ideas' post at MR), then your drought is inexplicable, the result of unobservables heretofore unexplored by the traditional techniques of matchmakers.
Good luck; happy hunting,
hamilton
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