DATING AS YOU AGE: Why You Need to Do the Phone Call Test
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Dating as you get older can be like... Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash |
I'm engaged.
I didn't think it would ever happen.
I had given up on the idea of meeting someone because by my early forties, I had been perpetually - chronically - single all of my adult life.
Oh sure I'd dated; but nothing ever made it past the three-month mark. (Read: I had a string of situation-ships).
I'd had a few longer relationships during college (over a year; hardly "long" just "longer"), but that's only because I had zero criteria back then beyond "I think he's cute and he thinks I'm cute."
YOUNG DATING vs OLD(er) DATING
See, dating when you're young is easy.
When you're young you don't know yourself; you don't know what you want out of life, don't fully own and understand your values or have any specific goals, so almost anyone can be a viable candidate.
You're fluid and uncertain, they're fluid and uncertain, and you define yourselves by bouncing ideas off one another to see what sticks.
No criteria = very big pool to fish from.
As you get older, dating becomes more challenging because as you define yourself and what you want out of life, less people make the cut.
More criteria = much smaller pool to fish from.
And the older you get, the more criteria you amass, until you've got a long, long list.
The other thing that makes dating easy when you're young is that you're free and unencumbered.
But as you get older, you start to pile up your baggage; kids, exes, pets, debt, ageing parents, etc.
As you have your baggage, so too do other people have their baggage, and then you end up with not only a list of criteria for a potential partner, but a list of the baggage you are and aren't willing to put up with. (Kids? Ok. Still in diapers? Hard pass. Pets? Dogs yes, lizards no.)
Dating as you get older can be both tedious and disheartening; it can have you wondering if there are any normal people left, or if everyone is just plain weird.
Personally, I had sworn off dating in general - but specifically online dating - a few years ago after a particularly disastrous "situation-ship."
The thing with online dating is that the odds are good, but the goods are odd, know what I mean? Especially as you get older.
"And so tell me, why are you in the reject pile?" is basically the thought in the back of everyone's mind.
I got this question a lot "You seem great, why are you single" - aka "What's wrong with you?"
I used to tell potential suitors that it was due to the fact that I secretly enjoy kicking puppies. (I don't do this, would never do this, I love dogs, but sometimes when you get asked the question enough times with a suspicious enough undertone, it's very tempting to answer with "You're right, I'm a psychopath!")
The truth is, dating as you get older is a strange combination of hope and deep suspicion, with an added dash of weariness.
But date you must - specifically online - if you want to meet someone because for the most part, the days of making a meaningful connection at the grocery store or at a bar are long gone. (Has anyone ever made a meaningful connection at a bar? I mean of all the unlikely places...)
Meaning that after two-years of not dating, I found myself giving online dating another shot last year.
THE PHONE CALL TEST
One of my friends passed along this dating tip she'd gotten from her dating coach (she's bougie like that) which proved enormously helpful: before agreeing to go out on a date with someone, ask to have a phone call first.
You can learn an awful lot about someone through a short phone call.
Heck, you can learn a lot about a person just from how they handle the request.
The ask itself may weed-out non-serious suitors because some people want to meet in person ASAP.
They don't want to spend a lot of time messaging (which is totally fair in the fast-paced online dating world), but that also includes making time for a phone call. (I don't understand why it's more onerous to make time for a 15-minute call than an hours-long first date, but ok.)
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The coffee date: "What lie can I come up with to get out of this?" Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash |
If they agree, you can evaluate them through the coordination of the call. Is it easy to set up the call or video chat? (FYI - a lot dating apps now A/V options so you don't need to give your phone number to anyone.)
If I ask for a call, do you then say "Of course" and then suggest at least two times in the next handful of days when you would be available?
Or do you just say "Sure" and sit passively by waiting for me to give you time slots?
What I'm saying here: Is the process of setting up the phone call easy?
Because if it's not - if it's complicated for any reason - then that's your answer right there. If coordinating the logistics for a 15-minute phone call with another person is difficult, then nothing about dating this person is going to be easy. Save yourself the trouble and walk away.
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I'll call you any time sweet cheeks. Photo by Vigmund Djupang on Unsplash |
Then, there's the call itself.
People will always tell you who they are, you just have to listen.
I heard a quote once that said "the person doing all of the talking is the one being interviewed."
So remember to LISTEN.
Listen to what the other person is saying and not saying.
There was one guy who managed to mention the fact that - being newly divorced - he was excited about the amount of beautiful women he was getting to meet.
And he mentioned that about four or five times during a 20-minute call - "beautiful women" "attractive women" - and then I understood that by "meet" he meant "hook-up with."
None of that came out in our text exchange; in our online conversation he was funny and seemed like a normal, well-rounded guy.
But during our phone call, he sounded like a shallow player.
Based on that, I knew I didn't want to go out with him, so when he suggested we meet when he was free that week, I said I was busy on those days.
Then he texted me one day when his schedule unexpectedly cleared up and said "I'm free, let's meet in a few hours!" (He clearly hadn't listened when I said I was busy that day. Busy picking the lint out of my belly-button.)
I was deeply offended.
Any new person who expects you to be available at a moment's notice doesn't respect your time (and never will), and here this guy was treating me as though I was on-call like a rookie flight-attendant.
I'd learned my lesson with accepting last-minute dates and it sets a terrible precedent.
INFORMATIVE TANGENT: As a general rule, never accept same-day dates until either the three-month mark, or until you've established the fact that you're in an exclusive relationship. Otherwise, you'll find yourself constantly scrambling to re-arrange your schedule to fit the other person's.
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Is this guy for real? Colour me unimpressed. Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash |
Other Phone Calls
There was the guy who constantly interrupted. I literally couldn't finish a thought without having him cut me off.
It got so bad that I had to mention it during the call, and he said "I know, I've been told that before."
...and yet you've clearly done nothing to change that...
Then there was the guy who was a bit too old for me (he was 13-years my senior), but he insisted over text that he was "young at heart."
But when we spoke on the phone, he spent most of the call talking about his aches and pains and his latest doctor visit.
Listen, you may be "young at heart" but clearly your body is as old as you are, and I'm not interested in being your nurse.
Then there was the guy who barely spoke, and I had to maintain the entire - painful - conversation.
In the past - before implementing the phone call test - I would have gone on dates with these guys, only to waste my time and end-up disheartened and disgusted.
But the last time I went online, thanks to the phone call test, I never wasted more than 20-minutes.
My time is valuable, so you better be worth it.
That last time I went online, I met my now fiancé.
When I asked him for a call, he said sure, and suggested times when he could make that work.
On the agreed-upon day, he called me right on time and we had a really nice back-and forth exchange. He listened the right amount, asked questions, and offered responses in return. (The fact that this is not the norm shows the sad state of human communication.)
So I went out with him two days later.
And then again the following weekend.
And after that second date, it was obvious that he was a pretty special guy, so I decided to delete my profile.
When I logged in to do that, I saw that he had already taken his down.
Other guys in the past had made a big show about this gesture - "See how much I like you? I'm taking down my profile." But my guy was the way he always is: more about the doing than the talking.
We got engaged 6-months after meeting, and we're getting married in a few weeks.
And it all started because he was nice to talk to on the phone.
Before agreeing to go on a date with someone, have a phone call first.
Because honestly, you're getting too old for this shit and you have better things to do with your time.
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Don't even think about wasting my time. Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash |
You might be asking yourself "How does this topic relate to recovery from binge-eating?" What I found is that - for me - finding new ways of thinking about life and its challenges helped me to stop stress-eating, and has been a very big part of my ability to stop binge-eating.
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