#WTF: Kevin's Kephalonomancy is Kontagious

Geek Chic et Moi (Part III-2 - THE DARKEREST SIDE): KEVIN HERMAN AND THE BREASTLY SHALLOWS - THE (I PROMISE) FINAL BATTLE.

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet Kevin. I found him on craigslist, kinda like how I found that half eaten bag of pretzels, and last Friday's booty call. Casual encounters, FTW! He's hilarious, and smart ... and little elves dance in his footprints as he walks. For the record, I've made two of those facts up. </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's Kevin Herman

[Part I; Part II]
[continued from Part III-I]

I’m far from being a thundering ocean of self-confidence; if anything I’m more akin to a sippy-cup covered in errant chunks of infant vomit. Consistently ballsed up attempts at woo-age didn’t help that. The tendency to ‘settle’ seemed, then, to be the cornerstone of my real life dating strategy - one dictated far more by necessity than lax standards. But given how effortless it had been to grab the attention of some fucking badass chicks online and so *quickly* at that, a switch flipped and I found myself sitting with a shit eating grin on the opposite end of the spectrum, intoxicated with over-inflated confidence and likewise deluded about the extent of my ‘new found powers’  and thus the tool used to expedite and facilitate the dating process for young, busy folk became instead a search engine for ‘the one’ whose profile I was *sure* lurked just around the corner and that by golly, I had the strong jaw and verbal leverage to win her over.

By this mentality, I’d be remiss to go for these girls (who in real life were still *way* above my normal threshold) and settle for anything less than “perfection.” Obviously, this was a very wrong and wholly unjustified attitude to have, what with chasing the proverbial dragon - but there were more subtle processes in play that contributed to the stagnation and ultimate abandonment of my online adventure.

Ironically, several of the same classes mentioned in part III-1 also cited a watershed study published in 2000 (commonly referred to as ‘The Jam Study’) by a management professor at Columbia and a psychology professor at Stanford that basically confirmed the commonsense view that ‘less is more’ with regards to choice. There were a lot of different trials and conditions, but the biggie that most people tout as “the point” is that when presented with either 6 jams or 24 jams to purchase from, people in the 24-jam condition were *ten times less likely* to make a decision at all, and even if they did *they were consistently less satisfied with their choice than those who’d picked from the 6 jams*. Furthermore, the indecision/dissatisfaction only continued to get worse with each additional choice tacked on.

So yeah - imagine a dating site like OKC as...I mean, really the most literal manifestation of ‘the dating market.’ Also assume you have plenty of what we’ll call “buying power” or “social currency” or something, and attractive prospects are the analogous jam. Aaaand in this particular type of market, you’re not dealing with 6, or 24, or even 30 jams --- there are potentially *hundreds* of jams sitting on the shelves, with new jams “signing up” and blinking into existence at a jarring (ZIIIIING!) rate.

Unless you have Jen’s brass-balled resolve and übermenschlich energy to systematically go through and actually give a staggeringly high proportion a shot, there’s a *really good* chance your decisional abilities will just freeze and you’ll pick none. And even should you finally settle on one of a bajillion sexy jams to go on a date or two with, again, there’s a good chance that the “what if?” aspect of every other prospective jam may knock your sense of satisfaction down a few pegs, and in turn the lower satisfaction may be mistaken for *confirmation* that someone “more satisfying” is out there among the other choices, causing you to abandon your current pursuit --- it’s a ridiculously vicious, self-sabotaging cycle.

I mentioned before that no one “jumped out at me” or gave me the impetus to move forward with them, and there are a few theories that make me go lightbulb about why. One that I found really intriguing was put forth about experiential vs. search goods to explain why online dating can be unsatisfying for many (I’m not going to explain it, just check out the link/video if you’re physically dying of curiosity) - but there’s a more recent study that I think handily deals with that disappointing lack of romantic ‘oomph’ in both my online excursion as well as my dating life at large. And it all boils down to expectations.

Whenever I’m put in a situation where the ‘pursuit of romance’ is the express and active purpose - like a blind date, first date, or accosting someone online for a date - said ‘pursuit’ seems to fizzle out after a few dates assuming it doesn’t just hit a brick wall on Date #1. The few times something *has* evolved into an actual relationship has been totally accidental and with no initial romantic intentions; relationships that happened only in the absence of thought about relationships. This sounds familiar, I’m sure - people fucking love the cliché that you’ll find love when you’re least expecting it - and oddly, there seems to actually be some scientific weight behind it.

It’s pretty simple: if you do something with the lofty expectation and purpose that it *will* foster happiness (through love for instance), not feeling immediately as elated or awesome as you’d hoped can almost always make you feel *even worse* than before. Basically, dating prodigious numbers of people with manic gusto is totally kosher as long as you’re saying ‘que sera, sera’ (and congrats - you are far more courageous and fun-loving than I); but if you’re in a place where you’re *seriously banking on it* bringing you love and consequently happiness - there’s a decent chance you’ve already cognitively fucked yourself out of that being the outcome. (← Ahhh, this sounds much more my speed.)

Strongly anticipating happiness from something is ironically one of the best ways to prevent it from providing just that. Happiness does its own autonomous thang, yo; last time I was all, “Hey Happiness, I’m gonna do this thing and you’re gonna meet me right after, kay?” it just walked up, put a cigarette out on my forehead, and walked away.

In the end, after three weeks of obsessively OKCing and becoming more and more single minded about what I wanted to get out of it (aka - a soul-mate wife co-captain harbinger of happiness person) I shut the whole operation down. For a lot of people, a dating site like OKC can only help, but I realized that for someone like me, it just hyperfocused my relationship-sabotaging neuroses into a single outlet. Since project’s end I’ve just kind of drifted along, dabbling casually in things of a romantic nature without me saddling them with what I now know are self-destructive emphases and expectations. Just having fun, enjoying myself, and feeling a billion times better and more comfortable. If something comes about, so be it, and if not - *shrugs* - meh. Knowing what I know now, maybe I’ll even give OKCupid another shot in the future and do it “right.”

Or maybe I’ll just succumb to cholesterol from my latest phase of foodie-adventures revolving around the best burgers I can find in Los Angeles and die in a greasy ball of delicious glory.

Either way, in the words of Hank Moody:

“The sun is chirping, the birds are shining, the water's wet. Life is good, sweetheart. Life is good.”

#nerdsunite

For more of Kevin’s politically incorrect verbal incontinence, follow him on Twitter or check out his like, completely legitimate astrological operation at Fiehard.