Fun with #OkCupid: A dude in the OKC corral (sextistics - studying online dating)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Kenny. We e-met through OKC and although we've never gone out on a date, he was inspired by my documentation of my online search for love, that he wanted to come on board and provide male insight into OKC. So here you go ... and now we're here ... HIT IT KENNY!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @casetines

You are twice as likely to have sex on your first date with someone you met online than you are to eventually marry them. However, if the sample size in your experiment is just me, then you are just as likely to have sex with me on our first date than for us to marry. (I’m not married.)

This week on my blog I discussed my ever-growing doubts about the successfulness of Online Dating. As a guy that mainly writes about sports, I am very much in love with statistics. Perhaps your father was a sports fan that you would classify as a jock, but many of the sports fans of 2012 are uber nerds. Like… the nerdiest guys in America. We obsess over numbers, calculations, formulas, and finding out how much of sports is tangible in comparison to what we cannot explain.

That’s why when I asked myself the question “Does Online Dating really work?” I wanted to find out some of the numbers that research has found out about meeting your mate on the internet, while you’re browsing OkCupid between your Facebook and pornography YouTube sessions. What I found out was both interesting and concerning.

I wrote a couple of thousands of words about it earlier this week, but I’m going to just highlight some of the key stats that I came across in my research on TNTML because I like Jen Friel and I don’t want to take up a whole shitload of Jen Friel’s landscape on TNTML today. She’s a really nice lady. If you ever see her in the street, tell her that Kenny sent you. If enough people do that, she’ll think that her life might be like the Truman Show or something and that I’m running the show.

Anyways, here are some of the interesting stats I came across. The numbers that make me wonder if meeting a girl online is any better than meeting her behind a Wendy’s.

The People That Use The Internet To Date Have Either High Or Low Self-Esteem, But Different Views On Love

One interesting find was that the typical online dater either has a high self-esteem and believes in romantic relationships OR has a low self-esteem and does not. I can’t say that I was shocked to find that out, but it does help make sense of many of the dates I’ve gone on.

Basically, it’s saying that if someone is using the internet to date it’s because they either know that they’ve got “it” and they’re ready to flaunt “it” and want to find love OR they don’t put much value in themselves but aren’t afraid to find someone to have fun with on the internet because love was made up by the Hallmark Corporation. This find helps me look back at the different girls I’ve dated and see them in a slightly different light.

The ones that were interested in fooling around clearly had no intention of taking it further, even though I sort of did want to do that. I do believe in love (DAMN YOU HALLMARK FOR BRAINWASHING ME!) and I have a decent amount of self-respect. I do think that I am somebody worth dating. Unfortunately, my solo dates can only satisfy for so long. I need to find that other half. What I was failing at before was recognizing which girls were looking for something long-term and which ones just wanted to find some dudes to get it on, such as Donkey Kong.

I won’t be ignoring that anymore in the future, and I think it’s going to really help me better understand people in that first meeting and beyond. Additionally in that study, it was found that people who use Online Dating are more sociable, while introverts and people that are sad but believe in love are less likely to use a .com to find a rom.

This is why I love statistics and research so much. Use other people’s experiences, as well as your own, to better yourself. Experiences are basically public domain.

Meeting Your Spouse Online Isn’t That Much More Likely Than Meeting Them At Dave & Busters

Well, not D&B’s specifically, but let me break it down.

Remember those Match.com ads that were kind of shocking at the time: “1 in 5 Couples Have Met Online.”? It wasn’t that long ago that people were very shy about discussing their online dating experiences. It was embarrassing for most and people didn’t want to admit it, even to friends.

Well, we’ve come a long way since then and those Match.com ads actually sort of “broke the cycle” and people didn’t feel alone anymore. It’s always nice to know that you’ve got strength in numbers and I could have never imagined writing about my own Online Dating experiences on different blogs but here we are.

I took a closer look at the study that came up with that “1 in 5” number because I wanted to get a better grasp on how they defined it. Here’s what I found that the study actually said: “1 in 5 – Number of current singles that have dated someone they met on an online dating site.”

Uhh.. well that’s a bit different than how I remembered it. Still, 1 in 5, that’s not SO bad right? What I found was that the actual percentage for finding your spouse on the internet was 17%. Do you know what the % was for finding your spouse at a bar, club, or social event? 11%.

Pretty much everyone is in agreement that “you don’t mean your spouse at a bar,” right? I mean, EVERYONE says that. Yet, the ability to find your husband or wife at a bar or club isn’t that much lower than finding them on Match.com or OkCupid. Of course, this study is two years old and Online Dating has grown a lot since then (Online Dating sites in the US are now a billion dollar/year business) which means we need more updated studies, but what I really want to know is if people are just using this service to bone and not to meet a serious and significant other.

Because while 17% of married couples might have met online, 33% of people have admitted to sleeping with a person on their first online date. It makes me think that a vast majority of people on these sites are just there to get a p inside of a v.

That’s neat and all, but I’m done with my abc’s and I’m ready to find a gf, u c?

I’m glad that I found these studies because I think they’ll help me better understand what I am looking for and how to find it. OkCupid’s blog also has a lot of very interesting stats and information that will help you do the same. To see the rest of my findings, just go check it on my blog if you like. And remember to tell Friel that Kenny sent you.

#thatisall

Want some more from Kenny? Follow him on twitter over yonder!

and don't forget to check out his blog!! <----- good shit!

Fun with #OkCupid: A dude in the OKC corral (The Apocalypse Opener)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Kenny. We e-met through OKC and although we've never gone out on a date, he was inspired by my documentation of my online search for love, that he wanted to come on board and provide male insight into OKC. So here you go ... and now we're here ... HIT IT KENNY!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @casetines

Sex.

There, now that I’ve gotten your attention….  Sexual Intercourse.  It’s something that we think about on a daily basis, the dominating thought of many people.  How dominating?  Well, there are different opinions on the matter of how often men and women think about sex.

Some people believe that men think about sex “every seven seconds” but that appears to be a misnomer.  The number ranges anywhere from once per day to 19 times per day to “every 52 seconds” but the general message here is this: Men think about sex a lot.  They think about it more often than women.  Men and women’s different hormones are the root cause of the differences in how each gender thinks about sex and how often.  But women still do think about sex, perhaps anywhere from 1-10 times per day, if not more.

Of course, each person is different but we can speak in generalities and ignore the extreme outliers of the hypersexual women and the women that are not interested in sex, like the ones that I always seem to find.

On my blog I recently asked the question “Ladies, What If A Guy Just Straight-Up Asked You For Sex?”  I have always been fascinated by the differences in how men and women think about sex and as I have gotten older I have learned that we are not as different as I thought.  However, the two sexes still have notable differences.  Ask a group of men that same question and you will obviously get a much higher percentage of answers that will result in sex.  Women are much more turned on by mental stimulation than visual stimulation.  Men are turned on by seeing two over-sized cantaloupes resting on top of a banana. 

 Still, that doesn’t mean that women don’t think about sex or that you can’t catch a woman in the right environment at the right time.  From writing that article, I was led to a “pickup method” known as The Apocalypse Opener.  I don’t use any tricks to pick up women.  I don’t think that I want to start.  However, I’ll be damned if it’s not interesting or that I wouldn’t use The Apocalypse Opener just to see what the hell would happen.  I love sociology and seeing how people interact with one another under different circumstances, and I can honestly say that I would love to see this method put into action.  How does it work?

It’s pretty simple.

Man: Hey, how’s it going?

Woman: Pretty good.

Man: What are you doing tonight?

Woman: I don’t know.

Man: Do you want to come home with me tonight?

Woman:  (Stunned)

And that’s the whole idea of The Apocalypse Opener.  You just ask a woman if she wants to come home with you.  Tonight.  Before you’ve gotten to know each other.  Is it smart?  Here are the Pros and Cons as I see it.

PROS

• It’s pretty damn ballsy.  Women admire confidence and if this line is delivered without a hint of trepidation, then it’s pretty confident to just go up to a woman and ask her to sleep with you right off of the bat.
• It’s honest.  If you are only talking to a woman because you want to sleep with her but then feign interest in The Cold War Kids for 45 minutes, you’re just being a bullshitter.  The Apocalypse Opener is at least honest.
• It’s different.  Women get hit on all the time in bars.  Being different is almost never a bad thing and now you’ve got her full attention.

CONS

• Almost every con I can think of is not so much in the method itself so much as it’s in the delivery.  Are you being creepy?  Are you half-assing it?  Are you laughing through it?  Are you coming off as cocky? 

It’s all in the delivery, as far as I can tell.  Is it creepy?  Well, that depends.  On paper, it does sound like it can be creepy.  Now imagine it being said by Ryan Gosling or Will Smith, both of whom have played womanizers in movies but been billed as “hunky leading men.”  If you are in control of the situation and say it straight-faced, then at least you’ve gotten her attention, which is always “Step 1.”

If she says no, then your only reply is “Okay.”  You’re not disheartened, because you were ready for that and because you’re not a desperate sex maniac.  (Unless you are a desperate sex maniac, in which case I’ll see you at the next meeting.)  However, The Apocalypse Opener isn’t necessarily finished when she says no.  In actuality, the idea isn’t that she drops her panties and comes home with you at that instant.  All you’ve done… is open.

Later on in the night, you’ll be that guy that said that crazy (but confident) thing to her.  She might tease and flirt with you later, “Hey, did that line work on any girls yet? LOL.”  It’s really sort of like asking a girl if you can buy her a drink, except it’s ballsy, honest, and different.  I don’t use pick-up lines and I’m looking for a relationship (which will NEVER be formed if it starts with The Apocalypse Opener) but this is concept is so damn interesting that I have to see it in action at least once in my life.    

Girls aren’t new.  Most of them already know that guys want to have sex with them.  Sometimes, they also want to have sex with guys.  Even if girls think about sex at a fraction of them amount that guys do, they still do think about sex.  Especially when it’s time for the Apocalypse.

#nerdsunite

click here to follow Kenny on twitter!

Fun with #OkCupid: A dude in the OKC corral (Social Media Tips for Drunkenness)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Kenny. We e-met through OKC and although we've never gone out on a date, he was inspired by my documentation of my online search for love, that he wanted to come on board and provide male insight into OKC. So here you go ... and now we're here ... HIT IT KENNY!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @casetines

I'll never remember the first time that I got blackout drunk.

But I do remember the situation surrounding that "lost time" and how I felt the next day.  It was shortly after high school graduation and some friends invited me over to a get-together at another friend's house.  I was late to said party and by this time many of my pals and confidants were already getting pretty tipsy and I felt the need to catch up.

At this age, I couldn't exactly BYOB so I had to make due with what I could find to drink at this girl's house and what I found was a bottle of Black Label whiskey.  The "catch up" involved taking as many shots in succession as I could until I started to feel drunk.  Mind you, I was not much of a drinker.

Until I turned 21, I actually hardly ever broke that law and not because I was on some moral high ground but because the situation just didn't arise that often.

So my inexperience led to improperly downing a lot of whiskey fast and furiously until before I knew it I was running around in the backyard with my shirt off, or so I am told.  That's the part that's really scary; when other people tell you what you did.   Holy shit, did I just erase some of my brain?  Am I permanently fucked up?  How could I possibly do things that I don't remember?!  This was about eight years before The Hangover, so I didn't really know what the hell was going on.

I sit here now, some 30+ blackouts later (oh geez, does that sound bad?) realizing that it ain't no thang.  Or maybe it is a thang.  I don't know, that's just college, man.  And post-college.  And yesterday.

Don't get me wrong.  It's not like I get that drunk as often now as I did in college.  Most of that debauchery came during my three years at Washington State University and there was a two year period after that when I was in a relationship and hardly ever drank.  I can say with total honesty and confidence that I am in control but then lose that control of my own volition every so often.  I would be lying if I said I hadn't blacked out in 2012.

Which brings us to the crux of this article and the point of how getting super wasted in 2012 is nothing like it was when I was 18.  When I drank all of that whiskey and ran around the backyard screaming at the top of my lungs, the only people that I could have shown that level of drunkenness to were my friends in that backyard.  That was it.  And they were drunk too, so who cares?

Ten years later we not only have Facebook and Twitter but we have 24-hour mobile access to those sites thanks to these damn cell phones.  "Oh Hi Mom, I'm FUCKED UP!"  On top of that, there was a situation not too long ago where I managed to get into my old Facebook messages and proceeded to message back every single one of those people with some random words of wisdom, including some people that I haven't talked to in months or years and aren't even friends with anymore.

This IS a problem.  Being blackout drunk I can handle.  Having that blackoutedness turn against me and sabotage my life?  No thanks.

Here are a few tips that I have learned along the way that I share with you now, that hopefully can save some of you from a morning full of regret:

Hide Your Phone, Hide Your Battery, and Hide Your Laptop Too Cause We Gettin' Blacked Out Up In Here!

A few weeks ago when I decided to test out Battleshots, I was still in the process of potentially dating three girls.  I had gone out on three first dates recently and I did not know where any of those would lead but I knew that they wouldn't lead anywhere if I got blacked out and started texting any of them.  (Or maybe it wouldn't matter in some cases, but I'd rather not and not say that we did either.)

Since I have no capacity for rational thinking when I'm three sheets to the wind, I decided to make a preemptive strike against myself and take away access to my phone for the entire night.  I didn't really see any need for it and figured that the only way I could avoid drunk texting was to get rid of the device.  I took my battery out of my phone and told my roommate to hide it from me.

Worked like a charm.  Mostly.

I didn't text anyone, obviously, but when it came time for me to be my drunken self I needed to get out that energy of communicating with other people.  I hopped on my laptop and started Facebooking.  I started IM'ing someone that I hardly know and hadn't spoken to in at least a year.  It's just not a good habit to get into.

But getting rid of phone access was still a great idea.  When I woke up the next day, I felt hardly any regret the next day.  The slight amount of Facebook regret was no big deal because like I said, I hardly know that person.  Still, we can still do social media damage when we're blacked out at the computer.

However, start to detach yourself from constant cell phone need.  I've left my cell at home before when I was going to go out drinking and I didn't regret it for a second.  We've spent such a tiny an insignificant time of our existence as humans with cell phones, yet have acted like they're impossible to live without.  They're not that important.  You think you're going to be in an emergency where you need your cell phone?  1. When's the last time that situation happened to you and 2. Just ask ANY OTHER PERSON ON THE STREET if you need to make an emergency phone call.

There will be plenty of times where you go out and you need your phone, like if you're meeting someone, etc.  There will also be plenty of times when you don't.  And when I don't, I strongly consider leaving the phone at home.  It's actually not that important.

Send Out A Warning

There have been times where I have been at the beginning stages of a drinking binge where I have just flat out said, "Look, I'm gonna be pretty wasted in an hour.  Forgive me now or forever hold your peace."  This can take place on Twitter, on Facebook, or in a text message.  It gives others a context of what's about to happen.

If I don't send out a warning I'll usually still be forgiven, but it doesn't hurt sometimes to just explain yourself beforehand rather than after the fact.

Just don't let your friends take advantage of you based on the fact that they know you're gonna be an easy target in a couple of hours for ridicule, embarrassment, and honesty.  I don't know if that's ever really happened to me, but I don't really know anything that's happened to me when I black out.  Unless you've visually left marks on my face in permanent marker, what happens in your blackout stage stays in your blackout stage.

Just Go With It And Fully Embrace Social Media + Drunkenness

My recent Drunk Live-Blogging Series is a perfect example of fully immersing yourself in the digital world when you're completely fucked up.  I've decided that if I was going to be at a computer or on my phone while I'm drunk, I wasn't going to half-ass it.  If anything, now at least I have a record of what happened.

Some amazing things can happen when you're drunk.  Mostly really stupid things, but sometimes you'll find a hidden gem inside yourself that you didn't know was there.  Take that gem and make it into a ring and wear it on your pinky finger.

By live-tweeting and live-blogging when I'm drunk, I've sent out the warning to the world while at the same time giving myself over completely to the fact that it's hard to escape it anyway.

We can't exactly change who we are so much as we can change how we adapt to our surroundings.  I'm going to continue drinking for awhile and the world is never going to stop changing just because I don't want to be drunk and on my phone or on the internet.  That's a fact of life that I can not change, that I have no effect on.  The most I can do is go off of the grid, delete my Facebook (considered it), get off of Twitter (can't do it), and stop making human connections and getting girl's phone numbers (easier done than said.  What are "girls"?)

No Matter What, Have No Regrets

The most efficient way to combat regret of what you do when you're drunk is to simply not regret it.  I admit to doing some stupid things when I've been drunk and I've actually killed several potential relationships by drunken phone calls and text messages.  That's lame, but I wasn't being a bad person or a malicious person, I'm just a very loving person when I'm drunk.

Maybe too loving.

But at the end of the day, I realized that we're all just living in a fish tank and the consequences of my actions as long as they aren't hurting anyone else, are simply insignificant.  This is the world that I live in.  This is the way that I have chose to live in it.  I can reduce my follies by following the above tips, but as long as I am young, dumb, and full of rum, I will probably be drunk on the internet and on my phone.  I have come to terms with that and I hope the rest of you have too.

It's not changing.

#thatisall

Want some more from Kenny? Follow him on twitter over yonder!

and don't forget to check out his blog!! <----- good shit!

Fun with #OkCupid: A dude in the OKC corral (Being Nice versus Being Good)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Kenny. We e-met through OKC and although we've never gone out on a date, he was inspired by my documentation of my online search for love, that he wanted to come on board and provide male insight into OKC. So here you go ... and now we're here ... HIT IT KENNY!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @casetines

Being Nice vs Being Good

I love that song that goes, “What a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty nice man.  HE’S A MIGHTY MIGHTY NICE MAN!”

You know the one I’m talking about?  How about that Tom Cruise movie, “A Few Nice Men”?  That was a good one.  Or the musical, “You’re a Nice Man, Charlie Brown”, you know that one?  No?!  What do you mean?  All classics!

Ooohhhhhh… that’s right.  My bad.  

I’ve recently been thinking a lot about the dating implications that come with confusing “good” and “nice.”  A girl that loves a guy will say that “he’s a good man” but a girl that wants to break up with a guy will say “you’re a really nice guy.”  The two words seem to imply similar characteristics, but when it comes down to it, they are really quite different.

A nice man will always tell you that you look beautiful.

A good man will tell you the truth.

A nice man will always get the door for you.

A good man will tell you that you fought for equality.

A nice man will always say “Yes”

A good man will want to make the right decision.

If you break up with a nice man, or tell him you’re uninterested, he’ll nod his head and say “Okay, okay, I understand. Thank you so much for the opportunity!”

A good man will tell you how he really feels.

Not all of these qualities are mutually exclusive.  You can have the qualities of a good man and a nice man.  (I guess that’s what people call “a keeper”) but I feel that most people will fall into either being good or being nice or just straight-up being a dick.

Reflections on my past reveal that I’ve got the dreaded “nice guy” label.

I hate hurting people’s feelings, perhaps a trait that was developed after years of having my own feelings hurt.  I want people to like me, so I make the extra effort to be nice to them and treat them with respect.  I want to get along with everyone and I fear the idea of people thinking bad things about me.  For all of these reasons, I am a nice person.  However, being nice is barely enough to get a girl interested, if not being a total turnoff.

Women may tell you that they like it when a guy is nice, but everything in my experience tells me that being nice is a sign of weakness to people.  I have to ask myself the same question that the poet Christina Aguilera once posed; “What a girl wants”?  Okay, maybe I turned into a question, but still I wish to find the answer to what it is that a girl wants.

Of course, I do not know the answer to this.  Perhaps nobody has an answer, because researchers (actual scientists!) have spent years trying to find the answer to that.  Sure, there are countless theories and every girl will tell you what they look for in a man, but if it was as simple as giving a list and saying “Be this,” then men would certainly know what women want and women would not hesitate to give the list out.

What’s more important is finding the innate desires.  Tapping into the psyche and figuring out exactly what subconscious desires women have when looking for a man. 

I’m going to spitball some.

Confidence

If we were playing the Fued, this would be the number one answer and Steve Harvey would tell you to go stand with your family.

Women want a man with confidence because if you don’t believe in yourself, then why should anybody else?  No girl wants to be with a guy that thinks he doesn’t deserve to be with that girl.  If you constantly exude the feeling of “you’re better than me” then eventually the other person will say “You’re right.”

Confidence isn’t about believing that your shit is an odorless mass of waste, it’s about believing in yourself as a valuable person.  As the D.E.N.N.I.S. system tells us, you have to Demonstrate Value.

You’re not exactly a car salesman of yourself, because a salesman wants to make a sale.  You don’t give a shit if the person buys or not, because you know that your product is so good that you’ll have a bidding war on your hands.  Nice guys aren’t associated with confidence because nice guys actually feel like they’re being phony about themselves, and not honest.

Women want confidence, and of this there is no doubt.

Safety, Security, Bravenessity

If you’ve ever tapped a girl on the shoulder at a bar and had her immediately flip you over and put you in a half nelson, then you know that girl’s aren’t weak.  The further that Americans separate from “traditional values” in this current era of dating and marriage, the more common it is for women and men to be independent.

Women can often fend for themselves.  Men have learned to clean up after themselves.  We aren’t really living in the same age that humans lived in for so long and we’ve learned to take care of ourselves.

Still, that doesn’t mean that it’s not nice to feel like you’ve got someone that’s going to punch a guy in the throat if he calls you the C-word.

I believe that women still want a guy that’s going to be a knight in shining armor, and they didn’t give nice guys armor.  They told them to go clean up the pig shit because they knew that the nice guy would say yes.

Honesty

You’d be surprised how far honesty goes, even if you’re being honest about something that’s bad.

Personally, I put honesty above all else when in any kind of a relationship whether it’s business, personal, or romantic.  You might have something you want to tell me, and that doesn’t mean that I want you to constantly tell me bad news (that’s where being a “good person” comes in) but when you lie to me you’ve broken the one bond that I that I thought I could always count on.

I think people sense that there’s something fishy about a person that’s too nice.  It always seemed like there was something untrustworthy about Martha Stewart.  A good person should tell you the truth, whereas a nice person will tell you want you want to hear.

Just Trying

For most of my life I never had much confidence in myself,  but when I lost 150 pounds I was an entirely new man and I found out a horrible truth in life: I should have been trying this whole time.

I would not approach a girl and just start talking to her when I was overweight.  “What could she see in me?” was the sad monologue that went on in my head.  But when I lost the weight and then hit the dating scene after my first long relationship, I found out that just saying “Hi” to a girl went an incredibly long way.

The thing is, I’ve always been an outgoing person.  When I was a sophomore in high school, I ran for class vice president and did a rap song in front of the entire school for my “vote for me” speech and I won in a landslide because people respond positively to that kind of confidence and complete lack of embarrassment.

I sung End of the Road in front of my entire company and won an iPad, and I am a terrible singer!  But all I knew was that I was going to have fun up there and people loved it.

When I have applied that same quality to meeting people (just people in general, not even necessarily girls) you’ll see an amazing response and the only foolishness you’ll feel is “Why didn’t I do this earlier?”  When I was fat, I thought that my looks would hold me back, but then when I got the confidence to “Just Try” I found that girls far more attractive than me were still responding positively to my efforts simply because I put in any effort at all.

I honestly don’t know if this has anything to do with being nice or being good, but often the nice guy in me would say “Oh, let her be by herself or have a good time with her friends” and not want to be a bother.  The reality is that everyone wants to feel wanted, desired, or just feel like other people know they exist.

And if you’re not going to try, at least try to try.

I’ve spent my whole life looking for answers about dating (when I was born, I asked the doctor what girls look for in a baby) and I’m still looking for more answers today.  But with each passing experience, I’ve gained more and more knowledge, and I’ve learned just as much from failures (if not more) as I have successes.

One of my failures perhaps is that I haven’t demonstrated to women that I am a good man, as well as being a nice man.  I don’t think I’ll ever not be nice.  That doesn’t mean that I can’t be: Confident, Brave, or Honest, because I know that I already am all of those things.  I just have to find a way to demonstrate my value to people of the opposite sex.

As long as I continue trying, then eventually I’ll find that girl that knows she wants a mighty, mighty nice man… who is also good.

#thatisall

Want some more from Kenny? Follow him on twitter over yonder!

and don't forget to check out his blog!! <----- good shit!

Fun with #OkCupid: A dude in the OKC corral (Third Date Syndrome)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Kenny. We e-met through OKC and although we've never gone out on a date, he was inspired by my documentation of my online search for love, that he wanted to come on board and provide male insight into OKC. So here you go ... and now we're here ... HIT IT KENNY!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @casetines

I really only entered the dating scene hardcore for the first time in 2009.  Life was so much simpler back then.  I was listening to 3OH!3.  Unbelievably, Community and Modern Family weren’t even shows yet, and I’m glad they are here now.  Neither was The Cleveland Show though, so you win some and you lose some.

I was late to the game, but jumped into the dating pool with both feet.  Fresh off of the first, only, and longest-lasting relationship of my life, I moved to L.A. to start fresh three years ago and I have learned a lot in that time.  Things such as:

-        Be honest when you want to end a relationship.  Don’t pussy-foot around the issue, it’s easier to just be straight-up with the person when you’re just not that interested.

-        Don’t eat a ton of food at a Super Bowl party and then go over to a girl’s house and eat dinner.

-        Sometimes girls will use you for sex, and it’s not a bad thing. 

-        Don’t get blackout drunk and then call a girl you kind of like but have only been hanging out with for two weeks.  You might never find out what you said.

-        Don’t get heavily attached emotionally to a girl that only wants to be friends unless you’re sure that you are cool with being friends.  Find out within the first couple of weeks where you really stand because she’s already made up her mind.

-        After being in a monogamous relationship for two years, you remember how much condoms really suck but I’ll be damned if they aren’t worth it as compared to the consequences of not using a condom and being unlucky just one time.

-        Match.com has zero benefits over OkCupid and yet it costs like $30 a month.

-        I have never tried PlentyOfFish, but I’ve heard the same thing about that site. 

-        The best way to a girl’s heart is by fixing YOU before you try fixing anyone else.  All the issues you’ve got in relationships or finding a significant other start from within and the more you focus on bettering yourself, the easier dating will be.

-        If a girl is on OkCupid Mobile while in your bed, take that as a sign that this is goodbye.

Yes, this is my life.  Never let it be said that I hold back on the follies of it.

Which perfectly leads me to “Third Date Syndrome,” the potential disease of my dating life currently.  I have been on many first dates in the last three years.  I’ve been on OkCupid for probably a little over a year, and most of the first dates have come during that time.  I’ve met a lot of interesting girls and some not-so-interesting girls, but with every date you should learn something.

Every person that you make a relationship with, no matter how small, should have some effect on your life. 

In a way, we are all marbles on a wobbly board, knocking each other back and forth and changing positions while not always being aware of how a marble on the other side of the board is going to eventually move us.  You might only go out on one date with “Diane” but isn’t it likely that the 30 minutes you spent with her has taught you something? 

Maybe it’s that you don’t like the name Diane.  Maybe it’s that you didn’t think that particular coffee shop was a good place for a date.  Maybe it’s that you actually want to go ahead with the operation and change your name to Diane.  It could be anything.  But most likely it’s the sex change thing.

Either way, everyone we come into contact with can teach us something.  Something about ourselves, the world, and how we interact in that world.  Over three years of dating, I’ve learned a lot but I’ve also learned that I still know very little.

I’ve gone a lot of first dates.  I’ve gone on a few second dates.  But I’ve been shit out of luck on third dates for awhile.  I got Third Date Syndrome.

There’s a lot of reasons a person can acquire this syndrome.  For one, I obviously haven’t met anyone that I’ve clicked with on that level.  Secondly, I haven’t been too pushy on any of the relationships that I have started.  The last girl that I went out with more than two times was gorgeous and in retrospect seemed like she would be an awesome companion.  Even after a few dates she was showing a lot of interest in me and doing nice things for me. 

It’s not that I didn’t like her.  It’s not that I wasn’t being nice to her too.  I was just being very passive about the whole situation.  Eventually, it got to the point where I just realized I hadn’t talked to her in like a week and then I texted her and got no response.  That was that.

To be honest, my personal heartbreaks from the past have made it hard for me to attach to anyone else.  It’s not that I wouldn’t like to, it’s more like I just forgot how.  Mentally, how do I get back to the point where I have a crush on a girl again?

As I write this, I have a second date with a girl tonight.  I really want it to go as well as the first date went or better.  I want it to go so well that tomorrow I tell myself “Damn son, I wanna see that gurl again. YOU KNOW?! NAH MEAN!!!!!” (My inner monologue is narrated by Method Man.)

But there’s no guarantee that I will think that.  There’s no guarantee that she’ll be thinking something like that.  There’s no guarantee that I’m cured of Third Date Syndrome, and even if I am, will I just find out that I now suffer from Fourth Date Syndrome?

Well, life and dating aren’t about guarantees.  If you spend your life putting stock into guarantees, you’ll find out that life is sorely lacking.  It’s about taking a leap of faith. 

I just need to learn how to do that again.  Just like I learned to turn my phone off and hide the battery before I start to drink heavily. 

#thatisall

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(For parts 2 and 3 on my story of losing 150 lbs, please check out my blog!)