Contingency Plans

I was going to call this the backup plan but that was a movie just recently and I think it wasn't very good, sooo, I had to rename it, plus it reminds me of Batman b/c he always has contingency plans. :)

So I'm making up for laziness from last week, hopefully this week's post will be more interesting.

Ok, there are a couple of ways to think about contingency plans. One is like in the movie the Backup Plan or like in My Best Friend's Wedding. Both of these ideas assume that you'll be single and alone forever unless you take drastic measures so in the first version, you adopt or conceive as a single person and build your family by birthing it and in the second version you make deals with a good generally opposite gendered friend to have a loveless marriage if you haven't married by a certain age. I think in My Best Friend's Wedding, they were 30 which now to me sounds like a ridiculously young age to "give up". But hey, you won't be alone anymore right?

I used to think these were perfectly reasonable plans, but now I think that it's for people who have really given up and probably didn't that hard in the first place...or maybe for people who are too picky and had great opportunities but squandered them. Anyhow, I'm not sure I approve of that method b/c again, the My Best Friend's Wedding scenario is like the non-boyfriend boyfriend situation in which case someone is probably going get hurt (like in the movie).

So now we get to what I am thinking of when I think contingency plans, which is specific to online dating. It may also explain why it seems you might be getting mixed signals from someone. So it's this, when you're online dating, you may be getting contacted by several individuals. Since we all have a limited amount of time, I think the most efficient thing to do it line them up. Pick who you think is the most likely to be compatible and start communicating with that person. When you get to the dating stage, if you've got people in your queue, now is the time to start slowing down the messages. Instead of responding everyday, start padding a couple of days in between responses. I think this is better than getting to the stage where you're supposed to be dating like 4 guys at once b/c that just sounds like too much work to me. If it doesn't seem like it's going to work out with the first person, move on to the next person that you've lined up.

This seems like an efficient way of dealing with multiple dating opportunities.
Why do it this way? B/c I think from the geeky guy standpoint, they are more likely to be competing with multiple other guys for the same girl. So although lining up guys seems cruel, you are helping them b/c you aren't completely ignoring them and you aren't leading them on by dating three or four guys at once. B/c say you date a guy and that guy really likes you but you're dating another guy also that you totally more. So that first nerd is going to feel hurt b/c he's going to ask you to go on more dates but you are trying to date the second guy more... yeah it's just messy and not a great idea.

Naysayers might say, well what if the next guy is better than the guy I'm dating now? Well there is a flaw to that line of logic...if you're happy now, how do you know the other guy is going to make you more happy? It could be better but could be and is probably more likely to be worse. I think a lot of girls have this problem, they're never satisfied...don't be that girl, b/c if you have a good thing, why spoil it. Now if your relationship actually sucks, then go ahead and move on, but if you're happy but it's not perfect, you need to understand that no relationship is perfect and happy is a good goal.

So yes, line em up. Actually that's the advice they give when sparring multiple people in martial arts, b/c it's easier to deal with one person at a time than two at once.

(hey sorry about the half post!!)