The Valentine's entry

I try not to write about dating too much in these entries. It would cause me different kinds of problems. However, in honor of V-Day, I will tell a story here; a fable if you will - maybe it happened to someone I know, or me, or maybe....it's a conglomeration of two or three stories. But here it is.

Once there was a girl called Sally (names are made up). Sally met lots of different people in lots of different situations. After many years, she met a person who she thought was great. Sammy was kind, funny, had some common interests with her, and had some different interests that she'd really like to learn about and found interesting. His mannerisms were very endearing to her, too, even though some people might not 'get' them. He surprised her sometimes with the things he said or did, but in a good way. She had pretty much given up finding someone she liked so much and wanted to spend so much time with. And there he was. She thought about him a lot. In fact, she couldn't stop. He seemed interested in her, too, on the first few dates. Then he became impossible to reach, to get a few words out of. He just wasn't that interested in her, as it turned out, and she had to move on. He was kind about it, but he just wasn't interested enough.

Friends said, "Stop talking about him." They said, "If he doesn't like you, then he's a jerk." She knew they were trying to make her feel better. He wasn't a jerk. He just didn't like her, or at least, feel whatever she was feeling.

She'd been on the other end of it plenty of times, and was adult enough to know that sometimes for whatever reason, even if it seemed technically like it should work out, it just didn't. Being on the other side could be frustrating too, meeting someone great and not having any initial interest in being more than their friend. It was sometimes hard to know why, but they didn't have the right mix of whatever. Hurting someone, or letting them down easy, or telling them you just want to be friends for now to see what might develop, was no more fun than being let down. And the longer you were out there dating, the more you had to do one or the other.

Still, she couldn't stop thinking about Sammy, couldn't stop asking herself what she should have done differently. "Move on," friends said. "You're not really supposed to like someone that much, anyway. Love is a myth. It's something in Hollywood. Stop being picky. You must have really strict standards or something. I know of a few guys who like you. Date them."

There WERE some guys who liked Sally, so she decided her friends were right. Her feelings were silly, weren't they? Wasn't it nice when people were nice to her? And she deserved to be treated nicely. Why not just hang out with other people? Feelings didn't have to be mutual. Love was a myth. Her friends told her so.

So she tried. She spent more time with people who liked her a lot, which is always good to try to do anyway. She went on third and fourth dates with them. It is important to spend time with people who really like you; it helps give them a chance to really know you. But as much as she tried, she didn't feel 1/100th of the way she felt when she was with Sammy.

One day she asked herself a question.

Was anyone saying the following to Sammy?:

"Sammy, you're not really supposed to like someone that much. Love is a myth. It's something in Hollywood. Stop being picky. I know that Sally really really likes you. Date her."

She couldn't imagine it!

Did people say things like that to men? Or just women?

Then she realized that of course she should give people a chance, but that she had the right to have strong feelings for someone she was dating. She had the same right that Sammy had. She liked Sammy for valid reasons, not superficial ones. Besides, no one, it seemed, was telling men to date women they weren't attracted to just because the women liked them. Maybe Sammy should have been told to take more time with Sally, too.

Moral of the story: It's tough to be on either side of unrequited affection. It really is. And you SHOULD take your time with people. How many times have you gone on to have feelings for someone only after getting to know them well? It happens. But you still do have a right to feel something for someone, in the end. Feelings ARE valid whether you're male or female. And they're also valid whether love is requited or not. You should never tell anyone else that their feelings aren't valid (this is a theme in Starting from Square Two, by the way - not to be self referential about it. But it is. Hey, this is my blog. I can promote my new book.)

People have told me that dating is supposed to be fun. It's fun if the feelings are mutual, at least a little bit. But when they're mutual, then theoretically, you'd stop dating other people. So the end result of dating is not to date anymore.

These are the possiblities of a date:

1. Someone likes you. You like them. You see each other more to find out if there's anything there. May result in friendship or more dating each other, or a relationship.
2. Mutual disinterest. Okay, easy enough.
3. One-sided interest. This is hard because someone has to get hurt or do the hurting. Unless it's only tepid interest and doesn't really matter.

I don't think dating is easy. That's why women are writing all of these books about it (cha -ching!$$) Ha ha. Seriously, maybe it's not as horrible as I made it sound.

It's nice when you can get to know someone in a non-pressure environment like school or work, outside of it having to be a "date" where you feel like you have to make a faster judgment. But once that time in your life ends, it gets harder.

There's too much pressure to have to find someone by a certain age, or a certain date. It'll happen when it happens. Which is not to say that you shouldn't put yourself out there - sometimes you have to do humiliating things to meet new people.

That's enough. Valentine's Day celebrates love, something that in one way or another all of us have, and as the dude says in Adaptation, loving someone or something is as important as being loved (but it is sometimes more heart-wrenching.) My main point in writing this is that for both men and women, your feelings are valid. You should broaden your horizons and look beyond the surface, too. Don't give up on anyone, or any method.

Revel in the fact that you can have these feelings, whether returned or not -- don't feel you have to deny them.

Have a GREAT Valentine's Day!!

(And PS, one of the dangers is having people who read this think that the stories are about them. If you are reading this and you think YOU are Sammy - Sammy is vague. Maybe you've been in a Sammy-like situation, maybe not. It shouldn't change the points of the story.)

My homepage and e-mail: www.carenlissner.com