Mike Alvear's Urge & Merge

Readers of my blog remember the Curly debacle. And Max. And Dinner Date guy who let me pay the bill. Uh, yeah. Each time, I came home from a great date and been all ooey gooey and blogged about it. And each time, I’ve been kicked in the teeth for it. Now, whether it was the blogging or the fact that the guy wasn’t all that interested to begin with, I’ll never know. I’ll never know because I gave them excuse to hightail out of my orbit before I got a chance to figure it out.

Here’s the deal. Men hate drama. They just hate it. Blogging = drama. Worse, they hate hearing every innermost thought that we have when those thoughts mention “marriage” or “Prince Charming” or “The One.” I once said I was smitten with a guy after a first date only to have our second date broken because he admitted to reading my blog and freaking out. Smitten. All I said was that I was smitten. He ran so fast he left skid marks on my blog.

You’d think, being that I’ve immersed myself in this little dating world and positioned myself as an “expert” (I’m not) that I’d know that blogging about a man and getting all gushy after a couple dates is the kiss of death. At first I refused to co-sign on to that idea. I felt I should be allowed to be me, be who I am, throw my intentions and desires out there. Yeah. Guess what? Not so much. While I might have known what my intentions were, the guy didn’t. He didn’t know “me” well enough yet. He only knew the “me,” the one dimensional “me” that appeared on my blog. We’d like to think that guys are willing to give us a second chance or get to know us better before forming their opinions. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. The phrase “second chance” isn’t really one men use very often. And the thing is, it’s not that they’re bad people for doing this. It’s that they’re just too easily spooked and have an allergic reaction to what they perceive as drama. Blogging = drama.

Many regular readers know my little, err.., “issue” with Blaire Allison aka “The Love Guru.” Listen, Blaire and I? we’re very similar in many ways.  I tend to be more of a fatalist where as she has her head in the clouds. But at the end of the day, we want the same thing – to fall in love.

I’ve been following Blaire’s Facebook page and Twitter Updates for a few weeks. One day, out of no where, she claims she had manifested her dream man and now had a boyfriend. Literally, it came out of the blue. One week she was single, the next she had “a man.” A week in to this relationship, she announces that she’s off to her 2nd job…”pleasing her man.” I’m not even Jewish and even I say…Oy. What are you doing???

A week after that, she writes a blog post saying that she’s been “saved” by her new man and the new relationship:

Two weeks ago Spirit connected me with a new man and a new relationship. The story of how the relationship came about and how it’s been progressing has been very magical… and one day soon I will tell you the details. Through the welcoming of this relationship, a side of me has come alive. A side of me has been awakened. A side of me that I once knew very well has reappeared.
And rather than rejoicing in all the excitement and happiness of it… instead I’ve been consumed with confusion, worry and fear. The side of me that has come back to life is…
“The Relationship Blaire”
“The Fairytale Blaire”
“The When My Prince Arrives Blaire”

It concerns me because I never thought I lost this side of me. I never thought I had given up on my dreams for a man… MY man… MY prince… for a relationship… a fairytale ending… MY fairytale ending.

Okay. Let’s stop there for a minute so we can all remind ourselves that she’s been involved with this guy FOR ABOUT TWO WEEKS.

Now, I read this and immediately knew she had just doomed this burgeoning relationship. The funny thing is, I don’t think men mind being mentioned if what the woman is saying somehow praises their performance in bed. Of course, they love that. But when they read something that implies that the woman’s happiness and well being hinges on this man’s presence in her life, they freak. It’s just too much pressure. I’ve had men I’ve been dating read my blog before even meeting me and forming all kinds of impressions and opinions of me. There’s really no need to let the guy you’re meeting for coffee know that you used to have anal sex with an Ex. Because, you know, it really sets the expectations sky high for the guy. Not only that, but the mystery, the woman’s mystique…it’s gone. They have decided that they know exactly who this woman is based on what she writes, not on their personal experience with her. Personally, I think it’s an excuse men use to justify being pussies, but, that’s just me. I do agree with a lot of the readers of my blog who say that if they dump me this soon and after something that, at the end of the day, really isn’t so bad…then they weren’t all that invested or interested to begin with.

Fast forward to today, and Blaire is announcing every hour on her Twitter about how she’s broken hearted over her “break up.” Once again, let me remind people, TWO WEEKS. And he maybe didn’t even live in the same state as her.

LOVES when ppl who got married young or only had a few heartache say “Don’t give up, he’s out there” WHAT? What do u know? uve had NO pain

notices that when you BREAK UP – it’s NEVER upset about the LOSS OF THE MAN.. but UPSET about the temporary loss of your FAIRYTALE ENDING

Email says “Ur Love Expert dont CRY about love life- bad 4 credibility”Really? How do u think experts BECOME experts? By their journey(pain)

Blaire, sit here next to me and let me explain something to you. Something you, a self-proclaimed expert, should already know. Something I know you’ve been told over and over again but that you refuse to hear:

Men are easily spooked, especially by women who appear to get too attached too quickly. By blogging and Twittering and Facebooking every step of this relationship and telling everyone how happy he makes you, you make yourself sound too invested. I know you believe that you should put your desires out to the universe, and I agree with you, but I think you need to make an exception for situations such as this. Especially with all the social networking platforms out there that allow everybody to know exactly what we’re thinking and doing at every given moment.

When you feel the urge to shout that you’re excited about a new guy, don’t Facebook, Tweet or Blog about it. Just don’t. Because then you’re placing a mountain of expectation on the guy. Guys can be scared away by the simplest of things. But publicly billboarding how smitten you are? That’s number 1. Men don’t share their feelings the way women do. They’re not used to expressions of emotion. They don’t understand our need to share this type of stuff at all, let alone with strangers. If they aren’t invested enough, they will use that early expression of such devotion as an excuse to bail.

What makes these public declarations so stressful for them isn’t just that they know exactly how you feel when their maybe on the fence, it’s that there are all these other people out there waiting with bated breath to see what happens next. People who might end up judging him if the woman he’s dating decides to blog about what she perceives as an indiscretion or flaw or mistake on his part. Again, here we are back at the male ego. It’s fragile.

I know, especially when you’ve been waiting so long and you’ve had a lot of (public) disappointments in the past, what you really want to do is show off a bit. I get that. You want to show everyone who told you you were doing things wrong that they didn’t know squat and you did.

The thing is…people expect us to get it. And when we don’t, and when we fail, then all that faith they put in to us and all those things they think they’ve learned from us become questionable. They, like the men we get excited about, develop these expectations. Sure, they feel for us. They want us to succeed. But we can only publicly fall on our face so many times before people take a peek behind the green curtain and find that short little man posing as The Great and Powerful Oz. They realize that we’re just like them. Not experts. Just people with thoughts and opinions who are either really brave or really foolish for sharing them.

You know what? I think letting them see us fail is even better than if they put us on a pedestal. Because then they can relate to us and we form deeper, more authentic connections and expectations and thereby disappoint them less. Personally, I think it adds more credibility to what we do and say.

But there are basics that we, these so-called “experts” are supposed to know, especially if we’ve been doing ti awhile. And this lesson is one of them.

Don’t date and blog. At least not with his permission. If you can, keep your blog a secret until after he gets to know you. I’ve never had a relationship work out when the man knew about my blog in advance. Never. Doesn’t mean it won’t. But there’s no doubt there is a correlation.

This entry was posted Aug. 17th, 2009 at 10:42 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.