The Halloween Effect

Halloween is a single person’s best friend.

There’s something about a holiday that allows you to justify showing up at a bar in your underwear that’s conducive to more one-night stands and dfm (dance-floor makeouts) than any other day of the year.

Everyone seems to get a new phone number on Halloween, and the first few weeks in November usually pass in a flurry of subsequent first dates.

But why do the guys never seem as cute when their Chilean miner costumes come off, and why was the conversation so much easier at Heaven & Hell?

Halloween offers two advantages for single people that have nothing to do with adding the word “sexy” to an otherwise unglamorous profession. The first is confidence.

When you’re wearing an Ed Hardy tank top and a mile-high poof, you have to own it. And that creates a boost in confidence (and a drop in inhibitions) that makes it a lot easier to talk to people.

Who cares if you say the wrong thing when your face is covered in bronzer?

It’s the one night a year where everyone fits in, regardless of what you’re wearing. And you have a perfectly acceptable opening line with anyone who catches your eye. This creates an atmosphere that’s conducive to conversation, and if everyone wasn’t getting blackout, a lot more people might have a “We met in Fell’s” story.

The problem is that people are wasted, and alcohol is never the best way to meet a guy.

But if you can come up with a way to fake the kind of social graces everyone seems to possess on Halloween, you’ll have a much easier time meeting guys the other 364 days of the year.

It might be kind of weird to show up at a party in a cheerleader’s costume in May, but there’s no reason you can’t act like your bellybutton’s exposed.

Channel the extroverted side of you that only comes out on October 31. Introduce yourself to friends of friends (we still wouldn’t recommend walking up to strangers in bars), repeat names, smile, and engage in conversation. Don’t worry about coming across as too socially aggressive or saying the wrong thing—people are always flattered when you seem genuinely interested in what they have to say.  

The other advantage Halloween provides is an easy way to break a lull in conversation. Run out of things to say? You can just point to someone’s costume.

There isn’t an obvious substitute for this in a sea of polo shirts and business casual, but there are other ways of keeping a conversation going.

When there’s an awkward pause, don’t stress about coming up with something to say, focus on finding a question to ask. You can come up with a few stock questions to ask. “Did you hear about X random current event” (stay away from politics), what are you doing for Thanksgiving, etc.

Try to figure out what it was that made you so charming on Halloween (or what made the guy you were talking to seem so suave). And bring that back the next time you’re in a social setting.  

Changing Venues

After yesterday’s post, a few people asked what you should do if a guy proposes a comedy club, concert, or other less-than-desirable location for a first date.

You’re better off saying something, but blame it on logistics.

When he says, “I have an extra ticket to Metallica Tuesday night,” say, “Ahh I have an LSAT class Tuesday—want to get dinner Wednesday instead?” That way you nix the concert AND switch to a better venue, and he thinks it’s just a scheduling issue.

Or if his invitation is locale-specific (i.e., he tells you he’s been dying to check out a new comedy club), tell him that part of town’s no good for you. Say something like, “It takes me forever to get through Georgetown after work/I really hate switching at Metro Center after 5—want to get a drink at Domaso in Rosslyn instead?”

The key is to replace his suggestion with concrete plans. If you just tell him you can’t do the Metallica concert on Wednesday, he might suggest a cover band on Thursday, and if you’re trying to avoid live music, you’re still in the same position.

News Roundup: Do Men with Accents Have an Edge in Dating?

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Missed Connection of the Day: You flagged me(police) down

You flagged me(police) down - m4w - 40 (DC (SE))

I was eating my lunch in my cruiser by the stadium. You flagged me down about a woman smacking her kids as she drove. She made it through the light & you were not sure what kind of car she drove. Honestly, I could barely pay attention to what you were saying. Your eyes were captivating and as an officer, I had never felt more like a victim…..of your beauty. If I call 911, will you rescue me?

How to Keep Things Casual (Without Getting Hurt)

We usually advise our readers to stay away from casual dating.

A lot of hearts get broken in that gray zone between committed relationship and platonic friendship, and most 20-something women have outgrown the highs and lows that come from just hooking up (even if they aren’t willing to admit it) and, deep down, they’re looking for something more serious.

But sometimes you’re six months away from moving to a new city, or you just got out of a really serious relationship, and you just need to have some fun!

If you know what you’re getting yourself into (and this involves more than just telling yourself that you know what you’re getting into and that you won’t get attached—namely, spending some time figuring out what you are getting into and when it’ll be time to pull out), casual dating doesn’t have to be a scarring experience.

But successful casual dating is less about getting attached and more about respect and honesty.

Honesty might seem counterintuitive when you’re engaging in nonmonogamous sex, but the key to getting the most out of something neither of you is putting a lot into is making sure that you feel comfortable.

But to understand how that works, we need to talk about respect. The problem with most noncommitted relationships is that they can be the worst thing to happen to a girl’s self esteem since middle school happened.

When a guy engages in typical blow-off behavior (e.g., responding to a text two days later, only calling when he wants sex), the girl has a tendency to blame it on herself. She thinks that if only she were prettier or blonder or skinnier, he’d be showing up at her door with flowers every night, when in reality it’s probably her behavior, and not her looks, that are driving him away.

If a guy expresses sexual interest in you and then falls off the face of the planet, it’s probably because you made yourself too available. If you’re going to be engaging in casual sex, you have to realize that, and when it happens, you need to examine your behavior, not spend an extra three hours at the gym.

Casual dating can sometimes wreck havoc on your self-esteem. You meet a guy, hook up a few times, maybe come off as a little too eager, and then he starts blowing you off. So you think, “Oh, OK, he’s too hot/rich/smart for me—I need to focus on guys who are in my league. But also maybe he didn’t realize that I was interested, so he went off to find someone who was.” So then you start seeing this guy who maybe isn’t as good on paper (or in person). You hook up a few times, but you’re not going to make the same mistakes you did with the last guy. You start telling him how much you like him on the third date, and then he never asks you out on a fourth. You decide to lower your standards and up the eagerness. You’re miles out of the new guy’s league, and you tell him you love him on the second date, and when he tells you he doesn’t want to see you anymore, you can’t believe you got dumped by the unemployed 40-year-old your friend’s aunt set you up with.

Sometimes you can avoid this by being upfront. Tell him that you’re not looking for anything serious.

But if he does start blowing you off, or mentioning other people he’s seeing, or doing anything else that makes you feel shitty about yourself, break it off.

It’s not worth your sense of self worth—and this is what vibrators were invented for.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Women in their 20s often talk about dating as the process of “finding Mr. Right.”

Men fall victim to this delusion too: in fact, over the past few weeks, we’ve had countless conversations with our otherwise rational friends (of both genders) who are convinced that “love” is something more than compatibility, that it’s a feeling that can’t be described or controlled.

And that got us thinking: maybe Raymond Carver was on to something.

The single biggest flaw in most people’s approach to dating, may, in fact, be the language they use to describe it.

When we use the word “love,” are we talking about that heart-pounding, all-consuming sensation that we feel when our hot neighbor says, “What’s up?” Or are we talking about the way we feel about our friends and (sometimes) our families, a duller sense of gratitude towards and happiness about this person’s presence in our lives that accepts imperfections and grounds expectations in reality?

We use the same word to describe both (“I’m in love with the UPS guy” and “I love you, Mom”).

But they mean two very different things. And the problem is, we’ve been using the same word to describe two very different ideas for our entire (English-speaking) lives.

So when we say we’re looking for love, we chase the thrilling romantic sensations that tend to be more fleeting than the durable, platonic variety.

This, in and of itself, isn’t an issue (especially when we’re young), but if you look at successful long-term relationships, they don’t look anything like a typical second date for Katherine Hiegel.

It’s a scientific fact: those intense emotions and feelings fade after a few years, and once they’re gone, something else has to sustain the relationship. And because we’re using the same word to describe two things, and because we desperately want both of these things, we tend to assume that one leads to the other. Desire must breed companionship, because that’s the only thing that makes sense.

But no matter which meaning of the word “love” we’re after (romantic or platonic), we’re still talking about something we feel. Not something that someone does to us, but something that we, essentially, impose on ourselves.

A certain bone structure may have a tendency to make your stomach flutter, but when it comes down to it, your cute coworker isn’t the one firing neurons in your brain. You might not have any conscious control over that process either, but, in the end, your amorous feelings say a lot more about you than they do about the person on the receiving end.

You love that funny, blue-eyed banker because you (for lack of a better word) value blue eyes and a good sense of humor and a healthy bank account, not because the combination of these three characteristics casts an irresistible spell over all who encounter it. If men were able to cast spells, the concept of taste wouldn’t exist. You wouldn’t look at your best friend’s boyfriend and go, “What does she see in him?”, because if he’s casting a spell, you’re under it too.

If we look at “love” as something that’s about us, not them, it becomes clear that dating isn’t about finding the right person, it’s about figuring out what that person looks like. You’re not browsing OkCupid to find a person who inexplicably makes you feel a certain way; you’re doing some serious soul-searching to figure what qualities trigger those feelings.

Yes, our (otherwise) rational friends say, we get that infatuation isn’t love. You see a guy and your heart starts pounding but that feeling goes away as soon as he opens his mouth. But how do you explain the overweight drummer you fantasize about even though you know that you’re looking for a guy with a regular paycheck and a workout regiment?

Mostly with biology. We all watched that pheromones video in Bio 101, with the women smelling men’s t-shirts and being most attracted to the scents of men whose DNA was the most different from their own.

Because we can’t control fluttery-stomach feelings, they’re probably as hard-wired as our instincts to inhale and exhale. And it’s just like feeling like you’re going to explode when you hold your breath for too long. Your brain is making your body feel a certain way because it wants you to react—sexually.

When you fantasize about that drummer, you’re not picturing the white house with the picket fence and 2.8 offspring. You’re picturing him giving it to you hard and fast on the desk in your boss’ office. You’re using the word “love” when you really mean “sexual desire.”

And when that “spark” isn’t oozing sexuality, it’s probably worth listening to. Maybe the drummer really listens to you when you talk, and maybe that’s more important to you than you thought it was. Maybe you have a hard time admitting to yourself that, for you, a BMW isn’t worth to you as a well-written poem, even though all your friends tell you that it is.

But again, it’s about you. Not him.