Unpaid Sales Job

I bet a lot of you are going to roast me on this one. Keep 'em hate mails comin' in!

Speaking to a man's search for a date, girlfriend, female company, some "fun", Ms Right, Ms Right-Now, or any other term you deem appropriate, I have to say that it seems like a sales job.

At some point or another, I'm sure every one of you has had this experience: someone calls you at home at 9 am on a Saturday and asks if you would like to buy aluminum siding for your non-existent backyard shed. Do you ever buy it? If you're like many, you hang up the phone. If you're a nice bloke like me, you tell them in the kindest way possible to shove it.

Similarly in the dating world, you get in front of anyone and everyone, make a pitch, attempt to close the sale (asking, directly or sideways, for a phone number), and then the door slams in your face.

The only difference between that and a real sales job is that the latter is easier AND there is a financial payoff. In the dating world, not only does the salesman have to work his tail off to win a sale, but he often also has to pay the customer to buy the product (i.e. pay for the first date)!!

And, just like in the sales world, the product is only as good as the market it is exposed to. In other words, you can believe all you want that you are God's gift to women, but if you're giving that message to the wrong women, you're gonna get kicked on your posterior.

Other ways in which sales and dating mirror each other:

• You change service providers in sales; you dump your relationship partner in dating.
• When you lose a client in sales, you have to look for new business to replace the income stream generated by the old business. When you lose a partner in dating, you scramble to find another to replace the emotional validation (or sexual, or both) you got from your old partner.
  
• While in sales, you "shop around" for the best product at the best price, in dating you "date multiple people" at the same time in search for who is the best-looking and has the most money!
• Client phone calls and entertainment gifts and the guarantee of high returns are the client-service norm in the sales world; Gifts, flowers, frequent phone calls and counseling sessions, and promises of a future are the law of the dating land.
• While in sales you "prospect" or network with people (with whom you have nothing in common and you'd never have a beer with) to get new business, in the dating world you try and tell people who don't care a hoot about you how inadequate your life is without a date, and if they ever know someone they should introduce you.
  
• In sales you advertise your business on the internet; in dating, you join the sausage-fest by getting on a host of websites, trying to come up with imaginative ways to say "I like having fun, hanging out with friends and I don't play games".
• To request no more sales calls, you often tell the caller to add you to the "Do Not Call list"; to request no more dating pursuit, women come up with a number of excuses - "I have a boyfriend", "I'm lesbian", "I have to go to the bathroom", "I don't have a phone", "I don't have an email", "I'll be right back", "I don't date", "I'm in love with my shrink"....
  

I have written this from - you got it! - a man's perspective. However, the quintessential feminist in me has heard (and wholly sympathized with) a host of horror stories that women have to tell when it comes to meeting a man. That is the subject of another entry. See you next time!

You, Me, and It

If I say so myself, I think it is quite admirable to go six or more months writing about my life, and yet devote so little time to writing about my relationships. So, without further ado, here we go.

The "It" reference in the title denotes the entity that two people create together, the "relationship". I want to focus on dating in general and intimacy in particular. I feel that men treat intimacy as a way of getting to know someone, whereas women treat it as something they do after the getting-to-know-you part is somewhat complete in their minds. Even though the separation between the man's and woman's approach can be fuzzy, men seem to be biologically and emotionally different from women on the subject of intimacy.

Nothing exemplifies this difference more than sex.

A woman I am dating now is someone I have dated before, been friends with, and been somewhere in between. This is someone with whom I have had reservations because of our past, but since we had felt close to each other in the past and I was enjoying our time together, I broached the question of our getting together again as a couple. I asked the question merely to find out about her feelings in context of the good times we had spent together in recent days. Since the feeling was mutual, we decided jointly to give dating another try.

However, when our relationship was consummated (I am using the word "consummated" loosely), I discovered a different side to her. All of a sudden, it would seem, her expectations skyrocketed. I was now expected to spend significant amounts of time with her. That in itself is not so bad, because I'm looking for someone to settle down with eventually, and there are things we have in common that are difficult to overlook. But when I was expected to explain what I was doing in her absence, and explain why I needed to sometimes have my own plans separate from her, I felt like I was being smothered, and that my schedule and words did not get enough respect. The reason for my need for privacy was that even though I felt close to her, I felt that I was still getting to know her from a dating standpoint (something that, I must confess, didn't happen when we first dated). But she felt like the consummation of the relationship meant that she had "completed" the process of getting to know me.

We both have our sides to this, of course. But my side remains that, with the passage of time in this phase, there would be a natural progression or continuum to things, and if things work out, we would end up committing to each other and making future plans.
Her side is not to be discounted: a woman needs to feel secure in a relationship and needs to have some advance idea of where things are headed. Admittedly in her interest of not getting hurt, she made some time for herself to take a break from seeing me.

While I do not feel like I need a break, I do feel that we need to work on the pacing of our relationship.I have been quite clear that if things go well, we have fun times, and our indivudual lives are respected, I will have no problem making future plans. However, in the interest of not appearing to make her a promise that I cannot keep, I can't spell those words to her, but I can urge her to see my actions over a few weeks or months and decide for herself.

I have tried a few times and in several different ways to explain this, but it hasn't seemed to carry much weight so far. I think the question is of trust and of control. I haven't felt in control of my life and the repeated requests made in vain have caused a loss of trust. This can easily be corrected by recent actions. The cliche comes to mind, "What have you done for me lately". If we can start having good times without being burdened by untimely or misaligned expectations, the past will soon be forgotten.

This discussion begs another question: Is the "modern" American woman in any way different from a "traditional" Indian woman? The woman I am dating seems to me to be as "conservative" (which is not a criticism!) as the sterotypical Indian woman (Aside: In some ways the Indian woman is more progressive!). Maybe if you're emotionally involved with someone, you want to spend every minute with them. So does this mean I'm not emotionally involved with her, since I'm asking for so much privacy? I miss her when she's not here and I think with affection about the good times I've had with her.

Here are some pressing questions for me: Are my signals confusing? Are my messages mixed? Am I trying too hard to avoid getting hurt, and therefore robbing myself of an opportunity?