Stalked by Text

Here’s a special insider note to men. If you go out with a woman, on one date many many months ago and begin texting her weekly with zero reply….please please please stop. Take this as a hint; the woman does not want to speak to you. Or go out with you. Or for that matter want anything to do with you. This is not our way of being coy, or playing hard to get.

My lone date in July of last year has since produced months of texting with goodies like “come over and I’ll make you soup” no reply “hey do you want to go drink beer” no reply “hope you are having a wonderful holiday” no reply “are you there” no reply. I thought at first I would get the point across by using the classic, “I’m dating someone” (always a goody) but was informed by several people that this is totally not the way to handle the situation. Of course the people telling me this consist of the married breed, which in my opinion have absolutely no right to tell singletons how to take care of dating. For example, my mother (God love her) gives me the absolute WORST dating advice. She will tell me the complete opposite of what I actually should do. But her being my mother I thought I should listen to her, she knows what’s up, right? She’s lived a jam packed life and has learned a thing or two in the last million decades. Until I took her advice on someone I was dating and it blew up in my face and I never saw him again, it really dawned on me, why am I listening to a woman that had been happily married to my father (yes my real father) for more than 40 years? She hasn’t even been on a date since my Dad in 1970, when she was 22 years old. What the crap does she know about dating in 2011 at the age of 35? So I stopped listening to her and moved onto the next best thing, my married friends. This has also been proven to be the worst people to listen to when needing dating (or blowing off) advice. I mean really, what do they know? The majority of them have been in wonderful, healthy relationships for years. Do you really remember what it’s like to be a singleton after years of bliss? The memories of how crappy dating really is, fades within time and they become clueless like happily married parents.

So after the “marrieds” gave me the advice to just ignore, I tried it. For months I ignored and then received a text, ignore received a text, ignored received a text. It was time to take things into my own hands and try something my singleton mind was telling me to do all along, Reply with a classic, never goes out of style “I’m dating someone”. I knew this was what I had to do! Within days of deciding, I got it, the mother of all texts “I really want to see you” (on a side note, who does that? Who sends texts for 6 months without getting a single reply, thinks that after this text I would say “oh yes, I would love to see you”.) This was the perfect opportunity for me to send my “blow off” text; for sure he’ll get the clue after this. So I sent it, “I’m dating someone” that was it, No more explanation needed. Simple and to the point. It’s been a week, and so far so good.

Singletons one, Marrieds zero.