fireballs & tsunami

A few months ago, a friend of mine — I’ll refer to her as Betty — encountered the age-old dating quandary: Why doesn’t he call? Although Betty is a fabulous person, she couldn’t seem to meet someone that would return her emails/phone calls in a timely fashion after a (seemingly) fun and successful date. After I asked Betty some preliminary questions — are you looking for dates in the right places? are you seeking out unavailable men? are your standards too high? — I realized the problem may lie in the fact that she’s simply too well-mannered. Let me explain.

I inquired about Betty’s methods of follow-up. As the polite lady she is, Betty explained that a day or two after a date, she would email the date with a friendly:

“I had a great time. Dinner was fantastic! It’d be nice to see you again, maybe Friday? Let me know if that’s good for you. Bye!”

The problem was this: A few of the men Betty’s dated in recent years seemed to have a predilection for aloofness, or simply playing hard-to-get. In some cases, it took the men up to a week or two to respond re: a second date. I came to the realization that the film Swingers ruined dating for everyone by popularizing the “when to call” rule. Three days after the date? Five days? Two weeks? This ’90s “when to call” mentality seems to have carried over into the new millennium in the form of “when to email.” Of course no one wants to appear overeager, but this is a matter of general courtesy.

This apparent lack of courtesy as evidenced in friends’ dating issues got me thinking: Does playing hard-to-get really work? Does ignoring someone actually draw them to you, not only in romantic relationships, but in friendly and professional relationships as well? Does absence really make the heart grow fonder? After all, the telephone and the Internet are perhaps the most efficient modes of communication, yet daters still manage to screw up.

I have always been an advocate of straightforwardness in personal and professional affairs. Circuitousness = tsk tsk. You’re wasting the other person’s time if you drag your feet in getting in touch with him or her. Although I use a female friend as an example, I have lots of male friends who experience similar dating communication issues as well.

One day I became vicariously frustrated and recommended to Betty, “Just communicate with him the way he communicates with you.” At one point, I jokingly advocated Betty employ an utter lack of punctuation in her emails with her dates, explaining that it sends the message that you couldn’t care less if date responds. I’ve long believed a lack of punctuation in email is, more or less, the computerized equivalent of averting eye contact with someone in person (one of my pet peeves), but it never occurred to me to actually employ it myself, or recommend it to a friend.

To my surprise, and Betty’s realization, this punctuation experiment proved somewhat effective. Betty abandoned her normally correct punctuation and grammar and wrote a perfunctory email which read something like:

“had fun on Friday let’s do it again I’ll call you sometime.”

Less than a day later, Betty heard back from prospective partner.

As the daughter of an English teacher and a former journalist, I find bad punctuation and grammar abhorrent. Of course, there are exceptions; if you’re in a rush and have no time to re-read an email before sending, there will inevitably be syntax mistakes. But Betty informed me I was on to something, and I started to formulate a theory. Before you start wondering if I’m a man-hater (I’m not) I explained burgeoning theory to a male friend who was experiencing a similar problem with cold-shouldered dates — it worked for him as well. For both sexes, it seems like apathetic correspondence really does effectively send the message that you’re playing it cool, and couldn’t care less whether or not date responds.

Let me provide an example. Why write, for instance…

“Hey! How was your Christmas? What are you up to this week? If you get a chance, I’d love to do dinner again. Give me a call when you have a free moment. Thanks!”

…when you can write…

“hey how was your christmas what are you up to this week if you get a chance I’d love to do dinner again give me a call when you have a free moment thanks”

Let’s discuss. The simple absence of a question mark transforms the sentence “how was your Christmas” into more of an arrogant statement of sorts, rather than a polite indicator of curiosity. With no question mark, it appears that sender really doesn’t care how your Christmas was. Additionally, the simple absence of any capitalization, periods, or commas sends the message that you’re simply too busy to bother with perfection regarding communication with recipient. And this, I’m beginning to believe, is what somehow subconsciously piques recipient’s interest.

Like I said, I’m an advocate of syntax. But, in some subconscious way, this caveman/cavewoman-speak has proven effective. In other words, perfunctory emails really do seem to attract the other person’s attention. Of course, my theory surely has holes: What if one of the variables has limited Internet access? What if one of the variables is socially inept to begin with? What if one of the variables really did lose your number/email address? What if the pet goldfish of one of the variables just died and he or she is wraught with anguish? I would like to hear your feedback. I will quote you in my forthcoming book, “Lack of Punctuation and How to Get It.”

That’s so money.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2006 at 6:06 pm and is filed under Random. 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.