The trophy

“Many wealthy women have tried to flirt with me after my divorce” said one of my friends, who’s a university professor. “But I refused all of them, because I don’t want to be the intellectual trophy they parade at their galas,… It’s not my cup of tea” he added.

My friend often gives lectures and conferences, and sometimes appears on TV. Usually, after his conferences, there are a lot of women who come and ask him questions. But my friend told me he’s a bit afraid of them.

I can understand him, as I also turned down two wealthy men last year, who were impressed by my intelligence as they said. I met them at a conference where I was one of the speakers. Both of them were much older than me. I felt exactly the same way as my friend with his wealthy suitors. Except I’m not shaken by a divorce like my friend.

My friend was married to a woman who was wealthy, but didn’t match his intelligence. I told him several times they weren’t a good match. His ex-wife is a socialite, whose goal is to appear in the cocktail parties pictures published in people magazines. She often  gunned him down in front of other people.  I told him she was very mean. Of course, she hated me.

“Why don’t you go for a female professor?” I asked him. He didn’t reply.

Nowadays, as men aren’t the sole breadwinner and decision-maker in a couple, most men search for their equal in education, intelligence, achievement,… They don’t look for a woman who just looks good. But it’s the same, and ever more, for women.

I half joked in a previous post about asking my potential dates if they can quote a poem from Baudelaire, some lines from “Economie du Bien commun”, or a theorem from Mandelbrot. Usually, I just ask what is the last book they read. If they can’t answer, I tell them it’s not worth to pursue the conversation. If they answer “just Sci-Fi ” or something like that, I don’t want the conversation to go on either. One of my dates told me he was reading “Le rouge et le noir” by Stendhal. I happily decided to pursue the conversation with him.

Besides,  your circles can dismiss quickly a companion who doesn’t match you in education or status. So, yes, your friends are a precious ally.

Guys who just look for a model as their significant other are either narcissistic, or just another model.

Breadcrumbing

Breadcrumbing is the act of voluntarily leading someone on with texts, comments and likes on social medias, calls when you can’t pick up your phone, long conversations on Messenger, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Tinder,… with no concrete plans of meeting up.

It’s a grey area in relationships. It’s not a relationship, but it’s not no contact either. Breadcrumbers can be found in professional circles too. On Linkedin, I’ve noticed a lot of people are looking at my profile, without leaving me a message or invite me for a meeting. In the digital age, we all leave our fingerprints everywhere. Before that, we didn’t have that possibility or maybe just leave a written letter or a object to someone without allowing  him/her to answer. Today, with social medias, we can leave a like or a comment just by one click.

It’s a torture if you hope for a relationship with a breadcrumber. It’s also a torture when the breadcrumber is your ex or an former friend who has disappeared from your life. When you don’t really care about this person, it’s not a big deal.

Breadcrumbing can happen after a breakup. Some people can’t really move on and cut all contacts with their ex. You end up with an ex who still sends you some messages, who likes all your posts on social medias, and even comments on it. But that ex never asks to see you again. Sometimes, it helps some people to move on. After some likes on Instagram, Facebook, … and some comments/messages, some people disappear from your digital life. Breadcrumbers are one step of ghosters, those who disappear without a trace. They are a cousin of the “friend zone”.

Breadcrumbers feed their ego. But you can’t count on them to have a real friendship or relationship. There’s nothing more frustrating than having someone who tells you “Speak you soon” or “Let’s touch base later on” without scheduling an actual meet up.

There’s two ways of breaking this circle. One is to confront the breadcrumber and asks him/her what he/she wants from you. The other option is to ignore the breadcrumber. He/she’ll eventually get tired of breadcrumbing you.

If you are a breadcrumber with your ex, it’s also wise to unfriend him/her on social medias.

The right stages of a relationship

Is there a right order in relationships? I’m not so sure. Several of my friends had their children before getting married to their significant other. Some are even not married. “Traditional” couples still get married first and have children after.

But this is an evolution of relationships because it has to start from scratch. Every relationship begins with an encounter. Dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, Happn,… favour those encounters. Our professional and private circles can also help to meet someone. There are many ways to find a new relationship. To be fair, my last relationships all started with Tinder.

After the first contact, there is the first date. If you are careful, the first exchanges you made with your date help you to sort those who would make a disastrous first date. The men I met through Tinder exchanged several messages with me before our first date, and I was relieved by what they wrote. I didn’t have much surprises when I met them.

After that, some people decide to lead a particular relationship. An acquaintance started to be sex friends with the man she met thanks to Tinder. Another one started to casual date a man she met through some common friends. Generally, people take their time to evaluate their date. Especially when they have experienced several relationships.  But it can happen that some people want to start right away a long term relationship. Even if only the long run can tell if the relationship is sustainable or not.

With age, people also take their time before having sex with their date. Even with the people who meet through Tinder, which is famous to be a hookup site. This may be true for the young people between 18-24, but above that age, it’s not necessarily the case. Some people wait until they are certain there are feelings involved before having sex. It can take weeks or even months. The key is to take time to know our date. It’s not that simple. But if our date don’t want to spend time with us, that’s a sign he/she doesn’t want to have a relationship.

Some people wait until they meet their date’s friends and family, which is a sign the relationship is going strong. After all, if you don’t pass that step, it’s not a good sign. Our friends and family can also help us to tell if our date is right for us. Usually, our friends and family see when there’s a problem while we’re too blind with love. This step isn’t a problem if you date someone from your private circle, who was introduced to you by common friends. The blessing is already there.

Recently, one of my coworkers told me he’s divorcing. He met his wife at our office five years ago, and people were really surprised how fast their relationship evolved. She got pregnant only four months after they started dating, and got married in a hurry. Had they have waited, he may have known she was a bad influence to him. His career stalled after they started dating. She was really jealous and made him a scene every time he talked to female coworkers.

Yes, we all know some exceptions to this. Two of my friends got pregnant really quickly after they met their significant other. So far, they are still in their relationship. But they met their significant other through common friends.

Only fools rush in, isn’t it?

Dating by text

Nowadays, people don’t call each other anymore. I don’t call my friends anymore. We communicate either on WhatsApp, Messenger, iMessage,… And we schedule every of our meetings with texts.  I still call people from my professional sphere though. But I’ve noticed people communicate more and more by emails. Even on Linkedin.

But texts are not a real conversation. As Sherry Turkle said in her TED speech, we find a way to be connected, but alone. With texts, we keep people at distance.

Yet, when it comes to dating, texts can be useful. Who has the guts to talk to someone in the street and ask him/her out? The risk of rejection is really high in that case. It’s less of a big deal with texts. Although  with texts there’s a grey area because people can wait to reply to your text, and even not reply at all. And this can be a source of anxiety. On Messenger and iMessage, you can also see the dots indicating your friends (or family or lover) currently typing. It’s frustrating  when  those dots  don’t turn into a text.

When you try to ask out someone over texts, there’s nothing more frustrating to see this.

Aziz Ansari, who wrote “Modern romance” with the sociologist Eric Klinenberg, has a theory about what you should write in your text to reach your goal. In short, don’t do endless back and forth. A firm invitation to do something specific at a specific time is a better solution than typing pointless texts about everything and nothing to eventually forget why you started to text. Some humorous texts will also do the trick.

Yes, it can backfire because the other can refuse your invitation or can’t understand your humorous texts. But at least,  you don’t spend time typing pointless texts.

With a text like “Hey”, “what’s up?”, very few people would  write you back. At least, if you don’t know well the person. I don’t mind if my friends text me those, but they don’t do that in general.

Texts are just a mean to meet people. You can feel really alone if you text all of the time and never meet the other person at the receiving end.

Facebook as a dating site?

The social media is currently working on a new button which will be available on our smartphone, called “discover people”. It will allow you to find new “friends” based on your common “likes” and interests, a bit like Tinder, the dating app. This new button is already available, but I don’t have access to it yet.

I don’t know if Facebook can be helpful for finding love. I read several stories on the New York Times in their section “wedding” where the spouses met thanks to Facebook, and the section “people you may know, because they were related in the past.

On Tinder, I haven’t found many men who share a lot of common “likes” and interests with me. I swiped right one man who had 15 common “likes” with me (and two common friends). But he never swiped me right. He was the man who had the more common “likes” with me. I’ve never encountered any other man like that ever since.

The only man who swiped me right with a lot of common “likes” (and two common friends) was disappointed when we started dating each other. We discovered many other common points when we were together, but it wasn’t enough. I found the guy on the defensive all of the time, and I felt weak and powerless because of that. One of my friends told me we have the same common point with defensiveness.

His pictures were very revealing about his behaviour, but I didn’t want to consider those. He had his arms closed on the two pictures he put on Tinder. It’s also the case for his Facebook profile picture.

It’s like there’s a catch when we search for a partner with common interests. On Tinder, what would you do if you found a man with many common “likes” with you, but has a profile picture where he’s close to another woman? (little advice for men who read this: never put a picture on Tinder where there’s another woman on it).

On Facebook, it can be even more difficult. It can be odd if a person you don’t know comes out of the blue and asks you to accompany him/her to an event you are both interested on Facebook.

Tinder works best with people aged from 18 to 24. Because at this age, they don’t care for their reputation. When we go older, it becomes more difficult. A friend of mine told me he would never used Tinder because people would recognise him easily.We are also more  defensive because of our past experiences.

I guess this new option on Facebook will also work best with young people.