I have been the recipient of CC’s of at least three great emails in my time. One was forwarded by a young woman who had a romantic admirer that was basically telling her that he could not have her as a part of her life if she was not willing to take things to the next level. She was not willing. The letter wasn’t blackmail or anything like that. It was a statement of fact. I’ve written those before. What stood out about the letter was the degree to which he expressed exasperation adoration for her. He obviously loved every last thing about her. Even and especially the parts he was clearly imagining.
I can’t get into the specifics without presenting the email or reproducing it somehow, but what stands out most is that there is a disconnect between who she was and how he described her. He described her as this magnificent high society type person with a social elegance and standing that he longed for in a woman. He explained that she had this entire world that was full and complete and that he wasn’t a part of it and that it was killing him.
After she forwarded me the email asking for help on a response, I told her, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but he’s so busy worshiping you that he doesn’t seem to know who you are.”
She wasn’t complete without him any more than she would have been complete with him. She had problems. Sure, she liked the opera, but she also liked crummy anime and Matlock and cheesy romance novels. But he didn’t see the earthly parts in her. He papered over them. He invented things to take their place. She wasn’t stupid. She knew who she was and she knew she wasn’t who he apparently thought she was. As flattered as she was by the compliments, and she was, and as much as he was the kind of guy that she might have gone out with at some point, and he was, as long as he held those kinds of lofty views of her, she knew that reality would eventually make its presence known and she had no idea where she would land once it did. She wasn’t partial to making wise romantic decisions, but that was one of them.
She didn’t take what I said the wrong way. She replied, “Totally.”
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Capella discusses her college ex-boyfriend:
My college boyfriend, when he was planning his wedding, told me it’s not who you marry but how they make you feel. His fiancee had adopted a stance of worshipfully vacant adoration, combined with forgetting to take her birth control pills, that made him feel like getting married.
I tend to assume everyone is like me, which seems to be a common fallacy. I like men who are smarter than me in some way, whom I can admire, who inspire me. Anecdotal evidence suggests men are more interested in being the object of admiration. I suppose this is complementary and possibly biological, but I prefer when life is symmetric.
I think that there is a bit of difference between being adored and admired. Admired, to me, has stronger roots in the tangible. You are admired for what you have done and maybe for specific attributes you possess. You are adored for the sum of your parts. I admire celebrities. I adored my dog. I say this mostly because this is the terminology I am using throughout the post.
Men, like women, like being adored. Who wouldn’t? But I think that over the longer term there needs to be admiration. Both ways, I would say, for most people. Who wouldn’t want such a thing?
It would be possible to describe my non-relationship with Dharla along these lines. Her adoration of me was one of the things that kept me around even when I was pretty sure I wanted to go. It was immensely flattering, for sure. And it meant a lot more to me because she was one of the more beautiful girls that I dated and was a worthwhile person in many ways (alas, worthwhile in ways that I knew I could not fully appreciate). It really does make you feel good. It’s also very much an insufficient foundation for a relationship. I think it’s also, as with Capella’s ex, the beginnings of an unhappy future if pursued.
The problem with these relationships is not so much assymetry, though that can cause problems. The problem is that such adoration is, as was the case with my friend, unearned. It could be said to be a great deal to get adoration without having to do anything for it, but that which comes from nothing is ultimately reduced to nothing. As tempting as it is to settle down and settle in with someone on the basis that you can do know wrong… we all know that you will, at some people, do wrong. We know that if they never realize this, they’re either blind and stupid or wading through shortcomings of their own that will, unless you’re equally stupid and blind, drive you crazy.
I think a lot of my wife. I admire her a great deal. There are things about her that I adore. The same thing is true of her feelings towards me, I would wager. The difference, though, is that we have each earned one another’s respect. We have proven ourselves worthy of one another’s affections and admirations. It’s not based on some intangible sort of thing. It’s rooted in specific characteristics in a list that I could write right now with footnotes of specific experiences to back it all up. It’s based on things that she has done for me, things I have done for her, and things that we have each done for others.
Our adoration is built on love and admiration. Both are required. Both, in their own way, must be earned. If not at first, then over time. Clancy and I made commitments before we really got there. But we weren’t doing it because of how we felt at the moment. We were, in essence, betting that there was a foundation to it all. Turned out to be a smart bet.
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Will, the “Dharla” link just takes me back to this post.
It’s a Search Query for everything that’s mentioned her, which of course includes this post. Since there’s only one major post on her, I probably should have just linked here.
It’s a reasonable assumption that adoration can disappear more quickly than admiration. It lacks the latter’s staying power, not being based on much of significance.
The problem with adoration is that the adorer has high expectations, often unreasonable. When those expectations aren’t met, look out.
I’ve noticed this particularly with men who use superior education/smarts/class standing to get women. Particularly reporters and lawyers (this makes sense considering my career experience). Underlying the woman’s admiration/adoration is often an unspoken belief it will lead to a certain lifestyle. In cases where it didn’t … trouble.
I did something like that once. When I was in my first year of law school, there was this third-year guy who conned me into thinking he was a big success and could help me be one too. I was clueless and scared and gave it up right away. Once I figured out it was delusion and/or puffing on his part, I was furious. I really turned on him. It took me years to figure out why I hated him so much. It’s hard to admit something like that to yourself. Sure, he did some lame stuff, but that alone wouldn’t have inspired such venom from me.
He resigned from the bar with charges pending after a few years of practice, by the way. So I was correct about his lameness. But I don’t think he was evil, at least not measured on the generous curve of law school.
P.S. The emailer had what I call “Winter Dreams” Syndrome, after an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story. It’s where an upwardly mobile (financially or otherwise) man fixates on a woman of higher status. He believes attachment to her can get her where he wishes to go. But he’s not being consciously calculating — she is the emotional embodiment of his ambition.
WDS happens with imbalances in popularity as well as financial status.
P.P.S. My thing for “Big Jake” probably had an WDS component. As evidenced by my friend who went to his same Ivy League School (therefore, on his same level) thinking he was dorky, awkward and unattractive.
One was forwarded by a young woman who had a romantic admirer that was basically telling her that he could not have her as a part of her life if she was not willing to take things to the next level….
As flattered as she was by the compliments, and she was, and as much as he was the kind of guy that she might have gone out with at some point, and he was, as long as he held those kinds of lofty views of her, she knew that reality would eventually make its presence known and she had no idea where she would land once it did.
Up until this point I thought that the couple was already dating and the guy was frustrated she didn’t want to take their relationship to the “next level” (i.e. sleeping with him or other such big step). I didn’t realize they hadn’t even dated and he was worshiping her from afar.
What makes this amazing to me is the continuing over-analysis people seem to do regarding potential suitors (a formal word, but it seems to apply here). “Reality would eventually make its presence known”? “…had no idea where she would land once it did”?
To me these are questions someone asks themselves deep into a relationship, not on the front end. For goodness sake, she should have gone out with the guy and tested the waters. If they liked each other, great. If one didn’t like the other after a date or two, be adult and go separate ways. It seems this over-analysis is what doomed a lot of what I would have liked to pursue in college, and relationships never got off the ground.
Really, what’s the harm of a date without all that baggage on the front end? If one person goes into the date not expecting anything, they may be pleasantly surprised…
I just think it’s odd to make such sweeping, life-changing generalizations over a first date.
I just think it’s odd to make such sweeping, life-changing generalizations over a first date.
It probably depends to some extent on how active one’s dating life has been. People who rarely date, for whatever reasons, are going to be the ones who get all overdramatic about a first date.
I’ve noticed this particularly with men who use superior education/smarts/class standing to get women.
And advanced age. Not to Gannonize the conversation, but one of the things that I’ve noticed about many of the teenage girls that date guys in their twenties is their blatant desire to be adults.
And normalcy. This could be correlated with popularity, which you mention, but it’s at least a distinct subsection of that. Some people (including myself, at times) strive to date people that are not “freaks like me” even if there isn’t a specific popularity motive.
My thing for “Big Jake” probably had an WDS component. As evidenced by my friend who went to his same Ivy League School (therefore, on his same level) thinking he was dorky, awkward and unattractive.
In regards to age differences, one thing I tell people if they’re considering dating someone younger to ask themselves whether that person would be interested if they were the same age. If she’s like a lot of the girls that wouldn’t give you the time of day, there’s something at work besides whatever growth you’ve undergone in the intervening years.
Same with the normalcy motive. Somebody even in the lower areas of social normalcy can be (to some) better than the neatest freak.
Barry, you’re revealing yourself to be an age contemporary of Peter’s, if not older. 🙂 Young people don’t “date,” at least not to get to know each other.
When you’re in high school, college, or other group situation, you are expected to decide if you are romantically interested based upon friendly social interactions. Once you become physically involved, *then* it’s called “dating.”
So when you say a girl should give a guy a chance, there’s no way to do that without becoming physically involved with him. That’s what the guy meant regarding “the next level.” He didn’t mean “spend some time talking with me.” They’ve already been doing that.
The type of interactions that used to be called dating, young men and women now get for free via parties, dorms, and hanging out as friends.
Barry,
You’re assuming that whatever it is falls inside the dating paradigm. Relationships happen in multiple ways. For some people it occurs with the traditional asking out of someone, coffee, lunch, dinner, a movie, and so on. Not-infrequently relationships take an alternate route for one reason or another. Circumstances prevented my wife and I from going on any traditional dates. The same is true with Evangeline. Julie is the only important relationship I’ve had that involved the traditional dating structure.
For me, at least, it’s a product of my being a relative outcast. People on the social outs typically meet people in less conventional ways — be it traditional dating or bar-meeting.
In the case of the above, it was complicated by the fact that she was in a walking dead relationship. He couldn’t ask her out because she was ostensibly dating someone else even though nobody had any illusions that it would last. When she finally broke free, suddenly there was so much built up that the first date would have been a whole lot more than a first date.
All of this said, I totally agree with you at least in spirit. If I could go back and tell myself one thing it would be not to start crossing bridges until you get to them. Resist developing feelings for people that are unavailable even if you’re sure that they will become available at a later date. If you meet someone online that you’ve taken a liking to, get offline and into a coffeehouse as quickly as you can. Even though it’s not required, the traditional method carries better results. If only because the landings are softer.
Peter is right, though. For people that don’t have many options at any given time, they’ll latch on to whatever they can find.
Oooh. Shiela brings up a good point. With the rapid acceleration of the physical aspects of a relationship, the expectations are greater and as such the importance of that first date become greater, too.
Peter is right, though. For people that don’t have many options at any given time, they’ll latch on to whatever they can find.
Right, like they’ll decide it’s a date when it’s not. Or, tell themselves it’s not a date when it probably is. And people aren’t allowed to actually talk about it.
In the old days, it was a big deal to spend any time with an unrelated person of the opposite sex. It was assumed to be romantic. Back then, a guy could feel he’d gotten something simply if allowed the privilege of dinner with a woman. “We had a few dates, but it never turned into anything serious,” was a typical statement. It didn’t mean a guy was a loser. A guy could be considered to have a successful romantic life even if he wasn’t having sex.
Nowadays, women and men are around each other all the time. The sole measure of success for a man is whether he gets sex from his female companions. Two guys of similar attractiveness can have widely varying rates of success depending on whether they have a social group with a lot of women around.
and as much as he was the kind of guy that she might have gone out with at some point,
This makes me think of your previous post about the futility of persistence. We were talking about stringing other people along. This example helps illustrate the point that sometimes people really can’t know or own their own feelings. We all know he wasn’t really a prospect, right? And we all know that lame delusional email wasn’t why she rejected him.
But it feels unseemly to rationally dissect a warm relationship and coldly identify the reasons you’d never wish to be with someone. Especially when the person would face social criticism for identifying those reasons. It’s supposed to be based on magic. So people will tell themselves they’re not sure, or not ready, because who knows if or when that magic will strike. It’s not just the guy who was being wastefully persistent, it was her too.
We know now that there’s really no magic. But we didn’t always know that.
By the way, Will — was “Dharla Torrez” an Hispanic? Could part of her worshipfulness been due to your white middle-classness? 😉
In every relationship I know of where a woman was in the unjustifiably adored position (and was actually in a relationship), she was white or Asian, and wealthy, and the guy was a different race and poorer.
And the way you describe the email writer, he doesn’t sound white either (at least not American-born).
Right, like they’ll decide it’s a date when it’s not. Or, tell themselves it’s not a date when it probably is. And people aren’t allowed to actually talk about it.
Gawd is this an infuriation position to be in when you can’t ask “What is this?” or are praying that the other person doesn’t ask.
The sole measure of success for a man is whether he gets sex from his female companions.
This is a point worth it’s own post. I’ve actually had it in mind for a while now. The thing is. Sex is a form of validation for men. Particularly men that have been in extended pseudo-relationships in the past and want to make sure that this isn’t something that’s going to be anulled. That she’s not going to later say that there wasn’t any there there.
Two guys of similar attractiveness can have widely varying rates of success depending on whether they have a social group with a lot of women around.
Of course, one could say that this is a reason that women should give nerds a chance. They may be an undervalued commodity because they are poorly situated. The problem with that, I guess, is that more than just nerds are in this category. And, as I’ve mentioned in the past, it has a tendency to work out in the end. I didn’t have a whole lot of romantic options most of the time, but all it took was one. Ditto for the wife.
We all know he wasn’t really a prospect, right? And we all know that lame delusional email wasn’t why she rejected him.
You’re at least half-right. It was over by the time the delusional email was sent. That was obvious to everybody. The email was dripping with hope of reconsideration, but it was obviously a last gasp. Not sure on the first part. She was genuinely interested in him at one point. I was there and I saw her interest drift away. It would slip a little for one reason or another, then he would freak out and that would lead to greater slippage and greater freaking out. Way, way, way before the email, it passed the point of no return.
In regards to the email about persistence, you said that behavior doesn’t matter a whole lot. I partially agree. There isn’t much you can do to generate interest, but there’s a whole lot you can do to demolish it. This guy did it all and ended up alienating a lot more than her.
So people will tell themselves they’re not sure, or not ready, because who knows if or when that magic will strike.
Oh yes, this is very familiar. My advice to any guy in this situation would be: RUN! AS FAST AS YOU CAN! There have been situations where relationships (in the loose sense of the word) have devolved into this situation and a romantic relationship eventually occurred, but (a) it’s exceptionally rare and (b) the only times I have seen it occur are cases where they two met up again after spending some time apart. Sitting around waiting for emotions to happen is disastrous for everybody involved.
It’s sort of like holding out hope when a couple is “taking a break”. Never say never, but as long as you’re still thinking about it enough to be holding out hope, you’re watching a pot on a broke stove, waiting for it to boil.
By the way, Will — was “Dharla Torrez” an Hispanic?
Not in any obvious sense except her name. And that was Cuban, which some say doesn’t count. She did come from a humble (rural) background. She owed her attendance at a city university in part to the fact that scholarship people do think that one-drop Cuban counts as Hispanic.
And the way you describe the email writer, he doesn’t sound white either (at least not American-born).
Interesting. He was very white. I could see why you might think otherwise. Reading someone else tell this story, I might have guessed Asian.
I may be an outlier (hell, I know I’m an outlier), but the irony of your post for me was that I was late in learning the exact opposite lesson: that admiration should not be mistaken for attraction.
You may remember my story about having expressed surprise about a pairing of two of my high school classmates on the grounds of the disparity in their intelligence/academic accomplishment. In my lack of experience, I applied this standard to myself as well. I perceived myself to be highly intelligent and admired intelligence in others; therefore, I should be attracted to smart girls, and they, likewise, to me.
Of course, the world doesn’t really work like that. It didn’t really work that way for me either. Because my self-image told me that I should be attracted to someone, I found myself in at least two instances attempting to conjure up in myself romantic feelings for girls where none were actually present. And in a couple of other instances, I was blind to how my own place in the status hierarchy limited my appeal to the smart girls I thought should be interested.
Eventually, I observed enough for the reality to sink in, but I was in my early twenties by this point and a lot of time had been wasted.
Perhaps I now overcompensate, but I am somewhat skeptical of the claim that admiration for a woman is even a necessary condition for attraction to her, let alone a sufficient condition. While I certainly admire (and am personally grateful for) my own wife’s talents, I was fully aware of these when I began courting her, and I doubt that the lack of such would have much cooled my ardor.
While the date/non-date distinction may be blurred a bit today, there’s still a difference between socializing in a mixed-gender group (non-date) and socializing one-on-one with a person of the opposite gender (date). It may have been the case that at one time mixed-gender group socializing was uncommon, and therefore that dates were somewhat more clearly identifiable as such, but that hasn’t been the case for many years.
You can see the distinction in many workplaces. If five or six co-workers, men and women together, go out to the Indian buffet around the block for lunch on payday, no one’s going to give it a second thought. If a man and woman, one or both married to other people, go out to lunch together, just the two of them, it’s a safe bet that the rest of the people back at work are going to be wondering what’s really happening.
I perceived myself to be highly intelligent and admired intelligence in others; therefore, I should be attracted to smart girls, and they, likewise, to me.
I think that over the longer haul smarter people are attracted to smarter people and dumber dumber. The mistake is thinking that as an isolated trait it should be determinative. And in the shorter state-of-mind that often comes with youth, it doesn’t really matter so much. The stratification based on intelligence usually comes (except when it doesn’t come at all) from experience and from the contemplation of permanency (a contemplation rarely fully explored in youth). Often subconsciously. Sometimes you’re not sure why something with somebody is not working out for you and you only later realize that it was because you were on two different intellectual planes.
Perhaps I now overcompensate, but I am somewhat skeptical of the claim that admiration for a woman is even a necessary condition for attraction to her, let alone a sufficient condition.
Your skepticism is well-founded. It’s neither necessary nor sufficient. It can be (though is not always) helpful. Clancy is the first person that I partnered up with that I had a real admiration for. I thought that I admired others, but I adored them.
If five or six co-workers, men and women together, go out to the Indian buffet around the block for lunch on payday, no one’s going to give it a second thought. If a man and woman, one or both married to other people, go out to lunch together, just the two of them, it’s a safe bet that the rest of the people back at work are going to be wondering what’s really happening.
First of all, are Indian buffets really expensive in NYC? Why would they wait for *payday*?
Second, you’re just wrong. Unless they eat together every day to the deliberate exclusion of others, very few people would make anything out of two co-workers eating together. Any old port in a storm. Especially with Indian food, which not everyone will eat.
Perhaps this attitude was behind your earlier dating misunderstandings …
Indian buffets are fairly cheap. I said payday because in my workplace that seems to be the traditional time for group lunches.
As for the issue of a man and woman going out to lunch together … well, maybe if it happens just occasionally, but I still think it might raise some suspicions. Especially if the ages are such that a romantic involvement is feasible and even more so if they seem to be close friends (“work spouses” is the trendy term). No one would be likely to say anything, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t notice.
While this may not be relevant to the post at hand, it did remind me of the relationship that I’ve had with some of the females in my life. While I never wanted Wellesley Queen in a sexual sense, I wouldn’t mind marrying her even if I meant that I would have a sexless and frustrating marriage with no real outlet. I viewed her as this glorious woman who was going places, and allowed me to be a part of life, and in a certain sycophantic sense, I probably would have done anything to please her. She was “better” than me since she was smarter than me, and she was going to become a big political figure, and I wanted anything to be with her as she rose upward. Mind you, little cracks developed in this facade when she told me about her desire to stay at home with her kids which would derail a quick rise politically, or her healthier relationships with her Wellesley friends.
In contrast, my non-date used to praise me and tell me how I’m smart and good looking, but it bugged me to death because while she saw all these positive traits in me, I don’t share the same sentiment, and quite frankly, it reduced some of my respect for her. I ended up thinking she was screwed up and messed up for thinking that I’m such a good person in her eyes. Once you consider yourself to be of low status, the only conclusion that develops is that anybody who looks up to you must be even worse off, and who wants to be with people who are worse off, especially in a way that may cause public embarrassment.
So it seems that while those with low self-esteem aspire for those who are above them, sometimes, when they are the object of someone else’s aspirations, they end up having questionable feelings of doubt or anger toward the source. Rarely do we ever make that connection of between the two feelings.
Oddly, despite being twenty-something, the dynamics being discussed seem to escape me. Mind you, I have only few friends, and most of my interaction with them is online. The closest that I’ve seen at work is how some people regularly go to lunch or break together. As an example, my non-date and I usually go on break together, and leave work at the same time, and one or two co-workers presumed that our half-assed attempts at flirting were really the foundations of a relationship. Another girl and a married guy have breaks and lunches together, and people have come to presume that she has developed a crush on him.
I’m not old! I’m just seasoned. Yeah, that’s it.
Interestingly, even now climbing that hill toward 45 I still “feel” emotionally the same as I have since I was about my mid-late 20’s. I feel like I could step back into that life I had in college to post-college and not miss a step. Maybe that’s an avoidance mechanism, a Peter Pan thing or just a desire to stay young. Regardless, I don’t feel like I’m getting “older” (physical symptoms aside).
But to clear up any misconceptions, when in high school and college our parents actually didn’t arrange our dates, nor did we sit demurely on our sweeties’ front porch swing, waiting patiently for her to scoot just a little closer, exposing an inch of kneecap for me to swoon over, while crickets chirped and homemade ice cream churned nearby 😉 I never wore a straw hat or a derby and can’t for the life of me remember riding one of those bicycles with the giant front wheel and tiny back one…
I was part of several large, diverse groups of friends in school that traveled and socialized together all the time. In fact my college groups define the various phases of my college career – first there was the Marching Band group, that stayed fairly constant for almost 3 years. The Computer Science group was together for the first 2 years. The Choral group was loose but constant the entire time I was in school. The Theatre Department group formed after my third year, and I joined the campus ministry group my third year and post-college as well. Each of those groups had men and women, all relatively close to each other in age, and there was inter-dating. Some circles even crossed. But when they hooked up, there did seem to be “dating” involved, if at least it was just hanging out together independent of the larger group.
Out of all those, even with the more bohemian Theatre group, I don’t recall a lot of random, one-night hookups – I’m sure they were there (I almost had some myself a few times) but they weren’t the popular topic of conversation in the groups.
A little while after Ted and I started dating, I remember he said that one of the things he liked most about me was the fact that I wasn’t afraid to “call him out” because it meant that I knew him well enough and cared enough to set things right.