Is it wrong for me to judge dates by their ability (especially lack thereof) to actually pick an activity, place, and time? Because I totally do. You want to do something with me? But you have no idea what that might be? Oh, anything *I* want to do, because you are a person utterly devoid of tastes and personality, too gutless to make a choice and advocate for it? You don’t really want to take me on a date, you want to tag along to whatever it is I would have done if I didn’t have a date? Fine, you are helping me do laundry. WHO’S SORRY NOW?
Nah, I don’t think it’s wrong. Then again, I was basically the one among my cycle of my friends who had to decide when we did something other than sitting around watching TV/movies or listening to them playing computer games. SHIT GETS OLD QUICK YO
There is very little that bugs me more than the “Let’s do something.” “What do you want to do?” “I dunno. What do you want to do?” “I dunno.” repeated in circular fashion for about an hour.
Fffff YESSSSS. “Oh hey let’s sit around while you hog the remote and keep flipping to ends of movies or stay for only 5 minutes on a show.” or “Let’s listen to you play Fable and listen to the annoying ‘GET YOUR COMBAT MULTIPLIER HIGHER’ commands over and over!”
Fortunately, I was able to find new friends who actually liked doing other things after a period of time.
I have often found that the people who are bored and indecisive are often themselves boring which is the root of their issues, and that’s why they rely on OTHERS to choose things to do. The problem is when they travel in flocks, resulting in the eternal “well, what do YOU want to do” feedback loops. It doesn’t make them bad people, just boring…but that still doesn’t mean I want to hang out with them and be their spine/motivator/engaging force.
Yeah. I think being around my roommates/friends and their SOs has helped me figure out things which I definitely do/do not want to put up with. Good: Someone willing to stay inside and watch movies and eat greasy Chinese food. Bad: Someone who wants to do this all the time.
And for some reason, picking activities isn’t an anxiety point for me, because I figure that if I choose something they don’t like and if I don’t pick up that they don’t like it AND if they don’t tell me if I try doing it again… then there might be a problem.
But that’s on your date/friend to let you know they don’t like doing it and suggesting an alternative instead of resigning themselves to something they don’t like and eventually resenting you or acting like a martyr.
Oh I’m not suggesting putting it on themselves. I’d probably ask. I guess I’m just amused by why doing this isn’t really as anxiety-inducing as, like, the rest of dating can be for me sometimes.
Incidentally, I love the subject line.
It pretty well encapsulates how I feel about the subject. If I’m always taking a guy to shows that *I* want to see and movies *I* want to see and restaurants *I* want to eat at…I’m just fine doing all of those things by myself, so what is he contributing?
I just want to find the person who will appreciate me making us a date to see this.
Andy, I want to go on a date with you.
:lj stalks, wildly:
Unsurprisingly, DITTO.
Pretty well anyone who suggests we go see a roadside attraction will have a piece of my heart forever. Particularly if it’s spectacularly awesome.
Really, the most heartbreaking thing about CO is the lack of readily available roadside kitsch.
When I’m vehicled up again, I swear to Cthulhu I am taking vacation time, and driving around the whole country seeing all of the roadside stuff I ever wanted to see.
Like the exhibit where dinosaurs fight civil war soldiers.
CREATIONISM MUSEUM FTW.
you can’t even imagine the stupid.
quality oral sex.
Based on my track record, when I go out with someone, I have to assume that sex will not happen, sadly.
I hate that SO MUCH. I really don’t like to be the one to come up with plans, simply because that implies that I need to take on the dreaded organizer role, but after five minutes of “Oh, it doesn’t matter to me; I could eat anything” and “Oh, I don’t care. I’ll go wherever everyone else wants to go,” I end up just saying “OKAY FUCK IT. WE’RE GOING TO BUFFALO WILD WINGS AND WE’RE GOING TO 6:30. DONE.”
This makes me feel like an asshole, but I am okay with being an asshole who is free of stagnant groupthink irritation.
I especially like it when the group says “oh, I don’t know what I want to do/eat” and when I make a suggestion, they say “not that, I’m not in the mood for that.”
BITCH I WILL CUT YOU
Welcome to my marriage.
“What do you want for dinner?”
“What movie do you wanna see/rent”
“What do you want to drink?”
“Do you wanna stay married”
Wah wah wahhh
HAHAHA ILULT
What’s this about you moving?
Long-story short, my mom is leaving to do her ph.d. and needs a house sitter. And of all her children, apparently, I’m doing the least important stuff. But also need a free house. So. Free house! Woo!
But spokane. Meh. I’ll do school over there, since we all know what a wild success seattle college has been for lanny.
Whattaya know, now I actually have a reason to visit Spokelahoma. So this summer, I will fly out on one of those cheapass southwest flights and we will go visit the robot hut, ok?
This sounds great. Plus, there’s the added bonus that it’s only a 38 minute flight…as opposed to the 4.5 hour drive.
Well that, and not having a car makes a 4.5 hour drive into a month walking.
Imagine how long it’s gonna take me to move there! Eesh…
that never happens with me because i always have a list of 500 things i want to do and i could usually care less if the other person wants to do them or not. in fact, i’d rather do something that i want to do, because at least then if the person turns out to be lame, i got to do something that i wanted to do anyway. heh.
the exception to this is of course good friends/”serious” partners… if i actually really love and respect someone, then i start caring more about what they want and what will make them happy. but if they’re mostly a stranger, i’m not all that concerned about it because for all i know they might not turn out to have been worth the time in the first place.
i can relate in one sense, though – i find it extremely bizarre that i often seem to be the only person in a group with a long list of things i want to do, places i want to go, restaurants/bars/etc to check out… many of my friends seem content to just go to the same places and do the same things over and over ad infinitum and it’s really weird. i’ve read psychological studies where they put gps tracking devices on people and tracked where they went over long periods of time, and most people stayed within a very tiny radius of their home and work regardless of whether they had a car or not, rarely venturing into even other neighborhoods let alone other cities. bizarre
Yeah, I find not wanting to do and experience new things to be completely bizarre. After I plan a group outing to do _____, people without fail ask, “Melissa, how do you FIND these sorts of things, I never would have done this or heard about this.” and I never know how to answer that question. Uh, I keep my eyes open and note when something catches my interest?
I don’t know that it’s wrong – though thinking back to my younger dating days, I don’t know how well I’d have measured up. Not because I lacked my own tastes, but mainly I wanted to be all attentive and shit. And college was worse, because I had nooooo money to do anything that cost anything. Laundry? SHIT YEAH. Can we do a load of my whites? Can you spot me a buck fifty in quarters? I’m good for it, baby.
It’s kind of a minefield sometimes: sometimes when a fella says “Let’s do THIS” the lady’ll go along – and then you find out a month? A year? later that “Oh, that John Zorn thing at the Knitting Factory? I hated that. What were you thinking?”
But it’s all about getting to know one another. If someone makes a choice and I try it and don’t like it, it is still an experience outside of something that I could and would have just done by myself.
True!
Anyone who doesn’t like John Zorn is DOING IT WRONG.
By “it” I mean “life”.
Well I think that both people should be able to come up with something to do, it shouldn’t have to be only one person.
I agree, and I like having some say in it, but lately, it’s been that I choose 100% of everything 100% of the time, and I HATE it. How about, when someone asks ME out to do something, THEY decide what that something is? And when *I* ask someone out, *I* decide?
I swear you’ve got a camera in my living room or something. This is my standard argument with Deavon. Not only does he never suggest anything, but he also doesn’t want to DO anything other than watch TV or play a board game with me. Other than that, he’ll just tag along when I do my thing.
He insists he’s always been like that, and I insist he could NOT have been like that when we were dating, or we wouldn’t have lasted a month. But he likes to ask over dinner, “so would you like to do something tonight?” It makes me want to reach across the table and smack him, because “something” always means TV or board games, or I do my own thing and he does his own thing. I’ve actually left the room sometimes after begging him to make the simplest of decisions and him freezing up with, “well, really, which would you prefer? Whatever you want is fine!!!” GAHHHH!
Hahahaha you know it’s bad when you want to shake them and shout “STOP BEING SO DAMNED AGREEABLE!”
Did he like to do things before you were married or dating that were not tv or board games? What’s stifling his interests in those things now?
Ugh, I’m not even going to get into it. That way be dragons. Suffice to say, that second question is going to be put to a marriage counselor. But yes, he used to. He introduced me to fencing and English country dancing and learned a foreign language and had plans to go off and teach in Japan. Whatever changed, I miss not getting my own way all the time. 🙁
Well, there’s no shame in using a counselor to try to tackle these issues. Playing armchair therapist, he could be experiencing some depression which can cause lack of interest in a lot of things, lack of passion and focus. Things like teaching overseas, eventually those get dismissed as dreams of youth owing to a number of increasingly complicating factors…it’s sad to let those sorts of dreams go, but they do become less realistic as time passes.
I hope he works through these issues and you’re forced to take a backseat occasionally. 🙂
I would *hate* if someone actually “decided” what we were doing on a date – but a suggestion, or even a “hey there’s this, any objections?”, would be a good thing.
I only make the distinction because one of my friends told me about a social experiment he did where he went on dates with a bunch of girls from an internet dating site and tried acting completely opposite of what he’d normally do – like telling the ladies where they were going on a date instead of asking even for approval – and apparently lots of ladies enjoyed it. Whereas my first reaction if someone tried that on me would be “super-controlling guy RED ALERT BAD NEWS DISENGAGE!”
How about, I don’t want to be the person who always has to come up with the idea for what to do? Decision IS probably too strong a word. I just don’t want everything to be guided by my impulses and desires, I want someone else’s impulses and desires to have influence–that’s why I’m seeking out the company of someone else, to have *different* shared experiences.
That sounds like a good rule. Wanna do something? Then YOU suggest.
OK, hotshot, then gimme some pointers on this one, because i am absolutely HORRID at this. I think i have some sort of short in my brain that is convinced i’m imposing by suggesting something i THINK we may both want to do, but am convinced that only i want to do it and she’s humoring me.
I think i was permanently scarred by an ex-girlfriend who once pulled a “do you think i actually LIKED going to all those shows? I just went along to them so i could hang out with you!” *headdesk*
This is exactly why people hate to be the one who chooses. The one who chose ends up being the one blamed when the date doesn’t work out, even if it’s the other person’s/both people’s/nobody’s fault.
Or if he picks something expensive and you endure because it’s expensive even though you don’t like it instead of saying “I’d be ok with a just day at the park.”
EXACTLY YES.
I don’t mind chosing sometimes, but I have ended up chosing almost EVERY time in the last four years. I think the reason I became smitten with Ben#2 so quickly this year is because he actually asked me out on a thoughtful date.
Ehn, shrug that shit off. Just because *one* ex trained you poorly doesn’t mean too much.
You used the word training, then suggested that it can be shrugged off. Just like that.
I shrug off training like a lab shrugs off raindrops.
On a more serious note, dumping conditioning from an ex is much easier than doing so with a current gf.
It hasn’t been just one. So, obviously, i’m doing something wrong.
Stop taking your girlfriends to your vampire LARP, for chrissakes.
Hahahaha
ROLL THE DICE TO SEE IF I SCORE
(I feel bad that I know it’s actually flipping coins, not dice.)
I believe the liveaction vampires I knew used rock-paper-scissors to decide these sorts of things.
if they were any good at larp, they should’ve stopped, since everyone knows that in the same group of players, RPS patterns develop.
Having never been a liveaction vampire game playing person, I cannot say whether they were any good or not. I mostly just didn’t judge them for being liveaction vampire game playing people.
I preemptively judge them for being shitty RPS players.
I secretly judge them for wearing capes.
ooooh sorry, ‘powerful cloaks with magic aura imbued by clan elders’
Sometimes, especially when it’s cold and I’m sleepy, my blankie becomes a cape.
Also, I’m 27 years old and still have a blankie.
Is it imbued with magic powers from the elders?
Do you mean my mommy and her washing machine? Totally.
(Don’t feel too bad, as you’re incorrect. Flipping coins is just for that one particular LARP, which isn’t a vampire game)
Yeah, you’re dating martyrs.
Nothing wrong with picking something you think you’ll both like, doing it, and then asking for feedback afterward. If she didn’t tell you she didn’t like going to shows, that’s on her, not on you. Or doing the “I picked the activity, you pick the restaurant” or “I decided everything about the last date, it’s your turn” thing. That way not only are you learning more about the other person’s tastes so you can make informed decisions going forward, but if you DON’T like the same things, you’ll still have fun half the time.
There’s also nothing wrong with the person being asked out to say BEFORE the date “Hey, I don’t like doing that, how about something else.” Why should he have to wait until after to find out she knew she wouldn’t like it?
It’s the framing. If it’s something you won’t like doing, then you are going to have a negative psychological connection with the person because you’re in a negative psychological state, no matter how fantastic that person is.
That, too! If someone doesn’t advocate for themselves and their interests, they’re not doing anyone any favors.
But I think feedback after the date is also important, because people’s impressions of how an experience *might* be can be strikingly different from how they feel about the actual experience afterward.
dates that don’t work out don’t get feedback.
cf. every post I made in 2007.
Which is why I’m upfront about loathing the living crap out of karaoke. It’s a little awkward to lead with that, but it saves SO MUCH pain and suffering later on.
…in our civil union, we will have to be ok with having some nights apart.
Because I LOVE karaoke.
I would freak the hell out if my SO demanded that we have identical interests and needed to spend every single night together. Hell, I’ll be cranky if I have to spend every night in the same bed with them. Oh my god, I love personal space.
Please, please, love karaoke. Love it a lot! Just don’t make me get anywhere near it. It makes me sad and sullen and awful to be around.
I love personal space, too! You’re the best partner a girl could ask for–one that isn’t around ALL THE FUCKING TIME but is super fun when she is!
Hi, I’m a stranger offering you unsolicited advice. I know people LOVE that!
I think if a person chooses to just humor you, that’s on them. I mean, if they try to stick you with it later that’s kind of a dick move (like your ex did) but trust me on this: most of us don’t want a passive shadow; we want a partner.
And you’ve probably got some interests worth being “humored.” Your date could learn something new. 🙂 If you’re just following her, than in that aspect of the relationship you’re not really challenging her in any way. Which… to me, is boring. I’d rather grudgingly go along with something a guy wants to do, end up hating it, and teasing him about his horrible taste later, than always just do what I want to do.
/end unsolicited advice
You and I see exactly eye to eye on this.
…So, I’ll just do whatever it is you want to do tonight.
:runs:
Bookstore visit. Ice cream shop. Zoo. In better weather, walks around a park. Walks with ice cream. The zoo, with ice cream! Hot chocolate, in this weather! Ice skating. Ice skating followed by hot chocolate!
If you’re dating someone lactose intolerant, I’m a lot less useful.
On a more serious note, dating is like auditioning, but instead of wanting to be “good enough” to get approved, you are looking for compatibility. So if you suggest something and she agrees and you find out later that she is the type who will be all long-suffering and resentful – you have learned that you are not compatible! If she agrees to something she doesn’t want to do and gets cranky, you’re not compatible! And if the date doesn’t work out for neutral reasons and she blames you, you are definitely not compatible and also change her number to “do not answer” in your phone.
Also, I have gone to shows with boyfriends where I was not interested in the show because I wanted to hang out with them. But I would never resent them for it! I consider hanging out with boyfriends a good thing, generally speaking.
PS Never pick something expensive, as referenced in another comment, but I think you know that one already.
ditto, ditto, dittooooooo.
🙂
Because I know that I don’t like doing things that most people like doing.
Example: First date with was a day at IKEA.
When she asked what I had planned, I said, “Well, I don’t know what you want to do, but I figured I could either show you the fantasy world I live in or the real world I live in.” She picked fantasy. If she’d picked real world, we would’ve gone to the casino.
Your real world is the casino? ….weird, its like the first layer of hell for me.
I’m more intrigued that IKEA is the fantasy world.
In my fantasy world i’m eating Swedish meatballs like all the damn time, so i can see it.
Every time I walk through IKEA I look at the model rooms and think “If I fill my place with IKEA furniture, I WILL HAVE A CLEAN AND ORGANIZED HOUSE!” and I revel in the fantasy of an organized life.
That technique worked for and I. Then again it involved moving to a place that sorta looked like an unfurnished IKEA house.
The fantasy part is that I know myself well enough that it would take being homeless again to have my belongings organized and under control.
Fire, baby! It solves all sorts of problems.
Every time I have to move, I think about lighting everything on fire and starting over.
LOL!!!
Yeah HollyQueen fire DOES solve all the clutter problems ROTFLMAO (I so laugh about it now *snort*)
hahahaha I think the whole purging of things I’m doing lately is partially due from living much too close to IKEA and fantasizing about having everything in neat little color-coded boxes.
..
I say deliver me from swedish furniture!
it’s like fight club! well, except for beating people in public
Life is chaos, life is random, life is a gamble, life is merely your ability to work through odds stacked against you.
Life is a casino.
But there’s nothing wrong with that, either. How is someone supposed to know about you and what you like if you put yourself out to do things that other people like and you don’t? How do you find someone whose tastes match yours if you’re not taking your tastes into consideration?
That’s true, but my point is I’m not deciding. I am limiting your options. So while you still choose, it’s didn’t really feel like you chose. Even though you did.
Taking a date to IKEA? Hot damn awesome! I’d see if you could sneak in a toaster and some toaster waffles, butter and syrup… and then make breakfast in one of the kitchens. If you can pull off a hot water bottle and some instant coffee, that much the better. 🙂
I did the IKEA date thing once. Unfortunately, he was an insufferable bore. How anyone can be boring in IKEA is beyond me, but he managed it.
i always come through with a plan
Eh, it can be annoying – I go through this with Chris quite a bit – but in my case I don’t mind if I generally end up being the one to decide, because #1 if he doesn’t like it he’s got no one to blame but himself; and #2 discovering new, fun things to do is just not something he’s very good at. He’s very much a person of routine, but he knows I like to try new things so often he’d rather have me pick something than have me roll my eyes in exasperation when he suggests Chipotle for the fifth time in a week.
Five times in a week? You must have gotten your hands on some Chipotlaway!
Somehow, I’m always the one to choose, and I never get any feedback beyond ‘whatever you want’ which one: sets a bad precedent, two: is annoying as hell, and three: makes me feel like I’m going out on a string of dates with utterly replaceable people, since the faces change, but there’s never any sort of personality attached.
I understand. You should just make these guys decide.
I once told a guy I dated for a while that if he did not stop pulling the “I don’t know, what do YOU want to do” crap with me and plan one date from start to finish, I was breaking up with him. Whattaya know, he actually planned a date.
I agree with the “I don’t want to decide, as they may simply go along with it and not say anything and then I’ll find out later that they never wanted to do it in the first place, and I’ll feel terrible.” Whether it’s with a date, friend, or group of friends. But then, I hate dating, and am happily — nay, ecstatically single, so there you go.
Personally I think Laundry would be a fun date. You get to compare clothes, and while the laundry is going, you can go out and explore the area, run out for coffee or burgers or something, then return and chat while you fold your skivvies. Afterwards, dessert, and your car smells like clean laundry.
Plus, then my date could see all of my horrifying underwear selections at once. “You have RUFFLES on your butt? What are you, five?”
HELLO? RUFFLED PANTIES ARE SO GODDAMN SEXY!
I’ve always said that Costco is the ideal first date. There’s free food, you can talk about the stuff they sell, find out what kinds of things the other person likes to use in their daily life (Oh, I don’t like that toothpaste), and actually buy the things you need. So even if it doesn’t work out, you’ve got your shopping done.
I’d totally help you do laundry: that date would kick ass.
Sweet. Come over. Bring a basket and some quarters.
Dig.
First date with my wife?
Spaghetti and a Spaghetti Western. That’s how I branded it, and we had a great time. What would’ve crowned this was if I would’ve gotten us cowboy hats (cheap costume ones) and badges to wear.
Second? Tea tasting at the Ten Ren tea room, which was oh so fun. 🙂
Re: First date with my wife?
Spaghetti & Spaghetti Westerns? I love it! 😀
ADK and I do this sometimes. Mostly I am tired and overworked which makes me extremely irritable, so when trying to decide what to do I want to find something that she will enjoy so as to not ruin the night with my bitching 😀 Also, spending the whole day making decisions for other people and explaining them only to come home and make more decisions for other people sucks.
I don’t even know why I’m not logged in. This is a useless post. Revel in it for it has no purpose!
Well, I’m not saying that the guy has to make all the decisions all the time, it’s more that some guy will ask me out and then say “So…uh, what do you want to do?”, and it doesn’t matter if we go on one date or twelve, somehow *I’m* the one who always makes the decisions about everything, like they’re completely afraid that they’ll pick something I won’t like (or they’re completely afraid of me). I just want someone who demonstrates interest in something other laying down the barest minimum effort legwork in an attempt to get laid.
o@ *blink* HOLYSHIT!
YOU JUST POSTED ON LJ? Well there was a blue moon recently. hrm.
But your plans are so much AWESOMER than my plans!
At this point, I’ve accepted that I’m the only one who knows anything about anything – most people who get caught up in the “i dunno” loop may do so because they’re a) boring and b) are so boring that they’ve never given a second thought to NOT being boring, and thus have no options to rectify the boring.
So I’ll lay out three or so options, and force them to choose. If they play the “no, whatever YOU want is fine card” I explain to them that I did the hard work of figuring out several things to do, it’s time to put on the big boy pants and have a fucking opinion.
If not, we’re all playing minigolf and eating korean food. forever.
Hmm, how about half-minigolf, half go-karting and then indian food. Forever.
We could get a civil union now and bypass all of this malarky!
yspls.
can we find some us-sized roller coasters? and the jersey devil?
for the honeymoon, can we go to Australia and stare the the World’s Largest (Noun)?
Yes, yes, and yes. I also want to go to Silver Mountain for one year’s winter vacation, because they have skiing (and presumably sledding for uncoordinated me) AND an indoor heated water park.
..
*covet*
wtf 112 comments (i haven’t even looked yet it may be you commenting to yourself 112 times)
its..
the Replypokolypse2010! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
Lots of stuff going down, basically we all agree that everyone should have a hand in planning dates sometimes, but everyone is responsible for their own happiness. and I are getting civil unioned, and then we’re going on a date with to see taxidermied animals wearing outfits.
I totally suffer from this. It’s a disorder, Mell, not something to be taunted.
But what’s the root? A desire to please? A lack of interest in specific things? Or just not caring?
Maybe they just wanted to do something that they know you’d enjoy.
But I enjoy lots of things, and all of the things I enjoy I tried for the very first time at one point or another. I like the idea of broadening my horizons for enjoyment, and I like it when someone is confident enough to send the message “I like this, and I like you, therefore, I think you should try this”, plus anyone who scores big with a fun new experience is going to score great big sexymeter points.
Fair enough!
OMG this is such a looooooong thread. I just wanted to be 122, I admit.
The whole dating what-to-do thing overwhelms me as much as the number of posts here.
I said no to a 10k run-kayak-bike first-date suggestion once.
My interests are shared by maybe 0.2% of the men I’ve encountered, so I usually do something he suggests because it will be something we’ll both enjoy…’cause I’m flexible that way.
Ahahahaha I would only say yes to a 10k run-kayak-bike ride first date if he was ok with having hospital food for dinner, because that’s surely where I’d end up.