Preface: I’ve been feeling a bit down about not having anything to write about the past few weeks. I had started to…attach?…myself to someone, so I sort of gave up on the dating thing. However, after a little introspection, I’ve realized that although there haven’t really been many new and mortifying…er, exciting…dates recently, I’ve come across a barrage of other things to discuss. Plus, I remembered that this blog, albeit highly entertaining at times, is not meant for the masses. I started this for me, and I will write about what I want, ya hear?
So today, boys and girls, I’d like to talk about a concept I call “one of many,” or OOM for short.
For those of you who are not aware of this phenomenon, it’s where one person dates multiple people and makes them all feel like special fucking snowflakes. While it’s true that everyone has their unique traits that do make them special and stand out against a harem of others, I call bullshit when the thing you are telling one is the EXACT same thing you are telling the others. If everyone is special, then no one is, right?
I think that for me this whole thing boils down to the fact that we (me and usually the person I’m dating) are part of the Gen Y. Although I really try to emphasize the fact that I was born right on the cusp of X and Y and hopefully don’t carry over all of those “me, me, me” tendencies (yet I’m currently blogging, which I suppose is a highly narcissistic quality), I do recognize the fact that we were brought up to believe that we were special. Everyone got a trophy and had some play time in whatever sport they partook, which really did level the playing field.
Fast forward 25 years and now this generation of “remarkable/unique/singular” humans are all vying for the same job or home or seat on the train. Or in my case, for the attention of the same individual.
Before anyone gets all snitty and calls me a hypocrite (“But Erin, you are basically doing the same thing by dating all these different people”), I’d like to point out that, yes, I see the irony in this. However, I am not stringing along a plethora of men and I really do try to make a bit of an effort to make them each feel like an individual. I’m not cutting and pasting a pre-fabricated pick up paragraph into an email that I then Bcc: to the hoards of men with which I’m engaging (I swear to god, I feel like this has been done to me before). There may have been an occasion or two where I have sent a couple of them the same picture, but that was just because A. I looked good and B. it’s not often I’m camera-ready so C. I need to take advantage when I am.
That being said, this whole concept has made me realize that I need to do something special to stand out from my peers. I was recently asked “So sell me on you. Why I should take you out?” After quickly gagging at the idea that I had to somehow perform like a circus animal for this guy’s attention, I decided to play into it a bit. My response:
I can give you the long-winded version that includes my many shining qualities (educated, quick-witted, etc.) or I can just cut to the chase and say that I’m basically one of the most awesome people in this city. I hesitate to say “in the world” because, let’s face it, there are 7 billion people on the planet, and odds are that at least one or two might be a bit more awesome. However, the chances of you running into those two other people are pretty slim, so it’s best to just stick with me.
…you picking up what I’m putting down, dickhead?
While yes, I did insult him in the end, I suppose my response did what it was intended to do and made me stand out a smidge. We engaged in some light conversation after, however since I didn’t really like his approach to me having to convince him I was worthy of his time, I was okay with letting the chat fizzle out.
So rereading what I’ve drafted so far, I can seen that there is a bit of scatterbrained-ness to this entry, and for that I apologize. I started off in one direction and sort of jostled around a bit. However, I will now do a callback and say that both the topic of the entry and the unclear writing style were due in part to recently feeling like I was one of many. I’ve played that whole game before and have competed for someone’s attention. Sometimes it worked in my favor and sometimes it didn’t, and all I can say for certain is that things never worked out with the person I was trying to win over.
…and basically it was because they were all dicks who pitted females against one another for their own entertainment.
Okay, rant over. Sorry about that.
Catch and Release 