The Date Horizon

Alyssa Miller

Two qualities I observe in my own brain:

1. It looks for patterns of behaviour (in women I date) that might or might not exist.

2. Its imagination leaps to long-term possibilities with women far beyond reality.

They're both manifestations of an inaccurate Date Horizon. The Date Horizon (did I just coin this?) is the natural expectation of what's reasonable from the other person given the current state of the liaison. For instance:

* After a first date, the Date Horizon can really only extend to the possibility of a second.

* After the first sex, the Date Horizon probably includes some number of future sessions. (NOTE: Or none.)

* Once the Fidelity Agreement's in place, the Date Horizon extends out by a few months.

* Marriage takes the Date Horizon at least to the natural horizon.


I imagine that we all get ahead of ourselves when we start out with someone new. Sadly, it's unrealistic and I believe ultimately destructive when the other person fails to live up to our dream (the hide!) or we actually start living in a way that's not reality-based.

So. Note to self: One step at a time. Take each date as it comes. Understand not everyone will work out. Keep a tight rein on the imagination. Watch how nice it is when the Date Horizon really does move beyond tomorrow.



Bottoms Up, Imagineers.

Cubism and Surrealism in Dating

Brooke Langton's pic from her website.

Hi. My name is Wombat, and I'm powerless. I'm addicted to women.

Group replies, together, out of synch, mumbled:

Hi Wombat.


I believe that we choose nearly all our behaviours, with some obvious exceptions. The mating imperative is one area in which we're strongly coded for irrationality, stories of which we could all relate. Over time our genetics over-ride any kind of logic or abstract higher-brain function, but not without a fight, and not in every case.

An example in my own life is that of two extremes created entirely in my imagination. If I encounter a woman I think is attractive, my head goes one of two ways: I'll either think she's so far out of my league that I won't bother approaching her OR I'll immediately imagine us together as a couple and how that would look and feel.

Both reactions are illogical, both reactions are destructive.

The mental tussle arises because of those competing priorities we all keep upstairs. There's that deep-seated reproductive urge fighting with all the cultural curlicues created higher up in the brain, the latter of which are so often ephemeral, tied up with ego and snippets of half-learned mind-junk.

Back to basics for me. All I can control is my own thinking, which needs to be stripped of expectation and artifice.



Hello, my name's Wombat. What's yours?




Bottoms Up, Clear-Headed Thinkers.

What is a woman thinking?

The interior of my mind (I'd like to think) is similar to that of an English gentleman's club. There are books and whisky; fine conversations and ancient agreements; nuance and humour. A smell of leather wafts around, the passing down of wisdom from one generation to another the currency of the house.

It's all bollox of course, a pure fantasy fuelled by (Sean Connery as) James Bond, failed British Empire schooling and a particular kind of snobbery one admires from afar, but can never really be a part of.

Never end a sentence with a preposition, by the way.

What interests me is what it's like inside the female brain. Those kitchy funnies depicting lady-brains as being all about shopping and emotion leave me cold, if only because the real thing is so much more likeable than that. A big mistake I have made in the past is to see women as a kind of enemy...or more like an untrustworthy ally, like, say Siegfried and Roy's tigers.

The female brain is an utter mystery to most guys I think, but it need not be so. One thing I discovered a while ago is that unlike mine, your brain is full of voices competing for attention. Goodness, it must be a cacophony in there. Guys need only understand that in order to be heard, they should be the loudest, most persistent voice. That's all. And I don't mean shouting without taking a breath. Just be there with a consistent, loving message, and you'll be heard.