Multi-tasking

This post is in response to Sunrise's post from earlier this week. I've realized that on-line dating really requires you to be a good multi-tasker.

Ideally, you can juggle a dozen matches, all at different stages of communication. Keeping track of each person's answers, trying to ask appropriate follow up questions, and not tell the same person the same thing twice. I found myself cutting and pasting from one email communication to the next, and trying to modify them based on something they had told me in some previous communication. The easiest way of course was to have two or three eharmony windows open simultaneously so I could flip back and refresh myself as to what the topic of conversation was. But then a few times, I found myself so thoroughly confused as to what precisely it was that I was trying to accomplish I just had to start all over. And, I nearly sent the wrong person a message meant for another match once or twice (thankfully, I caught my error in time). It also gets pretty confusing when you are communicating with a couple of gents with the same fist name from the same town... Brian from Fort Collins has sent you a message. Excellent! Now, which Brian is this? Am I excited or just hoping this email sparks some conversation that is actually interesting?

I started the online process gung-ho, took a little break, then tried to do it "one-at-a-time" but discovered it can be frustrating when folks dont write back. So, in my last couple weeks online I messaged everyone and had the multi-tasking nightmare described above. I am not an excellent multi-tasker. Just like in my real job, if I have 7 projects to do I start one, get distracted by another, get interrupted a second time by a third (or forth or fifth or...) and at the end of the day I realize I have accomplished nothing.

I certainly feel the same strangeness that Sunrise felt regarding the extensive inter-dating that goes on. Its hard to actually open yourself up to possibilities when you realize the guy you are excited about is the same one your friend is excited about, or whom may be really excited about even a third friend of yours. In real life at least there is some sensitivity to the feelings of others in these types of situations, but online, it seems its all fair game.

Giving a bad review of a date also has interesting consequences when you realize after the fact that your friend is also communicating with them. And so I find myself loading on the moderating comments.... like, perhaps it was simply a case of mis-understanding, or though he's not right for me, but maybe he'll be right for you"?

My brain is a bit too simple to be handling all these overlaps... not only do you have to multi-task with the men you are matched with, you really do need to be multi-tasking with sensitivity to your girlfriends who are likely matched with the same men, and may have something going there.

Needless to say, I stopped my subscription to eharmony in order to take it a bit slower, one crush at a time, and hopefully not overlap with my girlfriends :-)