Speaking of venting, maybe I’ll post this for you. My friend Dayle is tired, tired, tired of dating. Last night she goes on what she claims is her last date (for now, I imagine.) The date was nondescript, but as it turns out, it’s the proverbial straw on her Dromedary. She writes him a response to his generally upbeat follow-up email. It’s a vent of black-belt proportions:

Hi Sam,

Normally, I would just reply with a polite, “thanks, it was nice meeting you but I didn’t really feel a connection.” Which would be a true and honest response. However, since as I previously stated, you’ve caught me during a period of “dating frustration”, I’m gonna give you a little feedback that you may or may not find helpful. (lucky you, right?)

You had warned me that when you’re nervous, you tend to talk a lot in order to avoid “awkward silences.” And while I understand this, there was never an awkward silence, because I don’t think you ever stopped talking. This fact, in and of itself, wouldn’t necessarily be a terrible thing but at some point, I was hoping that you would’ve taken a moment to express an interest in learning something about me. It’s true, that no one wants to be interviewed during a date, where someone asks you one question after another. But do you realize that you never asked one single question about me?

Point and case:

Here are some things I learned about you last night:

• The names of all four of your childhood dogs and how each one met their untimely demise.
• How many brothers and sisters you have
• You’re “pro open source book” (Nevermind that I have no idea what a source book is)
• What your parents do for a living
• The type of company you work for and what they do.
• And a fairly detailed description of your stock portfolio.

And it’s not that I don’t think you should share this information (well, I could’ve done without the open source book monologue) but I challenge you to think of even one thing that you learned about me last night.

I think perhaps you should change your profile headline from “Looking for a good conversationalist” to “Looking for a good listener.” And listening is what I do for a living, not what I want to do on a date. Part of being a good conversationalist entails expressing an interest in learning something from the other party involved.

And on a more superficial note, (just because I’m on a roll) while I did appreciate the fact that you dressed nicely for the date, it’s not advisable to point out to your date that you’re dressed “better” than she is. And while I’m at it, you might want to rethink the black trenchcoat, it’s a little to “Columbine” if you know what I mean.

Again, it might just be bad luck that you got to meet me during a time when I probably just need to take a break from dating, but you did. And as I said, maybe some of this will be helpful in your future dating endeavors. At the very least it was helpful for me to vent. And now maybe you’ve learned something about me afterall.

Best of Luck,

Dayle