wendy house

the snow is cold and fresh, lets go out on the downs and make love, I really want to make love outdoors, please…

I knew the pull of making love in freshly fallen snow.

But not with him. We weren’t even friends, let alone lovers. Once I would have considered that all part of the fun.  I’d learned the hard way that strangers with a sense of vitality, of living life to the full, seemed to come in a package that perversely included a need to possess, control.  To own you in a way that breaks legal and moral boundaries, that breaks skin, bone, hearts and noses.  I’m more cautious now.

Masturbate or find another partner, I’m not interested

 lover: you’re a very visual person

wendy: I’ve got two eyes and I like to keep them peeled lest I start to loose things and fall over more than normal

lover: no, i mean you like to make love in the daylight, outdoors

wendy: that”s so much more than visual. Thats the breeze drying the sweat on your back, smell of the dew on the grass and the leaf mulch in your hair, the shiver from the scatchy snow on your buttocks.  That’s not just visual, that’s living.

lover: that will take me a while to get used to

But he never got the chance to ‘get used to it’ because I wasn’t patient enough to be waiting for someone in their 40′s to learn how to make love out from under cover of darkness, sheets and comfort of artificially sprung surfaces.  There are times when throwing caution to the evening breeze is exhillerating and worthy of a plunge

Office manager (OM): Have you got your keys?

wendy: yes

OM: your phone?

wendy: Oh, let me check, yes

OM: your power cable?

wendy: YES! I remember packing that one

OM: your wallet?

wendy: yes

OM: your jacket?

wendy: I didn’t come with a jacket

OM: are you sure?

wendy: yep, I’m sure

OM: OK, so I’m not going to be getting a message tomorrow asking me to find something and mail it back to you?

wendy: that’s right, I’ve got everything I came with and more. I wish there was someone like you in my home, I miss having someone check that I’ve got my marbles before I leave my home. Paper checklists aren’t quite as much fun

In less than 2 minutes I’d fallen deeply in love with a youngster, he must be all of 30yrs.  His name badge says Glen. A good name, other members of the wendy house family are called Glen, but that wont cause a problem.  Glen can solve problems.

He smiles, talks sense, makes constructive left of field suggestion, shows me diagrams, puts different phones in my hand while he uses a real pen to do some quick maths on a sheet of paper. He compares the prices of different solutions for me.  I’m totally hooked.  After this brief and productive conversation, this performance, we make a date for next Saturday. I bounce out of car phone warehouse with an abundance of teeth reflecting the hot glow of the summer sunshine.  Maybe I should propose on Saturday.  Before or after I’ve purchased something, what’s the ettiquette?

 Well done Reading town’s carphone warehouse, your staff recruitment strategy is excellent.  Looks like I’ll be dropping my service relationships with t-mobile, Orange, and BT all in one go for the ‘TalkTalk’ service that some of the Wendy House family are already using.  Hoorah

Thankyou to Happy Frog’s friend for pointing me to the carphone warehouse

the 15th June.

Ides of June.

Recurring.

Recurring in Outlook.  Outlook synchronised with my cell phone. 2 messages meet me today

Your birthday (my phone). your birthday (my laptop).

I want to forget all that made loving you hurt me.  A party made loving you fun.

I miss the parties I arranged for your birthday. Reading the reminder I want to send you a card.  But maybe not.

I want to arrange a parrty. But maybe not.

I wish I could let it all go and delete the recurring reminder. But maybe not.

Party. Love. Sunshine. Summer. Love.

The wendy house has spent 4 years together with wordpress. This is one of the longer technology-service relationships that I’ve participated in.  

Still feels good

Happy valentines day

Jill: do you think he’s handsome?
Gail:   Handsome isn’t quite the word I’d use,   cute, good looking,   cheeky,   maybe.   Those dimples, pale green eyes and tight perky bum are a class above the other boys

Jill: is he your boyfriend?
Gail:   NO! Why d’you think that?

Jill: Well,   I saw you holding hands and you’re always hanging-out together after school
Gail: no,   he’s just a friend, I keep thinking I should fancy him,   what with him being so pretty and all,   but I don’t…   …don’t know why

Jill: are you gay?
Gail:  don’t think so, I don’t fancy any girls

Jill: do you fancy any boys?
Gail: no.   It’s  really disappointing,   I keep hoping that it’s just because I haven’t met the right boy yet,   but how many boys do you have to meet?   Everyone else seems to find people to go out with and  snog in the corridors.  

Jill: what about Andy?   He’s nice, tall, funny  and clever, there’s a whole load of girls want to go out with him,   you sit next to him in maths and history  and you go round his place after class, some of the girls are really jealous
Gail: Really?!    He’d love to know that,   can I tell him?  

Jill: NO!   way-too embarassin’
Gail: You too?!     Why can’t I see it, whatever it is that he has that you all fancy

I love her. Tears streaming down John’s face.   I know. Liz reassures him

 I didn’t love any of the others. As one of ‘the others’ Liz understands, laugh’s, lowers and softens  her tone   I know.

Where is she?   Liz knows that  Maria is skinny-dipping with her new lover, John’s friend,  on a beach 5 miles west of the camp site.   She can look after herself,   where-ever she is,   she’ll be alright.  

John takes the torch, scrambles out of Maria’s tent and starts stumbling from tent to tent,   peering in, stumbling.   He’s been drinking.   Liz curses the lads for leaving John with the holiday  whisky stash.    

Where is she? Liz parries   ‘It doesn’t matter.    Where-ever she is,   it’s none of our business.   John,   ITS OVER, she’s left you, she doesn’t want to  see you.   Let her go’   John doesn’t appear to hear.   He makes his way to his aging MG midget and climbs in.   Liz runs to the car and jumps into the passenger seat.  

John,   you’re in no state to drive,   DONT DRIVE.   The car lurches over the field’s uneven ground, Liz wishes she was old enough to drive   Calm down,   where are you going?   As he shifts to second gear  he says ‘the pub’.    Liz tries again Can we walk?  John is determined   You can walk if you want.   The pub is only 3 miles away,   the roads are deserted,   they could make it.    The lad’s are in the pub,   support,   distraction and warmth.    They swerve down the  dry-stone-wall lined winding roads.

John  seemed to need  to move his relationship loss of control and emotional pain to something physical.      

A wall mangled the Midget

Love crashed

As they strode towards each other through the bed warehouse John’s baritone reassured the young besuited sales assistant

I’m looking for a bed
me too! Sarah’s soprano sang,   John stopped, turned to face her
Are you? his slight Oklahoma drawl,   playfully suggesting a challenge
No,  I’m looking for YER bed misser Sarah tilted her head and  flashed her lashes to take up the challenge. John blushed with a hint of a smile before turning back to the sales assistant.  

The technical bed-purchasing discussions didn’t interest Sarah.    From across the warehous she interrupted their conversation to ask the sales assistant If I takes me shoes off can I jump on yer beds… …to test em out like? the young besuited assistant nodded.  

Sarah kicked of her pumps, leapt onto the nearest bed then launched from bed to bed across the store finally  stopping by John who was lying on his back.  His body barely moved as she landed beside him. His eyes were closed,  his fingers woven together across his chest. If she hadn’t known he was testing sleep she might have thought him dead. Sarah gently kissed Johns serene forehead.    

Are you dead? Can I wake the dead?! Sarah started trampolining by John’s side.   With a slow deliberate move he swung his arms round her legs and draggged them to the foot of the bed.   She fell neatly  in a giggling bundle beside him.

“I think this one will do,   don’t you?” he said to the sales assistant while holding Sarah’s gaze.

Person At Party In Garden (PAPIG): is [chap] coming to the party?

Wendy:   I don’t know,   I think he might be out of the country,   he was in Australia on Monday

PAPIG:   is he YOUR man?

Wendy: (calmly spills drink over wasp while gatheirng composure)…no, he’s not my man…

PAPIG: I thought that was strange…   …I mean,   your man being out of the country

Wendy: Oh (signifying a brain-stall prompted by the assumption that I possess a man that is averse to leaving  the country)

March 15th 1984

It  will take several months to read the varied  scrawl of miss-spelt ramblings in my early diaries.    Mumzie recently  discovered these diaries in a  dark corner of her home.    The diaries stop in 1984 when I switched to letter writing…

A second sheet was added to this  1984 entry during my first year at University.     The day went something like this:  

A morning of contemplating whether  a fascinating but somewhat screwed-up boy  should have the benefit of my influence in his life.    

An  afternoon  sketching portraits of 2 handsome boys while they supplied me with lots of tea.   The tea taking isn’t explicitly mentioned because it is  understood as a part of  the ‘spending an afternoon with a handsome fellow’ process.   The boys  had the afrontary to  keep the sketches.   Sadly,   I don’t actually have copies of any of the portraits I used to produce.   I was fairly prolific with my sketch-book as well as in my diaries.    

The evening involved drinking ‘side cars’ in a disco and  helping a girl-friend disrupt the dancefloor during some of those slow girl-boy cuddling dances by jumping around between the soppy-people.    

A  fabulous day indeed.

boys with fancy toys captured my childish attention.  
during my teens fast, animated, talkers arrested this heart.  
moody, anachronistic, lads provoked passion through my 20′s.    
the 30′s  found unassuming social facilitators gifting eternal love.
what qualities will seduce this heart through its 40′s?  

Hope  desires wisdom

written at 2am on a quiet, sleepless, balmy, summer Seattle night. (Wendy age 42)

1990

While searching my drawers for material to take to this diary reading event  I rediscovered way too much ‘poetry’,   uhum.   Below is  a piece inspired by Swampthang,   presented in original scrawl.    To read  it you need to

START SQUINTING NOW:

Judging by the uneven scrawl it could have been written on a #11 bus.

Wendy:   “How long are your jump leads?”

Guy:   “this long”

Whips  them out to demonstrate. Wendy blushes then smiles.   Easily over 10ft of lead.   More than enough to  reach LooSea.

Wendy:   “Will you marry me?”

Bouncing and clapping hands with eyes clearly fixed on the jump leads.   Nearly slips on the wet-grass.

Guy: “I don’t think my wife would approve”

eyes focused on his jump leads with  no actual jumping.

The rest of the conversation is unpublishable.  

My proposal wasn’t accepted.  

Sigh

Wendy persistently-impulsive

Wendy: ‘…(unpublishable work-related suggestion in email)..”

Potential fiancee:   “Please!! Yes!! Go for it!! Onward!”

Perhaps i should do a few sensible things  before I propose like

• wait until I’ve known of the guy for more than 2 days,  
• had more than  1 verbal  conversation with  him,  
• find out if he’s ‘taken’ or not ‘into’ girls,  
• check his age, height and weight    (meet him)
• fully assess  his potential player characteristics

Seems like a more ‘sensible’, British reserve, type-thing to do.    Then again I’m not in Britain now.    Maybe I can be ‘racey’?

What do you think?   Advice?

• I get blog design freedom.   Release the Bloggers! I’m seeking categorisation, search, drafting (spelling)  facilities.   Visual customisation opportunities are a minimum requirement.
• I learn something.
• readers aren’t required to have a passport.

• Purchased  Web Service with subsidised Domain space  from GoDaddy:   http://www.wendyhome.com/

GoDaddy tutorials are extremely good.    They are  ’Wizard’ step-by-step guides with pictures of what you will see at each step.  The difficult bit is working out  which tutorial I need!    

• Used Microsoft publisher (first time) to produce and publish a ‘Draft’ webpage on the Domain.   Needs some planning and  ’Design’!!!!!    

I hope to ferment creative ways to use web-pages around the Blog…

• Put  ‘WordPress 2′  and “MoveableType” Zip files on  the Web Server.   By first downloading it to my computer then ‘moving’ it using FTP to the WendyHome web server.   This did involve  CRASHING  IE 6.0 4 times.  I sent Micorosoft the details of each crash through their ‘Send Error Report’ system.   Hope someone fixes something so others don’t have to deal with that.  

Everytime I try to open the zip file’s on the web-server  I get a message saying thet are currupted. Sigh. I’m ‘blocked’ from progress here.

• Completed a preliminary evaluation of  the free blogging software (QuickBlog V1.1)   provided with the web-server space purchase.   Practical results  show on:   http://the.wendyhome.com/

• Excellent categorisation system management system!
• Ability to ‘import’ past blog entries using RSS.   Import  constrained by MSN Spaces to last ’25′ entries and no comments.   Sigh.
• Poor entry editting GUI .  For example, no colour palette,   I’d have to LEARN HTML.   No thanks…
• Spell-check on entries.   Hooray!!!!
• Extremely limited visual and modular customization (embedded lists etc) personalization (themed templates) opportunities compared to MSN Spaces.   Oh deary.
• Commenters can leave their email address for me,   rather than ‘pulbished.   Hooray!
• Horrific supplier advertising at the top of the blog-page.   This one persistent visual-yuck feature drives me getting either WordPress or MoveableType working on the WebServer.

 

 I’ll be moving the Wendyhouse sometime soon.   Soon?    Maybe  by August at this rate….

W Doing-it-herself (One-care)

Apparantly my scary boobs were just tooooo much for the youngster.   They seem to have totally undermined his ability to dial or text my phone numbers when I’m likely to answer,    reply-send an  email to me then prompted him to re-post his online dating profile and actively use it.  

Who would have guessed?   According to Jennifer throwing my panties at him would have produced better results than pointing the booby-dudes at him.

Never under-estimate the power of the booby-dudes,   insulated or not,   they can have far-reaching effects.  

Affectionately known by the brave, and Amadeus,  as

Bill and Ben

Pickles:   <looking directly at Wendy’s boobs>   “I’m not a big boob man,   those are quite big“

Wendy:   “they’re ‘B’ the rest is mainly bra-padding to keep them warm”

Pickles:   <looks relieved>  

A date called Pickles?   A quick glance in his fridge revealed a door almost exclusively filled with A LOT of bottled ketchup-style sauces,   a home made curry and a big US style pickle jar,   full gherkins.  

After minimum instruction he’s mastered making a decent cup of PG tips using a pyramid bag, mug,   water, microwave and milk.   We had to make an excursion to a shop for the milk.   UK people should note that several USians who have risked inviting me into their homes didn’t have

• electric kettles

• stove-top kettles (they use coffee machines)

• milk in thier fridge (because they use cream in their coffee)

Since arriving in the US I’ve learned to carry emergency teabags and  improvise on the kettle.   I haven’t  found a milk solution other than  going to the shop.

W  

<Mawkishness warning>

This letter is to tell you how
I am thinking of you here and now.I was just thinking of you then.
Later.  I will consider you again.  

I cannot miss what I’ve never had.
I can mull over an amusing lad,

Build smiles around anticipation,
Delight in shared appreciation.

<Mawkishness over>

No puking please.

Occassional outbursts  of soppiness are a  side-effect of being Wendy.

“Where’s your labrador puppy? <snigger>” flatmates, 1983

Teasing me about the puppy I subsequently dated for 3 years.

“He’s just a big labrador puppy” Amadeus Director, 1989

I was cast opposite this puppy’s Amadeus  as Constanza Mozart.   I started dating  him on closing night.   Lived with him for 5 years.   The director commented that ‘the potential chemistry’ influenced the original casting decision.

“You’ve turned him into a labrador puppy” Lad’s-best-friend, 1995

Comment on how  meeting me had  impacted  the lad’s  behaviour.   I  subsequently lived with the lad for 5 years .

W looking-for-a-labrador-lad

What’s good about this lad?    

• alive.
• youngster (35yrs – I’m ageist,   prefer ‘healthy’ lads)  
• can get his hands on  fire-engines (big, red, warm and shiney,   YUMMY!)
• paramedic skills (useful for when I fall over).  
• Loves his mum and spontaneously offered to lend her to me.
• is cheeky and potentially subversive.
• when warned about my English ‘yellow wonky’ toothipegs he told me  his dog’s yellow teeth  hadn’t stopped them bonding.   Incidentally,   he has the shiniest white teeth I’ve ever seen.   This is a difficult achievement in teeth-bleaching US.  
• suggested we go to a Kareoke bar hosted by an MC that is proudly living in the 1980s.
• asks me questions,   listens to what I say and then asks more,   pertinent  questions (i.e.  not  arrogant, not self-obsessed).
• can use a cell-phone and email despite mysterious happenings.
• removed his internet dating profile after we’d mailed and chatted.
• No kitty-allergies.

What’s less good about this lad?:  

• 45mins drive between us (no direct bus service).  
• limited  meeting opportunites because of respective work commitments.
• slips into  espousing his life philosophy  in small monologues (I guess I can  catch 20 winks  when this happens).

 The less good stuff is all relatively trivial...

W

• Digging-up Anglo-Saxon graves.   Getting hot and sweaty down in the dirt,   researching people’s lives through their deaths and artifacts.   Hey that skull was placed on the skeleton’s feet!   Evidently this was common pre-christian practice to stop the ‘dead’ from coming back to life and walking away.    Not sure if someone’s dead?   Then decapitate them.    That removes uncertainty!   I DID this date and  I’ve  been digging-up skinny old bodies ever since….
• High-diving.   oOOoOOoo! Wet,   adrenaline rush, challenge, skill and the obvious visual attractions.   There’s even time for Tea between dives.
• Small dinghy sailing (Lasers,  Hoby-cats  and the like).   I do luurrve wriggling into my wet-suit,   holding the jib in a force 3 or more and balancing the boat for speeeeeeeed with a guy who can skipper while wearing his wet-suit with aplomb.   Calm down.    More TEA!
• Hospital accident and emergency room.   Date demonstrated calm collectedness and caring  responsibility in a high-stress context.    Very appealing to a fall-over artist such as myself.   I’ll  be on-call for  Tea duties to help everyone stay calm.
• Setting-up Moveable-type blogging software on my home wireless network.   Oh,   I neeeeeeeeeed that…     …I lurrrve a man who gives me what I need….    
• Clairvoyant.    A novel way to work out whether we should have a second date.    Ask clairvoyant for a short and long term forcast.
• Roller-coaster rides.   B-b-B-b-B-b-Bouncing!   Need to keep the thermosflask of Tea lid tightly screwed to avoid it flying up your substantial nose.
• Gardening.   Hands and knees in the mud,   communing with nature.   Hmmmm… …natural appeal and a shower requirement…  
• Beer Festival: Close to this girl’s heart,   flavours,   people to meet and listen to, a relaxed atmosphere and a personal interest.
• Interactive Show:   I’m thinking of Theatro Zinzani.   Sensual,   engaging, an opportunity to dress-up and feel special, an opportunity to join in and much to talk about.
• Tom Waits concert.   Spluuuuuusssssshhhhh…  …OH OH!…   was that good for you?    It was AMAZING for me.   I feel all dizzy.   Careful, high-fall-over risk zone (Tea wont help here).

 

 

 

• BonfireNight.   5th November. Warm UK memories <Sigh>
• ThanksGiving Dinner.   All those fabulous family members and wierdy special guests of all ages, shapes,  and fortune.   Love the generosity and the group dynamics.  
• Wedding: think 4 weddings and a funeral,   these events are so special.    To be invited to share in someone’s special day is an exceptional wonderful gift.   Oh,   crumbs, I’m ‘gushing’.
• Kite flying over lake union  from Gasworks park…..

• Cycle-ride to a local brewery.    I like working-up a sweat  & downing a beer.   No need for Tea if the other brew’s on tap.
• Restaurant dinner.   Certainly reveals if the date is ‘conversationally challenged’.   US restaurants may present their Tea in a visually pleasing fashion but they haven’t mastered the necessary brewing skills.
• Mariners game.   I might get to see some passion along with the conversation.   No risk of spilling any  Tea from the thermosflask.  
• Meet the parents.   See what he might turn-out to be like in 20 years time…  …without asking the Clairvoyant.
• Day-trip  with fabulous views.   Pleasing the visual senses,   taking in nature.   In the Northwest this is an ‘easy’ option because there is just SO much.
• Shopping-by-proxy.   Where the date absolutely has a deadline on purchasing something (home, bed, wedding-outfit, pet, major household appliance  etc).   Date should beg,   and I mean BEG, me to come along and give my EXPERT opinion.   Date must be prepared to LISTEN and act on that  expert opinion.

• Coffee in Starbucks.   Extremely poor Tea options.
• Walk around a suburb.   For example, Greenlake park.   Careful,   I might get over-excited…   …Uh,   I don’t think so!
• Mountain hike.    Leave cellular-service range with a  potential wacko for company?????   Give me credit,   I’m not COMPLETELY bonkers.

Any good-bad date stories YOU (it’s not all about me) would like to anonymously share?  

W seeing-reasons-for-a-good-brew-up

Quick recap:

• trouble getting photographs through internet dating service censors.
• inbox explosion from unfiltered potential dates.
• post-hoc rationale for writing to potential hotties serially rather than consecutively.
• first phonecall from current hottie.
• Splushy e-mails.

MSN Spaces categories could have helped me here,   but they didn’t.

Was the first date a success?

• I wasn’t inolved in a major pile-up.   I took the bus to by-pass the challenge of driving Loo Sea (1995 Honda Civic).
• I got off at the wrong bus-stop.   Luckily, hotty has a mobile phone and  knows how to use it.
• Half way through the evening I felt deep empathy with Jackson Pollock canvases.
• hottie is confirmed as party animal.   I didn’t get home until 3am.   Though it’s difficult to tell the exact time because all the clocks in my home are being creative about what they publish and I was nearly asleep.
• I slipped on the side-walk.   Completion of this accidental fall-over maneuver avoided by hottie’s quick reactions.
• second date arranged for after I’ve cleaned my canvas.

W

You know how some people  have the kind of smile that could melt a chocolate bar at 20 paces?    

Hold that thought.

Today I  discovered that some people have the kind of  email-writing that can melt a Wendy irrespective of distance.  

All the cute kiddies wandering around in costume today are making a eutectic mixture of me.

* the sound of Wendy reading an email as a cute kiddie walks by

W

My internet dating profile is more  bouncy than a girl-scout with a yoyo on a trampoline!  

This is how it works:

• I start emailing with a potential hottie, so I ‘hide’ my profile to focus attention on said hottie
• Said hottie says they’ll write tonight,   I don’t receive an email,   my profile goes back up
• Said hottie writes that he sent an email and demonstrates both irritation and cutie-ness
• I reply and my profile gets hidden again
• Add to that the previous relationship uncertainty:   dumped,   not dumped.   Relationship over. Which went with profile posting-removing.

And you’ve got the full girl-scout with a yoyo on a trampoline picture*!

(*not literally a picture,   apologies to the people sent here by search engines  looking  for pictures of girl scouts on trampolines. This site might help.   It  has more ‘raunchy’ dating and a great video of the world YoYo champion 2005: http://www.m90.org/view_image.php?image_id=8230)

Why do I bother  bouncing the profile?   Why not leave the profile totally posted until I’m ‘in’ a relationship?   Good question,   you guys are on the ball.   Here’s a long explanation why.

To me it looks like there are two main potential strategies  for establishing the beginning of a fulfilling-have-fun-with-boy-man relationship using  the service I’ve subscribed to:

Maximising statistical probability

If I keep email threads going with all  the hotties I can find I’m bound to have a hit with one of them.  This ignores that HOW we engage in relationships significantly impacts their quality.        The service charges on a time-based model (per month),   not per-person-contacted.   A capitalistic,    mechanistical, individualistic  science oriented value set would  suggest that maximising probablity is both a pragmatic and profitable approach to securing the start of a fulfilling relationship.  

Maximising mutual engagement

If I know what I want and explore that within any exchange with one hottie I can work out whether this hottie really ‘works well’ with me.   Mutuality.   This ignores that ‘there are plenty more fish in the sea’, the abundance of choice… ..so prevalent in wealthy societies like the US…   …even people can experience being treated as a replaceable commodity.

What do people do?  

Based on personal experience I’m guessing that within this dating service  the majority of users are applying  a statistical approach.  ’Daters’ can expect their  hotties to be  using a statistical approach,   keeping a profile visible until absolutely sure of a decision which had to be negotiated,   or ‘given’  as part of the relationship development process.   Nothing wrong with that.    Culturally ‘acceptable’.   Agreed.   Agreed?        

What does Wendy do?

I’m opting for mutual engagement on a ‘serial’ basis.   Potentially more Expensive, time consuming and open to being misunderstood because its not the Norm.        Urgh.    

Why?

Is fulfillment really a statistical concept?  

I don’t think so!  

I believe that, unlike the statistical approach,  a mutual engagement approach affords the basis for  clear,   open,   honest communications.   For example,   if I was using a statistical approach would I discuss any single hottie  with the others that I was writting to?   This might reduce my chances of quickly establishing an intimate relationship with  them.    I  believe that omission of  pertinent,   known, chance-reducing,  information can be sufficiently misleading to be experienced as dishonest or at minimum unduely induce paranoia (promote the need for therapy?).      

As an extreme fictional example,   Married man omits to tell his wife he’s having an affair.  He hasn’t lied.   She may get paranoid,   why is he working late so often?   I can’t keep questioning him  about where he is etc.   The key thing here is pertinent information,   stuff where knowledge is being withheld BECAUSE it will have an impact on a specific relationship.    I wonder how ‘open’ the dating service users feel able to be if they are employing a high numbers approach?

If the hottie using the statistical approach is honest and decides to provide this information the recipient is given a clear indicator that they are not (yet?) special.   As an egotist this is not a message I like to receive too often!   As someone who aspires to being a caring person this is not a message I want to feel obliged to give to people who have flatteringly shown an interest in me.   To illustrate,   here’s  a fictional, potential open honest conversation between two statistical approach users based on actual convesations I had with service users:

Left-hander:I am having some fun email threads with 5 people through this dating service at the moment,   what about you?

Right-hander:   Just the 20,   I normally have about 34 going,   I’m a fast thinker and typer.

Left-hander: Oh,   how do I rate in the 20,   is it worth my considering this relationship as anything other than friendship?

Right hander:   Can’t tell at the moment,   well over half of the 20 will just drop-out over the next week,   and I’m only really sure I’m interested in 4.   The others are just entertainment value.   You’re one of the 4.   Lets start with friends and just see how it goes,   I dont want to rush into anything.  How do you feel about your 5 people?

Left hander: well,   foot-fetishist is fun but wont go out on hikes for fear of blisters.    Hand-fetishist is a bit too tactile but really tickles my sense of humour.   Obviously,  you’re gorgeous but I’m not confident we have potential because you dont seem  really interested in me,   the other two I haven’t met yet so its early days.

Right hander:   sounds fun,   why all the fetishists?etc…

There is also a perceived time-based anxiety for all statistical approach users.   People can easily believe that if they don’t establish intimacy quickly then the other  person will easily find someone else,   particularly if they are attractive.   This creates a  perceived need to establish intimacy quickly  to  legitimately reduce competition by asking  for the new-partners profile to be removed.  

From a finance perspective the mutual engagement method sets the expectation of not finding a right person ‘quickly’ together with longer subscription to the service (service profit).    I’ve actually had people write   asking me to reply quickly before their subscription runs-out.   These people were honest,  but hey babe,   I’m worth more than the subscription!

I suspect  that a statistical approach promotes ‘insecurity’,   lack of perceived self-value,   and lots of social interactional experiences that are highly negative (paranoia, deception).   Consequently,    it aligns with a profit principle through the supply of ongoing services (dating, counselling). For these reasons I believe using  a statistical approach  would be  a morally  irresponsible act from anyone who see’s this dating services affordances  as I see  them.    

 In maximising mutual engagement,   I can say honestly,   i’m only mailing with you.   The hottie can indepedently verify this by checking my profile availability (not there).   He can feel re-assured.   I can be fully open and comfortably convey  all relationship pertinent information.   Trust grows quickly.   This suits my conscience and  sense of self as a responsible society member.   It also promotes trust, comfort,  confidence and happiness.   It has the Wendy-pleasing by-product of scaring-off  people that might not feel easy with open, honest and fairly focussed Wendy-communications.   Hooray!

However,   I can still be paranoid because the person I’m mailing is likely to be using a statistical approach.   Their choice.    I can respect the logic that promotes this strategy and self-treat myself for any paranoid outbursts,   or blog them.  

The challenge is how to maintian  mutual engagement approach  when the  social and business system heavily promotes a  statistical model?   Here’s my plan:

• Errr…   …be stubborn based on principle.
• Suggest to the service  providers that they seriously consider revamping their charging model to  a  per ‘start-contact’ basis.   This would encourage a mutual-engagement model over a statistical model and could be constructed to be profitable using the specifics of the pricing model.  

W believes-that-individual-emotional-responsibility-makes-a-difference-everywhere

I’m free!

Insensitivity criminal on the streets again!

W  

The suddenly-single judgement was overuled last night.   Judge commented that he’s ‘cautiously optimistic’.    We’re on relationship parole.  

All of your good wishes helped,   good team effort

W