The Rules

At the height of the most stressful period of last term i found myself at home alone on a Saturday night, a bit sad, a lot stressed and in need of an outlet. Something to distract myself with, something that would be interesting and maybe a little ego stroking. I used that old fall back: Online dating. I'd joined online dating once before, when i was 21 and living in a houseful of girls and we were drunk one night. It had resulted in one date, where at the end of it he had told me that he couldn't be with me because i talked too much and that meant he wouldn't be the dominant one in the relationship and he needed to be. Right. 
It had also resulted in some hilarious opening letter and lots of (slightly creepy) guys telling me how pretty i am. Perfect distraction and stress relief right? 

So colour me utterly surprised that i appear to have met someone. At the same time that one of my close friends has also met someone, none the less. This is all happening at the same time that the Year 8 girls have appeared to have decided that boys are the kind of people that they might actually want to start spending time with instead of apart from, one girl in particular. 

She came to me yesterday and started to talk to me about boys, beginning  with "Miss, when it comes to guys they always..." (in this case it was they always make the first move). She then spent 20 minutes grilling me about the way that ALL guys MUST work and ALL relationships MUST work. It's this notion that there are rules to how these things work fascinate me. 
I like rules, i like order and plans. I think that's why it's interesting when people try to apply those rules to something that seemingly can't have rules attached to it. 


I'm also a girl brought up on a healthy (or rather unhealthy) diet of Cosmo magazines in my formative years who all seem to want to tell you how to do things, or how relationships work. The things you should do and say and the things you shouldn't.

No talking about ex's.
Not talking about being too successful (don't want to make him feel inadequate)
The odd ones about not using the bathroom at his place
When you should or shouldn't have sex with someone.
What every little thing he does means. Or doesn't mean.
How long between text messages is too long...
When they meet the friends/parents
When to have the "talks" of exclusivity, or relationship definition....


My god it's tired. No one a 13 year old wants me to tell her how these things work. She's be inundated with these ideas that things should work a certain way. God, it makes the over thinker in me want to collapse in exhaustion... I have to be conscious of all these things??? 




No. I don't. The one thing i realised i was doing when i joined OKCupid was being me. Was showing my whole self both in the profile pictures and in the Bio that i was writing. What's the point of downplaying something that is essentially very me? That's going to end badly later. I'm not going to try to be someone else for someone else. Maybe that's maturity speaking, i wasn't aware that i really had any of that. Maybe it's tiredness too. Being someone else, or trying to be different for someone else all the time gets tiring. So I'll just be me. Weird, nerdy, work focused me. 
Telling that to a Year 8 was interesting. They're too interested in getting him to stick around. They want the rules. That he will be weird and that will mean that he's interested. That when they ask them out it's because they like her and not because his friends convinced him it would be a hilarious joke to play on her (yeah, that happened this morning. To say she's upset is an understatement. You boys are jerks sometimes).
As much as Cosmo and the rest of them want us to buy into an idea that these things work in a particular way, and people have to behave a certain way, doesn't mean i have to. 
You like who you like, and if it's real then i think they might just make you a better version of yourself. I know i feel more confident in being me. That i don't have to be damaged or vulnerable, or quiet and passive. I can be the loud. I can smile broadly. 


Do you have Dating rules? are there things we should and shouldn't be doing? Schedule of events? No Kissing before brushing your teeth? 
I'm guessing not, right? We don't need them? We don't buy into the notion that human relationships should work, and always do work, in a partiular way, do we?