Jess is the co-creator of Dating & Hookup, alongside her childhood best friend Becky Lynch, and is the author of the book - yep! - Dating & Hookup. She never tires of hearing your post-dating stories. She wants you to enjoy your love life, and is full of advice on how to do so.
18 days ago, I decided to declare May “Jess, Stop Pretending You’re A Baller and Taking Cabs Everywhere” Month.
Growing up in the outskirts of NYC, I always swore to myself that I would never become one of those frivolous city dwellers who took cabs everywhere. Why waste so much money on taxis when you have access to one of the best subway systems in the world?! But then I moved to the city, and suddenly I was “hopping a cab” here, there and everywhere. Oh no, I’m running late! Hop a cab. These heels hurt! Hop a cab. It’s 2:00 am – I’ll get kidnapped if I walk those three blocks at this hour! Hop a cab. And my wallet suffered as a result.
So for the past few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time on the subway. And lo and behold, it turns out that there are quite a few cute guys on the L train! As romantic optimists, Becky and I like to say that a romantic connection can happen anytime, anywhere. Including public transportation. Who knows…your soulmate could be sitting on the other side of that adorable Midwestern couple with the pull-out map…
For those of you who don’t read the comments here (and I’d seriously recommend it – this site is an open forum, first and foremost!), I wanted to point out an interesting exchange that’s been taking place alongside our “dah Guys: The Unavailable Guy and The Guy Who Just Blew You Off” post.
Awesome reader dizzle brings up a great question – what about The Emotionally Available Guy? Why isn’t he in your dah?
Check out the back-and-forth below to see what Becky and I think. Our answer should also clarify some of the finer points of Dating & Hookup – namely, how guys end up in one category or another, and how you can take control over how you see and treat them accordingly. And, of course, I offer some advice on how to deal with emotionally unavailable guys. Just trying to be constructive and helpful, wherever possible!
You all should know that Becky and I read each and every comment on the site. So please – keep the convo going…
Dear Jess,
My question comes from the very early stages of potential romance. This has come up a few times when I’ve been hanging out with girls in the non-dating stage, but when there may be some interest…
Why would a girl tell me about other guys who ended up having some unrequited feelings for her? Why bring up guys whose advances she shut down, or who kept fruitlessly pursuing her? Or laid it on the line in some way, past the point when she thinks her lack of interest should’ve been clear to them?
What does it mean? Am I reading too much into it? Do women just think this makes a good story? Or, is it a warning against making an awkward move? Or could it be some kind of invitation, a subtle reminder that she’s single (but with high standards!)?
I’ve usually responded by thinking to myself, “Well, I don’t want to be a story foryou with the next dude you hang out with, so…” And then I try to move on. But would love the female perspective.
Love,
I’m Cooler Than Those Other Guys, Right??
set·tling
verb
1. a gradual sinking to a lower level
2. something that 20-somethings swear we’ll never do
Let’s talk about what it means to be part of the Millennial Generation for a moment. In spite of recessions, volcanoes and the media’s incessant urge to shove Lindsay Lohans and Kate Gosselins down our throats, we are optimistic. We are confident and empowered. We count on always being the exception, and never the rule, and on eventually getting everything that we want out of life (and more!). This stubborn belief that we deserve the best may seem naïve and entitled, but it’s the truth nonetheless.And hey, at least we’re willing to work our asses off for it.
Given all this, it should be obvious that we have no intention of setting – whether it’s in love, career, or what cool bar we want to hit up on Friday night.
Finally, at long last…we’ve got our first Ask Jesscolumn up! Keep sending in your questions to , with “Ask Jess” in the subject line, and I’ll get to as many of them as possible.
Enjoy!
———–
Dear Jess,
I’ve been hanging out with this guy – a mutual friend introduced us because we work in the same industry and I was looking to switch jobs, so she thought that he might be able to help me out. We immediately hit it off, and after a few coffees and happy hours, we started making out on a regular basis. He’s really great and has never seemed like a game player. I have high hopes for where this could go.
BUT, something weird is happening. We hung out four times last week, which is way more often than before. And then for three days, he didn’t respond to any of my emails or texts! Nothing! He finally replied to one of my emails a few minutes ago with a short, cute joke, but he didn’t ask me to hang out…
How should I respond? Can I be the one to suggest that we hang out? You know, female empowerment and all that? He’s being strange, but I have trouble believing that he’s suddenly blowing me off or isn’t into me anymore. We were having so much fun!
Love,
Trying Really Hard Not To Be That Stalker Girl
Hipsters are nothing, if not emotionally tortured and tech-savvy. So how appropriate that one of our favorite blogs (and future books), Stuff Hipsters Hate, pointed us to the following Craigslist posting via their hysterical and always-on-point Twitter feed:
GROW SOME – w4m (Williamsburg)
Date: 2010-04-15, 10:17PM EDT
Grow some balls and tell me that you don’t want to see me anymore. Coward.
Wow. At the rate things are going, we will have eradicated any need for awkwardness within the next ten years. Evolution at its finest! And here’s the latest offering from The School for the Avoidant – iDUMP4U.
We live in a post-dating world (heard that one before?). So in a one-night protest against the death of dating, Becky and I planned a date night. With each other. To see Date Night. You would’ve been hard pressed to find two cooler chicks in NYC on Sunday evening – just a couple of glamorous girls, livin’ it up in the big city…
(Yes, I also saw Valentine’s Day on Valentine’s Day. I am a movie marketer’s wet dream.)
By popular demand– and on the verge of a sure-to-be-ambiguous-interaction-filled weekend – it’s time to talk about the Play-Non-Date!
Remember the Non-Dates? I’m sure you’ve been on a few since we last talked about them, so here’s a quick refresher:
Introducing…The Non-Date
The Networking Non-Date
The Group-Non-Date
The E-Non-Date
The Surprise-Non-Date
The Friend-Non-Date
DISCLAIMER: Despite the prevalence of Play-Non-Dates, I’d like to officially shoot down (and then never speak of again) the popular claim that we are The Hookup Generation. Thanks to a cultural overdose of women stripping for the “Girls Gone Wild” cameras and publicly discussing their love of porn, most modern women – and based on my research, a surprising number of men – have figured out that The Age of the Hookup was not the promised land of personal liberation and multiple orgasms that we had hoped for.
Having experienced the booty call text messages and underdressed walks of shame, us ladies can now feel comfortable proclaiming that we still want many of the same things that women have wanted from the storied days of Shakespeare to the summer nights of Grease. We want FUN, we want ROMANCE, we want LOVE. Of course, we still want hot sex and mind-blowing chemistry, but that’s not ALL we want. And anyone saying otherwise is still living in 2005.
Anyway! Glad we got that covered. Moving on to…
The Play-Non-Date
Well, maybe not MY married life quite yet, but…
We tend to focus primarily on (non-)dating and courtship on this site because, let’s face it, neither Becky nor I are making plans to walk down the aisle anytime soon (although Becky’s pretty impulsive, so please don’t put any money on that statement!). But every once in a while, amidst the Group-Non-Dates and bar bumps and lustful Mad Men marathons, we can’t help but wonder where all this build-up will lead us. As I’ve said before, I’m stubbornly hopeful and optimistic that we are an unstoppable generation of women who are wading through all the ambiguity and lawlessness and will emerge at the other end with strong, fulfilling, successful relationships. But what will they look like? And what does that even mean?
I was REALLY hoping to stay away from all this Sandra Bullock drama. The Oscar Love Curse, the cheating husband, the dirty sexts, the creepy Nazi photos…the tabloids seem to be doing a thorough enough job of covering every gory detail of the story. But now that The New York Times’s David Brooks is weighing in? I’m powerless to resist!
Attempting to place Sandra’s romantic tragedy in a broader context, Brooks talks about “The Sandra Bullock Trade” and asks readers, “Would you exchange a tremendous professional triumph for a severe personal blow?” And although Brooks isn’t blaming Sandra for what happened to her, here it is again – that traditional assumption that success and love are at odds with each other, that we might eventually have to choose or trade one for the other, that we can’t realistically hope to have it all. At least not as women.
I’ve always loved reading men’s magazines – GQ, Maxim, Details, Esquire – to see what advice men are getting about dating. I’ll never forget the time when, for three weeks, the guy who I had been seeing (seeing = hooking up and IMing with) went completely MIA. About an hour after writing him off entirely, I received a lovely email explaining that he’d been busy with work, and he knew that “other guys say this all the time, and it must sound SO cliche,” but that he really meant it and felt terrible and wanted to see me. I was charmed, of course, and immediately headed over to his place, only to later find the latest copy of a men’s magazine on his coffee table with an article about “10 Ways To Convince Her That You’re Sorry For Your Bad Behavior (Even If You’re Not).” His email, almost word-for-word, was front and center on the list. Needless to say, our relationship fizzled pretty quickly after that.
But forget the media – what do REAL men say to each other about love? Not journalists, or editors, or Dr. Phil knockoffs. But your father, your professor, your co-worker, your neighbor…real, normal guys, like the ones that you and I will probably end up with. A new site, “The Man’s Guide To Love,” offers a series of glimpses into these guys’ thoughts. Or more specifically, into this question:
“If you had one piece of advice that you’d give another man about love, what would it be?”
dahGRAMS
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