Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck (18 page)

A wiser approach is assuming that everyone you meet on the Internet is lying their ass off until proven otherwise. You’ll find out the real deal with a minimum of emotional and other costs by getting your interaction with them into the real world as soon as possible. If, after an e-mail or two and maybe a brief phone call, a person still seems appealing, meet them for a
brief
date. (Refer back to the bit earlier in the chapter on first dates being “cheap, short, and local.”) If, for some reason, you can’t meet right away, at least video-chat on Skype—once, maybe twice, only. Each chat should be a half-hour or so,
at most
. Remember, the point is getting an idea of who they are, not falling down a digital rabbit hole into a weeklong live-chat webisode.

Blister Wonderful: The rules on STD disclosure.

If you’re going to give your date something to remember you by, make it some funny little trinket, not painful urination and weeping genital sores.

A woman wrote me for advice about a guy she’d started seeing. She was worried that he wasn’t that interested in her because when they fooled around, he kept stopping short of actual intercourse. She wondered whether he’d figured out that she has genital herpes—a fact she hadn’t felt “ready” to disclose to him.

Horrible. Seriously, outrageously rude. And the stuff lawsuits are made of. A number of people with herpes—mainly people with herpes who also have a lot of money—have been successfully sued for big bucks ($6.75 million, in one case) for hiding it from a partner or lying and claiming to be clean.

I pointed out to the woman that surely she’d tell the guy pronto if she had a cold, and colds go away; herpes is forever. That
is
a selling point for diamonds, but unlike an engagement ring, a big honking genital pustule isn’t something anybody wants to be showing off to their cubicle-mate: “Look at it gleam under the fluorescents!”

Still, herpes isn’t the horror that it’s made out to be thanks to media hysteria that got whipped up in the early 1980s. For most people, it’s basically “cold sores down there.”
³¹
The problem is, if a person’s herpes is active and their naked parts are rubbing against somebody else’s naked parts, that person could become infected. And people with herpes may
think
they know when their herpes is active—but they actually may not.
³²

If you have herpes, genital warts, or any other communicable disease, you don’t need to reveal it before the bartender throws down the coasters on the first date. There’s no point in spilling to somebody you may not end up seeing again. But, you do have to tell a person
before
they fool around with you. It might help to arm yourself with a fact sheet you pull off a reputable medical website and then talk in nuances rather than leading with symptoms.

For example, if you have genital warts, that’s not what you tell them. Genital warts are just one of the
potential results
of HPV—human papillomavirus. Explain that you have HPV, and then list the possible consequences (including warts), and let them know the stats, like that they should assume that anyone who isn’t a forty-year-old virgin is a carrier. (The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that 50 percent of people who are sexually active will have it at some point.)

Those with other STDs should take a similar approach. For example, as I told the girl with herpes, you launch the conversation with a partner by saying something like “Ever gotten a cold sore? I get them sometimes … but not on my lip!” Next, as
DatingWithHerpes.org
advises, don’t say “I have herpes,” which makes you sound like you’re having an outbreak right then. Instead, say “I carry the virus for herpes” and explain how often you have outbreaks, which should make it sound more like a manageable annoyance than a ticket to a lifetime of Crusty Pustules Anonymous meetings.

Endings that lead to beginnings: Dating again after the death of a partner.

I answered a question for my advice column from a guy whose girlfriend had died in a car crash four months prior to his writing me. Friends were concerned about him because he wasn’t grieving big, long, and showy. They told him that he needed to stop suppressing his feelings, that he needed to work through the “stages” of grief in order to recover, and that if he didn’t, grief could “come back to bite” him. The poor guy started to worry that he wasn’t grieving right. He said that he had really loved his girlfriend and was really broken up at first, crying hysterically, and still misses her terribly. But, he wrote, “Despite what’s happened, I still like my life and my job. I even find myself laughing at stupid stuff.”

This doesn’t point to a problem; it points to resilience, which grief researcher George Bonanno says is actually the norm in people whose loved one dies. (We seem to have evolved to be able to process a loss and go on with our lives.) Bonanno explains in
The Other Side of Sadness
that there’s no evidence to support many widely held beliefs about how we grieve—or “should” grieve—such as the truly awful idea that a person probably didn’t really love the deceased if they aren’t downing Zoloft like Cheerios and that notion that there are five “stages of grief,” all of which a bereaved person supposedly must go through before they can move on.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s “stages of grief” were actually based on her observations of people who were themselves dying, not those who’d lost a loved one, which Bonanno points out isn’t the same thing as facing your own mortality. Bonanno, Camille Wortman, and other grief researchers actually find a great deal of variability in how people recover from loss. Likewise unsupported by research is Sigmund Freud’s notion that the bereaved must do “grief work” in order to heal—slog through every memory and hope about their lost loved one as if sorting through clothes at an industrial laundry. In fact, research suggests that doing this
strengthens
the bereaved person’s connection to the deceased, keeping them from healing. Yet another myth is the idea of “delayed grief”—grief postponed (as if you could decide to put it off for a while) that comes back to “bite” people. Studies find delayed grief extremely rare—almost to the point of nonexistence. As I wrote in my response to the guy, “if you have a problem, it’s that your friends think you have a problem.”

The same goes for anyone who has well-meaning friends who are trying to micromanage their grieving. Tell these people in a kind way that you truly appreciate their concern, and explain some of the myths about grief to them. Because we’re biased to keep believing what we already believe and toss out information to the contrary, they may not be willing to listen. The important part is emphasizing that it means a lot to you that they care and not buying into the notion of “Whoa, mister, you’re way too functional!”

To keep from burning new people you’re dating, be honest about your situation so they know what they’re getting into, and recognize that it’s possible to think that you’re ready to date before you actually are. (The same goes for people who’ve gone through a devastating divorce or breakup.) Because it’s easy to get carried away by wanting to be ready, along with the excitement of having a new person in your life, consider taking things slowly—not seeing someone night after night but instead spacing out your dates and conversations with them over a period of weeks, perhaps with one date a week and one or two conversations (say, no more than an hour total of phone time). This may help give you time and space to sit back and process your feelings and see whether you’re truly ready for new love in your life.

As for advice for those dating someone widowed, I think a woman who was widowed and also married a widower—and who blogs at
anniegirl1138.com
—said this wisely and beautifully:

My advice to anyone considering a relationship with a widow/widower is do NOT try to make us forget who we are, who we loved, and how we got here. If you truly love us, you would embrace our lost love as much as we do. Because that person, that loss, that event made us the person you supposedly love. Think about it.

How to Ditch Someone

• Someone who’s messaged you on a dating site

If somebody you have no interest in writes to you and has clearly put some effort into their message, you should do them the courtesy of writing back, just to say, “Thanks, but I don’t think we’re a match.” It’s the gracious thing to do. Sure, you can just ignore their message. But, have you ever talked about how you longed for “closure”? Everybody feels better when they have it.

• When you’re on a date and you’d gnaw your right arm off at the wrist to escape

Even achingly dull or otherwise-objectionable people have feelings. If somebody is so wildly unbearable that you just can’t suffer through a meal with them, stay as long as you possibly can and then feign illness—believably—apologize for being sick, and leave. (So believability doesn’t necessitate much acting ability, I suggest saying that you feel a migraine coming on and need to go home before it gets full-blown.) This should be more plausible than the phone call “from the office” supposedly summoning you back for some emergency and is thus more kind.

• After your date when you want nothing more to do with the person

Sometimes, right on the date, it’s stone-cold obvious to both people that there’s no tomorrow for the two of you. In that case, after the date, you can say nothing (other than “thank you”) and just walk off separately into your respective sunsets.

If, however, you’re on a date you want to be your last with a particular person and they say “Let’s do it again” and seem sincere, don’t give them the heave face-to-face. It’s humiliating. Just nod and smile and clarify your lack of a future together by e-mail the next morning. In your e-mail, thank them for the nice evening, and then tell them that you’ve been thinking about it and you don’t think you’re a good match but that you wish them the best.

Accordingly, men aren’t rude to say “I’ll call you” after a date—even when they know it’s the last thing they want to do—providing they straighten things out afterward, when not face-to-face. (The morning-after corrective, “Actually, I’ve been thinking…” again applies.) Don’t let the truth telling wait any longer than a day, as every day that passes allows your date to get her hopes up a little higher.

If a person you’re no longer interested in asks you out again, don’t just try to duck all communication from them. That is mean and violates their dignity. Having gone out with them previously, you owe them a polite goodbye—letting them know it
is
goodbye and not just hoping they’ll get the message when you fail to return any of their 300-some texts, phone calls, and e-mails.

• After you and someone you’re dating have removed essential articles of clothing in each other’s presence

Many people like to avoid an uncomfortable conversation by texting a person to tell them it’s over—a degrading way to be dismissed after you’ve shared more than a latte. As I wrote in a column, “once you’ve spent more than a few naked hours with somebody, you can text them to tell them you’re late, but not that you’re never coming back.” At least “do them the solid” of breaking the news in a telephone call. And yes, you do have to talk to them directly; you don’t get to tell it to their voicemail.

If you’ve been dating a person for any length of time (three to six months, for example, or any amount of time where it’s started to feel
relationshippy
), it’s respectful to break the news face-to-face. Do not, however, do it in a public place. No woman wants to be weeping before an audience in a packed restaurant. Double or triple that for any man.

• In breaking up, the waiting is the makes-it-harder part.

Whether you’ve been seeing somebody for two weeks, two years, or ten years, the absolute kindest time to tell them is
as soon as you know it’s over
. The longer you wait the more attached they’re likely to get and the more painful it will be. The sooner you tell them the sooner they can get on with their life and maybe meet somebody who does want them.

• What to say when you dump someone

No matter what stage of a relationship you’re in when you’re ending it, the point of a breakup conversation is simply to communicate that you will no longer be together. To that end, the best breakup excuses are broad, vague ones like “I am just not feeling the spark” or “I realize that this isn’t working for me anymore.” No matter how hard the person presses you for “the truth” and tries to convince you that they will be much better off for having it, don’t give it to them. Once you no longer want to be in a relationship with them, it is not your job to tell them they are a conversation hog or bad in bed. It will make the split even more hurtful and may give them information they can use to try to wedge their way back in. Remember, this is a breakup—a procedure to extricate you from a relationship—not a sex therapy session or a public service announcement.

DON’T OVERLOOK OR DISMISS BAD CHARACTER

• Trust isn’t birdseed. Don’t throw it around.

A lot of people looking for love ask, “Oh, what’s the big deal in closing your eyes and taking a leap with a person?” More often than not, they eventually get the answer, as one guy did after he broke off his engagement to a woman he’d been seeing and then left on a business trip. She went over to his house, stuck the hose through his mail slot, and turned it on.

Shocking and awful—but not unpredictable. In fact, she was
always
a person capable of this. He just chose not to look. So did the woman whose ex-boyfriend let himself into her apartment and fed some high-grade oleoresin capsicum (pepper extract) into her tube of lube. She and another guy ended up in the emergency room. Not because her ex suddenly became a guy who does this sort of thing. He always was. She just didn’t want to know.