Relational Mutitasking

I hate dating.
I try to keep an open mind, but really, I hate dating. Drinks with the salacious flirt on Saturday was pleasant. Pleasant enough so that I'm surprised he's apparently fallen into a black hole never to be seen again.

I sent him a brief Thank You email. He responded politely and zip, nothing, nada. He told me over drinks that his business partner was arriving the next day, and they were leaving for Amsterdam on Monday - so obviously he's busy. But still, it's weird to have three or four days of email exchanges where the gmail counter registers 96 emails or more in one conversation, meet for cocktails and then disappear.

Some men get like that when they're working, however. I'd think he didn't like me - except what's not to like? Personally, I think drinks went well enough to move on to lunch, and he may be waiting for me to say so, but how the hell do I know? I figure I'll go about my own business and make an overture later in the week, when he's on his way back to New York.

I guess that men are just as insecure about dating as women. Woody says that men don't multitask across the board as well as women so that even though a man can easily perform serveral concurrent tasks at work, he's focused on work until he's done. Then he switches focus to the domestic front where he can also perform several concurrent tasks. Women, on the other hand, can be at the office and paying total attention to the work at hand and simultaneously think about domestic issues like friends, family and WTF is up with some relationship.

There are certainly differences between the way men and women operate. A study called Pink Brain Blue Brain indicates that these differences are not neurologically inherent, but that the way adults respond to infants is the beginning of gender based enculturation.  So while the brains of males and females may be exactly the same at birth - by the time a baby is four months old, the trajectory of neurological development is already gender biased.  So it may be that girls are not biologically predetermined to talk earlier, for example, but societal expectations push development in that direction.

There are physical differences in development, however, that may lead girls to small motor projects at the art table more frequently than boys - but even that is reinforced by societal expectation.  So the whole Nature/Nurture debate once again ends in a quagmire.

Nevertheless, I wish I knew whether or not that man in Amsterdam wants to have lunch with me when he gets back.  You'd think a fellow who had spent that much time on the internet from his house in Massachusetts would at least send a naughty comment from his blackberry while he's hanging around the airport.  I keep telling myself that it's only Tuesday.  And in fact, it's not even 7:00 in the morning on Tuesday and there's no reason to aniticipate rejection when the man has been working ever since we said goodbye on Saturday night.

I considered sending him the link to Worldwide Hippies News & Stuff as a way of introducing PENolan, but the bit that went out yesterday wasn't exactly what you'd send a prospective romantic partner.  Joe needed to edit my piece down to under two minutes,  He did it well but left out my favorite part in the interest of time.  That's show biz - and I can easily write a follow up piece for the site that makes the point even better.  So while I have no issue with the News itself, it's no good for seduction even though mac was kind enough to call and say I looked nicer than usual.  Most people wouldn't consider an indictement of the Koch brothers tantalizing - but I figure attractive women trolling around Match dot com are a dime a dozen in New York City.  Activist Hippies and Menopausal Stoners are another breed entirely.  Besides, I'd mentioned the Kochs and he made some silly comment designed to keep the conversation light, and I let it pass.  The minute Joe edited out would have clarified my position on the issue of those villians.

The sooner the man realizes that he was out with PENolan, the better.  I feel like mild mannered Clark Kent when I'm Tricia the Preschool Teacher - which is certainly the best way to be on a first date when all you're doing is having a drink in an elegant hotel bar.  I have confidence that I'll figure out some way to handle the next dating maneuver before Friday.  In the meantime, I have to write twenty-two narrative "report cards" for my kids.  No matter how you slice it, that's a labor of love.