A Dating Dilemna

Dating is as tricky as a rubik's cube. That's the reason people stay in going-nowhere-slowly relationships. Jumping back into the dating world can be as scary as cliff diving or bungee jumping without the expectations. A colleague of mine and I were talking about this twilight zone of single souls and how we would handle it if we were thrown back into the swing of things. To say we were confused is an understatement, what had changed? What are the current expectations? What are the do's and dont's? and more importantly, where do we find the Dating for Dummies manual?

As it turns out, we didn't have to look too far and even more interestingly is that the game seems to have changed very little. People are still running around with the "9 dating deal breakers to watch out for", "10 Ways you're preventing guys from approaching you" and "10 first date mistakes" stories. As witty and funny as these stories are, they reek of confusion and a desperation for the real answers. But the sad truth is that there are no real answers. It's a maze of people that you are trying to connect with and our status as being as unique as snowflakes, makes that search as hard as the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Besides the common rules of decent behavior and etiquette, there really are no rules and the guidelines are biased. What you're reading about, in hopes for the light at the end of the tunnel, is a personal experience that may, but probably won't, apply to you in any way. But they're a great read. I don't deny that men and women have commonalities that can be somewhat explained and possibly used in the greater good of dating, but every circumstance is different, every experience you encounter in the dating world from this moment on is your own.

You could meet a man (just in this instance) and find that he hates the way you laugh, even though every article you've read clearly states that you should laugh at everything he says, if you stopped laughing wouldn't you be breaking the rule? Would that mean that a second date would be null and void, read the fine print. Attraction is what connects people initially, love at first sight is really only lust at first sight. Once the chemistry is taken care of, naturally of course, I advice that you be open and show your true colors, however dull you might find them to be. Let fate have a little role, if that's what you believe in.

Dear John....

The Dear John letter was formerly the way out of a relationship if you couldn't muster the courage to say it and as the digital world expands this is becoming outdated. According to a new survey the way to end a relationship is in the cyber world avoiding the tears and uncomfortable confrontations. Changing your status on Facebook from "in a relationship" to "single" seals the deal in ending things. It really doesn't get any more clean cut than that but does it make it right?

Over one third of 2 000 people polled (34 percent) said they had ended a relationship by email, 13 percent had changed their status on Facebook without telling their partners and six percent had released the news unilaterally on Twitter. By contrast, only two percent had broken up via a mobile phone text. The rest had split up the old-fashioned way by face-to-face conversation (38 percent) and by telephone (eight percent).

People are claiming it's an easier and more effective way and avoids any misunderstandings. What exactly is there to misunderstand? I must be honest here, this is the most disrespectful thing I've heard about in a while. I realize that each situation is dependent on circumstance but this seems a cruel way to avoid an uncomfortable situation and can cause a lot more harm than good. No one likes to break up with someone else but its an unavoidable aspect of all our lives and we have to stop for a minute and wonder how we would feel discarded before we've even realized it? Weigh your options when you're dealing with someone else's heart because it's as fragile as your own.