DREWspective

I’ve written about this before, and have made my views known about it on many an occasion. But not on DREWspective. So here we go.

Following my best friend’s success with online dating, where he claims to have had no less than 15 dates as a result, I decided to give being much more proacitve a go. I signed up to the same dating site as he did and began interacting, as well as going speed dating, winking on Match.com and trying to get things going on Facebook.

Unfortunately—since the Internet is the same as going outside these days—the result for me was exactly the same as before: a whole load of "not interested"s and unreturned emails.

There’s been a lot of them recently, but the icing on the cake comes from two or three girls whom I arranged to do something with. At the last minute they fall silent on me, giving their excuses or no reason at all. But when they do surface, they’ve magically ended up with someone else.

Today’s topic is silent treatment, and I’m going to tell you why I think it’s an evil thing.

First, let me point out that I’m wholly against using silent treatment as a first resort. People who use silent treatment as a first resort deserve to burn in hell.

You’ve probably met people who keep things to themselves and won’t tell you what you want (or need) to know, building up like a pressure cooker until they finally scream and shout and level blame and abuse on you.  You’ve probably met those kinds of people who think they can do whatever they want, and hide whatever important information they want. Those people use silent treatment as a first resort.

Second, let me talk about why silent treatment itself is bad.

For me personally, silent treatment—especially from the opposite sex—is a sign of disrespect, and a lack of responsibility; they don’t respect you enough to give you an answer, and they don’t care what it would mean for you.

Imagine you tried to call someone with your last remaining credit, and they hung up on you. Imagine using your last 10p to send them a text message that they never respond to. How about writing a long, detailed email to someone who doesn’t send even a short one back?

There’s advice circulating around the dating community that guys have to send detailed emails to potential girls if they want to increase their chances of getting a response.  How many of you guys have spent valuable time writig individual emails to girls who’ve written those lazy, cut-and-paste profiles, and got nothing for it? Wouldn’t you feel deflated?

Lots of people say that they don’t respond, no matter what the circumstance or medium, because they don’t want to hurt their feelings. Bullshit. Have you ever stopped to think that not responding would hurt their feelings?

Fair enough, you could argue that some people wouldn’t like what they hear. That would depend on both parties: the person wanting to know should be ready to accept what’s said; the person with the answer has the responsibility of telling them in the best way possible.

Personally, I might not like the answer I get (because I prefer pepole to tell the truth rather than candy-coat things), but in the long run I have far more respect for people who tell me how it is to my face, than people who resort to games and silent treatment.

There may be times when silent treatment is necessary, for example whe someone won’t take the clearly-explained, verbal hint. I say it should always be used as a last resort.

Your thoughts, please.

One of my unfortunate memories of high school was overhearing a "game" some of the girls in my class were playing. They made sure I could hear them, and because of the stupid class rules, I had to stay seated throughout.

Some of you guys may have heard of, or even played this game: two people are named, and you choose the better (or most attractive) person of the two.

Sounds harmless enough, right?

Well, it was interesting to hear, until they started comparing me to just about every other guy in the class and beyond. No matter who the other guy was (and from then on it was always me versus someone else), that other guy was always more attractive than me. I’m surprised they didn’t go right down to Drew versus the devil.

"Come on Drew," the naysayers would argue, "it’s just a silly little game; it doesn’t mean anything."

"So what," the get-over-it-ers would scoff, "that was ages ago; get over it."

I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that the same game is being played in social groups everywhere, whether people want to admit it or not.

I (rather publicly) left a social singles group I joined on Facebook a couple of months ago. One reason was because I was no longer comfortable with the many couples and "special friendships" (read: casual sex partners) being formed and integrated there, and me being effectively quarantined. Now there’s a groundbreaking discovery.

Basically I found that every single girl I was interested in would rather go out with someone else in the group than have anything to do with me. At least, that’s what I assume, when a girl who used to chat your ears off eventually has trouble saying "hi", and at the same time is being touchy-feely with another guy.

Whether it boils down to my comparatively dull personality, unconventional looks or whatever, it’s all the same kind of game. And when people compare and modify their scorecards (oh yes they do), it’s a game with very few winners.

I get angry because all of this happens no matter what I do or say. I’m famous for the claim that I don’t even have to open my mouth to get rejected; I’m dead serious.

I am reminded of couple of things, however.

Years ago, I looked at a photo of me taken during high school, and realised that I wasn’t as ugly as people had me believe. I certainly felt like it at the time, though, because everybody insisted I was.

I looked at another photo, this time one from last year. I still didn’t think I was ugly back then, either, but I sure felt ugly.

What are the chances of me looking at myself at 25 when I’m 30, and realising I wasn’t ugly?

Secondly, I was introduced to a realisation by motivational speaker Michael Stahl: that it is possible to be a winner with another person.

What does that mean? Well, just because someone is deemed more attractive than you, it doesn’t make you ugly; it just means the other person was deemed more attractive (which is subjective and shallow anyway - why would you listen to that shit?).

Being called ugly, or even the suggestion of it, can be a devastating blow to one’s self-esteem. It’s something that people who play these games can never understand.