If I write with gender specific language it’s not a sign that I’m homophobic. It just tends to be easier than writing “partner 1″ or “he/she”.  Most of my advice can be adapted for a same-sex relationship, but I don’t have any experience in that department so I won’t present it that way. I did actually have someone ask me about this though.

Not all dating problems are the man’s fault. Women are usually terrible about making their intentions known. This presents a very common problem for the inexperienced dater. “How do I know if she likes me?”

It’s not easy to answer that question as every woman will show you, or not show you, in different ways.  I can’t tell you what signs to look for, but I can tell you which signs to run away from. Today’s discussion centers around a very common one.

Unavailability

If you think a woman is interested by all means ask her out for drinks, a movie, dinner, anything. If she agrees to go along, great. If she doesn’t, don’t fret.  She may legitimately be busy. However, if she continually makes excuses or just flat out turns down your invitations, just move on.  She’s not interested and you’ll just end up wasting your time.

I can hear a lot of women out there, specifically a couple that I’ve dated, saying: “But Evan, I was always told that you have to play hard to get if you want a man to be interested.” This is a common confusion for women.

First of all, we’re interested. There’s no special trick or social cue that you need to pick up on. When a man is interested, he’ll show it. We aren’t biologically programmed to be picky when choosing a mate, so we don’t have to hide our feelings. A byproduct of not being picky is that we’ll move on if we don’t get a response. There are many more fish in the sea, and most are a lot more willing to grab the bait.

Secondly, “playing hard to get” isn’t “playing impossible to get.” It’s one thing to not focus in on us at public events. I’ve been out with a few girls that never quite let me get as far as I wanted. That’s fun. That’s the excitement of dating. Having a girl tease gets a man’s blood flowing. It encourages us to try just a bit harder.

This is not the same as ignoring a man. To play hard to get you still have to be in the same room. Consistently ignoring, making excuses, or flaking on plans is not fun. I will usually make three attempts to make plans with a girl. If she doesn’t make it to at least one of these then I’ll write her off as either not interested or just too busy. If you can’t agree to at least one specific time when you’re available, then you’re probably too busy and wouldn’t be an interesting date anyways.

Also guys, if a girl won’t make plans with you, but then you notice that she’s making plans with other people via facebook, She’s not interested!

I have codified my dating experience into some basic laws, and this was the first. As with all my stories, the names have been changed.

I started kindergarten early and so I was always younger than my classmates. This meant that I didn’t have my driver’s license until the middle of Junior year. Because I couldn’t drive I had never really been on a date until that year. This didn’t bother me I hadn’t ever met a girl I was interested in, and no girl had ever shown interest in me for that matter.

That changed at a New Years party I went to that year. My friend Mary had invited a few friends to her place. We watched a couple of movies, but that was unimportant. What was important was the girl who had sat next to me and was holding my hand.  I’d never met this girl, but she was very cute. Her name was Claire.

I wasn’t sure what to do, but thinking I was cool, I decided to just shrug it off. At the end of the night I gave her my number and expected nothing. She called me the next evening and we got to talking. She thought I was cute, wanted to know what school I went to, etc. The one thing I remember her mentioning was that she had a boyfriend, but didn’t have much interest in him, and that she was interested in me.

This should have been my first clue, but I was naive. We went on a couple of dates, and after the second date she kissed me. This was my first kiss. As with any young boy, I thought this was it.  She was something special. Then a few days later her parents were out and I came over to watch a movie. Most of the movie was spent making out. I was already making plans. I had found my one.

Then she called me.  She didn’t really want to continue dating. She felt we were too different.  Some other string of excuses I can’t remember these eight or nine years later. I was heartbroken. I wasn’t sure what to think. I talked to Mary, and some of my other friends. They all knew what had happened, not because I had told them, but because it was her modus operandi. She never kept a boyfriend for long. This didn’t make me feel better, but it did lead to my first dating law.

Evan’s Law #1:
If a woman will leave a man to be with you, she will leave you to be with another man.

I should point out that this law in no way states to not date a woman that is taken. What I am saying is not to put too much stock into any relationship with a woman you took from another man. It will end eventually, and usually with more heartbreak than you would like.

Giggity.net used to be my own personal blog.  I didn’t update it very often, and when I did there wasn’t much to say.   Mostly just little tidbits about what I was up to and what my plans were.  No one read it and ultimately I gave up on blogging.

Then the social networking craze hit.  Between Twitter and Facebook, any use for a blog has gone out the window.  Why write pages about what I’ve been doing the last few days when a single sentence posted live from my phone was more informative and less edited.  I found what blogging was supposed to be, at least for me.

I didn’t just post what I was up to, as I found that tended to be pretty boring.  I still don’t understand the part of the human brain that thinks that anyone cares that you’re getting your hair cut, or that you just bought a Pepsi.  Instead I started posting funny notes that popped in to my head.   This ultimately led to posting things about the funniest thing in my life, my love life.

I’m not what you would call a suave man.  I am too honest, too polite, and too open, none of which are attractive qualities to women, at least none my age.  I have mostly dated younger girls, mainly because my lack of social graces still makes me more mature than the guys they were used to hanging around with.  This usually backfires as younger girls also are not as mature as they would like to think and thus have no idea what they want in a man.

The one thing I do have is my experience.  I don’t know many of the “dos” of dating, but I’ve learned most of the “don’ts.”  I have made countless mistakes and learned from everyone of them.  I’ve converted them in to life lessons that I’ve passed on rather humorously to my friends.

This is where I’m at now.  I’ve decided to collect my romantic misfortunes into one place and respectfully solicit the untamed masses of the internet for their perspective.  This may well turn out to be my biggest mistake.