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Originally Posted by The_Jazz
As I understand it, Poetry, you object to the quantity approach and your preferred method is a quality approach. I get that. You want to feel special - he took the time and energy to craft a unique note that is properly worded and punctuated. You've got enough self-respect to know that you deserve as much.
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On the internet, it's not as much (for me) about feeling special, as much as determining that the sender is worth a response. And it's not just about the sender's "worthiness", but our possible success as a couple
or his desirability as a sex partner.
I like the men I sleep (and date) with to be intelligent. Not just a little intelligent, but a knock-me-on-my-ass intelligent. That's more important to me than looks or money.
So if I get a message (like "hey, nice pix") that conveys a lack of intelligence, I'm not going to want to sleep with him. And if he's not desirable as a sex partner, then I'm certainly not going to want to date him either.
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But the guy who has that approach isn't going to make it without knowing you're worthy of it. Why would a guy spend that much time drafting a note that's going to catch your eye without being reasonably certain that you (the plural "you", not the specific "you") aren't a complete airhead? Any guy that's going to pass your muster is going to be at least passingly interested in what's between your ears. Sure, at the end of the day, his predominant interest is what's between your legs, but any halfway intelligent guy is going to know that it's more important to impress you than not.
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And this is true, not just online. But, fortunately, the internet is a place of information. On most social sites, people have their privacy settings not as tight as they could be, and it's easy to gather information on the person.
Also, there's something to be said for a message that reads along the lines of, "Hey, I'm a friend of your friend John. I saw you commented on his wall about x,y,z-- it made me laugh, so I checked your profile. I didn't think anyone else liked Band X, I have an extra ticket to their show because Joe bailed out on me-- wanna go?" (I've responded to these, and gone.)
I know that the interest is primarily of sex. Mine is too, honestly. But I want a man who can seduce, approach, whatever, well. Prove to me that he has the experience to do so, has the innate talent, has the social skill. Whatever. I think most girls do too, whether they consciously realize it or not.
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I don't mean that to pooh-pooh the seriousness of what happened to you, but at least with your earlier run-ins, I'm willing to bet that you could honestly say "if I knew then what I know now, that never would have happened."
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Yes, exactly what I was trying to say. We learn over time. We craft the heuristics that loquitur brought up. I know that the men I dated when I was 17 I wouldn't date when I was 20, and the men I dated at 20 I wouldn't have dated at 25 and so on. I know I wouldn't have gotten caught in the situations I did when I was younger if I had the experience I do now in evaluating men and situations. But I gained that experience from those situations, and I did so at a vaguely early enough age to recover and grow from it in a positive manner without them causing too much impact on my serious relationships.
I know that if I met the boyfriend who beat me now, I'd be able to read the signs of that potential in his normal behavior. If I met the date rape guy now and he asked me out, if I had gone, I would've rapidly seen where things were headed and demolished him. If I had listened to my gut last year instead of giving someone who made me uneasy a chance, I would not have ended up trapped in a bedroom in another city with a krav maga meathead pinning me down and ripping at my clothes.
Thus we learn, we create filters, we select better.