My Contribution to the Wave of Relationship Threads

[Andrew D. Gable]

Since there is a recent wave of them.

An update on the last girl, forget if I ever posted about it... basically, we're not seeing each other anymore outside of work. I'm cool with it, it's not like we were ever technically a relationship anyway. Anyway.

So anyway. There's this little (as in short) hippie-ish girl I've had my eye on for quite some time, but couldn't go for because of the thing with the other girl. So she's working near my department the other day, I begin talking to her a bit as I'm going about my duties, beginning to work my mojo.

Next day, she's there again, I'm talking to her again. Anyway, she starts following me around, which is kind of cool, I think. Then (and I really surprised myself here, I didn't think I was going to do it) I asked her out. She didn't say no, which is good. She said we could, but that she was leaving for school really soon (true). She's majoring in pretty much the same thing I went for.

So I gave her my e-mail address, when she gets her e-mail at school set up, she's going to e-mail me. Thing that sucks is that her school is over near Pittsburgh, and I'm over on the Philadelphia side of the state... ahh well. Maybe we can go out and stuff when she's home for Christmas and that. Or maybe I'll be making some long road trips.

So I'm thinking this is possibly a hopeful thing. Unlike the other one (in 20/20 hindsight), she seems receptive to the mojo.

Opinions?

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Just remember the rules of relationships from college, picked up from American Pie 2:

When a woman says she's had dates, multiply by three, and that's the minimum.

When a man says he's had dates, divide by three, and that's the maximum.

 

[Umbran]

Opinions?

Hm. From personal experience - long-distance relationships are very difficult. They may not be for everyone. However, for all the difficulty the rewards can be pretty darned fine.

 

[Maerdwyn]

I did the long distance thing for a year or so 9 years ago, and it's worked out (8th anniversary this December), but it wouldn't have if it had been the very beginning of the relationship. My wife had graduated, and I was still in school, and if we hadn't been committed at that point, well, there are a lot of...distractions... in college.

As she's going off to school, I'd suggest seeing what happens, enjoy things as they/if they develop, but not invest too much worry or hope just yet. YMMV

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I shall chime in because, why not?

I've been talking a lot to my ex-girlfriend, who I met about three and a half years ago on alt.comics.batman. Beat that for geeky! USENET!

Anyway. We fell for each other online, and about seven months into the relationship she came to Sydney to study at my university and to be with me. For many a complicated reason, we went through six months of Hell that even our deep feelings for each other couldn't hold us together through. She ended up going back to California, and while we've been talking off and on ever since it's never been easy between us.

Now, though, she's recently gone through a bad (if short) relationship with someone who behaved in some of exactly the same ways as she did when she was with me here in Sydney, and she sought me out to talk about it . . . over the course of a long conversation online, we came to the realisation that we could be friends with each other again, and forgive each other for everything that went wrong before.

Since then, we've come to accept that we still love each other as deeply as we ever did; the difference now is that she's not going to be able to move to Sydney again for at least two years (and, while I wouldn't move to California for her, it's okay, because she doesn't want to live there long-term anyway), and even more importantly neither one of us feels that we need to be together.

It's great to feel wanted but a relief to not feel needed, and I think the forced postponing of our actually trying to get back together - if we ever even do so, which is by no means guaranteed - is a good thing for us.

 

[Turanil]

<snip>
I begin talking to her a bit as I'm going about my duties, beginning to work my mojo.
<snip>
she seems receptive to the mojo.

Ahum!... What exactly is a mojo?

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Ahum!... What exactly is a mojo?

Watch "Austin Powers."

And you'll probably be even more confused.

In this context, it means "male libido, charisma, charm."

In other words, he was attempting to ask her out on a date (in a roundabout way), and she was receptive to the idea.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

OK, based on things I found out tonight (chatting with her on AIM) I'm forced to ask quite possibly the most elementary relationship-type question ever.

The old saying goes opposites attract. Do they? Because this girl is like me in many, many ways. She's a hippie, an Anglophile, an (ex- in her case) gamer, and (I did not know this!) Southern. That's like... a score of like 10 on a 1-10 scale for me, personally.

So, are a lot of similarities good or bad?

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I don't think there's a hard and fast rule for whether a lot of similarities are good or bad -- too much of either can be deadly for a relationship. And on some level, the similarities you've described, although cool, are somewhat superficial -- they're more of shared interests or experiences (I think I might be defining these too strongly, but...) -- I mean, you did find them out on AIM. This, though, is cool, because I think you need these sorts of things to get a relationship rolling and get into the really interesting and meaningful stuff -- when you'll really find out how similar you are or aren't and, then, how important that is to you.

Edit: So, I guess what I'm saying is, to be clearer, that the similarities you've mentioned are important -- it gives you some common ground to start with. Total opposites would (possibly) have to develop that common ground during the relationship, which could be hard or easy depending.

Best,
Nick

 

[Umbran]

Ahum!... What exactly is a mojo?

Traditionally, "mojo" means roughly "magic". In this case, it means (figuratively) "that voodoo a geek needs to perform in order to get noticed by a potential romantic partner".