Keep all your options open until you decide to commit to just one person
By TAMAR CASPIDating(photo credit: Pepe Fainberg)
‘Desperate times call for desperate measures” wrote a Jerusalem Post reader I’ll call Arielle. “I didn’t think I’d ever have to ask for dating advice, but I need your help. I’ve been, as you call it, ‘poly-dating’ [casually dating more than one person simultaneously] for quite some time (although I didn’t have a name for it before) but I’m in a jam – I really like two of the guys I’m dating and I can’t decide which to break it off with. Not to say it’s totally up to me, but I’m pretty sure they both feel strongly towards me and I need to make a move now before it becomes more difficult. Have you ever been in this predicament?” Luckily for Arielle and unfortunately for me, I have.I had met the two guys when I was in the midst of a poly-dating phase of my life. One guy worked with me and the other I met at a volunteer event for a Jewish organization. Actually I was casually dating more than a few guys at the time and had slowly but surely let the others go until I was down to these two, and was stuck.Surely these guys knew I was holding back as I was still only seeing them each once or twice a week and, although I was naturally flirtatious, I hadn’t let the physical chemistry get the best of me. (One of the rules of poly-dating is to keep everything kosher, meaning not to take things too far with one suitor until you’ve entered into a committed and monogamous relationship with just one prospect.) My co-worker was a great guy: he was ambitious and climbed the ranks at a young age; creative and always planned fun dates; and he was sweet, remembering special dates. But he was also my coworker and we weren’t really supposed to be dating.If we did break up it would be more awkward than going to management to let them know about our relationship.The guy who was volunteering in the same organization as me was also really great: he was an entrepreneur passionate about his business, had a lot of great hobbies he liked to include me in, and most importantly he was active in the Jewish community.There was something “off” that I couldn’t put my finger on but there was also something really special about him that I couldn’t ignore.I ultimately “chose” the latter guy and, lucky for me, he was ready to take our relationship to the next level as well. Things became awful at work where my now ex wouldn’t speak to me. I found out later he had been really into me and had already asked his supervisors about pursuing our relationship. But I had made the right decision for me, and things with the guy from volunteering became really serious once I let my guard down and truly became available.Of course, after a few months the “off” thing that had bothered me before reared its ugly head in the form of an ex-girlfriend that he still harbored feelings for. But for those few months I had made the right choice.It’s a gut feeling. Neither ended up being right for me, but of the two at that time one was more right than the other and I needed to make that decision, for their sakes as well as mine. You have to trust your instinct. The best way to do so, if you’re confused, is to try and imagine yourself with each of the prospects down the road – can you picture having a conversation with each of them in a month, a year, 10 years? Can you imagine yourself living with one or both of the prospects, marrying one or both of them, co-parenting and surviving life’s everyday trivialities as well as the hardships with each of them? That may sound extreme, but as you said, desperate times call for desperate measures, right? That said, keep this process and your poly-dating past to yourself. The guys don’t want to hear that there are other men in your life, even if they are dating other women, and they for sure don’t want to know that you can’t choose between them and another man. The point of poly-dating is to keep yourself from falling too hard, too fast for any one person.When you are dating other people, or at least staying on JDate and continuing to look for and meet prospects, you won’t have the time or energy to over-focus on one person. If after one date you are picturing your monogram and how your children will look, you are not only a hopeless romantic, but desperate.By poly-dating and eliminating dates as needed you will sometimes not be dating anyone and other times have a full calendar. But it also means that you won’t settle for a suitor who isn’t well-suited for you just because he or she is the only one you’ve been seeing.Keep all your options open at all times until you decide to commit to just one person: keep your JDate membership active and updated, let the community know you want to be set up, get involved in organizations you are interested in, and continue attending singles mixers.
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