before we meet: Nonlinear Function
Created: November 28, 2021
Modified: November 28, 2021

before we meet

This page is from my personal notes, and has not been specifically reviewed for public consumption. It might be incomplete, wrong, outdated, or stupid. Caveat lector.
  • What would I say to someone I met up with on Tindr? How do I think about the encounter?
  • I like almost everyone, so in particular I like you, even if we don't end up clicking or finding enough in common to keep hanging out regularly. In a friendship I'm looking for some combination of:
    • shared activities we can do together: biking, climbing, gaming, skiing, travel, music, sex, etc.
    • enough of a shared worldview or shared set of experiences so that we can understand each other more deeply than a generic pair of people
    • someone who reads and can have intellectual conversations
    • a general sense of chemistry---someone who I like being around for reasons I can't express, or who brings out parts of me that I want to develop.
    • physical attractiveness: even if we're not dating or having sex, it's still fun to be friends with guys I think are cute.
  • This is all a pretty high bar, because it's about how two puzzles pieces fit together, and I'm a pretty weird and constantly changing puzzle piece.
  • What are the outcomes of meeting up?
    • We have a nice drink/etc and then never see each other again.
    • We meet up a few times but things fizzle out, or eventually one of us gets busy and ghosts the other. I try not to ghost people, especially if we've met multiple times, but I don't always have the emotional energy to write a message about why I'm not interested in hanging out right now, so it happens sometimes.