Hello my pretties,
Papa Churn is pleased with your work as I sit here stroking the ends of my mustache, the dating is good! However before I get on to my subject of the week, some advice and a summary of our Churnlings thus far,
Belle-The Dentist sounds awesome, push it further but keep it cool and chillaxed. Three date minimum! By the by, I totally would have gone on the weekend away to Atlanta!
Rick.Mark.Steve.-don't waste your time on people who don't know how to date or don't want to-The Swede sounds like a good egg!
Claudia-What was the argument about? This guy sounds a bit nuts I hope he is cute as hell. Three date minimum! Give him the chance to a) make it up to you b) screw it up to give you an end point c) get a joint for papa churn.
Betti-Gold star thus far and by far the most dates, but I feel like your going to burn out, pace yourself pretty lady. I kind of want you to go on a date with crazy text man for two reasons 1) It will be highly entertaining for me 2) He sounded like a nice guy, yes a bit dependent but he got you excited for a reason whether it's email or phone.....which nicely brings me on to our titular subject: the internet.
Back when Papa Churn was just a young buck who'd arrived in the Capitol with nothing but a backpack and a cheesy grin knowing not a soul I decided to embark on the churn so that I could date and meet someone, but also to hopefully make some friends. The internet is your best friend but can be your worst enemy. It is easy peasy to get a date a week with craigslist, match.com etc etc but much more difficult to make a date stick. I went on a thousand first dates but could never get a second date. This is the first rule of internet dating: GET A SECOND DATE.
The next rule regards what Betti went through: don't fall into a textual relationship; a 'webationship.' There was this guy I met on match.com, we'll call him Angry Man because that is his name, he was movie star hot, so I emailed him and we went back and forth and soon enough we began g-chatting every single night but were both so busy with work we never ever got around to actually meeting. We did start to talk on the phone and he sounded a little like Matthew Mcconaughey, which as a British person, a hot gravelly Southern accent is like oral porn, however we kept getting into the most heated debates/arguments on the phone, about the stupidest things; like which flavor cheesecake was better, things there were no right or wrong answers to. He would boss me around and tell me what to do which I kind of liked, but after a while it started to piss me off. However we both totally got off on the verbal friction. It was like we were an old badly married couple. We began to argue a lot more and then I was in NYC one weekend and he kept calling me saying he missed me and when was I coming back and of course we got into a huge fight and it was then that I actually realised...I had never met this person. We had had an entire relationship on the phone. We argued so much we couldn't even agree on where to meet! But we had such passion. We never met and sometimes I look back and ponder what would it have been like if we'd met? Would we have ripped each others clothes off or argued all the way down the aisle? It was a pseudo marriage; I knew everything about this guy, what brand of apples he bought to the names of his dogs. Betti was smart and pulled herself out of her webationship and tried to meet him, however I do think if at all possible you should still give him a shot, in a very public open place where I am watching with binoculars and a tazer.
The rules for internet dating are simple:
Meet the person soon,
Try and talk on the phone, you can tell a lot more about them from their voice then their text. Remember how brave you all are online?
Never use emoticons with people you've never met.
Don't comprise a message with TLA's (Totally Lame Abbreviations: LOL, BTW, BFF-you're not a Jonas Brother)
Don't put off meeting them.
Three date minimum rule especially applies here as people are so strange on first dates especially from match.com.
Safety first (Meet in a safe place and never get into their car)
Keep and open mind
The only escape clause from the three date minimum is if they are a troll.
Good luck!
Papa Churn
