Avoidance Syndrome

It comes as no surprise that I don't have very much to tell regarding this character. However, I think the case is asymptomatic of a type of experience that is part of the online dating realm.

Walt was an eHarmony find. After going through the long plod toward "Open Communication" on the service, Walt was the first to offer a phone number to initiate a form of direct contact. A few phone conversations convinced me that Walt was the kind of person that he appeared to be on his profile--he was nice, he was considerate, he was a good talker. He had two kids and exchanged them with his ex-wife on a weekly basis because both of them decided to live in the same town after the split. He worked in some kind of position that required his traveling a lot during the day between local places. Although we talked several times, he never formally proposed meeting up. Then, I started seeing someone else, and he fell off the map.

A few months later, I was single again. A glance at my eHarmony account reminded me of Walt, so I gave him a call and we had a nice, long talk. He proposed going out that Saturday night, and he told me he would call me to set things up.

Needless to say, he didn't call. I waited all through Saturday, and it dawned on me in the later afternoon that I wasn't going to hear from him. A few days later, I got a call--a call I kept short. He told me all about the day he spent with his kids on Saturday. Now, lest I be misunderstood, I have absolutely no problem with his hanging out with his kids. I had a problem with the fact that he didn't find two minutes leading up to that day, during that day, or even immediately after that day to call me up and tell me that. He also didn't seem particularly concerned that we hadn't met up and he hadn't spoken to me about the change in plans.

That conversation was the last one I had with him. A few weeks later, he sent me a text message about hoping everything was going well, which I didn't bother to answer.

I think this phenomenon is hard to put a finger on exactly, but it generally involves being elusive, making few commitments, and the desire to remain connected to possibility without actually executing that into progress. For some people seeking relationships, it's just the possibility of having one that is enough. Dating sites like eHarmony and Match.com are mostly based on the possibility of a dating situation--they set the subscriber up with that possibility right away, without the subscriber having to do anything more. If you want a relationship to come out of that, you have to do the rest of the leg work yourself. Most people who sink any of their hard-earned cash into this enterprise are usually willing to exert the effort that is required. However, there is a small section of the population that has probably lived in circumstances where dates weren't exactly forthcoming, so any change, even if it means a few phone calls and just the possibility of meeting up, even if it doesn't actually happen, is welcome, and consequently, satisfying.

In other cases, it's that extra effort that is the wrench in the works. There are two schools of thought on the reasons. One is the person who just isn't the type to make the effort at all. This person tends to get into "easy" relationships--with people at school he or she sees a lot or with someone at work, again, seen regularly in passing (this isn't meant to say all of those relationships are "easy," but that this kind of person wants to pursue someone close by). The other is someone who is completely unaware of the fact that he or she isn't really ready to date. This situation usually comes on the heels of a bad relationship or a bad break up, or both. Without realizing it, this person dove into the dating pool before completely recalling how to swim or feeling at all comfortable with the pool. As a result, when the possibility of a date comes up, this person comes up with excuses or just completely disappears.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to Walt, but I have never regretted not calling him again. I wonder if he ever managed to go on a date to justify the eHarmony investment, and I hope, if he did, his partner wasn't the only one making the effort.