Dating dilemmas

It’s early evening on a recent Saturday in North Spokane, and what stands before us looks like a scene straight out of a reality show.

If such a show did exist, we might title it “Can You Find Love in the 21st Century?”

In this case, the answer is obvious: The newly married couple sways arm in arm, all smiles as some warbler coaxes the karaoke machine through a Righteous Brothers song.

And thus another contemporary dating story ends up a success.

Of course, “success” is a relative term. As Seattle author Diane Mapes writes in her book “How to Date in a Post-Dating World,” “Dating means different things to different people.”

In this case, the middle-aged couple discovered that marriage – not the first for either – is their success gauge of choice.

Then, too, the very word “dating” is a nebulous term. Over the centuries, what passes for dating has been known by a number of names, from sparking to pitching woo, from going out to hooking up.

“But no matter what you call it,” wrote Mapes, “and no matter how you define it, most people would probably agree that dating is the process we all have to go through in order to get intimate with someone – in either a romantic or a sexual sense.”

Here, though, is the irony of life in this contemporary world of cell phones, Blackberries, instant-messaging and the Internet: You’d think the process would be easier than it’s ever been.

Mapes, in fact, would argue that exactly the opposite is true.

“There are more people confused about dating at a time when there are more dating options than ever before,” Mapes said in a phone interview.

Mapes, who describes herself as being “in her 40s,” “a workaholic” and “happily single,” discovered just how problematic today’s dating scene was a couple of years ago when she did a story for the Seattle Times on “Seattle’s dating doldrums.”

“And it became apparent almost immediately that I had hit a nerve because there was just this great hue and cry,” Mapes said.

She got hundreds of e-mails, and the Times’ Web site got thousands of hits. And not just from Seattle.

“Everybody was talking about how dating ‘sucked’ in Seattle,” Mapes said. “But then I started hearing from people in different cities saying the same sort of thing: ‘My god, it sucks here, too.’ And whether it was New York or North Carolina or San Francisco or L.A. or the Midwest, it just became really apparent that there was a huge disconnect going on.”

As it turns out, she and Seattle’s Sasquatch Press had the same idea: book.

“The universe just sort of converged,” she said.

From the beginning, Mapes’ plan was to strike the right writing tone, to find a balance between “a complete actual send-up and a guide that would have actual helpful information in there.”

“There are so many dating books out there that are so relentlessly grim,” she said. “There is no way that I would write a how-to book from some lofty perch. Dating is rife with humor. Life is rife with humor.”

Many of the book’s bits of humor come from the dating horror stories that she gleaned through hundreds of interviews.

Take the 46-year-old guy from Chicago who showed up at a bookstore/coffee shop to meet a woman he’d been corresponding with online: “I arrived at the appointed time, looked around and saw, from behind, a petite blonde. She turned, our eyes met, she smiled – and she had no front teeth. None!”

Or the 24-year-old woman from Washington, D.C., who met a “tall, good-looking guy” in a bar. Even though the band was playing too loudly for conversation, she gave him her number. He called and they went out: “(B)y the time the check came, I knew he was not for me. Turtleneck, blazer, laughing at inappropriate times, his legs crossed – it was like being on a date with my math professor.”

Or even the 50-year-old woman from Brooklyn, N.Y., who agreed via the Internet to meet a guy at a museum: “(E)verything was fine until he started lecturing me on every exhibit, to the point where I couldn’t get two words in edgewise. … The corker, though, was when he pushed aside a little girl who was using a computer by an exhibit we were looking at. He claimed he’d been there first.”

Such accounts caused Mapes to wonder “if it’s that we don’t know how to date these days or how to behave.”

And, in fact, part of her book is a primer on the basics: personal hygiene, dress, etiquette, small talk and other fundamentals that seem like mere common sense.

Mapes does, though, point out that dating in these early years of the 21st century poses particular problems.

For one thing, she said, “We’re much more of an instant-gratification society. People want their soulmate, and they want them now.”

Nothing wrong with that, of course – unless you raise your standards to an impossible level.

Which, apparently, happens more often than you might think.

“People will come home for a nice date with somebody where they’ve hit it off really, really well, and they’ll go back online to see if they can find somebody better,” Mapes said.

She calls it a “shopping mentality.”

Internet dating is a phenomenon all unto itself. With around 1,800 sites devoted to online coupling, there is no lack of choices for the discerning shopper – with shopping being the key concept.

“Internet dating is great,” Mapes said. “It’s efficient, especially for people who are working long, long hours and don’t have a lot of time to go out and socialize. You can stay at home at night, and the moment you feel like you’d like to meet somebody, you can.”

The downside is, she added, that “you get out there and get blindsided by all these choices, and I think it’s overwhelming for people. Our shopping gene kicks in and works, sometimes, not to our benefit.”

Especially when, she said, we raise “our soulmate shopping list to about 5,000 categories that we want to fulfill.”

One thing to consider, says Mapes, is that such lists grow as the years pass. But, eventually, they tend to shorten.

“I think when you get older, in your 40s or 50s and 60s, and if marriage is still a huge priority for you, the list shrinks down again,” she said. “And pretty soon it’s down to somebody who’s breathing and bipedal.”

So what do you do in the meantime? Here are some suggestions:

“Figure out whether you’re even ready to date: Jumping back on the dating horse immediately following a bad breakup probably isn’t a good idea. It can even add to the ongoing social awkwardness.

As Mapes sees it, “People are so afraid to be alone that they get right back out there and hook up with somebody who isn’t right for them. Inevitably there is disappointment and hurt and bitterness. Then they split, and both of them carry all this crap with them into their next relationships. It’s like this huge, dysfunctional ripple effect.”

So take a break. Get a pet. Take up a hobby.

As Mapes wrote, “Write some bad poetry.”

“If you are ready, find a way of meeting someone that best fits who you are: This could include everything from letting your friends set you up, getting involved with someone at work, answering a personal ad or buying someone (or letting someone buy you) a drink at happy hour.

“I think the thing is to look at all the different options and become as informed as possible,” Mapes said.

Especially with Internet dating, she says, it’s important to learn the rules.

“You usually want to keep things short and sweet at first,” she said. “You don’t know the person from a hole in the ground, so you want to keep all personal information to yourself. You do not want to tell an online date, whom you’ve never met, where you live, where you work.”

Some people choose not even to give out their real phone number, instead opting for a throw-away cell-phone plan.

“It’s really a weird mix of trust but not too much trust,” she said.

“Realize that most of us massage the truth: “Husky” or “curvy” might mean “needs to mix in a salad.”

“You don’t need to go to an Internet dating site to experience that,” Mapes said. “All you have to do is go down to the DMV and listen to people give their weight.”

It’s only human to tell such white lies, she said.

“We describe the person we want to be, or who we are in our heads.”

“Familiarize yourself with the lingo: “You don’t want to make any assumptions,” Mapes said. “If somebody says they’re into ‘play,’ that does not mean that they want to go hiking and biking and kayaking, as this one poor woman I interviewed thought.

“It means they’re into threesomes. Play is a code word for adult play, and adult is a code word for unconventional behavior.”

“Chill out: “I think people could relax a bit, not go out there with an agenda of getting married and have 2.5 children by the time you finish your entrée,” Mapes said.

“Avoid snap judgments: “Not everybody follows the same set of social rules,” Mapes said.

“You never want to make any assumptions that a man isn’t a gentleman just because he doesn’t open the door for you. Or that a woman is a gold digger because she doesn’t offer to split a check.”

To underscore that final point, Mapes divulged a bit of personal information: She’s played the accordion since second grade and even did so at a friend’s recent wedding.

Would she admit that on an online dating information form?

“Sure,” she said. “You bet. Because it’s just the way my personality is.

“I’m a quirky writer, and I would want to meet someone who would either be as quirky or who would appreciate my quirks.

“I’m not at all into deceiving people like some of those old guide books advise.”

Knowledge, she says, is always helpful.

“And forewarned is forearmed.”