On Friday night I attended a sold-out showing of He’s Just Not That Into You with 17 — yes, 17 — of my female friends. Three of us were gay, and the other 14 were the film’s target audience: straight girls in their twenties and thirties.
After the film, the consensus of straight and gay alike was that the film had some funny moments, but overall it was pretty sexist and riddled with clichés. But the next day I couldn’t stop thinking about the movie, specifically the Ginnifer Goodwin and Jennifer Connelly characters. (And not just because they’re super hot, especially Jennifer Connelly when she cries. In my book, J.C’s hotness goes up 20 percent whenever she cries because it makes her spectacular green eyes pop. Rent Beautiful Mind for crying hotness conformation.) Yes, their characters were exaggerated versions of the neurotic, love starved female but I think you’d be hard pressed to find a girl, gay or straight that hasn’t behaved like them at some point.
So that got me to thinking about my own experience with rejection and rejecting. What were the signs? Were they obvious? And is it different because I’m a woman? Because I’m gay? Or because I’m just me? You tell me. Here are my brutally honest lesbian dating confessions:
I tend not to use the wink because I see it as the poor man’s “ask out.” You’re too nervous to just ask the girl out, so you wink and if she responds to the digital you, she’ll wink back. The wink has its pluses because it takes three seconds. But in my opinion, the rejection of the wink is the worst.
When you wink at your online crush, you can find out if she has seen your wink, and even worse, when. So, if you winked at her and she didn’t wink back at you within a 48 hour time period, you know that to her you’re not worth the effort of a mouse click. Harsh, but true.
This is tricky. When I was dating online, I would judge a person’s photo choice and photo volume harshly. A lot of pictures means you’re a narcissist; not enough photos means you’re probably not very cute and you took a long time to photoshop the right one in order to get the most amount of hits.
Now, even if you have an appropriate number of photos, lets say three to five, you have to make sure they’re right kind. If you’re striking a K-Fed peace sign pose, you’re a douchebag. If your shot is overly artsy, it means you’re pretentious, annoying and probably a bad speller. If you took more than twenty minutes doing your hair and striking a pose that would make Tyra Banks proud, it means you’re a douchebag with too much time on your hands. However, if you do a Tyra fierce eyes pose with irony, then it means that you’re awesome and I will constantly check your profile and spend roughly three hours writing the perfect “Hey, I’m cool, you seem cool, write if you want or not, either way I’m comfortable in my skin because I’m so hot and cool.” email.
When dating, I like to look for certain key words in order send a message or to read one. For example, you know I’m not into you if I call you: friend, or buddy, or pal-o. However, if I’m into you, and you say things like “you’re hilarious” or “this was fun” or “I live for Arrested Development,” then I’m going to see that as a sign from the heavens that we are meant to be. After all you think I’m hilarious and you love AD. Come on.
If I’m into you, I’ll find any excuse to touch you. “You like salt, too? No way!” Then, I’ll pat your arm. If I’m not into you, then I’ll go to great and sometimes awkward lengths to make sure we don’t even brush up against each other.
I’m not that into you if when I get your call I pretend like I don’t know who’s calling. If I have caller ID and I don’t know who it is, it means that I didn’t even bother to type your name in my phone. I’m into you if when I call you, I rerecord my message seven times thanks to *3. (You can tell that someone has done this if it takes a long time for the voicemail to show up but the voicemail itself is very short.)
These opinions are entirely my own, so take them or leave them. Have you seen He’s Just Not That Into You and formed opinions of your own?
