Dating stories #1: Steffen & Melissa
A fictional analytic series about dating interactions.
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Note: This series involves weaving together fictional characters with analysis regarding their interactions. These characters are not analogues to any real person. They are not a disguised version of someone I know, an ex, or a client. Any similarities are purely coincidental. I am aiming to construct realistic, but still fictional, characters that are believable in their thinking and behavior. These characters will recur later in the series.
Steffen is 26-years old and identifies as a heterosexual, cis male. He’s a construction worker, smart guy, tall, and in pretty good shape. He has some friends he enjoys going to the club with and plays video games. He’s interested in getting married one day and having a couple of babies. He’s keen to stay in Chicago because he loves the place he works, thinks the pay is great, and likes the idea of staying close to his family (who live in the burbs).
In the past, Steffen has struggled when dating. He goes on a ton of first dates, meets some cool women, but keeps looking for the “right” one. He keeps thinking, “I need that chemistry, and I don’t always feel it.” Sometimes, Steffen will date someone for a few weeks or a month, but it starts to wear off fast. He has a first date tonight with Melissa, who he has been chatting with from an app. The banter has been great and she makes him laugh. He’s really hoping that translates to an in-person “spark.” In the lead-up to the date, she’s sent a few more texts than usual, and Steffen hasn’t had much time at work today to respond. He’s excited to see her, but the day is proving pretty taxing, and she seems to be pulling for more attention than usual. He’s starting to feel a little overwhelmed by this. However, he thinks to himself, “Well, whatever… as long as we can get to the date and have some laughs, it’ll be great. You know, I could really see myself falling for this one.”
We’re about to see an example of some ways in which a first date can go sideways, for valid and reasonable reasons that don’t mean anything about the “compatibility” of these two people. Cognitive biases play a significant role in the ways that early dating experiences play out. When you first meet a new person, you may develop firm expectations and be tempted to make very firm judgments about who they are and how they behave based on very little information. Alternatively, you may be tempted to run with your initial impressions about a person’s dress, appearance, or mannerisms and see ways in which this person could not possibly be your romantic partner long-term (thereby writing them off). Many of these initial impressions are based on a selective reading of the information before you. For example, negativity bias leads daters to focus on deselection rather than selection. You might see what is wrong with a potential partner before you spot what is potentially right about them. Furthermore, these assumptions are often made with abject overconfidence. You do not know who another person is after texting online then chatting with them for five minutes. Slow down on your judgments. Instead of deciding/believing you know what’s going on, develop questions about the other person and begin to explore those questions with them experientially (I’ll explore this concept more later), over a little more time. The key lesson here is this: Your initial impressions may be wrong.
Steffen gets to his date. He arrives a little early and waits for like 15 minutes. Finally, Melissa shows up. Steffen is irritated at this delay. She makes her apologies, but they don’t really land with Steffen. So he is a little more guarded and unimpressed. The conversation gets going and they order a drink. Right away, Steffen notices that she’s quieter than he expected. She was so chatty online. Now he feels like he’s pulling teeth to figure out what to talk about. They chat a little about their jobs, travel that they enjoy, siblings, etc. It starts to feel very familiar to Steffen. Like 100 other first dates he’s been on. They aren’t laughing. There’s no spark. He, pretty quickly, feels like there’s no point to this. “This is the same as all the rest. Why are people so fake online??” They order a second drink and get a couple laughs in as they loosen up. But, it mostly felt stale to Steffen and the die has been cast. They go their separate ways that night, a limp hug goodbye and Steffen heads home to scroll and swipe on the apps.
Attribution biases are particularly important here. We humans have a bias toward believing that people act in certain ways because: 1) they are this way, 2) they mean to be this way, and 3) they will always be this way. After the date, Steffen is thinking, “Melissa is too quiet.” Implied in that are the subsequent thoughts: “…and she means to be quiet, and she will always be quiet.” Let’s flip this exchange around and meet Melissa to learn more about her experience:
Melissa is 29. She identifies as cis-female and has dated cis identified men and women in her past. She works in advertising and creative marketing, is very committed to her work, very career driven and has been highly successful in her early career. She hasn’t dated much lately, mostly because of her recent career focus, but she knows she needs to get back out there. She loves to laugh and her friends know her to be a very outgoing, comedian type. She and her friends often go to comedy shows and she’s considered taking some comedy writing courses. While it’s been several years since her last relationship, she tends to be a very committed partner when she is in a relationship. Her last relationship ended because the person moved away and wasn’t great at maintaining connection during their feeble attempt at long-distance dating. She’s really excited to meet Steffen tonight. Maybe a little too excited. She loves what she’s heard so far. They have awesome “textual” chemistry. She’s really hoping it translates.
Earlier at work, she made a mistake. A bad one. Despite her usual meticulousness, this one slipped past her. In preparing a graphic for a potential high value client, she literally misspelled their brand name. It was just on the one graphic and the name is stupid anyway. But, the client caught it during the call and seemed offended. Her boss chewed her out. After taking some time to compose herself, fix the graphic, and draft an apology to the client, she decides to distract herself by texting Steffen. She usually doesn’t text this much while at work, but she’s stoked to see him and can’t really focus on work right now. His responses seem more terse than usual. But, she tries to draw him out. She references a joke from the other night hoping it’ll make him chuckle. She’s a master of the callback. “Hmm. Didn’t land. Maybe I overplayed that one.”
Let’s zoom in on that exchange by itself: Steffen is busy at work and Melissa is feeling vulnerable and reaching out for distractive support. She is engaging in a manner and time outside their typical cadence. It’s not quite working. She is still feeling raw about the professional mistake, but hasn’t told Steffen about that yet. Steffen is feeling a little overburdened both at work and now with Melissa. So there’s just the tiniest little bit of friction between the two of them leading into their date. It doesn’t feel like much to either of them at first. As the day goes on, Melissa feels particularly vulnerable and lonely. Her boss was somewhat cold to her when she said goodnight before leaving the office. When she starts to get ready for the date, she keeps replaying the fact that it feels like something is off about the chemistry with Steffen. She really wants to impress him. She puts even more effort than typical into her appearance. Oh crap, she loses track of time and starts really running behind. Her ride-share car is delayed getting to her. She tries to text Steffen but he just “left her on read.” She feels a bit burned by this and is starting to feel really anxious. By the time she shows up, she feels very exposed and guarded. Throughout the first part of the date, she’s really just trying to calm down. Steffen seems really standoffish. She’s feeling confused. What happened??! Why is he acting like this? What an awful day! As the second drinks come, she starts to feel herself finding her groove again. She cracks a couple jokes that land well. It starts to feel better between them. She has some hope that this is better than she first thought. They say goodnight… the hug feels weird. Distant. She leaves confused and hoping he’ll text her.
Have you ever been anxious on a date? Stumbled over your words a little? If you haven’t, can you remember a time in your life when you were anxious? Maybe for you, anxiety tends to show up at work or in another performance setting. Really think about it: what makes you anxious? Steffen doesn’t tend to get anxious on first dates. So he struggles to understand why others do and struggles to notice when it’s happening to his dates. This is a substantial blind spot on this date in particular. He’s viewing her as quiet when all evidence points to the opposite. Her job requires her to be outgoing (and she’s great at her job despite today’s mistake). Her friends view her as the life of the party (and she told him this). And their textual chemistry clearly indicates that she is smart and creative and funny. Steffen isn’t looking at the one variable that explains the situation most clearly.
The deal with attribution bias is this: when you judge other people’s actions, you tend to view the causes of those actions as internal, intentional, and permanent. That is an error. Hasn’t there ever been a time in your life when you were anxious and it impacted your performance on something? Did you ever make a mistake in sports, music, or another performance pursuit? Did you ever get in your own way in a social situation? To Steffen, I would ask: have you ever been nervous in a social situation and found it changed the way you interacted with those around you?
Steffen is misreading the causes in the situation and attributing them to a failing on Melissa’s part. He’s also, simultaneously believing that this failure will be consistent throughout her life and cannot change. Not only is he wrong about her at baseline. He’s also operating under a misguided understanding of change. People can change. More than that, people will change. Even more so still, you will change in response to your romantic partner and your romantic partner will change in response to you. If Melissa and Steffen kept hanging out, he’d see those other sides of her and it would provide an opportunity to challenge some of these misconceptions about her and the way that people function.
Don’t believe me about change? Feeling cynical about that? Here’s my challenge: You’ve changed in your life. Think about it: can’t you remember a time in your life when you approached certain difficult situations differently than you do now? Can you remember any relationship skills you’ve developed along the way that might have been super helpful years earlier? You changed. Can’t they change? People in a partnership learn from and with their partners. When you think back to past relationships, do you remember learning something from your partner that is still a part of your life now? People can change. Partnership changes people. If both of those things are true, then why discount that a person sitting directly in front of you, who shows an interest in dating you, wouldn’t be motivated to learn from and with you.
You cannot and should not enter into a relationship hoping to change a specific thing about a partner without their buy-in. That can turn into animosity, control, power struggles, and defeat very quickly. Trying to change someone is often futile. But, you can accept that change will happen and can be approached with compassion and care and kindness and vulnerability and mindfulness and asks.