Second Dates

So after a first date in August, while I was pondering whether there'd be a follow-up, I decided to go review how other first dates had gone and whether there had been follow-ups to those. I'd say my record is pretty good for women not of my religious faith, which is strange--I'd think second dates more likely if we actually share religion, but not the case. What I can say is that pretty much each set of repeated dates has led, ultimately, to a friendship. In fact, sometimes I have difficulty even thinking of these outings as dates, since it was clear we didn't have enough in common in terms of values to make a go at a relationship. But I guess the woman enjoyed my company enough that a mere friendship was fine. Here's the breakdown:

Nonchurch Second Dates

Shared-Faith Second Dates

The statistics grow slightly more interesting with third dates and with friendships developing. With nonchurch women, the level of interest and dropoff stays virtually the same, whereas with women of the same faith, pretty much the third date has been a given if I asked. Meanwhile, friendships with such women, even those who rejected further dates after the first date, stayed in place with about the same percentage as those not of the same faith.

Nonchurch Third Dates

Nonchurch Friendships Resulting Sometime after Second Date

Church Third Dates

Church Friendships Resulting Sometime after Second Date

Online Dating

So back in August I went out on a terrific date with a terrific woman. We met through OKCupid. This came out of nowhere, since I don't really troll the online dating sites anymore, my hope in finding anyone on such a site long since dispersed. The issue is largely that my own values are so out of sync with those of most people that next to no profiles match what I'm looking for. I'm a Christian, but I'm not a mainstream Christian, which means that I'm not really a Christian in the sense that most people are at all. These services always want to set me up with Baptists or someone of that ilk, but there is no way that would work because our beliefs and practices are nowhere near the same. I actually tend to feel more comfortable with nonreligious people, but there, of course, religion is still an issue. One might put me in with the Messianic Jewish camp--it's where I fit in closest with the various "labels" you can find on some of these sites--but if anyone else even fits in that category, they're usually in Romania or some out-of-the-way place like that.

This was a date unlike any I've had in a while. Generally, when I go out with women, I (1) know them pretty well already and so know what I'm getting into, (2) don't have similar values and so know the date is not going to lead to anything serious, even if we have fun, (3) sense that one or the other of us isn't really into this from the get-go, and/or (4) am out with someone in a city far away where the only possibility for a relationship is a long-distance one that probably won't come to fruition. In the first case, it's not exactly like a date in the same way; it's more like old friends getting together. Most of the time, therefore, my "friend" status has already been established (because one or the other of us--or maybe both--has already declared a desire to be just friends), which cuts down on the potential that the event might turn into more; in fact, it makes me wonder whether what we're doing can even be called a date. (When I was younger, such a thing might have been a date--for there were women I went out with who were friends I'd have considered a relationship with--but now that I'm older and more marriage minded, if I'd found someone who I was interested in who knew me well enough and wanted to date me, um, I think I'd probably be married.)

But here was a woman who was attractive, who seemed interested in getting to know me, who I was interested in getting to know, and who I in fact did not know hardly at all outside of a handful of e-mails and a short phonecall and who could actually one day end up living here in this area. One thing I did know, however: we both had similar religious views. This meant that the date could actually lead to a second one. Wow--to date with potential.

(Alas, since then, she's moved on to other places, and so far I've failed to score a second date. But maybe one day if/when she returns.)

So the August date got me to thinking about how many women I've met from online dating sites over the years and which sites led to the most meetings. The numbers here actually skew toward Yahoo! Personals, which doesn't even exist anymore, because most of my online dating was done back when I was in Texas, new to the Internet, and more hopeful (and perhaps a little more keen on dating with no real goal other than to have a fun time out):
That's not a lot, though I did probably forget to include a couple given how many years ago I started using the Internet to try to find dates. It's been very hard for me to get a date from online, but given my rather reserved temperament, it's been even harder to find dates in real life, unless I happened to know the person from a shared activity like school, work, or church. Back when I was putting forth more effort online, I probably averaged one first date for every one hundred women I contacted. Part of this probably has to do with the fact that it was already fairly clear I wasn't a match--because there were no matches to be had.

If one adds singles sites associated specifically with my church, the number of women I've met through online databases, however, would grow exponentially (and is thus hard to track), but the number I've met locally (as opposed to traveling to a singles activity or specifically to meet the person) and gotten a date with (as opposed to exchanging a couple of e-mails that ended up going nowhere) would be extremely small. In fact, I can think of only two in a local area, and in one of those cases, the woman just didn't seem to want to pursue anything more (believe me, I would have had she let me), and in the other, I wasn't that interested and never got much of a vibe that the woman was that interested either. Most often, though, I already know the local women, when they exist, because I see them at church. In the cases I hadn't known them and thus was out with a near stranger, they were in different organizations or I had just moved.

Acceptances, Rejections, and Submissions by Publication Length

My flash "Biology" appears here now in the latest Emprise Review.

I've long thought that longer stories were harder to publish than shorter ones, but at least for me, that apparently is not true--it's only the second under-500-word story I've published. Now it is true that a shorter story can be written faster, and that may be why so many folks write the shorter pieces, but in terms of publication, not necessarily so. That may well be that at the shorter length one has more competition. That said, when it comes to publication, a print journal can publish substantially more short pieces than long ones, which would offset that. Maybe it's just that my longer work is simply better written that the publications tend not to skew any toward the shorter material.

Anyway, in an attempt to see whether my preconceptions were right, I decided to graph a few items. Here is a chart showing the breakdown of how many stories of each length have seen publication:
Clearly, the length that is working best for me in terms of publication is the 1,001-2,000 range. However, a quick look how many rejections I have gotten for each length of story also reveals that for the same length of stories that have gotten the most acceptances, I have also gotten close to the most rejections. The exception here is 5,001-7,500, which outpaces them all; 4,001-5,000 still manages third, however.
Perhaps, it's just that the stories that I've submitted mostly congregated in these same ranges. Let's see:
Indeed, I do have more stories in the 1,001-2,000 range than in any other, but note also the the 5,001-7,500 and 2,001-3,000 come in third here. In that case, 4,001-5,000 is working really well for me.

Let's look at it on a percentage basis. The black represents the percentage of submissions in each length that have actually been accepted. The gray represents the percent of stories of a given length that I've submitted that have eventually been accepted (that is, I may have sent out five stories in the 4,001-5,000 range a total of sixty times, amounting to a 4.5 percent acceptance rate, even while 60 percent [i.e., three] of the stories were eventually accepted).
Interestingly, pretty much across the board of all lengths, I have about 4 percent to 5 percent acceptance rate (really, not too bad considering). The exceptions are the freaky 501-1,000 range (but note also the comparatively few stories that actually have been submitted in that range, as denoted in the chart above) and anything over 5,000 words. Mind you, most of the stories over 5,000 words gravitate to the south end of that, but long length does seem a factor in percentage rejection.

Dreams by Decade

I used to keep a dream diary with a great amount of dedication. Some recent dreams caused me to wonder how the dreams I've been having lately would compare with those I had twenty years ago. And so, I opted to make a chart of the people who have shown up in my dreams over the course of years each separated by a decade.

The years I chose were 1991, 2001, and 2011. This posed a few problems, however. So far, in 2011, I've recorded seven dreams. In 2001, I recorded none. And in 1991, I recorded something like one hundred (I was indeed dedicated). So clearly that wasn't going to work. I did the best I could, by choosing instead of 2001 the year 1999. That year, I recorded three dreams. And instead of all of 1991, I chose to record review only the nine dreams from July of that year. Hence, the decades are now more on an equal par.

I don't know why I should have been surprised, but the people in the dreams varied too much for me to actually chart them by name, with lots of folks only showing up once. Folks who showed up most frequently back in July 1991 included my mom, my friend/coworker/former high school classmate Mike, and my boss Dorothy. A girl I had a crush on at the time only showed up in two dreams that month. No one showed up more than once in any of the dreams for 1999 or 2011.

So I needed a different strategy. I opted to break the dream people into categories. Certainly, some of the categories are kind of a judgment call. Take, for example, Mike. Do I stick him under high school, work, or friend? I opted in such cases to place a person under the category where I first became most familiar with the person, so Mike went under high school (though in the dreams that month, he was most often at work).

Here's how the categories break down for each of the three years chosen.

1991

1999

2011

I suppose some might be interested in the celebrity category. The celebrities to show up in the July 1991 dreams were Will Smith (who was still the Fresh Prince at the time) and Dave Letterman. And in 1999, it was Alex Trebek.

So what is interesting to me about these charts is the way in which the things my dreams obsess about has changed. In 1991, even though high school was three years behind me, classmates from that period still figured most prominently. Relatives and coworkers also did. I dreamed a lot about work, as I worried a lot about it as well.

In 1999, my church was going through some large changes still, and so many of my thoughts revolved around that. By then high school no longer featured so prominently, though strangely, grad school, finished two years before, now was showing up.

In 2011, church seems even bigger, but I can say, from looking over the dreams, that actually few people I know have shown up in dreams this year, which skewers the stats significantly. Most dreams (four of seven) involved complete strangers. Interestingly, high school has left the mix completely, and even work isn't showing up.

But in all years over the decades, relatives show up with some frequency, even though I have little contact with my family compared to 1991.

My Ties

A coworker was remarking on how all my ties seem to be given to me. I think every time she asks where I got a tie, she happens to do so on a day when I'm wearing one that was a gift. I'm the only one at work who wears ties consistently, so they tend to get comments. Anyway, the following chart confirms that in fact I have actually purchased more of my ties than I have been given ties:
Still, I am surprised by how many ties have come to me as gifts. I think, because I wear them, people find them safe gifts for me. And I will wear virtually any tie I'm given. That doesn't necessarily mean that I think they fit my style. Breaking down ties I love versus ties I'm not really into, it's clear that if I picked out the tie to begin with, I'm more likely to love it, which I guess makes sense:
I was also interested in the color of the ties I have and how that affects whether I like them. Here's that breakdown:
So what piece of advice would I give to someone who is handing me a tie? Go for blue, green, or lavendar, and I'm more likely to like it. Green, it kind of overdone, though, as the above shows. I actually tend to like yellow ties also, but I keep their number to a minimum.

Crushes by Hair Color

I've never quite understood why hair color is even something people pay attention to when talking of people they are attracted to. Sure, I might find some blonde gals attractive, but that won't mean all blondes are, nor that I won't find a redhead or a brunette or a black-haired gal even more so. It really depends on the whole woman--figure, face, haircut itself. Add in personality as well--I've seen some very pretty women who fairly quickly didn't appeal to me because of their general demeanor, and a few other less-immediately physically attractive gals have grown in appeal because they were simply so much fun.

Anyway, I very unscientifically have tried to sort through gals I've had crushes on over the years to see if any hair color overwhelms, or if it's more or less even. Of course, there's also the question of what constitutes a crush. There have been girls I was interested in, but I wouldn't have called it a crush--I guess because it was less intense, as she was not someone I spent a lot of time thinking about when she wasn't around me. So what I'm trying to restore to memory here are the women, from high school on, who I spent a lot of time fantasizing about--even obsessing over--the possibility of being in a relationship with. (Unfortunately crushes are what most of my dating life has consisted of. Rare is the girl I actually had a crush on who accepted a date from me, and rarer still such a girl who I managed to score repeat dates with.)

Looks like I'm a guy who prefers blondes. Of course, if we take into account that brunette outnumbers other hair colors, then the preference becomes even more apparent (just as the absence of redheads might be explained by their relative paucity in the population as a whole--the most rare of hair colors). Growing up, redheads appealed the least to me, though I've come to appreciate their beauty in their own right as I've gotten older. I can think of a few I had an interest in--even a strong interest--but I can't think of any who inspired a full-on/lost-my-mind crush, as I'm defining it here.

Writing by Genre and Draft by Year

So August is typically a month I devote each year to rereading stories, poems, and other writing projects of mine to determine what will be submitted over the coming year and what I will rewrite over the coming year. Given that, I thought it might also be interesting to review how many first drafts I've written each year, which genres those pieces were in, and how many subsequent drafts I completed that year.

The following charts indicate by year stories, poems, and chapters of longer projects accordingly. The first chart shows items by genre, with first drafts versus later drafts split out on each bar. The second chart shows items by first draft versus later drafts with items split out by genre on each bar. Finally, the third chart breaks everything out. Poems are a bit of an odd creature here, since I don't keep track of drafts of those, so I can only note how many were written.

For the longer projects, which may or may not have chapters, I've designated five thousand words as an average chapter length (since some novels had no chapters and some have short ones) and divvied up the material accordingly. Screenplays count as three, according to the three-act structure of screenplays. Furthermore, because stories I've worked on, especially in recent years, have often been from wholly conceived cycles (that is, the pieces work together so that the material falls somewhere between a story and a novel), I've indicated these types of stories separately.



There was a drop-off in 2000. In 1999 was when I first had home-access to the Internet, and much of my time during the next few years was spent online, chatting with my new toy and trying to get dates. In part, I'd been so discouraged by lack of publication and lack of writer friends and so encouraged by online correspondence that for a while I did not make writing much of a priority. When I moved to my current home, however, that changed, because I was now back among a literary set and because I'd become discouraged in the dating arena much as I had been in the publication one.