“I think, you thought, who confirm?”
Life is tough without an instructions manual. Pretty much like traffic. If you knew where you wanted to go, you just had to get into your car and follow the traffic lights. Red means stop, green means go and yellow means floor it when the road is clear of pedestrians or vehicles.
Reservist is almost like that. As long as you knew what your job scope was and where you stood in the chain of command, you just had to execute your assigned tasks when the time came. Before then and after that, you literally just went into robot/zombie mode to await instructions.
So why should dating be any different? Everyone tells us the dating game is a minefield, but even minefields have markings or indicators – trust me, I would know. It’s not just the guys who tell us so, even the ladies do as well. Just accept that it is so and don’t overthink it.
Nonetheless, because we’re so used to taking the pragmatic option here in Singapore, which is to follow the traffic lights or instructions whichever comes first, we end up facing the same request over and over again: “What did he/she mean? Why? So complicated, just tell me what to do!”
And as we said a couple of weeks back, every one of us has to find our own way. While we can’t give you the operational map or guide that you want, we do have a list of indicators to look out for along your dating journey to help you make sound decisions.
An exasperated Ben asked us for just that. He came to his own conclusion that Beatrice wasn’t keen on him because Ben wasn’t her type, and also because she turned down his second dinner date invitation. This puzzled us, since the feedback from their first date weeks ago was blindingly positive (Indicator 1) and it was almost certain things would blossom from thereon. So we asked for the exact conversation between the two which led him to his conclusion.
“I asked her out for dinner at this grill place because she’s quite the carnivore like me.”
“She just said “I thought you said you were on a no-red meat diet this month?” (Indicator 2)
“We talked about other things after that, but I took that as a “No”. So end of story.”
The first indicator here was the first date – things went well, and they carried on the conversation after the date. However, the second indicator was a bit more elusive but still there in the conversation – there was no mention of the word ‘No’ to his question. A lady may have many different ways of saying ‘Yes’, but ultimately, there’s only one way of saying ‘No’. A fearsome word that all guys must respect, for everyone’s safety and legal reasons of course. Ultimately guys, I have to say if you’re not sure what she’s thinking, for your own sanity it’s better to just confirm it rather than to have thought she meant something else.
Realising this, Ben circled back and asked Beatrice out for that carnivorous date and the answer was yes with some bewilderment but no love lost.
