My friend (we'll call her Taylor) and I had a great day today. Lately, since I've cancelled my online dating membership, I've been focusing more on hanging out with my girlfriends doing things that we enjoy. We decided to go for a road trip and we drove up North to go hiking in an area that we don't regularly visit. Then we hit up a nice restaurant nearby for some lunch and drinks. It was a great date. Much better than the ones I've been having with the inappropriate mans.
As you know spending time in the car, on the trail, and enjoying lunch and drinks allows for a lot of discussion, especially when women are involved. Taylor and I were discussing how the online dating thing doesn't work because there's no exchange of pheromones on the Internet or during phone calls that would allow you to know whether or not you're really attracted to the other individual. This seems to be validated by the amount of times that I have emailed and spoken to men and then been let down when I finally met them. As the discussion continued we realized that sometimes there's something beneficial about loosely knowing men, which led us to the term...mantasy.
A mantasy (we decided) is a man-fantasy that is created within you based on your very minimal association with the man who is the focus of the fantasy. This happens a lot in movies, break to montage man taking his shirt off to reveal extremely ripped abdominals, break back to reality girl doing something ridiculous making herself look silly. But we also believe that it happens frequently in true life as well. For instance I believe that it has happened a lot in my experiences with online dating. I'm admitting it. I have met guys online and then spoken to them on the phone had mantasies about who I may think they are or who I wish them to be. A lot of the mantasization is based on the little information I have about them: photos I've seen, things they've claimed they are or claimed they've done, etc. I begin to mantasize about who they may be based on the small amount of data I have collected (I don’t go overboard and expect the super ripped abs, but I do hope that they will not have a beer belly and receding hairline). Then if, and when I meet them it's a let down because they don't meet the mantasy expectations (receding hairline and beer belly).
We decided that because of this there are some mantasies that just need to be kept at that. Men who you may meet or see on a regular basis that you should just keep the relationship or associations with that particular person to a minimum. That way there is no lack of fulfillment of the mantasy and if you’re involved in a serious, committed relationship it’s okay, you’ve done nothing wrong. We all should be able to at least think that it exists somewhere. How else are we supposed to remain hopeful?
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