Terminalcoffee discussion

If you were/are single, would/do you want your friends to set you up? Under what conditions/standards? Do you try to set your friends up with each other? How do they respond?

Two things come to mind in this scenario:

1. Were I single I doubt very much I'd want to be set up. Too much pressure. On the other hand, I can see the advantages, if you trust a friend to set you up with someone who you might like. The set-up would have to be non-awkward and not so obvious, though; I'd hate a friend facilitating a conversation where it's SO obvious she's trying to hook you up.

2. I know way more cool, smart, hot, awesome single women than guys with whom I would bother setting them up. All my single guy friends are unworthy of my single women friends.

#2 is true here also.

as a single woman, yes. your friends know you and know your quirks, etc. I agree about the hanging out and more of an informal meeting. It seems like most guys I meet are either gay or married, so I appreciate any help meeting nice guys.

If I were single, I think I would have to be set-up by a friend. I'm not terribly social and horrible with strangers, so I don't really know how else I would meet anyone. Hypothetically.

That's a good point, Amber. I'm the same way. I usually met women at work or in school, and now that I'm not in school and most of the women with whom I work are married, those options would be more or less closed.

I like to be introduced, not set up. I haven't ever had anything good come out of the set up, because just by my nature I start with friendship. Feelings come out of knowing somebody. I'm not sure how to orchestrate this exactly, except having dinner parties and such. Give an introduction, be the host and if it's meant to be it'll be.

My parents did meet on a blind date, though, but they both knew that the idea was that my dad was the one with the car and my mom was invited so the guy with the car would have something to do while chauffering around the dating couple who didn't have one. So expectations weren't set very high, but - surprise!

RA and Jim a thought about point #2. You know your guy friends so well that you see their faults. The women you see their positives. Both are probably somewhere in the middle. If they are your friends, they are probably ok. I doubt you guys hang out with total losers.

Petra, I see what you're saying, but...no. My male friends aren't good enough for my female friends. Trust me:)

^^what he said^^

Being set up sounds about as much fun as computer dating.

Very much the same, really. "It" has to happen instantly, or you are of absolutely no value to the other. I don't work that way.

My husband and I were sort of set up. I asked J's best friend Kenny to go to a jazz show in 1980 at the Maintenance Shop. Kenny was too embarrassed to tell me he was soon to be a daddy, and engaged to be married to his high school sweetie. Kenny sent J. in his place, with an apology. Mr. Cynthia and I have been together ever since.

Kenny was best man at our wedding.

Two comments.

1. I wonder why this is on RA's mind.

2. A guy's guy friends are never good enough for his girl friends because they don't measure up to him. Guys think no one (but them) is good enough for their close female friends, even though they don't have any thought of dating those women themselves.

Cynthia wrote: "My husband and I were sort of set up. I asked J's best friend Kenny to go to a jazz show in 1980 at the Maintenance Shop. Kenny was too embarrassed to tell me he was soon to be a daddy, and engaged..."

Love this!

It was pretty romantic. I was pissed at Kenny for not being honest with me, but it all turned out for the best. I definitely got the best man!!

1. I wonder why this is on RA's mind.

Dude, if I understand that for even 10% of what I was thinking at any moment, I would feel better, but I cannot assert any rhyme/reason enters into my thought processes of this nature.

No, I actually think this question entered my mind last Friday because, at a concert, a woman next to us was obviously trying to get a guy and girl she knew together, but both seemed resistant not because they necessarily didn't like each other, from what I could tell, but because the setter-upper was trying too hard.

that is a good story!

Hmmm...no, I wouldn't want to be set up by my friends because I don't know what criteria they're using to put this guy and me together. Is it because he's single and looking, and I'm single and looking? Is it because they genuinely think we would be good together?

Also: How do they sell this person to me? How did they sell me to that person?

I was set up twice and both dates were really terrible, I refused to be set up after that... one guy looked like this:



I remember that he started crying at one point and telling me that he hated his life because his friends were all rich and he wasn’t. He was very intoxicated and I had to drive him home.

I was set-up several times in college and had fun with it. I actually dated one of the guys long-term. I was set-up once as an "adult" and things went terribly wrong - as in, this date went down as my all-time worst date in the history of my dating life - and I never allowed another friend to set me up again. I'll take my dating life into my own hands, thankyouverymuch.

Helena wrote: "I was set up twice and both dates were really terrible, I refused to be set up after that... one guy looked like this:



I remember that he started crying at one point and telling me that he hated..."

hahaha. oh. sorry, Melanie.

Helena, so sorry. It reminds me of the movie "Fargo," the scene in the restaurant (the Raddison-- which was "reasonable") where Margie meets an old high school friend and the guy is super messed-up.

Kenneth Two wrote: "Helena, so sorry. It reminds me of the movie "Fargo," the scene in the restaurant (the Raddison-- which was "reasonable") where Margie meets an old high school friend and the guy is super messed-up."

Best scene ever.

I was set up twice by a friend who is kind of a liar. Perhaps a well-intended liar, but one nonetheless. She said to me, "Remember X?" X was this friend of hers we had visited one day when he was rehabbing an old house. I said yes, I remembered X. She said, "He keeps talking about you! He keeps saying, what ever happened to Lobstergirl, do you still hang out with her? Do you think she would go out with me?" Well honestly I couldn't even remember what this guy looked like. He had seemed nice and decent, but he hadn't made much of an impression beyond that. But I figured, if this guy wants to go out to dinner, I'll go and see if he makes a good impression. So we go out to dinner, and it's kind of awkward, and slowly I begin to realize that he thinks I'm the one who had been wondering about him all these weeks and I was the one whose idea it was to go on the date.

Then, the time before that, we were both single and she wanted to set me up with a guy she worked with. So we arranged to go to a nightclub with this guy Y, and his friend. She had spent several conversations telling me how perfect Y was for me. But the whole night she does nothing but flirt with Y, and hang off his shoulder, etc. He was too metrosexual for me anyway....they ended up living together, and then he cheated and dumped her for another woman. Oh well!

Lobstergirl wrote: "He keeps saying, what ever happened to Lobstergirl, do you still hang out with her?"

I love how you refer to yourself by your pseudonym in that flash-back narrative, as if someone were actually saying, "Do you still hang out with Lobstergirl?"

It requires constant vigilance, being me.

I respect that.

Lobstergirl wrote: "I was set up twice by a friend who is kind of a liar. Perhaps a well-intended liar, but one nonetheless. She said to me, "Remember X?" X was this friend of hers we had visited one day when he was..."

All this hanging out with X and Y makes me wonder if you live in Sesame Street.

I don't want to be set up because it adds too much pressure and when it doesn't work your friend wants to know why which is, A) None of his business, and B) A great way to piss him and/or his partner off. My friends who would might be so inclined nowadays don't set me up because I think they think along the lines of the second sentence in #2.

janine wrote: "All this hanging out with X and Y makes me wonder if you live in Sesame Street. "

Sorry, that reference is lost on me. I never watched Sesame Street.

LG, Sesame Street has an emphasis on teaching kids their letters: ie "Today's Episode is brought to you by the letter 'S'"

I thought maybe LG was in a genetics class studying chromosomes...

ms.petra wrote: "I thought maybe LG was in a genetics class studying chromosomes..."

Then I would have labeled them the other way around, because the X guy was a little more manly than the Y guy.

I definitely would not date someone my mother set me up with. She thinks a guy is perfect for me because she dated his father. I mean really, if you didn't like the father, then why is the son good for me.
I'm very shy so I don't think I would want to be set up. I think I would come across as being aloof when in fact I just am not a good conversationalist. I have to get to know someone before I would trust him enough to go out with him.

My friends always seemed to set me up with jackasses or loud opinionated idiots so I long ago stopped dating anyone a friend thought I 'just had to meet'. The thought of doing this to my friends is the very reason I don't try to set them up. I don't want to be blamed for the torturous date they had to endure or, God forbid, the heartbreak later down the road.

Yeah, that's looking at it from another angle Angela. I don't think I would want to try to set up someone on a blind date either. I would probably be just as stressed as the two people who I set up while they were on the date. I'd be wondering how's it going? Are they having a good time? Did I make a mistake? Is so-and-so going to hate me now? Too much pressure and I'm not the one on the date.

I was kind of set up with my boyfriend, and I personally didn't like it. I'm glad I have him, but I hated people meddling in the process. I want to be in control of how things happen. I hate the gossip/drama that comes along with people setting you up.

I don't like it. Probably becaused it happened once, I wasn't prepared, it was SO obvious what was going on, and he was SO not my type.
So if you ask people first, or just casually introduce them - no strings attached, it's ok. Otherwise no...