Here’s where you got to stop. There are few things that may have happened, so be a man and DON’T rush to conclusions immediately. After all, a little thought goes a long way.

1. She is playing you. That is, of course, the most obvious explanation. Basically she waits for you to say “Yeah, I have never believed in that serious relationship thing anyway”. Once you’ve said that – and unless she’s really that kind of the game – you’re done for.

2. She is teasing you. While this means something similar to the previous one, but still different. If she really likes you and your perception of seriousness, she may throw in some fun by saying she doesn’t care. That is, of course, if she’s aware that you have shown to have a sense of humor.

3. She is serious. That’s the biggest disappointment, I know, but yet there are still a couple of chances where you can improve the situation. Yes, she may not be interested in a serious dating – for now. Maybe she’s still recovering from the previous botched relationship. Maybe she just hasn’t met the right guy for so long she got too cynical about it. Or maybe she’s just saying it out loud so that it would turn out not true.

In either case – she’s not saying what she thinks. What you really want to do is figure out what does she hide behind those words. It’s a little dating game and you absolutely must play it – unless you want to bail out right there and then.

First thing you should do is t0 take a deep breath before you say anything else. Think the response through, as that may be an end to the date or a beginning of a beautiful relationship. Then you would want to say is something like: “Sure, I respect your view on this, so why don’t we take things slow and see where this will lead us to“. Now the important this is NOT TO SAY ANYTHING ELSE. If you blurt something like “and then maybe you will reconsider and marry me”, especially on a first or a second date – you’re in a bad shape. Just let it hang in there, because it’s a proposition to leave things going the way they were before. If she’s happy with it – she will agree to it. If she’s not – you don’t need to waste your time and energy on her anymore. In either case you’ll end up knowing more about where your relationship is going and that’s a good thing.

Now, you back on the dating market, what should you do? 5 simple steps should help you out.

1. Forget your grievances. I know, it’s hard, but until you do – don’t even think of showing up on any dating web site. Women have this “seventh sense”, they feel when you just coming out of a bad relationship, so unless you’re looking for mother-son type of relationship (more on that later) – don’t!

2. Do your homework. Once you over the break up, think why your relationship failed, especially how you contributed to the failure. Speaking from experience, it’s best done during the next mentioned activity.

3. Hit the gym! Holidays are food, fun, food and some more food. Everyone knows it, but it doesn’t mean she will accept your “love handles, extraordinaire“. Get back to your gym, your diet, your running routine, whatever – just get back in shape ASAP. If you want the best, you must give out your best.

4. Don’t bring your old relationship into the new one. This may sound like #1 on the list, but I actually mean something else. Even after you get over the break up, you still will be trying to take things as they used to be. Maybe she will let you slide once after you say “My ex-girlfriend always made coffee in the morning”, but if it gets a bit too repetitive you may find making only one cup of coffee instead of two.

5. Dress up! Whatever your ex was telling you about the way she wanted you to dress – forget that for a moment and dress nice and appropriate. Maybe she liked that “bad boy” style, maybe she wanted to be seen with total geek – whatever her choice was, there is a little chance you will make exactly the same impression on all the other girls you are planning to meet. So dress up, just a notch above the line so she would take you seriously.

With Valentine’s Day only weeks away, you may want to straighten up your image and get to searching so that someone truly significant will feed you those cheesy strawberries with creme or chocolates in February. Good luck!

So the next day comes and she calls him. They exchange pleasantries and agree to meet later on that day for a Friday night date. Obviously, there’s no talk about clubs, parties or any other stuff. They have decided to simply meet, talk and, maybe, walk.

Around 8 o’clock they’ve settled in a small restaurant, quiet enough that they could actually talk. She was persuasive as a devil himself, so our guy believed there was a legit reason for her to miss the date (Ahh, that persuasion force, triple-D on a bra scale – how many men have fallen for it). Since it was Friday already, there was no need to get up early tomorrow morning, so they sat and talk for hours. Then he drove her home and again – they talked for another couple of hours. She was wearing some sort of semi-transparent long skirt, so not only her curves were seductively partially visible, but also her gorgeous legs. She definitely knew how to capture man’s attention and keep it all to herself. When the clock in the car was showing 2:21am they decided to finish the date with a long goodnight kiss. By some 2:40am he was able to catch a breath and started a car on the way home.

Next few days passed, they met, walked or went out, kissing more passionately and more often. However, she was running out of new dresses. He was also running out – of patience. She noticed him getting anxious about taking the relationship to the next step (wasn’t that obvious!) and brought up an interesting discovery. Being a hot attractive woman she was never short of man’s attention. What she was short of, was men who wanted a good relationship. So she came up with this idea that the man should patiently win her over – in due time. She wasn’t shy of having sex, in fact, one of the reasons why she kept going out with our guy was that she was interested in him and having a healthy sexual relationship – all perks attached. Not just having hot sex, but having a full-blown relationship. Hot relationship.

And for that, she said, she wants him to change his wardrobe. Coming from the point when our guy was overweight and wearing size 42 clothes, it kind of made sense. So they went on a shopping spree. 5 hours and $5,000 later she finally was happy with the way her man looked on the outside. As a side benefit she got to see what’s under the bulky clothes and she loved every piece of it. But one last piece remained untouched. She decided if she wanted to put it out she want to do it in style.

They took a spontaneous trip to Philadelphia. Why Philadelphia? I asked them both – neither have any idea. It just sort of popped up in conversation. They booked a room in a plain hotel in the center of Philadelphia. He prepared a little surprise for her though. Once she walked into the reception area and said her name the receptionist handed her a huge bouquet of orchids, her favorite flowers, while he was still parking the car outside. Given that they have arrived at 10pm, this counted for double the brownie points. They got into their room and…

Well, let’s just wrap the story up by saying that next day they woke up late. Right around the corner from the hotel where they were staying there is a Philadelphia Love Park. That is where they took their first picture together – right under that huge red sign. And as they told me there wasn’t a day after that they spent apart ever since.

Last week I wrapped up the research and canceled the membership. Overall, I was extremely unsatisfied with the search process and quality of the results eHarmony offers and the main reason for it is the primary eHarmony’s feature – their matching system.

See, the idea behind the system that eHarmony offers is to match you only with people who align well with gazillion of test questions you’ve been asked. There’s whole another can of problems with test themselves, but we’ll get there in a moment. However, the whole process of answering questions, looking through supplied matches and making contact has been carefully crafted into bureaucracy beyond any wildest imagination. The solid and sound idea of scientific matching eroded into a chain of automatic canned responses similar to your average customer service phone. eHarmony have successfully diminished any kind of personal touch into choosing which canned response to use.

In all practicality the idea of putting a ladder of half a dozen steps (send your preferences, wait for her preferences, send next bunch of questions, wait for response, wait for her questions, and on and on) might work to protect you from a unnecessary attention, but any maniac would be much more determined to get to you then the person that just wants to find a relationship. For more active types this means abandoning the service, while for more passive it would probably mean settling for less. In either case people who use the service loose.

Now in regards to questions – they are neither helping nor telling anything useful about the person. From my experience, if the person writes some messed up entry on “how do you see your first date” question, it would tell me more about her than a bunch of multiple choice questions. Ever since the school we’ve been taught to pick the right answer on the test, but this isn’t a test, this is something totally different. Why even use multiple choice in such cases is beyond me.

I remember the initial idea behind an extensive questionnaire was to fend off maniacs and sleazes and keep the good guys in. Well, good guys just don’t have a load of time to sift through useless profiles without any sign of personality. Add lack of the photographs to lack of individuality and you would even be able to tell if the person behind profile is real.

Overall, the service seems to be a complete, utter and definite waste of time and money.

Next day (I was told it was Tuesday, since this couple had their first date on Monday, no less) brought some sort of sobering to the guy. The more he thought about last night date the more he realized that it was too good to be true indeed. He was, however, going to call that girl anyway – at around 1pm, lunch time, – just to make sure he shouldn’t be making any more plans about that fabulous chick. This lasted until about 11:55 am when his phone rang (vibrated, actually) and – there she was.

She didn’t forget to thank him for the date first. Then, immediately after that she started telling him about how important it is to trust a person you’re getting involved with, then something about forces of nature and so on. From 45 minutes of talking he only had a chance to speak for about 45 seconds. He was, however, kind of impressed by how passionately the girl was talking about it. If nothing else, it felt like she went through a lot and is just trying to make sure she won’t have to go through it again. They had a pleasant chit-chat saying good-byes though. Each promised to call each other tomorrow.

Next day, she got to call him first – again! He started suspecting something, but she charged ahead with the question is he a good cameraman and if he owns a video camera. He responded that he knows they exist, but he’s trying to familiarize himself with photo equipment first. She said it’s a damn shame, she wanted to shoot a porn movie tonight and they didn’t have a camera man. She suggested putting a few feathers in various places to play cowboys and Indians under the blankets, to spice up things.

When laughter ended, she said she obviously called to check if he has a sense of humor. He promised to show her the size of it on a third date if she has any plans for a second one. She replied that she just might. They talked about something else for about an hour (I wasn’t really taking notes when the guy described – word for word – what they did talk about), and ended up setting a second date up on Thursday night. Tentatively, so far, to be confirmed tomorrow.

Tomorrow came, the date got confirmed. He was to pick her up at about 11pm to go to some club. Now, to side step the story a little, I have to tell you that this guy has never been to a club – ever! So when he subscribed to go – he just hadn’t had any idea what he was getting himself into. Plain and simple – he was flying right into the eye of a disaster. But he went all in and said yes to that. On the other hand – I would also be very very hesitant to say no to someone with 36 DDD bra and 25 inch waistline.

Around 9pm it suddenly occured to him that it would be nice to grab a flower bouquet and something extra. Sure, she would only see it for about a minute or two before leaving, but! He messes up something at the club, she gets home upset, sees the flowers and fruits and (maybe) forgives him. Or so the thought goes. He went to a store nearby, bought some flowers and composed a bouquet himself – yellow and peach roses, green leaves, nice and simple. He also grabbed a few bags of fruits – peaches, apples, tangerines.

11:05pm he calls – she doesn’t pick up the phone. In fact – calls went straight to voicemail, which meant the phone is turned off! 11:15pm – phone is still off. 11:30pm – off. 11:55pm – off. 12:20am – off. 12:42am – she calls him! Not even knowing what to think now, he tells her very dryly that he needs to drop off something to her and be gone, as there will be obviously no date today. He drives to her house, brings her flowers and fruits (less a few apples he chewed on while calling her) and trying to leave. She comes up with story that her close friend had died a week ago and they only told her this evening, she cried and fell asleep only to wake up at 12:30am and realized she stood him up. Not believing a single word she said he gives her a chance to make it up tomorrow. She says she’ll be more than happy to, because she feels bad. After another 45 minutes or so talking and gentle hugging they’ve parted.

(To be continued)

She called him that same day, June 19th. They spent about an hour talking on the phone, exchanging pleasantries and growing interest in each other carefully. Each sensed something familiar, but couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

As it turned out – both were Gemini, only 4 years apart. Both liked to fool around as madmen, but both were working since out of school, so it wasn’t like they had an easy living on their parent’s nickel. They have set on a date – right next day – both agreeing that better off meeting as soon as possible and see whether it will work out. Why waste time on pointless bickering if they both know what they want and just need a chance to see if the other party was right – or not.

When she showed up from her apartment, freshly made up and dressed up and glowing with confidence he realized he doesn’t know any good restaurants he can take her to. Anything he knew wasn’t upscale enough to take such a glamorous girl to. It would be painfully, obviously out of place. However, since she, nevertheless, hopped into the car he decided to go with Plan B.

What’s a plan B you asked? So did I. Turns out Plan B is when you don’t take your date to the most expensive restaurant you know. Basically, it is an unspoken rule that the better looking girl you take on a date, the better (and more expensive) restaurant you take her to. However, chances always are that girl will be so beautiful that there will be no such restaurant that you know of. Or can afford. Either way – you drop to Plan B.

So where to did he took her then? To the small pastry cafe, where everything (but the food) sucks – service, waiters, even prices. What’s the reason? Playing on the contrast.

Turned out the decision was a major success. They weren’t bothered by the service or having to mind their manners all the time and were able to relax. Coffee, tea and couple of biscuits were more than enough food for two non-stop talking Geminis.

The date lasted for three and half hours (instead of 45 minutes he thought it would). They were flirting before they even knew it. She asked a waiter for fruit salad. Waiter said that the only fruits they had was strawberries with whipped cream. Waving her huge eyelashes at both her date and a waiter she said that strawberries and whipped cream aren’t exactly the first date meal, but she knows, however, that one can lead to another. Waiter, totally red (shifting into infra-red already), left hastily.

When she excused herself to the restroom, he looked around and realized there were quite a few spectators that have abandoned their own dates as they watched for the outcome of our couple’s date. Girls were checking the guy out weighting the chance to approach him while the girl was away. Guys started lining up closer to the restroom exit with hopes to get a closer look at the girl. With slim waistline and DDD-size bra cup filled with 100% natural contents she was an eye candy for anyone.

But as every other date, this one had to end. He took her home, putting on couple of finishing touches, like saying he enjoyed the date, gently tapping her wrist while saying he doesn’t feel like letting her go. They parted wishing each other a good night. He promised himself not to forget to call her tomorrow since she looked almost too good to be true and anyway too good a chance to miss.

The story I am starting is about a guy and a girl in their early thirties. In fact, she’s just not in her thirties yet. It’s a beautiful summer of 2007 and love, desire and beauty are all in the air.

They both just came out of pointless, tiresome relationships. She was dating some dude from fashion industry who thought the week is a waste if he didn’t sleep with another model or PR girl. He was running away from overweight and overly controlling monster.

They posted their profiles on one of the dating sites. Which one – it’s irrelevant, but it just happened to be the same for both of them. Both had some queue – he had two – three dates per week, she had two-three dates a day. Talk about Sex and the City

One day, as he was browsing the profiles he stumbled on a picture of a beautiful girl. Looked like a legit profile, nevertheless the almost-professionally done photos. Who wrote, she responded and in about dozen messages they have exchanged phone numbers.

(To Be Continued)