Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with dates

lolz kizzsing onlinez?

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 07:10:45 -0800

Is it wise to kiss at the end of the first internet date? Long discussion of my dating history redacted.

Basically I've thought about the first internet date as just getting to know someone in real life, and seeing if the interesting things about them online transfer into the possibility for romance. I think keeping things relatively cool gives the other person a chance to get to know me and vice versa. If things were truly sparking the entire evening I would definitely contemplate a kiss, but if the person seemed interested but cautious, I've always thought that it would be better to give a hug and say I had a nice time and then get in touch the next day.

But reading another question here, I'm re-evaluating. Maybe am I missing a chance to generate some excitement?

Let's say, for the purposes of the question, that I'm a reasonable to slightly above average kisser.

The reason I've developed this no kissing protocol was a date I went on a couple of years ago with a woman I really liked. She drove me home and we kissed in the car a bit. Later on she emailed me to say she didn't want to hang out again because she was uncomfortable with the fact that she'd kissed someone she'd only met a few hours before. I definitely handle non-internet first dates differently, but I sort of saw her point.

What is proper dating etiquette?

mintchip — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:52:54 -0800

What is proper dating etiquette? I used to always date one guy at a time. However, this left me waiting for him to call and with no back up plan if things din't work out. Over time, I realized that getting exclusive prior to knowing someone limits one's opportunities prematurely--before you have any real idea what type of person someone is or what they are looking for.

In the end, I am seeking a serious relationship. However, I now am comfortable taking a more slow, casual approach towards dating and I think it's helped limit some of the anxiety about dating that caused me problems in the past.

My question is this. It seems rather tacky to tell someone you have a date planned with someone else. At the same time, if you are seeing someone naturally they will ask what you are doing on other days and maybe who you are spending time with. It seems a little dishonest to say "I'm going to xyz with a friend." What is the best way to handle this sort of question?

Early on (before "the talk") it's assumed that you are dating more than one person, right?

Are we dating?

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:11:46 -0800

Does he think we're dating? Is he waiting for me to make the first move? Beanplate edition. We've arranged in advance to spend time together just about once a week, or once every two weeks, for the last couple months. He always insists on paying for dinner (as opposed to most men I've dated, who agree to start going dutch after the first couple times out)--though that might be related to the difference in income, and the fact that dinners out are usually at his invitation. (I've been able to pick up the tab on other occasions.)

He has not made a single move. There's not any flirting. I'm not getting any visual/behavioral/body language cues of, "I'm attracted to you." But the invitations keep coming and I keep accepting (and making some invitations myself), as I enjoy his company and the budding friendship.

Why not kiss him? Because I've ended up in the past in painful situations with a man or two who didn't think I was his type, but didn't turn down affection offered because he "liked my personality" and feeling cared for (I'm a pretty awesome girlfriend, I've been told). Not willing to date someone again who isn't physically hot for me specifically, not just lonely or hot for action in general. I feel like many men don't turn down opportunities for casual intimacy even with women they're not particularly attracted to, and I'm not willing to push myself onto someone who isn't excited to be with me.

Why not just ask? I probably will at some point, but it's not particularly urgent to me right now, and I don't know if this is just his pacing (not wanting to get entangled in a physical relationship before getting to know someone due to a bad past experience, etc) or muddy a budding friendship if that's all he wants.

Do *I* like *him*? I probably would have made out with him by now if he had attempted. (We've had multiple movie nights over at his house, with zero physical advances on his part.) I don't know if he's boyfriend material, though.

Question (especially for the men):

1) Is it possible for an attractive, socially well-adjusted guy over the age of 30 with relationship/girlfriend experience to be genuinely interested in someone without actually flirting or giving off physical cues (looking someone over, that charged or nervous kind of conversation) or trying to make a move? Is this just shyness, or is it friendship, or is he just lonely or bored and "just not that into me", but seeing if I'll make a move myself?

His behavior and body language say "friendship" (which I'm fine with) but anyone I describe our time with thinks we're going on dates.

You don't know him, you don't know me, but I'd love to hear your experiences.

Can I remove serial number information from dates in Excel?

M.C. Lo-Carb! — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:04:53 -0800

I have an excel file with a column of dates, in the xx/xx/xxxx format. I would like to strip out the month and day information, so I could just have a column that shows the year, but excel's method of representing dates as serial numbers has foiled every attempt. Any ideas? I have an excel file containing thousands of building permit records for about a 30-year period. There is a column listing the exact date of the permit issuance. I'd like to get rid of the month and day information, and just have a column of years, so I could sort the data by year only, regardless of the actual date in a given year. However, using formulas to strip off the month and day and copy the year into another column doesn't work as easily as I thought it would, because of Excel's serial number dating system.

I've tried reformatting the date cells to "text" or "general," and copying the information from the date column to another with a "paste special" of values only. Regardless, any formula I try acts on the underlying serial number information, not the date information as shown on screen.

I've used the google to no avail. I am also a relative Excel n00b, so I'm hoping there's some simple solution out there that I'm missing.

i know there "are no rules" but what are the rules?

violetk — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:36:53 -0800

guys, how long do you wait before you call for a second date? cause i know that we all claim not to play games, and yet, people play games. some of you may know a little of my history here on askme: mostly dating questions bc that's pretty much the one thing in my life i find completely perplexing, despite having spent most of my life doing it. i feel like at my age, i shouldn't even have to ask this question but here i am, asking this question.…so i recently started dating again after taking a break last fall. had a few meh dates and then last thursday, a date with a guy i met online that became one of my all time best first dates. couple of emails which were fine, and then a lot of texting—and the banter was great so i think we were both pretty excited about meeting each other (he even postponed something to go out with me on the one night that week i could). we originally just planned to do drinks but that went so well that we ended up getting dinner and dessert as well. conversation flowed, and again, the banter was great. no awkward pauses, same humor, many things in common, similar careers and aesthetics, the whole nine. no red flags, he just seems solid: he's nice, attentive, close with his family, and totally hot.

after dessert, we went back to his place and hung out a bit and, not surprisingly ended up making out. best. kisser. ever. and i do not throw that title around easily. he tried to take it further but when he realized it wasn't going to happen made a joke about having had to try anyway, and didn't push again despite our continuing to kiss. anyway, it was super late, and a school night, and i was tired so we decided i'd stay over and he'd take me back in the morning. more kissing, lots of snuggling (i'm a bit of a squirrely sleeper but every time i turned over, he would too so he could still cuddle me). a few times during the night, one of us just wakes up a bit and we smooch again and then go back to sleep. everything is fabulous.

except…i haven't heard from him since. what gives? am i, as i famously am, just being too impatient? all my girl friends are throwing out the 3-day rule and telling me to now forget about him, he's dead to them. but my guy friends are telling me that if he just wanted to get into my pants, he'd already have called to set up another encounter but if he really liked me, he'd wait about a week before calling again—"to build the suspense—and it works every time."

what? please, mefites (scody, you are so wise…), reassure me or slap some sense into me. i give really good date, but it's the in-between stuff that makes me crazy.

(ps: don't know if this makes a difference but he's a couple of years older than me [late 30s], divorced a year [been together ten, married three, still friendly with the ex]) but i think he's been dating for about six months now?)

Lunch with female friends other than your girlfriend is ok?

salsa buena — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:20:43 -0800

I have a girlfriend and my best friend is female. Should I feel guilty having lunch with my friend? Me and my girlfriend have been talking lately. She really feels that the fact that I don't mention that I have lunch with my friend makes her a bit suspicious. We have both acknowledged that she can get a little jealous of my friend because we're close. I've been with my gf for 3 years now and I've known my friend for 20 years. Me and my friend have never been intimate and my gf knows her personally.

Now, she is asking me to inform her every time I go to lunch with my friend or any other female for that matter whether its a friend or a co-worker. I wouldn't ask the same of her, I would just trust her and believe that she wouldn't do anything to disrespect our relationship.

Part of me is saying I shouldn't give in to this request because I'd feel like I have to report what I'm doing or whom I spend my money on just to put her insecurity at ease. If I give in, what's next?

Another part of me wishes to want to make her feel at ease. I love the fact that she talked to me about what is bothering her and I really want to come to a solution. Not sure where to go from here.

This date left me with a bad taste.

unmake — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:23:56 -0800

What's up with funky-tasting dates? I recently bought a 5lb bag of dates, and have found that about one in eight has a weird marzipan/tangy/nasty flavor. After the first two, I noticed that these dates have a black powdery substance inside them..

Is this mold? And how is it that it's only on the inside - externally, they look like the good-tasting dates.

How to Convert Dates to a Better Format?

rokusan — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:09:02 -0800

PyFilter: I need a one-liner (?) in Python to convert 9/2/09 style dates to 9/2/2009, while also understanding 9/2/71 to be 9/2/1971. Help! Inspired by an answer to this question I've started poking around learning Python in my spare time. Yes, that's only been an hour or two every few months, but hey: I don't have much spare time, all right? I'm trying, mom!

In one corner of my current hacky project, I'm being fed tables of data by a serial controller. I'm doing fine getting arrays out of the data, so that's fine, but one of the columns contains dates in a very annoying format, so I need to convert:

8/17/80  ---> 8/17/1980

10/19/82 ---> 10/19/1982

10/9/01  ---> 10/9/2001

I realize there's a problem there in determining what, for example, "year 40" is. I'm happy with setting a bounds, so that any year under 50 should be interpreted as 20xx and any year over 50 as 19xx. This hacky little exercise of mine doesn't need to be Y2.05K compatible! :)

The dates are strings, so one at a time is fine whether with math or just fancy-ass pattern matching. This strikes me as the kind of programming puzzle that probably has fifteen different ridiculously-clever approaches, so I thought of AskMe, my friendly neighborhood source of clever approaches!

What is the Best Way to Fly from Tel Aviv to Atlanta?

davidstandaford — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 03:11:34 -0800

Some quick questions about booking an international flight. I need to get from Tel Aviv to Atlanta, with one catch. The domestic portion of my travel is being paid for. How do I figure out what would be the cheapest city in America to fly to from Israel?

Secondly, I have enough latitude in the dates of my trip that I can be departing and returning almost any day of the week. Are there specific days of the week for international travel that would potentially get me cheaper fares?

Finally, my departure date will be around February 25th. Should I be buying the ticket as soon as possible because prices will definitely be going up, or is that not necessarily the case. Thanks!

Strange-looking Californian Medjool Dates

exhilaration — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 09:45:19 -0800

What's with the white spots on these Medjool Dates? Take a look at these pictures. I've eaten tons of Medjool dates in my life, from California and the Middle East, but I've never seen this. About 20-30% of the dates have these white dots on the bottom - and only on the bottom. They also appear to be right under the skin. Being adventurous, I've eaten a few and they haven't made me sick or killed me - they actually taste perfect. But I'm still curious what these dots are (and if they'll kill me a few weeks from now).

Where does the lady sit if the wall has a nice view?

NucleophilicAttack — Sun, 11 May 2008 12:15:43 -0800

Seating at a restaurant. I understand that in one-on-one situations, etiquette suggests that lady is offered the seat with the view into the room, and the gentleman takes the seat facing the wall. This and other sites seem to agree. But what if the "wall" is floor-to-ceiling glass with nice views of the outside? Now, I understand that there are no hard-and-fast rules, but in theory does the lady still sit facing into the dining room? Or should she be offered a seat facing the glass so she can enjoy the view?

One consideration that has been brought up, is that if the glass admits a great deal of light, the person sitting with their backs to the glass is silhouetted.

Great first date- where's the second?

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 08:08:01 -0800

What is the "normal" waiting time before asking for a second date? I can't believe I'm asking this question, but somehow I found myself in a "traditional" dating situation, something I'd never actually gone through in all my days of high school, university and beyond.

Went out on first date. Was great. Good chemistry, laughs, all that. Texted her that night to make sure she got home fine. She texted me back to say what a great night she'd had, and that she was looking forward to next one.

I texted her the very next day giving her options for the weekend (Sat. eve, or Sunday day). My question: was this too soon? I ask because, well, she never got back to me. Could asking for a second date so soon after the first actually be a deal-breaker?

The tone of the text was very casual, and the message short. It's been 3 days now. Is it a lost cause? Should I call? Is it rude of her to simply disappear like that with no explanation, or is it standard practice and I'm just being naive about it?

FWIW, I'm 35 and she's 23 (but this is a red herring because it was never an issue, and I'm quite a young 35 and she a very mature 23).

Half-baked Holiday?

font_snob — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:43:37 -0800

National Poundcake Day: Attack or Defend So here's the deal, I see on various sites that tomorrow (March 4th) has been designated as National Pound Cake Day. I can't find a site that cites a source for this. Is this some Food Network conspiracy? For that matter, who gets to designate certain days as National Whatever Day? What's the process? Is there an official government list of these dates?

It's a date. How do ya eat 'em?

Iridic — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:31:43 -0800

How best to use up two pounds of pitted dates? A grocery list mishap has left us with almost 2 pounds of pitted dates. 1/3 of a cup has already gone into some very fine picadillo, but damned if I know how I'm going to use the rest of them. Do you know any recipes that use dates well and in quantity?

Club soda is a drink, too, isn't it?

Elmo Oxygen — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 10:49:18 -0800

Due to health reasons, I cannot drink alcohol. However, I still want to ask girls out for drinks because it's a good first date. What to do? Typically, when I go out, I'll drink club soda and lime. If anyone asks me what I'm drinking, I tell them that it's club soda. Otherwise, I won't bring it up. Is this acceptable conduct for a date? Or do I need to go out of my way to let the girl know that I'm not drinking alcohol?

If I don't go out of my way to tell the girl that I'm drinking club soda, do you think she'll be freaked out when she finds out that I'm not drinking alcohol? I figure that there's a good chance that she'll find out, since she may hear me ordering.

I'm not embarrassed that I can't drink alcohol. It's just kind of an awkward subject. All of my friends and previous girlfriends drink, so I'm very accustomed to hanging out at bars with people drinking.

Help me find an online reminder

leigh1 — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 02:05:46 -0800

I need an online reminder which will send me an email reminder for one task one 4 different dates: tomorrow, after 7 days, after 15 days and after 30 days. I tried Remember the Milk, but it seems it only works with one date.

Why don't all war memorials say 1918

itsjustanalias — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 08:09:12 -0800

Why do some war memorials (I've noticed dozens in West Yorkshire) say 1914-1919? I'm pretty sure the first world war ended in 1918...

Please help me find things to do on dates in the Nyack, NY area

sequential — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 07:03:44 -0800

Please help me find things to do on dates in the Nyack, NY area For the past several months I have been spending Sundays in Nyack, NY visiting a woman I have been datings. We each drive two or more hours, in opposite directions, to meet at the Pallisades Center, run quick errands in the mall, and head off for the day leaving one car behind. We've explored the local area, including: Bear Mountain, downtown Nyack, and Nanuet, but only via major roads. We've also ventured out to Westwood, NJ; Paramus, NJ; and done various parts of the northern coast of NJ. For the time being we are ignoring the obvious destination: NYC.

We're looking for fun, romantic, and eclectic things to do as a couple, but remember: it is almost always on a Sunday. It turns out that some place, specifically Paramus, NJ, shut down almost entirely on the Lord's day. Can you suggest any great activities, must dine at restaurants, funky bars, local favorites, parks, or even just good drives in the area?

Thanks for your help.

Date ideas in Austin?

kaseijin — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 06:58:17 -0800

The wife and I moved from Dallas down to Austin just last week. As this is our first weekend in the new city without the burden of unpacking, we would like to go out and do something romantic in celebration of a new chapter in our lives. The only problem is, we don't know what to do! My query to you then, dear MeFites, is what sort of fun and romantic things exist for a late 20's couple in Austin. We generally like offbeat sorts of things, and cheap is a plus (as we've been hemorrhaging money from the move).

Any suggestions?

MannersFilter: Getting a maybe to become a solid answer and dealing with people who break dates.

anaelith — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 09:14:19 -0800

What to do when someone says yes and then backs out? How to avoid maybe and I'll-think-about-it answers, or get them sorted out before it's too late to make other plans? The situation: On Monday or Tuesday I ask a casual friend if they would like to do something low key, like going for dinner or watching a specific show together, this weekend and they say "maybe". Then I never hear back from them.

Alternatively: I plan something (still relatively low key) two or three weeks in advance, set a date and time, and have a "yes". About an hour before that specific time, I get a call saying that the person has made other plans and has to cancel (note: not "I'm in the hospital, I have to cancel" but "someone else asked me to do something and I'm canceling").

This doesn't always happen and it's not always the same person doing it, but when it does it really, REALLY bothers me and it's been happening more and more recently. I usually haven't been able to make other last minute plans with anyone (understandably) and a couple of times it's been something that can't be done any old time and also something where I don't want to "just go by myself" (going to the fair, for example, which is only in town for one week each year).

What I've tried doing so far: Explaining to people when making plans basically what I've said in this post, stressing that it's important to me that they say yes or no as soon as possible and that if they say yes then they don't cancel for trivial reasons. Unfortunately, judging from reactions, this is causing people to say no when they would otherwise have said yes and followed through, which is counterproductive.

So how do I deal with this without coming across as psycho? Am I just wrong in thinking that the person you said yes to first is the person you hang out with on whatever day, even if someone more interesting comes along later? Is there a way that I can say no to a maybe answer, so that I can start looking for someone who can definitely make it? When and how often do you call to see if a maybe has resolved into a definite answer? How to ask "When will you know by?" in response to a maybe (for casual/very low key stuff) without coming across as demanding?

GoLive "stl:xxx" tags causing spacing woes

cyrusdogstar — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 11:22:53 -0800

Anyone know anything at all about Adobe GoLive's use of -type HTML tags? Its insertion of these tags around dates, places, etc is causing extra spaces to pop up, throwing off proper punctuation and basically just making copytext look bad. Apologies if the formatting is still borked, it's very difficult to get something like this working well with the way HTML is handled here :(

The marketing person at my job uses GoLive to edit some aspects of our company webpage (blech) and it seems to add in these odd tags around various things such as dates and place names.

They are not used in any formatting fashion that I can see (certainly such a setup is not used on these particular pages, as the text in question is not being styled any differently) but because they're put in with a bunch of newlines, it causes extra spaces to show up.

So for example, we'd have something like this:

    Blah blah blah New York, NY, blah blah.

The HTML in GoLive then looks like this:

    Blah blah blah
    <stl:City>
        New York
    </stl:City>
    ,
    <stl:Place>
        NY
    </stl:Place>
    , blah blah.

All those extra newlines between "New York" and the comma turn into a space, so it looks like:

Blah blah blah, New York , NY, blah blah.

Anyway, Google is turning up exactly zero about anything called "STL" (except for C++'s Standard Template Language, and St Louis -- removing those from the search do not turn up anything useful) and GoLove's own documentation and support forums are bare on the subject.

I've searched through as many of the preferences and features that I can find (never used the app myself, I do all my HTML/CSS in text editors) and nothing seems to deal with these tags.

Help?

ISO dates

stbalbach — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 07:41:39 -0800

Where can I find good quality dates? I recently went to a local Islamic temple open-house and they had free dates which were so good I realized I had never had a decent date before. Thanks to God I am now a date convert, but the local stores carry a pale shade of the real thing.

How do I keep my crappy memory from ruining my relationship?

shanevsevil — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 22:26:14 -0800

I'm an irresponsible guy with a really horrible memory dating a very responsible girl, and I keep fucking things up between us by forgetting things, screwing up schedules and things like that. It's not just things like the date we started going out, her birthday, or whatever (this sort of info is on my calendar just not in my head). It's things like the time we're going to meet, or where she's going to be at a specific time. I've always been so bad with dates and times and schedules that if I don't have absolutely everything written down then SOMETHING will be completely forgotten. I write down when dates are going to be, I copy her class and work schedules into my calendar, all that sort of thing, but I fuck some things up and it really upsets her. It's been particularly bad because she just had to move about 45 minutes away from me, and now there's loads more scheduling to deal with. Things like me not getting enough sleep the night before she makes a trip down to see me, and then I'm a useless lump, or she's only going to be down for a few hours but I assume she's come to stay with me for the night, and I don't make good use of the time...
She's really hurt by things like this, they make her feel like she's the only one putting forth effort in the relationship. I can't think of what to do. I feel like every conversation will trip me up later unless I take notes or something.

Every so often she'll call me out on things like this that I've been doing or not doing, and how inconsiderate it makes me seem, and it's always an "A-ha" moment for me, where I suddenly realize exactly what she means and in hindsight I think "What the hell was I thinking?".
How do I start being more considerate and less of a stupid jerk?
How do I keep my crappy memory from ruining my relationship?

How do I COMPLETELY turn off Excel autoformatting?

EndsOfInvention — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 07:20:46 -0800

How do I completely turn off all autoformatting in Excel? Excel's autoformatting is driving me insane. At work I have to enter lots of ranges into Excel, such as "10-50". Excel helpfully thinks I actually mean "1st of October, 1950", and changes the cell to "Oct-50". Of course, changing the cell format away from Date merely changes the cell value to "18537". So not only does Excel automatically change the format away from what you entered, it irreversibly changes the actual data as well.

I know that changing the cell format to Text beforehand will stop any autoformatting, but remembering to do this every time I enter data is incredibly frustrating (and I have other autoformatting issues aside from the date one). Is there a way to completely deactivate autoformatting?

The most annoying thing is that if I make a mistake and enter "10-49" into lots of cells instead of "10-50", and then try and correct all the cells with Find & Replace, it changes the cells back to Dates even if I've previously set them all as Text!

Dates in Middlebury, VT?

anonymoose — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 21:45:19 -0800

Fun activities for a couple in or near Middlebury, VT? Ideally looking for things that can be done on a weekday afternoon/evening.