The Thrill of Playing It Cool

I am finally dating someone who knows the rules of how to play it cool.

After three months of meeting men who consider hourly texting and drunken calling appropriate after one date, it's a relief to find someone who doesn't ignore key dating commandments.

I didn't appreciate the rules of cool myself until I had a rude awakening when Andy -- a man I dated once and quite liked -- then called at 3 a.m. the next night and drunkenly slurred, "I'm thinking of you." Initially, it was novel and endearing, until the next night, when he called at 3 a.m. again. I turned my phone off, and consequently my alarm, so overslept the next morning and swore never to see him again.

Not that Andy stopped calling. One Saturday, I woke to find 22 missed calls, at five-minute intervals from 4 a.m. onwards. I phoned him, furious, and asked why.

"Because you never answer," he laughed. "I just call when I feel like it. I don't like playing games."

"What about how I feel?" I said. "It's not a game, it's a fact: Calling that much is freaky."

He didn't phone again, but unfortunately, Andy wasn't a one-off. Most men I've dated have been the same. The worst offender, Mark, left long, excruciatingly embarrassing voice mails reciting nursery rhymes and making "coochy coochy coo" baby noises -- and no, I have no idea why. And there was Josh, who perpetually called during the day to "see what's happening" and then at night to whimper: "Where are you?"

Women are always blamed for not playing it cool, but I think men are far worse offenders. I don't know why intelligent, professional men act so irrationally. It's as if they think calling more will make me like them more, when in reality, it makes me wish we'd never met. Sometimes the calls start even before our first date: A seemingly lovely man I met by chance at Kensington Roof Gardens (London, England) two weeks ago took my number and called twice before I had even managed to get home.

My friends have similar problems. Mary met a man ... who even called her when she went to the lavatory, while Lisa keeps getting texts containing only kisses (xxxx) from a man she met briefly in a club but hasn't even dated -- and now never will.

So it's a relief to discover not all men have stalker-like dispositions.

Simon, the man I've just started dating, plays it perfectly. He only calls when it's his turn. I've upped my own game in response -- now taking ludicrously long to reply to texts, letting the phone ring out before I answer, and always being reserved and ambiguous.

I admit I did slip up last week, though, when I was delaying every text response by precisely two hours -- to the exact minute -- later realizing this might have looked like obvious game-playing. And deliberately playing it cool would look worse than acting keen. That's why Simon's game is so good -- it seems effortless. I've tried to adopt his laid-back approach myself by adding, "Sorry, so rushed" and a few typos to e-mails to suggest I only spent a second writing it.

But playing it cool can be more exhausting than effortless -- it takes willpower to resist replying to texts immediately or saying something affectionate. And communication can be laborious when simple text conversations take days to complete. Yet it's definitely worth the effort.

Of course, maybe Simon's playing it cool because he doesn't care. We had dinner at the Cork Bottle in Leicester Square [London, England] last week, but I can't push him for another date -- that would go against the rules of the game.

So I'll have to wait and see whether he contacts me. I can't tell if he will or not, but that's the thrill of playing it cool.

Source: Evening Standard; London (UK). Powered by YellowBrix.