Yesterday, the guys at The Other McCain published an interesting article about current issues within the “Red Pill Community.” One particular thing that jumped out at me was an in-depth discussion of something called spinning plate theory, wherein a smart, young bachelor is advised to develop his options with multiple women, rather than clinging to one particular woman as “The One” while still early in a relationship.
Apparently, some people thing this advice is no longer valid, including at least one guy with a book to sell.
Granted, I’m generally skeptical of anyone whose advice includes “Those guys before me were totally wrong, you should take my advice, conveniently available on Amazon.com for $3.99!”, but in this case, I’m especially skeptical, since spinning plate theory dovetails both with my own personal experience as a young bachelor, and is also the advice I’m giving to my kids. For that matter, it’s advice that’s been handed down through multiple generations, given that both my wife and I can recall our grandmothers giving us basically the same advice about dating.
I told a little of this story in comments over at the article on The Other McCain, but since I’ve learned from Tam not to leave my best stuff at the away games, here’s the longer, more fleshed out version.
Way back when I started college at 17, I was still on the tail end of the awkward teen years. I had huge glasses, out of control hair, and braces. I’d also had exactly one “girlfriend.” She dumped me, I struggled to get over it. So somewhat unattractive, nerdy, and socially inept, I glommed on to the first freshman girl I met at college. And when she scented y Eau dé Desperation, she stopped returning my calls. I glommed onto the next one. Repeat for a few months, until I heard some of the best dating advice, I ever got from the college pastor: “Make friends, and take a different girl to every Fine Arts series until you click with someone.” I made that my goal.
It didn’t always work out quite right, and involved one very awkward blind date, but I maintained an unbroken track record right up until my Junior year. That year, I came back to school in great shape, confident, and feeling great. The awkward freshman had learned about hair gel, gotten contacts, and ditched the braces. And if one girl wasn’t interested in me, well, there were always a few more on my list.
But then I asked this one girl out. Then she asked me to meet her for lunch. Eventually I realized that I wasn’t interested in asking anyone else out, and we were seeing each other a lot. That’s about when I realized that I had, as the kids say now, “Caught feelings.” Twenty years later, we seem to have maintained a goodly amount of those feelings.
There’s a lot more to the story than that, including an explanation of why I don’t believe in coincidences, but I’ll leave that for another blog. The point here is that in my own experience, keeping your options open is absolutely some of the best dating advice for any young man, or young lady.