The games people play

Today, the Dutch boy who was with me at Pangaea on Thursday night, asked me: "So, did he call?"

I told him that he texted and I called (at cousin J's behest) to arrange the meet up because it was more convenient than to-ing and fro-ing with the texting. No no no no no, he tut-tutted. You look desperate if you call. You should never call, always always text, and you should wait and chill before texting.

I laughed. You have Got to be kidding! You're a guy. I thought only girls did that!

I have a sister, he replied.

I explained my "20-minute" rule to him. If I emailed a guy I fancied and he took 20 minutes to reply, then I must wait At Least 20 minutes before I emailed him back. Basically, I would mirror his pace, but the minimum response time would be determined by him.

He told me about his sister's "2-hour" rule—she never replies to a text before 2 hours have elapsed. He expounded: On average, a person checks his phone every half an hour. If I reply within half an hour, it would mean that I replied as soon as I got his text. However, if I wait until 2 hours have passed before I reply, it means that I have gotten the text, but I was too busy or otherwise pre-occupied to be bothered to reply immediately. You've got to play it cool, he advised.

There was more to come. And sometimes, said Dutch boy, you write deliberately unclear messages. You send a cryptic message to check his keen-ness: how quickly does he reply to clarify when he gets your text and goes "huh?" I was actually wide-eyed with awe. Here was the master game-player!

But to be honest, I like Thursday boy both well enough and not enough to play games with him. I like him well enough as a human being to actually want to get to know him, be friends, and not play games with him. And I don't like him enough romantically for me to care about the dating outcome or play stupid games with him.

Besides, I'm quite hopeless at these games. I mean... even the whole "20-minute" mirroring rule was taught to me by someone else. And I just don't have the time or patience to play head games (though some people will beg to differ).

And, truth be told, I would quite like to keep him as a friend (I'm always wanting to keep the loveliest boys as friends), but unfortunately, I think given the way we met and what I gather from his personality, this is likely to be a binary thing: yes we go out, no we don't see each other. Which is a shame. But, as I have said before, I will deal with that, if it ever comes to that, when the time comes.

For now, since he is my practice boy, I will try out the cryptic message thing on him tomorrow!