DRAFT: The content for this page will be updated very soon. Thanks for your patience.
During my senior year in college, I met a female friend who was very beautiful.
The problem however, was that she knew it. Boy did she know it! One
day she commented about how she could have “any guy she wanted.”
I thought she was full of herself, but who was Ito say how she should feel?
As you know by now, I wasn’t the most attractive man on campus, so I felt
that sometimes my friend would say those things to rub them in my face.
One night my two friends and I drove to this much-anticipated mega-party.
As we pulled into the driveway to the party house, I noticed my
cocky female friend sitting on the concrete tire-stop. In the headlight
beams, I could also see that she was crying. I quickly climbed out of the car
and asked her what the problem was. Quivering from crying, she told me
that the guy she liked was in the party flirting with some other female. At
this news I couldn’t resist and quipped, “I thought that you said you could
have any guy you wanted?” She looked at me somewhat perplexed; tears
started running down her cheeks and said in a meek voice, “OK, maybe
I can have most guys.” She then started to cry uncontrollably.
I sat with this attractive friend of mine and listened to her entire
story. She told me that she and the guy she liked had split up about two
weeks ago. During that time, she had gone out with a number of other
guys who had actually been waiting for her to become “available.” She
also told me that instead of making her forget about the guy she liked, the
more she went out with other guys, the more she realized that each of
them- those on the date with her- were not the one guy that she was really
attracted to.
I hear people talk about this type of phenomenon all the time.
Conventional wisdom holds that after a person splits up with someone,
that they should go out with as many other people as possible to keep busy,
and this will help them forget about the person with whom they broke it
off. Some even say that the best way to get over someone is to get under
someone new. However, dating an abundance of others may instead, have
the opposite effect! That is, the more people they are able to attract, the
starker the contrast becomes between those they can attract and that one
that they cannot attract.
The above scenario isn’t guaranteed to happen – and may not even
occur. Perhaps this “numbers dating” can serve as a remedy for some
people; just be aware of the possible backlash. The purpose for discussing
it here is so that the reader can at least be aware of the two possible outcomes
should they choose to engage in this type of coping strategy. At least
consider what was discussed in this section.