I'm not sure if I want to meet this person from OkCupid anymore (advice)

[littlebluedove]

Hi,

I asked someone out on OkCupid yesterday, which I meant at the time, but I'm no longer sure whether I feel enough of a connection to meet him, due to something he said that really hurt me. Complicating matters, we live 30 miles apart, in different states, which would be more difficult for us than usual because I can't drive. Not that I'd have a date drive me everywhere, I take the bus and the occasional cab around my city - it just would be really hard, probably even impossible for me to get to someone that far away on a regular basis without a car.

Anyway, one of his match questions says, "Which type of intelligence do you most value?" I answered "Social intelligence," which he marked as an unacceptable answer, so during one of our conversations, I asked him if that's a dealbreaker. I told him that learning about social skills is so important to me that I'd want to date someone who likes that about me. He said it's not a dealbreaker, but he sounded blasé about it, saying that he sees their purpose, and everyone should have them. Well, this is something that I'm actually pretty dedicated to. I even study social skill topics that can get fairly specialized, such as how I recently read a book focused on how to prevent misunderstandings. I think that my studies go beyond Grimes level basics and could really be something extra special to bring to the table. I think that this is such a fundamental part of who I am that I want to date someone who doesn't dislike it, or even just see it as an okay thing like he seems to, but who actively likes that about me.

I didn't find his response reassuring. Not that I'd expect much reassurance from someone I haven't even met yet, but something like, "I'm more interested in (subject) myself, but it's cool that you put so much effort into that" would've been nice. I'm thinking about canceling the date because even if he did eventually get feelings for me, I don't think that he'd care for me in the way that I need someone to care about me. I was so upset about what he said that I cried. I'm not comfortable starting a conversation with him about this, though, before having even met him, and it seems like it might be a bad sign to be this upset with someone before I've even met them. I think I'm leaning more towards canceling, but what do you think? I feel invalidated, which is one of the most difficult feelings for me to deal with.

[Enail]

I usually lean on the side of 'if you're already feeling that bad about things before even meeting, it's not a good sign,' so I'd tend to vote cancel in most situations like this.

That said, it doesn't sound like it's clear that it's definitely a compatibility issue (I'd read marking "social intelligence" as an unacceptable answer as intended to indicate he doesn't want to date someone who's looking for that in him, rather than meaning that it's a subject that's not valuable in general) so if you're not finding enough people to meet with and want to lean on the side of increasing your options, it might be worth seeing how things go in person on the assumption it's more of a miscommunication.

One thing you might want to consider in general, I think people often don't explicitly appreciate social skills as a whole in others so much as appreciating that it's enjoyable to be around them (which their social skills help with), and it's only once they get to know someone who makes an active project of social skills and sees the effort and passion and knowledge that really goes into it that they get to appreciate them as a field of knowledge and a skill. So you might find that some people who potentially could value that about you highly, might not start off with the full understanding and appreciation you'd like them to have; whether you want to consider dating people like that or if you really want to hold out for someone who knows where you're coming from and values that is of course a judgement call.

[littlebluedove]

Okay, I'll chalk it up to a miscommunication, since I don't want to give up *too* easily with people when things get painful. I messaged him back and there are other things that I like about him that have come up. For instance, he brought up the dreaded career/school questions, but he doesn't judge me for having a more difficult time/taking longer to find success in those areas than most other people in our culture do. There have been a couple more logistical bummers that have come up - he's very allergic to cats, still willing to date a cat owner, but won't want to stay the night very long because of it, and the dogs in his pictures aren't actually his, though it's still something, that he at least likes dogs.

I'm still grateful that we connected online and like him enough to keep seeing where this might go, but it's a bummer that the distance and the cat issue will hinder us in certain ways. Sorry if that sounds whiny - I have depression, so it's hard not to ruminate on things that make me sad, anxious or overwhelmed. Since I've been planning for a long time to get a cat, as much as I sympathize with him, it seems like it would put too much importance on a potential partner too soon to change such a big life goal all of a sudden.

Anyway, back to the main thing I posted about, I appreciate you helping me get a better sense of perspective on this.

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