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Dear Breakup Girl,

BG, I just don't get it. The whole dating game is just a giant puzzle to me. It just seems like I'm a walking dating disaster. Now, I am still relatively new to this whole business of "getting to you know you better," but already, I feel so hopeless. First let me tell you about myself. I'm a 19-year-old university student, very good looking (I get "cute" a lot), smart, funky, fairly confident, and usually outgoing. I have a lot of friends. However, there's this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde side in me, and it always seems to ruin my dating life.

I'm very outgoing and social with people I know well; I am assertive and confident around them. However, I get very, very shy around people I don't know, and I almost never approach people first. I'm also quite inexperienced. I've only really had two boyfriends; the first one was the only one whom I fell in love with, but it was very unstable and ended in complete disaster. I was also too insecure and immature at the time to handle the relationship. My second boyfriend and I only lasted 2 months, and it was not exactly a "deep" relationship. It was more of a summer fling; I knew I would never fall in love with him.

Also, I'm still in the V-club, which bothers me sometimes. OK, so my problem: I had a date with a guy I just met last night. Problem is, I get so tense and nervous before dates and during dates that I act nerdy and awkward and stupid. I get into my shy, insecure mode, and things just get really tense. Usually, I KNOW I'm totally cool, hip, interesting etc., etc., but whenever I'm on dates, I turn into the world's biggest nerd. I get so nervous beforehand that I hyperventilate and want to throw up. My friends now have given me a new nickname, "Felicity" (in addition to the one I already have, "Ally" because of my seemingly eternal singleness), because I get so obsessive and analytical about every little thing. I just can't chill out and have a good time. Please BG, give me some pointers on how to relax and just ENJOY myself on these totally awkward situations we call "dates."

--Starla

Dear Starla,

At this point, kiddo, you're nervous about being nervous -- you've set yourself up with one big date-unfulfilling prophecy.

And I'm sure the V-Club thing -- not that there's anything wrong with that! -- doesn't help. Are you wondering, over every sundae, "Is this one The One? As in First? Will I have to tell him? Will he think I'm a huge dork? I'm sorry, what? Oh, uh, I'm thinking of bajoring in miology. Oh, God." Talk about performance anxiety.

So how can we get you out of this Feliciticious circle? Well -- though I don't mean to diminish your own experience -- keep in mind that everyone's nervous on dates. That's what separates dates from non-dates in the first place; that's what butterflies are for. And that's also what normally leads me to rule out the "hang out" when it come to dating. As I've said before, a lot of would-be relationships (or at least dates) take the form of these huggy flirty hangyouty chitchatty maybe someday interactions ... and that's it. And at some point, for some people, this approach goes from flirting to flitting. Which is what gnats do. So.

But perhaps you should work with your own feeling of safety in numbers. Perhaps yours is a case that warrants not making such a clear protocol distinction between Dates and Not. Perhaps your Mistress Jekyll would feel more comfortable hanging in a critical mass of your own peeps... and then some. Get those friends of yours to stop giving you TV nicknames and start rotating new faces into the established crowd. Make sure they relate to you, in public, as the Xena we all know you can be; let the newcomers come to you. See if you can find other ways of getting to know them before you get coffee. Oh, and I know you feel uncomfortable, but don't assume that you look -- or make your date feel -- that way. Remember, Ben/Noel might be thinking, "Hey, she's kinda nervous. Hey, that's kinda cute."

Love,
Breakup Girl

PS: Also see my archived letters about being shy.

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