Well, I’ve been slammed. This is always a danger – folks you meet online tend to flake out at a higher rate, so when I’m on a streak, I tend to slightly overbook, knowing that should get me a pretty comfortable number of dates.

And then, suddenly, no one cancels, and you’re in trouble. I wound up with 4 dates or date-like entities (long stories) in a 3-day period. My head was spinning for awhile there – I barely had time to write little flirty missives to anyone. A nice self-regulating mechanism, by the way.

One of those quickly turned ‘round to a second date – which confirmed this, this wasn’t going anywhere. We ended the evening arguing whether a sense of community could exist without a religious basis. (I kept trying to steer the conversation away from such things – really? Can’t I just be funny and charming this early date? You really have to run through your checklists on me? I don’t like checklists.)

Another will soon be a second date – and that one, that’s the bisexual polyamorous girl who lives with her butch life partner – and her life partner’s other life partner, her sister wife, she was often referencing Big Love – who is being taught to be a contortionist, roller derbied a few years, stripped a few months to knock out credit card debt…

Poly, she might be quite fun, but likely not a long-term stop. Still, Baltimore has a thriving polyamorous sub-culture – lotta artists in Baltimore these days – I’d be foolish to ignore ‘em. They make this journey more interesting, as I wait to lose my socks to the right lady.

I could go on, but here’s the point – I was very nearly exhausted by it all. Keeping all stories straight, remembering the names of friends I’d never met, tracking which lady I had what inside joke with – my plate was full.

And yet, my first night off, I went out on the town with friends, and at a bar, stuffed as I mighta been, I couldn’t turn it off. I wanted to flirt with every pretty girl, get every number, just keep it going like I’d never stop.

But that’s the problem. I never would stop. So I mostly talked with my friends – got yelled at by the bartender for celebrating pool shots a bit too loudly – and laid back.

Rule #66: Don’t be greedy.

There’s a very delicate balance you have to strike in the online dating world. Go too slow, and you wind up getting overly attached to long shots – all dates are, in the end, long shots for anything truly lasting, that’s why you need so many. Get overly attached, you wind up driving people away.

BUT! Go too fast, too hard, and you destroy your ability to connect in any meaningful way. Hey – that’s fine for some folk. If you’re in a wild-oats stage, or just want to forget a heartbreak, whatever – if you don’t want anything serious, then see as many as can, as often as you can.

If, however, you are looking for something more meaningful, then the balance is tough. Too few, it’ll probably take forever to find the right one, and you’ll press ‘em even if you do find ‘em. Too many, and you will never get past the fuck stage with any – because there’s another round the corner.

You want the baby bear porridge (which I’d normally say is two first dates a week – for me at least). Lose sight of your final goals, you’ll get lost in the game.