We shared interests, humor, and great chemistry ... then she asked about our 'values'

I matched with Jane on OkCupid. Not Tinder (which is for hookups). Not Hinge (which is for hookups with intellectuals). But OkCupid, which is — in the online dating world — a kind of normie land.

That’s where the more ordinary, more boring singles go to meet people they can do boring things with (meet for coffee, etc.).

'You don’t have to live like this. You can just have coffee with a person.'

Jane was above average in looks. She had a job. She liked stuff I liked. She didn’t have pictures of herself doing sexy poses on a yacht. Or sneering and holding up her middle finger to the camera.

She seemed nice. Like genuinely nice. And normal. Possibly sane. That’s a serious win in the online dating realm.

The fine art of small talk

We texted back and forth on the OkCupid app, chatting, getting to know each other.

When our conversation reached a natural lull, I proposed a coffee date for later that week. I suggested a quiet café in the city. She said yes.

For the next couple of days, I daydreamed about our meeting. I felt like even if we didn’t fall in love, it would still be nice to have coffee with a relaxed, easygoing person.

This is often the best part of dating: those moments of happy anticipation, of feeling pleasantly excited about a date.

A surprise message!

But then, on the night before our date, I got a new message from Jane. I thought she was going to cancel. That happens a lot. People get cold feet.

Before I even opened her message, I considered how I might convince her to go through with our meeting. I often got cold feet myself before internet dates. Everybody did.

I would remind her it was just coffee, just a half-hour of her time. And the café was nice. You could look out the window. Why not? You only live once ...

I opened her message. It wasn’t cold feet. She was writing because we hadn’t discussed our “values” in our previous messaging. Shared values were important to her in a relationship, she said. She wanted to confirm that we were “on the same page” in that regard.

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How to respond?

I was surprised by this message. This didn’t sound like the person I had been texting with before. She hadn’t mentioned her values in our previous conversation. She didn’t put them in her profile. That’s why I liked her!

I hadn’t put my values in my profile either. Like what kind of values was she even talking about? Did she mean things like being an honest and upstanding guy? I try to do that.

Or did “values” just mean political positions? Like on immigration reform, or abortion, or mail-in ballots?

This was a tricky situation. I would have to think about it.

Boys vs. girls

The problem was, I’m a guy. When I think of “values,” I think of things like being “good on your word.” Like if you say you’re going to help your buddy move, you help him move. Even if it’s raining.

Or like when you’re a kid and you get in a fight. You don’t try to really hurt the other guy. Once somebody wins, you let up. You act in an honorable way.

Which is different from the qualities women value: compassion. Empathy. Helping people who can’t help themselves. These are also excellent characteristics for a person to have. But they are a little more female-coded.

But what if Jane was thinking of specific things, like she hates Trump and insists that I hate him too? That doesn’t seem fair.

The truth is that men and women approach politics differently. In the past, that was considered a good thing. That was the yin and yang of heterosexual relationships.

I thought back to past girlfriends. Had we always agreed about politics? Of course not. Had it caused problems in the relationships? Not really. In some ways, it made them stronger.

Beware the friend group

I still had to respond to Jane. What should I say? I went back through our original text conversation. There she was: nice, agreeable Jane. Just like I remembered.

So why the sudden need to clarify our values?

I concluded this was probably her friends. Or maybe her co-workers. Or maybe her therapist. Jane had told somebody about our date and they were advising her not to meet me until she had questioned me about my political orientation.

The response

I didn’t know what to write back. I started texting different things but then deleted them. And then I felt sad. Sad for her. Sad for myself. An invisible wall of toxic politics was being forced between us, blocking us from the simple pleasure of meeting up.

I finally texted: “I try not to discuss politics on the first date.” And then I said something like: “You don’t have to live like this. You can just have coffee with a person.”

She didn’t respond right away. Maybe she was thinking about it. I hoped she was.

But then the next morning we were unmatched. She had disappeared. Maybe she had blocked me? Then I felt even more sad. And I felt bad for her.

What could have been

But I still think about Jane. What if she had been the one? In another time, a less political era, we might have met for coffee, gone for a walk, made a connection.

She would put up with my male perspective. I would put up with her female perspective. Like men and women have been doing throughout human history.

Who knows what might have happened?