Too good to be true…or simply a blessed gift of sorts?

Sooooo after all my dating endeavors and life upheavals since the beginning of this little project, it all comes down to the tried and true.  I met a wonderful man with absolutely zero assistance of any  dating sites.

To be totally honest, I really couldn’t blame the dating sites themselves, as I didn’t devote much time or effort into that aspect.  On an effort scale of 1-10 (10 being a great deal of effort), I’d give myself a solid 4 and even that rating would need to fluctuate between a 0 and 4, with 4 being the most effort I put into it at all.

However, I have come to this conclusion (fair or otherwise) in regard to online dating sites: the majority of men I met fell into one of four categories.  1: desperately seeking casual or kinky sex.  2: desperately seeking period (needy clingers).  3:  Just plain odd, weird, or borderline scary. And 4: any combination of the previous three.

Perhaps if I’d put in more effort or taken the experience more seriously, I’d have had better results, but really the whole thing was more of a way to meet people and experience the concept of just randomly dating in itself (which I’ve not done much of in my life prior).

I’d definitely do it all over again, though.  I had so many laughs and learning experiences that it was well worth it – disappointments and all. Hmmmm…well, after reflecting on that for a moment here, I believe most of the truly fun  part of the whole experience was in blogging and discussing it with the terrific people I came to know via this blog; without being able to laugh and share with you all, I really think it would have been mostly just weird and disappointing.  It’s you people here who made it an absolute blast…and nothing that creates that much laughter and/or compassionate support through life’s knocks outside of dating, could ever be regretted!

And so I move on to the amazing guy I met…  After going months without even looking at or checking on my dating sites and not even thinking about dating, true to the timelessly tried and true old adage, when you stop looking, it finds you.  And R certainly found me!  At around noon on a random Saturday, horribly hung-over, wearing not a stitch of makeup and carelessly thrown on clothes to go to retrieve my debit card from the site of the criminal partying and reconnecting with some dear, dear friends the evening before, I order a bloody mary to assist with my recovery attempt.  I sat on the patio, sipping my drink with a friend and making casual conversation with a group of people doing the very same and reminiscing about the fun shenanigans the prior evening.

Not able to finish my healing concoction, I returned inside to tab out at last.  Being only noon-ish, there were only 3 people sitting inside the pub.  Two were old regulars and one was a very handsome face I’d not seen before, looking fresh and outdoorsy from an early walk on the beach just down the street and not at all like he was nursing a painful hang-over! I was feeling embarrassed for this handsome guy to hear me tabbing out from the evening before, so I made a casual joking remark to him about doing the “debit card walk of shame” since he was looking at me and was within ear shot of my conversation with the bartender.  Naturally having no thought whatsoever that in my haphazard appearance would he ever find me remotely attractive nor think much of me at all except maybe that I might in fact be a party girl/alcoholic type. Yet somehow my boldness (sheerly from my embarrassment) led to a little chat, which led to an exchange of numbers and then a date for later that night.

Guy was in town from Atlanta, GA visiting his family for the weekend and had gone earlier to enjoy the beach he missed so much, and deciding to stop by this little lakeside pub for a beer on his way home.  His gentle, yet masculine, voice and soft southern accent very distinctly reminded me of my dad who passed away suddenly in March.  This surprising element (being in Michigan) put me at total ease.  His handsome looks and southern gentleman charm of course added interest and intrigue to the whole exchange.

We went that evening on one of the best dates I’ve ever had in my entire life (no kidding!!).  We talked and laughed so much the time flew by.  It felt as though he was an old friend or boyfriend from years earlier and we had all these years to catch up on life’s happenings and only one evening in which to do so since he was returning to Atlanta the next afternoon.

When he finally dropped me off back at home, I had a long, detailed conversation about my night with my roommate.  We both decided he was definitely too good to be true and had to be either married or hiding some kind of criminal past.  Guys like this just don’t exist anymore!

In addition, with the extreme unlikelihood of our ever crossing paths and the so random and atypical circumstances of our chance meeting, there was this undeniably strong and uncanny feeling that somehow my dad had sent him to me.  This guy not only does the exact same type of work as my dad had done and got his training for said work in the military just as my dad had, but his every characteristic was precisely the type of man my dad always hoped I would meet, as well as encompassed the qualities of my dad which I respect and admire with all my heart (even the whole southern gentleman thing, which is my dad to a “T”).  To add to this coincidence, it turned out that his mother who had passed away a few years earlier, actually worked at my place of employment all her life, doing the exact same job as I!  It all seemed way too coincidental to really be random at all.

I was smitten (albeit nervous because of the whole too good to be true aspect) and fortunately enough, he was equally as smitten with me.

We’ve been doing the long distance thing which is not so easy.  However, he works for a major airline and flies free, so we have nearly every weekend together, so it could be far more difficult otherwise.  After a great deal of tragic family events, I’ve taken a temporary leave of absence from my job and come to stay with him in Atlanta to get away from all the stress and pain which lingers heavily in Michigan; to find healing and hopefully a sense of peace again in a place which feels safe and healthy.

Of course, we’re still getting to know each other more with every passing day and he’s certainly not perfect (thankfully, as I’m certainly not either…hahah), but he’s definitely handsome and kind; charming and manly; intelligent, interesting, funny, and has excellent standards, morals and ethics.

We are taking a cruise through the Virgin Islands at the end of this month.  I’m so excited!  Only time will tell what will happen next and meanwhile, I’m slowly but surely falling head over heels in love!

Watereach: the newest, most succulently indecisive fruit-on-the-fence

It just makes sense, right?!

It’s Christmas 2011. I’ve finagled to be alone; somewhat out of consideration for my ex-husband to have family time alone with the kids and somewhat because (I confess) I really am not a fan of the holiday season. I get dark and nostalgic, moody and overwhelmed, sensitive and regretful. Yes…regretful. I crave alone time because I don’t like to risk rubbing off my pitiful aura onto anyone else’s holiday enjoyment. Plus, overall, it’s just embarrassing to me that a person with a sunny disposition as myself would fall prey to the ridiculously blue sensitivity of the holidays! Embarrassing! …and I don’t confess this to anyone. I pretend and I smile and I suck it in as long as I’m able to do so without imploding and when I’m ultimately exhausted, I just have to duck out. Take a break. Go within all by myself. Cry, pray, laugh, whatever…

I started writing about a few of the dates/”relationships” I’ve had in my time away from my blog. However, I feel uninspired. There are certainly some comical, interesting people and situations to write of; I just can’t get into it for some odd and unusual reason! I wanna spill the beans on these freaks, all their quirks, and silliness….and naturally, I feel simultaneously compelled to spill MY quirks and silliness that have reared their preposterous heads during these experiences as well…but WTF is wrong with me?! I have NO direction right now. NONE.

We’ve recently moved. So, while at happy hour on a recent Friday, I investigated my new neighborhood pubs. Directly across from the local airport and a hop, skip, and jump from home, is a little hole in the wall pub. I ring up my buddy Lar and we meet up there. I’m so very glad we did! I met the nicest lady, Janet. Janet is timelessly pretty and has a terrific upbeat, honest and open personality. She also lives and works quite close so she knows a great deal of the local folk who frequent this place. Such a great way to meet people!! I’m talking to Lar and Janet…mostly Janet… when a dark haired guy sits on the other side of Janet. I vaguely recognize him from way back in my youth as an older acquaintance of my high school boyfriend. I’m kinda nosey…leaning over now and then…listening to and poking into their conversation just a bit; wondering if this guy will recognize me at all and more importantly, wondering if he’s at all interested in talking to me. He does not recognize me and I love that! I feel really free and flirty because he doesn’t recall me whatsoever. I suffer from the “quadruple threat”; having a face, name, voice, and personality which rarely allow me any anonymity even after just one single meeting with most people. This guy not only doesn’t seem to recall me at all, but, he’s not really paying much attention to me either, which of course really raises my interest a few levels beyond mildly interested… as anything that feels remotely challenging typically does for me. Hey!! This blog is my place for bold, blatant and blaring honesty. Yeah, I’m that girl sometimes. I hate that I am…but yes, I am. I can’t resist a challenge…or anything that seems like it even might offer a challenge.

So, when Janet and Lar begin discussing something over/across me which I’m just not so much interested in, I grab the opportunity to say, Gosh, maybe Janet and I should switch places?! Janet laughs and agrees, so BAM! There I am next to the guy…Mr. (paying little to no attention to me) Challenge. Hmmmmmm….. Now I’m interested. We start chatting. I’m enjoying guy. He’s interesting and attractive, not my kind of attractive, but attractive nonetheless! He’s clearly not an idiot, has a good job, and can hold his own in a conversation with a mildly drunken, easily distracted blonde chick playing a mind game of sorts. Kudos to guy. As I’m the first to admit, this is not an easy task. I’ve got naughty trying-to-be-a-comedian-Santa begging for my attention and some young 20-something fella I met outside, buying me “holiday shots”, as if I’d ever, EVER need those!! Yup, it’s going well, really. And it’s not just the anonymity and challenging intrigue! Okay, well it might be. But, I’m not sure just yet. I’m just having a blast!! We laugh and talk and we learn that we have a major experience in common…getting totally screwed by Jeff Vanderstelt, Attorney at Law. Oh the topics of discussion….! We do exchange numbers and I don’t mention that we kinda sorta know each other from many, many lifetimes ago. I’m not entirely sure though how I feel about this guy though. I mean, once we get past the game itself, the challenge, the Oh is he interested in me or not? Excitement, how do I feel? What do I think of him actually? Yeah, I’m just not sure. He has my number. We’ll see how it goes… Guy calls me the next day. I don’t answer. I’m not sure what I think so I have to figure that out first, right? He texts the next day, Can’t wait to see you again. When are you free? Ughhh…it’s the (blech) holidays, birthdays, all of the stress, and work too…..ughhh. I keep blowing it off. ..He keeps trying and trying. Wow…how do I feel about that? I’m just not sure.

A week later, I made plans with my new friend Janet to meet at the bar for happy hour. So I text him that I’m doing so if he’s interested in meeting up. Yup, he is. Yay! I’ll get to investigate my feelings and thoughts about guy further with a lovely safety cushion of my new friend, just in case I need to blow him off and/or make a quick but polite getaway… Guy shows up. We are having a terrific time! Feelin’ kinda bad I’m hardly talkin to Janet, but she has another friend there too, so it’s all good really. This is weird. I like being with him. I’m not faking it at all. He’s not really my “type” to any extreme. He is in many ways, but he isn’t in just as many…or more. I can’t figure this out. I’m having fun though so it’s all good. He says the sweetest things and he makes me smile. His twin brother’s girlfriend shows up and she creates another interesting diversion. She’s married; twin brother has a serious alcohol issue and is very jealous of girlfriend’s husband. OH the drama! Guy just seems more and more normal and amazing as this whole scenario continues.

Adds to the confusion of how do I feel? I do not know. I can’t sort it all out AT ALL. It feels all discombobulated inside. I like him though. I do. We go to his place for a little bit so he can check on his 17 year old son, who’s actually out with friends. We make out a little. I’m kinda into this, but I’m not ready for the whole enchilada. He pushes a little too far. I got scared for a moment, actually, but I’ve had some scary experiences, so this is probably not even his fault. He does take no for an answer though ultimately. And I’m relieved, but conflicted as well. It’s not that I don’t want to. I’m just not ready for that yet.

Guy follows me home. Such a gentleman! He keeps saying he just wants to take me somewhere to have time alone, to go somewhere nice, etc, etc…. He’s very sweet and romantic. I like it. It’s perfectly wonderful. No, I hate it. It’s too much. I don’t freakin’ know what I feel. What’s wrong with me?? I always know what I feel….always! But nope, I just really don’t know. I’m kind of all over the place with this. It’s a definite yes! NO, wait…it’s certainly no… Uh oh hold on, it’s a great big absolutely positive maybe!

Hold up: Nahhh….it’s an absolutely not…..errr…umm…absolutely not gonna pass this one up?! Hell, I can’t pinpoint this to save my life! If I were a color about this guy, I’d be split down the middle: half black and half white with a section of Definitely Grey striping down my center. If I were a vegetable about this guy, I’d be half a snow pea and half corn on the cob. If I were a fruit about this, I’d certainly be half a peach and half a watermelon. Make sense now? Exactly…!

Guy and I have gone out more than a few times now. He’s asked me to reserve New Year’s Eve for him. He’s said all the right things and a few wrong ones too. He’s a bit assertive for my time and attention, but still continues to say, I don’t want you to feel pressured Kay. He’ll call every day, but often say, I hope you don’t feel like I have to talk to you every day Kay; I don’t wanna scare you off…

Sometimes I get the feeling he’s trying a little too hard but then he catches himself when he senses that deer in the headlights feeling I’m sure I randomly give off when he’s saying sappy, sweet nothings in my ear that I love hearing, but I hate hearing them. And buffering them with saying, I don’t want to come off too sappy, buttttttttt…blah blah SAPPY, SAPPY blah blah blah……

And mostly I like him. And sometimes – just now and then though – he gets on my nerves a bit. And then suddenly he doesn’t get on my nerves at all, but I really like him again. And then just as quickly, I’ll feel smothered and want some freakin’ space (seriously pal, BACK OFF!); then, I’ll feel like being close and open with him. My oldest daughter met him finally. He was so nervous for her approval, it was adorable: no, adorably annoying… And she said she “really liked him”. Awesome!

Now I just have to decide if I really do… or not!

Screaming uncle or simple abuse of the “said red”?

Uncle, I say! UNCLE!!

After meeting face to face, smile to smile, and eye to eye, I sadly have to write that Mr. Perfect did not at all maintain his title of Mr. Perfect.  Nope.

I arrived late.  Of course I did…we’ve been through that obnoxious quirk of mine already, remember?!  I received a text as I was parking, but was feeling guilty about my typical tardiness and chose to ignore the text.  This particular restaurant/bar/café has three separate entrances to each “section” of the establishment.

Here I was...

I entered the middle one, the Theater Bar, the quaint, narrow little section which boasts local artist’s work on the walls, a beautiful long wooden bar that nearly goes the actual length and almost width of this section, and charming light fixtures, all creating a casually eclectic, yet ,romantic cozy little area.

Other than the bartender, there are only four other people in the place – all males.  I coasted past them, glancing casually to see if any look like Mr. Perfect.  Nope.  None did.  And I’m thinking, What the hell?  Here I was worried about being late as usual and Mr. Perfect isn’t even here yet!  That, OR he he’s one of those guys sitting at the bar and not only looks nothing like his pictures, but brought three friends with him!

I sat down at a small table and ordered a red wine I’d never tried before.  While waiting those few moments for it to arrive, I decide to look at my text.  Oh lookie there!! …. a text from Mr. P himself.  It says, “ I’m on the aquarium side; it seemed quieter over here.”

Mr. P's "aquarium side"

Ohhhhhh……hmmm…ok…..  yeah… ok…. The aquarium side of this terrific place is the oh-so-lovely,  timelessly classy, exceedingly romantic, and  scrumptiously delicious restaurant area.  Okay, okay, okay….I get it.  You are on time,  in contrast to my lateness,  after all; you’re just over there..through that doorway only a few feet from where I was sitting.

So, now is when I walk over there then, right?  Yeahhhh…no.  I can’t.  I just can’t.  I’m nervous and I’m not walking over there with my glass of unknown red and risk demonstrating immediately upon his first vision of me being that nasty tumble/trip/clutzy maneuver which is going to dump said red all over me, the floor, or worst of all, HIM!  Nope…not gonna happen right at this moment. Can’t go.  Can’t do it.  We’ll just have to sit on either sides of the old brick wall from each other then, at least til I’ve finished my dangerously red glass of wine in its dangerously breakable glass.

So, I text back that I’m in the bar area and I’ve already ordered a drink.   A minute later, around the corner comes this guy… In hindsight, I have to guess my instant and unavoidable facial expression had to have been much like those online daters who go to meet someone in person and  they discover at first sight that the profile photo of their date was from at least  10 years and 30 pounds ago.  I mean, yeah, I knew instantly it was in fact Mr. P, which was clear.  However, with brutal honesty, Mr. P’s profile pics, as attractive as they were (and they certainly were quite appealing), had nothing on Mr. P himself! …and I mean nothing!

OMG…are you kiddin’ me??  BETTER looking in person? WTF?  Is this for real?!

Oh it was.  he was undoubtedly far more handsome in person.  Once I cleared the shock from my system at this incredulous surprise, words cannot convey how very fortunate I felt that I did let Mr. P come around the corner to me rather than Queen Clumsiness herself with her boisterously dangerous glass of said red in hand, sailing around the corner of this quaint little bar and into the elegant, romantic ambience of the attached restaurant…only to come face to face with an unexpected and nerve wracking surprise such as this.  It really could have been one horrific scene for the comical archives of online dating first- meets!

All of this is a bonus though, right?  A surprise of the pleasant variety without a doubt.  Much preferable to its counter-part of possibility at first-meets.  Yes, yes, yes…and so it was a bonus.  Except for adding to my nervous state of fear of his seeming perfection.  What the hell?  Good Lord in heaven, he was charmingly handsome, terrific physique, perfect height…..and those eyes!  Those eyes…those eyes…they…those eyes…yeah…they….his eyes…ummm…..yeahhhhh…so the eyes…they… ummm….are entitled to….I mean they require…ummmm…a….yeah…they require and demand…

A  paragraph all of their own!  Ahem….  How to describe these eyes?  Start with the basics, Kay.  Mr. P’s eyes were a rich green, bordering on hazel green-gold-brown, but with so much green opulence, you almost couldn’t call them hazel with a clear conscience.  And I’m fairly certain these were not colored contacts …the color was so rare and unique.  These eyes weren’t super small or buggy big, they weren’t too close together or spaced too far..they weren’t too high or too low on his face.  They were framed with lush, long, darkish-golden brown lashes.   But quite frankly, although yup,  I AM a sucker for green eyes anyway (guilty as charged) and no, NO photo could have ever accurately or adequately captured the stunning appearance of these eyes(well, mayyybeeee perhaps with some high tech photo-shopping), none of this was precisely WHY these eyes were so irresistibly captivating, warm, lovely, and compelling all on their own.  What was it?

I couldn’t stop looking into them until I solved this beautiful enigma.  I mean GOSH, I’ve a creative mind, rather deep comprehension of things real and spiritutal, as well as a fairly extensive vocabulary.  Surely I can look at these and pin-point what was doing that!?  C’MON!!?? What it was about them.  Hell, I’m looking RIGHT at ‘em for crying out loud!  What?  What IS it about them?  I HAD to put my finger on it damnit!  There they were – right there– looking intently at me, smiling at me, laughing with me…  For Pete’s sake!  What’s the matter with me?  Could not figure it.  Nope.  Also could not stop looking at them.  And couldn’t stop trying to figure it.

So, the date is beyond lovely.  It was a healthy balance of sharing, laughing, listening, and connecting.  Ahhh yes, just more perfection it’s to be then, huh Mr. P? You wanna play hardball, do ya?  Yea?  Huh?  Do ya? Well…Uncle, I say, Uncle already!!

This all was so perfect and so ideal in fact that after a while, even his “perfection” itself faded into the background and seemed normal….and with that subtle happening, my extreme nervousness faded back as well.  Okay, so I’m sure the second glass of said red helped that latter part some, but regardless…   It was easy and charming and comfortable and stimulating and intriguing and delightful and…… OMG!  Is this for real?

We talked of so much:  kids (he has a son), relationships, college, high school, dreams, goals, some life challenges, some happy and blessed life events.  It was just fun!

Around 10 PM (it was a Sunday night after all!), I had to go (let’s hear the collective, “awwwwwww…”).  I didn’t want to, but…..gotta do what ya gotta do…  I knew he had enjoyed himself.  I just couldn’t be certain if he’d enjoyed himself or felt attracted enough to want to see me again.  I sure hoped so, but what do ya do?

Well I’ll tell you exactly what my giggly, adoring, captivated inner adolescent wanted to do:  I wanted to  slip him a napkin note which asked, “You’re so cute! I like you. Do you like me?  Mark the box Yes or No”.

 

The scared woman in me wanted to smoothly thank him for a lovely time, give him a warm, genuine hug which lasted just a few moments too long: not long enough to be provocative or sexy, but not short enough to imply, “Thanks pal….was fun!”. You know, just a wee bit longer than necessary just to be briefly closer to him (yup, I confess, I was a bit googly) and subtly convey my interest, but not so long as to “put myself out there” like, HEY!?  GUESS WHAT?  YOU’RE HOT MR. PERFECT (please do note the absence of the quotations here) AND I WANT YOU!  The dreamer in me wanted to escape quickly in order to not face the possibility that he did NOT find me interesting or attractive enough to want to see again and leave the result of the evening entirely in question, in order to sustain the possibility as long as possible.

Here’s when he says with a big happy smile on his face (and I love this part!), “Yeah, I should go too.  Have we really been here four hours?  We have!  It doesn’t seem like it.  Time went by too fast! Not too bad for a first date I’d say!”  And guess what?  While I’m looking at him saying those words and allowing myself to slowly drink in the positive connotations of that little statement, I finally figure it out!!

His eyes….. yeah, back to that eye-thing… His eyes…  (Okay, this definitely requires a cheesy cliché disclaimer and I’m truly sorry, but GOSH, what am I to do?  I simply have to call it like it was or my blog is just a load of bullshit.)

His eyes danced.  Yes, that was it!  The light in his eyes or the restaurant lighting or the I don’t freaking know WHAT…but his. eyes.  danced. with. light. Or joy…or geesh, I just dunno……

They danced.  It was as if his eyes had their own inner strand of twinkle-lights parading off a body of soft green water!  Sparkling and dancing about… And I’m not kidding!  It hit me upside the head so hard when I finally realized this, that my don’t-you-dare- be-a-cheesy-idiot-girl filter wasn’t at prepared. Nope, it wasn’t at all prepared and I quite literally exclaimed (yes, exclaimed), “Oh my GOSH…your eyes DANCE!”    …felt stupid the minute it rushed outta my mouth.  But he was graceful and grinned and said, “Thank you”. Somehow making me not feel like it was nearly as ridiculously foolish as it sounds…and most likely was!   Yup, Cheesy Kay burst forth with the girlish exuberance of figuring out this 8th wonder of the world.

They danced…danced as if they had a little giggle/smile all of their own…danced like a teenage crush at their first prom…danced as if he adored me….danced as if his zest for life might become tangible and burst from the depths of his soul…danced as if he was a ravenous sexy beast waiting to deliciously and slowly devour me…all of the above…all at ONCE!  They just DANCED!!!!!!!!!!!

add eyelashes and imagine in motion!

Mr. P walked me to my car and I hurried in to it…purposely avoiding that good night kiss moment.

Why?  I’m not exactly sure. I did get that sense of his hesitating as in he was hoping for a kiss good night. And I really wanted to kiss him too.  But, I think mostly I just wanted to leave perfection at perfection and wait for what might (or might not) be to come…and not push my luck.

Driving home, I regretted my obviously hasty departure, realizing that if he has any intuitive sense, that my haste definitely sent the wrong message.  After all, this is my famous move when I want to AVOID the good night kiss  because I don’t want someone I’m not interested in to put me in a situation to reject him or falsely lead him on: so very much NOT the case here!!  So, I ran through my mind how to counter act my misleading behavior.

I texted him when I got home.  “I had a really great time tonight.  Thank you so much for dinner.  I really like you:)”

Yeah, I said it.  Outright and with zero subtlety.  And thus, I sat on pins and needles awaiting his response. Nervous, scared…feeling utterly ridiculous…waiting for about three minutes til I get a text from him which says, “I had such a great time with you.  I really like you too:)  Could we bake cookies together sometime?”

Can we bake cookies together sometime?  Can we bake cookies together sometime???  CAN WE BAKE COOKIES TOGETHER SOMETIME?????!!

Ummm, yeah, sooooo Mr. P is coming over this evening (tonight!) for our second date.  We are baking cookies!

Beautiful.

Challenging the very idea of perfection

Finally….an avenue from which to blog again! Yayyyy!  Sanity will hopefully be mine again soon:)

If I just skip through the past year of non-documented adventures (or mis-adventures) to present moment.  I’m proud to say, I’ve just recently started the online chronicles again – just a few  weeks ago actually.  Prior to then, I hadn’t even visited my dating sites and hadn’t bothered with reading any emails or browsing any guys professing interest in mine.

I’m only chatting with a few intriguing prospects at this time, but have had several offers to meet.  One, I did have lunch with just last Friday.  It was interesting…as these things often are.  I wasn’t wholly in to this “meeting”, but I thought, “Geesh…I gotta start back somewhere!”

He surprised me with his selection of the restaurant: definitely a guy who eats after my own eccentric flair for food.  It was a highly acclaimed local place called  Mia & Grace  …truly a lovely choice!!

He looked just like his photo, so I could pick him out of the lunch crowd immediately.  This is a bonus!  After some introductory conversation, he starts talking about the last woman he dated, that his divorce wasn’t final just yet, and how his soon-to-be-ex still felt it perfectly acceptable to enter his home any time she had the inclination, but that he knew it was really to snoop through his things.  Toward the end of the lunch, I realized the majority of the conversation had been about the ex.  Yeah, I already wasn’t so hip from the get-go about the not being divorced yet part, but this screamed of a guy who was clearly in no position to be trying to date – and certainly not so much, so hard.  I mean, of the 4 different men I had started communicating with, this guy had jumped to exchanging numbers and to meeting in person long before anyone else had even mentioned it yet!

Relax, pal.  What’s your rush?  Shouldn’t you finish your divorce first or at least be a little more emotionally divorced before such date haste?  I felt a little sorry for him though, instead of my usual sarcastic, cynical criticism.  I really wanted to grab his hand and say, “Heyyyy, you’re a handsome man.  You’ll most definitely meet someone.  Just go through the roller coaster divorce and let yourself heal for a bit before jumping the dating/relationship gun…. Ok?”  I didn’t say this though.  After all, who am I to judge his hasty desperation?  Either what it means or what it’s about?

Good luck, buddy!  Thanks for an amazing lunch!  Really wish you the best!!

All in all, not a really bad experience.  I just couldn’t help thinking though, was this really why I had a couldn’t-care-less feeling about the whole thing from the first conversation? OR, was it more because one of the four whom I’ve been talking/writing with just really stands out above the rest?  And that possibility really makes me ponder.  Before I’ve met any of these men, how can one just stand out so FAR above the rest in piquing my interest?  Sure, said profile page was just precisely after my own heart.  Said guy seems that extraordinary balance between manly sexiness, intellectual nerdiness , and artsy sensitivity…all wrapped up in a sexy dark haired, green-eyed, taller than me wordsmith with an amazing knowledge of grammar, spelling, physics and literature, not to mention the beautiful ability to make me laugh out loud from reading his emails!

Okay, okay…so he’s perfect on paper so far…. BUTTTTTT…WHY do I just feel a sense of near loyalty to one specific dating profile before I’ve even met him – or met any others I’m talking with?  Has the seeming charming perfection just swept me off my feet virtually already? How?  Why?  Isn’t this a major conflict and contradiction to online dating?  To the whole concept of “dating” in general?

Dating:  a method of physically spending time with as many promising prospects as possible in order to determine (over time) one candidate who actually fits with the other in the most categories:  in order to defy the odds of the schmucks running amok in the dating world, literally and virtually?

And yet, I confess, I just didn’t care about this date.  Sure, he was attractive and held a great deal of the qualities I would like to find in a romantic partner.  And I’ve not even MET  this other  “Mr. Perfect” yet.  Hell, “Mr. Perfect” might be nothing like his profile and worse yet, there could just be no chemical attraction!  Why would I almost literally shut myself off to even a slight possibility with another decent candidate who has already asked me on a real-live date?

Well, Mr. Talks About His Ex Incessantly sure made this an easy cross off my list experience, practically within the first ten minutes. But I really wasn’t open to giving him a chance anyway, long before he made it so easy not to give him a chance.  And that truly perplexes me.

Regardless, easy it was! So,  I realize over and over, that I really just suck at the very concept of “dating”.  It almost goes against my grain and nature.  If I like someone (obviously even just in virtuality), then I just like him.  At that point, I have to force myself to even communicate with anyone else and a physical date is an almost painful push into the let’s be logical here arena.

I mean, GOSH, there’s even another very handsome local guy who keeps writing and texting and asking me to meet.     In fact, this other guy might be technically more traditionally handsome even than my current Mr. Perfect prospect.  Yet, I keep blowing off his invites with some pretty pathetic excuses and half the time I don’t even respond for several days to his communication initiates.  Just can’t muster up an interest or see any purpose when held up in the light against Mr. Perfect’s ideal qualities and bonus points.

What IS that?  Shouldn’t I be excited to meet as many qualifying candidates as possible in this sport of dating?  Shouldn’t I at least attend the previews of a few interesting movies before deciding one I haven’t seen is my absolute favorite?

I don’t know.  This whole “Mr. Perfect” guy…ummm…GEESH OH PETE….  I keep waiting for him to say something, ANY thing that doesn’t just delight or intrigue me beyond sensibility.  No, really, every time I open a new email or read a text from him, I think…..Okay, here it comes.  It has to.  Because he can’t possibly be actually perfect.  Not a possibility. I’m not perfect…no one else can be either!  So with each and every communique at this point, I know he has to demonstrate something less than my ideal. He must!   Even if it’s not a deal breaker per se, but SOMETHING.  I almost WANT him to do this – mar the image of perfection he presents so far – for several reasons.  One, I’m nervous as hell for a guy this “perfect” to meet me and be total witness to my inevitable and perhaps  overwhelming imperfections and  I’d have some ammunition going in if he’s already short at least a quality or aspect or two.  Secondly, everytime he fails to show me an imperfection of some kind, I am forced to face my literal terror of actually meeting a great-for-me guy.  What would I do?  There is then such a blatant possibility of my following my traditional time-proven M.O. of  sabotaging these things.  And I’m slapped in the face with how deep my issues and fears really go.  Something, I really prefer to (deceitfully?) convince myself I’ve worked out and conquered. And I can live in that pink bubble as long as there’s something wrong with THEM.   This guy terrifies me…and we’v e not even met!  Yeah, terrified is an accurate description.  He makes me feel giggly and excited, intellectually challenged, admiring and self-confident,  hopeful and enthusiastic…and utterly TERRIFIED.

Although, he did FINALLY tell me one less than perfect (for me, at least) quality just yesterday:  He’s NOT a huge football fan like I.  Wait….WHAT?!!  What the hell is going on here?!  How can that be, Mr. “Perfect”?  And as an avid college football enthusiast, just how far can I go with THAT little tidbit of imperfection.  I can see the desperate measures already:  No, Mr. Perfect, I cannot go to the museum with you Saturday!  Are you kiddin’ me?  OMG….there’s a game on!!!  Don’t be ridiculous.  I’ll be watching the game like every other self-respecting human being in America, watching it with fellow football LOVERS….uhh…GEESH!!!  And surely this massive imperfection might lead to other, oh-so-practical and legit excuses for other possible “issues” this little conflict will inevitably create.  Right?  Of course!  After all, I love football; I know how to take that ball and run with it!  Psh!

That said, I’m delighted to say that I’m meeting “Mr. Perfect” today!!!  Yup,  fully armed with my you-can’t-possibly-be-my-idea-of-absolute-perfection ammunition.  Phew…just in time!  And the question becomes, upon meeting him in person, will Mr. Perfect give me more ammunition with which to battle  or will he charmingly stomp all over the meek supply I’ve managed to dig up?

Never mind that his random suggestion of meeting spots just happened to be my FAVORITE place in a 100 mile radius of my town.  And no, I hadn’t told him how much I loved that place or ANY place!!  GOSH, this guy’s tough to smother in my issues so far OR clobber with my baggage….yet.

I’m sooooo excited…and so very nervous!

EUREKA?!

Haven’t been on any dates lately, so I’ve not much on that to update….  Have had several lovely offers, but just not feeling it really…

However, I made an interesting discovery today which is both perplexing and somewhat comical to me…we all know how strange my sense of humor is though…hehe 🙂

ahhh geesh...did my kids throw their garbage on the ground?

Cleaning outside around our pool area this morning, I came across this tiny little shiny gold thing…really shiny…like..well, like sparkly gold!  No one has been out there hanging out in weeks so I’m curious of course.  I pick it up…..  Couldn’t really figure out what it was at first….I’m thinking, a candy wrapper from the kids or something…?

No.  that’s not it.  It has a tiny section of writing on it…but I can only make out one full letter…umm….it’s an“M” in black….umm…????  WHAT???  I’m pretty sure it’s…it’s…noooooooo…it’s not possible….ummm…it’s…nooooooo…

WTF??

And I’m aghast!  Truly, ummm….this isn’t possible.  There’s no way….I must be mistaken, after all it has been awhile…

It’s a small corner section of a condom wrapper!!  WTF??!  That can’t be!  No one’s been out there “getting busy” since I moved here three months ago.  And I mean no one!  In addition, it can’t have been out there for very long (before we moved in?) either because I’m out there by myself at least once a day for a few moments and I’m certain I’d have noticed something so shiny and bright that it looked like jewelry if it had been there for any length of time…

Could it have blown from a neighbors’ garbage out on the street…over and above the cement walls dividing our back yards….  Ummm….that seems highly unlikely, bordering on impossible.  So…what in the hell is this…?

You have GOT to be kiddin me...

Umm….seriously, WTF?  So of course I ponder further…. Hmmmmm…. Other than swimming with the Lingerer (months ago), no man has even been out there at all….and NO man since I moved here has been out there in a situation to need a condom!

Wait…

Mr. Nurse was out there checking on how to get my hot tub going since I haven’t used it yet…umm…..  But…I wasn’t even out there with him.  We weren’t making-out out there at all…Ummm……….

OMGOMGOMG!!!! Is it possible that Nurse-man was so certain he was going to get “lucky” that he put on a condom in advance?????

That’s a disturbing thought…truly…extremely disturbing!  However, it does explain my weird “feelings” when Nurse-guy was here….OMG!!!

Ughhh…you have got to be kidding me!!!  And don’t you even think that the irony of the “M” is at all lost on me…hahahahahah…life really does have quite the sense of humor, doesn’t it?

Make out or Macrame’…hmmmm…

Vegas!

Whoa… Vegas is crazy!  It sucked the writer out of me there for a minute…but I’ve collected my thoughts as much as is possible given the randomized, sporadic pattern of said thoughts and I’m getting back on track!  By the way, “collecting my thoughts” is one of my favorite phrases…like snatch and serendipity, I just like to say/think/write those words as much as I can possibly squeeze them into my vernacular!

After last Thursday’s date with Mr. Nurse, as well as some interesting thoughts from a few other blogger/daters, I’ve re-worded both my “looking for” and “write me if”.  I’ve opted to remove all of the potential “romantic” element and merely post that I’m looking to meet “friends” and friends in the literal, not trendy (FWB), sense.  I did this after my date with Mr. Nurse because although Nurse-guy was a handsome, intelligent and fairly fun guy, it became pretty clear to me around midnight of our date that his intentions posted on the dating site are possibly not entirely truthful.

After a great afternoon hanging out on the strip for coffee and chit-chat, he invited me out later that night to an open-mic night at a little dive bar in his neck of the woods.  Nurse-guy likes to sing and play the guitar.  We were having a delightful time at this shin-dig!  I met a few really nice people and heard some great music.  Around midnight, Nurse says to me, “Are you ready to go?”  I’m definitely ready to leave, eat, or go somewhere else at this point and I assume this is what he means; “ready?” as in “ready to leave?”

Yes, I am.  So he walks me to my car, where he kisses me and then basically invites himself over to my house.  I’m not against this entirely, but I’m a little suspicious at the way he maneuvers this…something just felt “off”…  I want to assume the best though; he seems super nice.  I tell him that it’s no problem to come over to my house to watch movies (my idea) or maybe go into the hot tub (his idea), whatever… He responds to this with, I’m not looking for a relationship, you know?

Hmm…..the timing of this really just struck me as strange.  I mean, what does that have to do with anything, unless maybe you’re making some assumptions about what I really mean by saying you’re welcome to come over?  I really don’t see the correlation between let’s hang out at your house….yeah, okay…straight to “but you should know I don’t want a relationship right now.”

I’m not sure I’m following this train of thought…?

Anyway, he’s following me to my house, when I start getting a little worried about how this all connects…and I start doubting my choice to have him over at this time of night, after a few drinks…

Once we get to my house, he’s cool.  He starts kissing me and clearly wants to make out.  Umm…call me a tramp, call me Suzy Floozy, yeah whatever, I’m perfectly okay with the making out business.  Hell, I like making out…  I kinda wish there was a making out version of speed dating. 

Speed Making-Out? Who's in?!??

I’ve never been speed dating, but I’ve heard about it and I like to make out so much that I think there should be a speed-make-out thing.  You would get 5 minutes with each “match” to make out and if you both enjoyed it, you could exchange information and decide if you want to get to know each other more and/or maybe just make out a second time…  The safety of this is it’s in a public place with a definitive time limit. 

…because making out with a relative stranger, in my house, for an extended period of time started to freak me out a little.  Not that this is Nurse-guy’s fault.  He wasn’t way out of line or anything…I just started to get a little nervous…  Maybe I didn’t trust him? Maybe I didn’t trust me? And maybe the just-prior-to-coming-over “no relationship” proclamation just made me feel too weird and suspicious?  I don’t know for sure, but I really felt the making out needed to stop and that he should go home. 

…and he did without a problem. So, all was well.  I just had a nagging discomfort that I couldn’t quite define or get past.  So, I re-worded my profile to specify friends only, which isn’t entirely true, as ideally I’d like to meet someone date-able and I’m still undecided as to the relationship thing.  I’m certainly not totally against it, but I’m not necessarily looking for a heavy-duty one either.  Hmm…it really makes me question if I’m even ready to be dating?  I felt uncomfortable with someone I had great dates with who pushed the relationship aspect and I felt equally uncomfortable with someone who was so willing to take it physically as far as I might allow who plainly stated he wasn’t ready for any kind of relationship.   What does that even mean?  What am I even looking for here again?  My thoughts were scrambled as I hopped in bed after Nurse left.

 I’m probably not ready because I’m not sure of the intimacy threshold or physical boundaries within the smack-dab-middle of the options here.  How can I not be sure of even my own boundaries?  And what does that even mean?  Check-list time:

Option one:  Friends who date.  If we hang out as friends who date and there’s an attraction which understandably gets physical, where is that boundary?  There’s no established prior friendship to dictate that.  So if it doesn’t get physical, would we really continue “dating”?  And if it does get physical, then is it beyond friends?

Option two: Just friends.  I’m questioning whether this is a valid option on a dating site at all.  With the popularity of the trendy FWB thing, I somehow am having a difficult time buying into the possibility that many of the guys who write me are truly interested in hanging out with me indefinitely as friends.  If there’s an attraction, then it’s probably going to be acted upon and push the limits of “friendship”.  If there’s no attraction, how often will said guy really want to hang out?

Option three:  Friends who casually date and engage in sexual relations.  Okay, this is pretty much FWB, right?  And I might be okay with that (maybe) with someone whom I’ve known for years and have an established  meaningful friendship.  However, in a new city where I don’t know anyone, that’s not an option….  And aside from that, then it’s basically just two people hanging out and having a casual sex thing, right?  And while I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with that under certain circumstances, I’m not sure I’m okay with that right now either.  It might make me feel rather cheap and/or used. 

Ew.  Which is kind of the feeling I was getting from Nurse-guy…and I didn’t like it.  I really  shouldn’t think that, as I can’t say for sure what his deal is/was.  He was respectful and seemed honest.   I only know that something felt odd for me and that suspicion could very well be it. Something was just off for me in the whole timing of his inviting himself over and immediately saying, I’m not ready for any kind of relationship. That’s okay with me and yet… hmmm?   

This is my brain on online dating" pink, fuzzy and I can't know what might roll!

It makes me realize how fuzzy the whole concept is even to me!  Like, wow..ummm okay, me either, but I wasn’t going to rule it out immediately.  Thinking I’m in more of a let’s just see how it goes place.  Once he firmly established that wasn’t what he wanted, I can respect that, but then to come over and immediately jump into mad-make-out?  I guess if I already knew I didn’t want any kind of relationship, my thoughts about “hanging out” at midnight at someone’s house probably are in the literal sense of cool, let’s hang out as in yay…let’s watch stupid movies, let’s discuss global poverty, let’s color in my Alice and Wonderland coloring book, let’s do yoga, make Rice Krispie treats, knit matching scarves, sing karaoke to cheesy 70’s ballads…you know, hang out.  If we’ve established the entire relationship-stance on date one at midnight, then: 1. The mystery is already gone. And 2. I feel a little cheapened to make out with you, at least the heavy-duty can’t-keep-my-hands-off-you making out.  We can keep it light pal or we can go passionately macramé a few exotic plant hangers…your choice!

Macrame' might be fun!

Am I totally contradicted?  Yes, perhaps… and you would not be the first to accuse me of this in my life.  I’m sure that’s surprising, but it’s true.  I’m nothing if not a total and chronic contradiction.  Yeah, and just so you know, when I’m not having crazy passionate one-night stands (after all, that’s as long as they’ll usually “stay”) with that aspect of my personality, it frustrates me too.  It is what it is though. (Insert Popeye here) So, I do feel for how this must play out to others, but it’s also the one aspect of my personality on which we can always depend.

So, I wrote nurse man the next day that I enjoyed our day, but that I felt confident we weren’t a match as friends or otherwise.  This threw Nurse off a little, as I received a “WTF?” response, but except for trying to pin-point where I stand in relation to all of this,   I’m so over the Nurse thing already.  He sucked all the mystery out and then tried to suck my face…and (ahem)other personal areas as well.  No.  It’s been decided. Moving on…

I’m emailing with several people now.  A few are in the pushy let’s-get-together-yesterday category (I’m intentionally taking those excruciatingly slow) a few are in the entirely questionable (I’m mostly being polite) category, one is in the borderline stalker-already (he’s just about to get the “block” ewww!), and two are…ummmm…wait for it……wait for it…

Intriguing and delightful! 

Seriously.  One fave, I’m way excited to meet and the other, I’m not sure I’ll meet anytime soon if ever…?  Only time will tell!  However, either way, meet them or not, I do know I truly adore them both already!

Cupid, please protect me from the bodily fluids?

Followed my blogger friend’s advice  (Vendetta ) and finally ventured out of the pond and into Cupid’s area of target.

I create my profile throw a few pictures on there.  I didn’t really put much effort into this…perhaps my gusto is dwindling?  …but I did it…yayy! 

At first, I was worried that it would merely be exactly the same as the pond I was already in since it is free as well  and I was pleasantly surprised to find it is a bit different.  It seems to do more specific compatibility matching.  I browsed around a bit.  Found one guy who’s face drew my interest, so I read his profle..and I was pleasantly surprised.  Had a little intelligence, far exceeds my height requirement, demonstrated some possible insightfulness, and a bit of a sense of humor too! Hmm….  Nice.  I wrote him.  I rarely write anyone first, but just had to at least tell this guy I admired his profile.  We’ve been writing/texting/chatting ever since and since he works third shift as a nurse, we have planned to meet Thursday afternoon at a popular bookstore for coffee and book browsing.  Can’t believe I’m almost excited about this.  No seriously, I just about am…until flashes of Zep, M, Lingerer, and Mr. PhD come flooding at me and prohibit my ability to actually get *there*..to actually be enthusiastic.  Yeah, it’s clear my optimism has diminished significantly, but HEY, at least I’m still going and trying!

From only a few days, I’ve seen a few differences between the sites.  I haven’t documented these of course, but what I’ve noticed as a general trend in my short time

Starting to feel a little like this gal...just around the edges though!

Seems the Cupid pairs me with younger men far more often than the aquarium.  Or is there merely a larger crowd of the younger ones over at the cupid?  Don’t know, but I’d guesstimate that my “matches are generally in their late 20’s and early 30’s.  not sure how I feel about this as in “matches”, but if I find the match attractive, I at least go peek for some reading material.  I’ve seen a few quality photos with quality profiles…read all the way to the end and then get my feelings hurt!  I’m too “old” for their requirements…OMG…  No, not every single one, but geesh…enough that it’s starting to make me feel olllllllllddddd.  Like being single with two children, having no friends, and speeding toward 40 isn’t enough to make me feel like I’m ancient already, Mr.Cupid has to have a sick sense of humor to continually “match” me with guys whose age qualifications I exceed.  Thank you Mr. Cupid you sick, twisted son-of-a…

I swear, this isn't me at ALL...yet...

This should be against the online dating law, I tell ya.  It’s cruelty to we getting-old people and particularly for we getting-too-old-and-irritated-at-dating-in-general-people!!  The first few didn’t really bother me so much, I’m like, ahh well…no big deal.  Then after a few more, I’m like umm…what the hell is this, then after a few more still,  I’m like okay, this is starting to hurt my feelings.  Geesh, I’m not THAT old for crying out loud.  I firmly believe this should and could be tactfully avoided by the I’m-sure-above-average-intelligence-Cupid-engineers/creators…those sick mean bastards! I mean with all this ‘”matching” they’re doing, how easy is to be eliminated from my matches if I don’t meet the criteria?  Should I even be their “match”?  I don’t think so.  Gosh, I’m just at that age where I’m still young enough to be in denial of my growing older status, but old enough to mostly only want to date appropriately aged men.  What am I going to do?  Write a bunch of me saying, hey I’m a little older than you are seeking, but dammit I’m still hot?!  My age-pride is still enough in tact that I refuse to approach in writing or otherwise any man who prefers a woman even one year younger than I.  But I’m old enough to be thinking, dammit, I must be really getting OLD…ughh!

Another interesting point I’ve noticed on both sites is that in general, my “matches” tend to be less attractive.  What are those odds and how are they arrived at?  Is this perhaps because I focus less on talking about the importance of looks in my profile?  Sure, looks are far from most important to me,  but gosh they don’t have to throw me all the one’s who look like they’ve been ridden hard and put away wet either!  Intelligence and personality are mandatory traits, but personality has got to be difficult to determine via these, doesn’t it?  I like that cupid throws in some IQ-like questions in their ongoing “questionnaire” to find “better match”.

My list of criteria:  1, Intelligence/personality (these are closely tied for #1), 2. Sense of Humor, 3.  Strong moral character 4. Height (neither site allows this as a mandatory prerequisite for matches though).

It’s promising already that I’ve had a higher number of “tall” responses and interests at Cupid by far.  Is cupid the site of taller, but younger (and often seeking even younger) singles?  That might be a contradiction for me…

Another question….should I change my “interests” to “everyone” since more than anything I hope to meet friends?  I browsed like this for a few minutes yesterday and came across some really strange profiles in the “everyone” category.  Can a guy with the screen name “pisscumlover” really become a dear friend to me?  Could we cultivate a lovely go-to-lunch-and-have-wine-n-movies-nights friendship together Mr Pisscumlover and I? Gosh, Maybe Mr. Pisscumlover really wants to make friends too?  I don’t care what the personal dating interests of my potential friends are.  Really, I don’t, but am concerned as to what message I’m sending out f I bravely list that I’m “seeking friends, short-term dates, and/or long-term dates” from the broad category of “everyone”? 

Does that scream desperation to you? Or am I just being paranoid again? I mean I am slightly desperate to make friends,but not at all desperate in the dating category.  If I clarify that with my written words, will any “freakish” types even read my words? Or is it more likely that they’ll sum me up without reading as dating/sexually desperate/WIDE OPEN to all?  And what if Mr. Pisscumlover might potentially be my next BFF?  Am I too quick to judge? 

Another thought, should I have two sites on there maybe?  One for looking just for “friends” from “everyone” and another for “looking for short/long-term dating from just “guys who like girls”?  Might that solve this dilemma of categorizing my separate “needs”?  …Or to the person who maybe finds me in both pages, do I (again) just appear wide open and desperate to all potential scenarios and possibilities?

Hmmm…..I dunno….

I whine, I rant…yes, but the truth is I’ve already crossed paths with more than a few interesting new potentials…  So, I’m having a blast with this right now!  I just have to tone down or resolve that aspect of cupid encouraging my feeling and fears of getting/being OLD…that’s just ughhh….ughhh…ughhhhh

hey, a girl can dream, right?!

….and now off to meet Mr. Nurse for coffee….

Prison matters and obligatory BJ’s

Yeah, I threw it...

 I have a rule never to say, well at least it can’t get any worse.  We’ve all experienced the Universal sense of humor which rolls like an electric current of torturous laughter at our expense through our worlds; the tempting of the fates’ massive ego and uncanny ability to demonstrate, Really?  It can’t huh?  Ohhhh but it  can…..and now that you’ve thrown that gauntlet-of-life-yuk right out there in our path, let us show you… 

For the love of Pete, I know better…or at least I certainly should know better! 

Zeppelin, the “cool dude, single dad, with a great love of (my kinda) music “: 

I am early to the little bar he suggests we meet at.  No, no kudos to me for this lovely effort at punctuality.  I was bored out of my mind and didn’t know where I was going, so I got ready way too early for this date and left with enough time to  get lost for an hour and still be safely on time.  See?  There’s no sense of punctuality in me.  I only have two arrival times: 1. annoyingly early and 2. offensively late.  Thus,  I was annoying early for this one.  He was a forgivable-few minutes late.  Not a bad start. 

I wasn’t overly impressed when he entered the darkened empty sports bar, but I was far from repulsed either.  Zep is a decent average looking guy; a tad shorter than I expected, but not quite to “deal breaker”.  All is good. 

It’s the middle of a Sunday afternoon in an off the strip bar in Vegas, only the staff and Zep and I are there.  That’s kinda cool!   Conversation begins easily and flows at a regular pace.  Within minutes I realize Zep’s a better talker than listener, but this isn’t obnoxious or anything.  I am good at both, so I slip into full listening mode and take it all in.  he orders a shot of Jagermeister and a beer.  

Zeps ex-wife calls it home

Zep is a full-time single dad.  Awwwwwww…He has full custody of his 10-year-old son.  I’m impressed with this.  He explains to me how his ex-wife is in prison for embezzlement to the tune of somewhere around 100k.  I’m delighted that this little boy had a father who not only could stay out of prison, but could actually step up to the plate while his mom does her time.  Zep is appropriately upset about this, but his relief seems even more apparent.  He repeatedly expresses his gratitude that she did this crime after they divorced and while she was re-married to another “loser”.  Otherwise, he realizes how difficult it would have been to prove his lack of involvement.  This is unsettling, but I merely nod, gasp, and mmmmhmmm appropriately and sympathetically, up my listening volume, and turn my talking knob further to the left…  I don’t want to miss any of this good stuff!  He orders another shot of Jagermeister to complement his beer and ease this difficult topic of discussion. 

No worries pal...knock yourself out!

After he discusses the absent mother, the help his parents offer him with daycare, and the ex’s idiot new husband, he asks if I will be offended if he goes out to his car to take a hit.  What?  Is the mob after you and your son?  Aren’t you afraid to go out into an empty parking lot?  Oh you mean hit that illegal drug, marijuana?  Ahhh well, that’s different…  By all means!  I might have been a tad upset with this except, Zep, as he’s walking to the door, throws me this reassurance, “Hey!  Don’t worry…I’m not going to ditch and leave you with my bill!” 

Ahhh….the wave of relief alone could have knocked me over!  After all that was my concern right then.  Although the possibility has never occurred to me prior,  I now  realize how fortunate I am that my date is just going out to his car to smoke pot, not making an attempt to go down in a mob-hit, or ditch me with his food and drink bill!  I must remember this for future dates. 

Zep returns a few moments later.  Orders another shot of Jagermeister and begins telling me how he’s just ended a relationship.  No worries, it’s for the best.  She was an unemployed drunk.  She had nothing to do all day except drink.  It was helpful with things like getting the boy to and from school (ummm..WHAT???!??? ) while he was working and such, but she would just too often start drinking during their lunch meetings.  Too drunk to date, but helpful as a taxi-driver for your child?  Ahhh..okay..well at least your priorities are straight Zep!

On top of that fatal flaw, she didn’t dress appropriately in front of the boy.  They would all go swimming, she would throw on a white t-shirt over her suit after their swims, and then dare to enter the air-conditioned house with his horny 10-year-old boy in the midst!  Geesh..that was just wrong and she should have known better.  Any 10-year-old boy is going to make comments about her breasts under those circumstances and attempt to constantly “wrestle”  with her.  He’s ten, you know?!  Really?   I guess I never would have realized this….   Sorta feeling “icky” about all the 10-year-old-boys I’ve unknowingly turned on, when I really shoulda known better….

He orders another shot of Jagermeister.  Would I like one?   Ummm yeah I actually would to dull the pain of this date…   …No thank you.  I have to drive home  NOW ….ummm… in a bit. 

Starting with his possibly over-sexualized 10-year-old son and how the girlfriend was just too sexy for the boy to handle, Zep then starts talking sex; his sex.  How much he likes it; how the wife and the ex girlfriend stopped giving it to him with the frequency which he required; and how after being dumped by his wife, he got out in Vegas a bit and realized how attractive and sexually wanted he really was.  Chicks dig him…he could get it anywhere and here he’d actually been faithful to his relationship, letting her dictate the unsatisfactory sexual pace.  He had been an idiot! 

Umm….do you mind if I run out to my car for another sec, Kay?  No problem Zep…as long as you’re not stiffing me with your bill (wink)(wink) 

Wink-wink

Ahhhh return and  Anther short of Jager please”….you sure you don’t want one?  Yes, please give me 4 to catch up    No, thanks, I really have to get going very soon. 

Now Zep starts to tell me how much he enjoys random blowjobs.  He doesn’t want to have to skip a day of those.  He doesn’t have to, you know?  Plenty of chicks want some of that action…blah, blah, blah… 

Maybe it was the plethora of uncomfortable conversational topics  up till this point, maybe it was the  three-2-in-the-afternoon-Coronas on an empty stomach (I declined any lunch), maybe it wass my well hidden mean streak or my current frustration with games and men in general….?  I really can not know what came over me, but gosh, I suddenly felt torturously audacious and tantalizingly brazen, having already classified this guy into the not gonna date again category, I decide to have a little fun before I leave.  I know…it’s not very nice, but I gotta turn this around and make it interesting somehow, so let the fun begin! 

What? Sometimes bananas aren't in season...

I’m very, VERY sympathetic about the blow job speech. Of course he should not have to live without having those whenever and wherever he wants!  And although I had said very little up till this point, I decide it’s time to tell him a little “about me” before our time is over. 

Zep, it seems you need to find the right girl; the kind of girl who enjoys giving blow jobs…  I don’t understand these other orally selfish women!  Heck, I used to argue with my ex husband because he wouldn’t let me do that

Is this wrong?

enough! Always scared of getting caught at his work or in the restaurant and whatnot.  Geesh! What a freak!  I mean,  sometimes you’re in the car driving to dinner and the mood is just right for that bj-on-the-road, there’s the bye-bye-have-a nice-day-at-work-bj, there’s the QUICK!-the-kids are-in-the-next-room-bj, there’s the dinner’s-on-the-table-but-pretty-please-let-me-blow-you-first-bj, the dessert-bj (duhhh), the foreplay-bj, the post-coital-bj, the can-i-blow-you-while-you-shower-before-work-bj, the I-want-to-tell-you-how-much-I-love-you-but-I-cant-say-the-words-bj, and of course, my favorite of them all, the I-must-worship-your-manhood-daily-bj.  What? Why are these so wrong? 

Maybe it's just an oral fixation I suffer from?

And I become indignant, I mean, gosh, what’s the matter with this Zep?  Sometimes a bj solves everything and it’s just all that is appropriate at that moment.  Is there something wrong with me that I am so compelled to give constant bj’s?  I embellish further in an attempt to gain his sympathy for my previous plight:  Sometimes my ex kinda made me feel weird about this and I might be a little damaged from that. (Sniffle..sniffle) I’m just a girl who likes to give bj’s…so call me Betty and blister my butt, right?  Shoot me and hang me out to dry!  I should be totally free to express myself in this manner whenever I please.  Don’t you agree?  This does not make me trampy or slutty!!  Any normal girl wants to worship her man’s manhood…or at least should want to…GEESH! 

Believe it or not, this confession of mine, leads Zep into discussing my nipples.  In Zep’s defense, no, I’m not wearing a bra and the air conditioning was on high, not that that ever makes a difference.  …And yes, my nipples are much worshipped and could spark the greenest of envy in any Playmate of the month.  Sorry…it just is what it is.  I’m just grateful the horny-10-year-old-boy isn’t around though…how inappropriate!  In fact between my deep reluctance to wear bras except when it’s absolutely unavoidable, my chronically inappropriately sexy and overly eager nipples, and Vegas air conditioning, it’s pretty clear we are not a match. Awwww… the travesty of our sad fate…! 

Ummm…  No I didn’t say that part about the travesty of our fate! Psh…  C’mon?!!? 

Instead, I say, Ummmm, I’m so sorry Zep, but I’m really uncomfortable talking about my nipples with you.  I hardly know you and I think this is an inappropriate topic for first-date conversation. 

Sing it for me, Rob!

Clearly bewildered at my suddenly prudish stance, poor Zep apologizes.  And I said, “No worries. I’m not mad or anything, just setting some healthy boundaries. Anyway, I have to go.  Nice to meet you! Thanks for not ditching me with the bill! 

 …And she’s buyyyyyyinggggg the sta-air-way…..to heaaaaaaven.

…but I don’t wanna play Where’s Waldo!

S and I have emailed for several days… some really fun, flirty, nerdy emails.  Those are my favorite kind! I’ve been enjoying them and look forward to reading them each day.  Bonus: S’s photos looked nerdy in my kind of sexy-nerdy way!

I was super stoked when he invited me out to the lake yesterday!  I’ve wanted to go see it and explore since I first moved here…and here was a great opportunity to do so AND with a fun person too!  I felt a little worried after we talked though and he had a very nasally, overly-nerdy sound.  Well, it wasn’t so much the actual sound of his voice as much as it was his acutely lackluster conversation skills outside of email.  I shook that off as maybe just a phone thing (?)though.  And anyway,  I’m gifted at bringing people out of their shells and perfectly capable of stimulating conversation all on my own…

He arrived to pick me up.  He did look kinda like his pictures, except that his pictures seemed to display a different persona than he actually carried in person.  Not a big deal; he wasn’t totally appalling to look at.  So far the only real “issue” was that Mother Nature chose to hit me hard with cramps which could probably rate on a seismic scale if my body was a representation of the earth and its rumbling tectonic plates.  Ughh….  No worries though, on the way out the door, I quickly grabbed a few Motrin and knew I’d just have to wait for them to kick in…

Shortly after we’re driving along in his truck, he asked how I came to be in Vegas.  I start explaining:  My ex husband moved here a few years back for his work.  My daughters and he had such a rough time with this, it got more and more difficult each night to hear the nightly crying and…

INTERRUPT: What I want to know is if your ex wants to get back with you?

(Geesh…I thought you wanted to hear the short story version of why we came here…umm…I wasn’t rambling on or anything…) Oh.  Okay…umm..noooooo…that’s not why we’re here.

Okay, that’s all I wanted to know.

Ohhh..okay…

Conversation dwindles…so I start asking lots of specific questions.  How did you get to be here?  …What kind of job is it that brought you here?  So where did you grow up? Where is your family?  Are you close to them?  Are you a coffee drinker?  Ever been married…kids? What kind of music do you like most?

S proves to be the master at one-word and vague “dunno” question-answers, which certainly don’t further conversation at all.

Ummm???  Bakersfield?  ….Ummmm yes?  Hmmm….no? No..no…umm…I dunno?

Is it gospel? ...umm... So you like gospel music, right?

He gives this last answer as he switches the radio station to some sort of gospel.

…and I start to have little hesitations as to the length of time I’ve committed to with this first meeting.  I think of M’s brief meet-n greet-first rule and begin to think of it in a loving, regretful way.  Ohhh GAWD, why-oh-why didn’t I stick to that wonderful idea?  Am I going to have to pull teeth like this all.  Day.  Long?? ..AND that just to get yes/no AND indecisive answers?  OMG!

..that you? Forrest?

As I’m contemplating whether he is socially just inept or more along the lines of Forrest…Forrrrrressst Gummmmppp, to compound my hesitations and regrets here, as we are almost approaching the lake itself (maybe 15 – 20 minutes driving in the car at most), I am hit HARD  upside the head with the sleepy stick.    I mean, I’m not kidding here.  I suddenly feel like I’m on the way into surgery, just after the anesthesiologist has visited to intentionally knock you out, hard and heavy for the upcoming procedure.  Blurred voices that sound like, Okay Kay, start counting backward from 5 for me…

That's me..only I was sitting in S's truck @ the time

Mmmmhmmmmm…ohhhhhkayyyy…Five…(my legs are getting heavy)…fffffffour (arms feel rubbery)…thhhhreeeeeee…(eyelids involuntarily drooping)…WTF? 

What is the matter with me?  Yeah, this guy’s a little boring so far and might be conversationally (socially?) handicapped, but its 11 o’clock in the morning for Pete’s sake!  I can sit through a two hour Catholic Mass after only an hour’s sleep and with a hangover and STILL stay awake better than

What I SO wanted to do....zzzzz

 this!  Hell, I can find watching paint dry interesting for more than 20 minutes if I set my mind to it…and this isn’t quite to that desperate point yet…  I mean, there IS conversation happening…

I’ve heard about his sister’s dairy intolerance and the substitutions his mother makes for holiday meals.  Hey, this is valuable information in case I ever become lactose or dairy intolerant!  I’ve heard about his parents’ six marriages between them and his religious upbringing… okay,  so he might answer my questions with vague dunno’s..but he gets to better explanations shortly thereafter all on his own…eventually…

No joke though…I can NOT keep my eyes open and I feel like someone slipped me some drugs.  I’m getting heavy and beyond lethargic.  WTF?

Hoover Dam

Ahhh..we’re at the Hoover Dam…finally.  I probably just need to walk around in the fresh air a bit to shake this uncanny sleepiness off…WHEW…just in time…

We walk around a bit.  Other than trying to hold my hand, this guy knows nothing about anything that I find interesting…but I’m working hard to keep thinking of more and different questions to ask.  I keep trying…

Hell, today I am in Webster’s as the very definition of inquisitive….what’s that thing do?  Am I standing in Arizona now?  You don’t know?  Okay.  Why do they block those sections off?  You don’t know?  Okay.  What are these elevators for?  Where do they go?  You “ummm..dunno…?”  Okay.

And the pictures…ahhhhhh geeesh the pictures!  I’ve never been here before and conversation is far from interesting, so in between coming up with 200 questions to try to stay awake, I’m snapping pictures with my cell of everything!

Okay…here’s a heads up for anyone who doesn’t know or suspect this yet.  I’m not shy.  I’m talkative, I’m effervescent.  Hell, I’m borderline giggly…  and if I want your picture, I will not hesitate to ask or just start taking them even…

So, when I’m taking pictures of historical monuments or constellations etched in marble on the platform, or the sculpture of the bridge worker guy, whatever…

Why is Waldo even IN this picture?

Do not…and I mean DO NOT…jump in my picture! Don’t hang by the statue…don’t step into the marble constellation plaque…don’t lean over onto the bridge railing into the edges of my picture taking effort…

Seriously, I don’t know you and I don’t want a bunch of monumentally interesting pictures where I will later play Where’s Waldo? (aka:that one-uneventful-n-painful-date-I-dredged-myself-through-that-one-day).  Seriously guy, I’m making the best of this incredibly dull situation…  and it’s gonna be tough to crop you out of these pictures later in case I want to share them, frame them, or just look at them someday… C’MON…I don’t wanna have to ever explain you to people…k?  Please?

And here is when I realize in spite of my botched attempts at conversation and question-asking, beyond the fact that I seriously can.hardly.hold.my eyes.open…  S is digging me!  That’s hysterically funny to me in my borderline comatose state! 

He actually nudges my hand to hold it in spite of the fact that I kept my cell in my hand on the side closest to him…at all times.  So we held hands over my cell phone….because I don’t know how to jerk my hand away from his knowing I’ve still got several hours with him to endure.  So, every time he’d grab my hand, I’d suddenly want another picture and yup, you guessed it…I needed that hand…  And yup, you guessed it…he’d lean into my picture!!

Waldo!?!  Get OUTTA there!  Can’t you see I need a picture of anthing at all errr… that part of the sidewalk?  Sure, it looks plain and ordinary to you and there’s hundreds more but that’s not the point!  It’s saving me from having to reject your hand OR hold it against my will.  This random picture taking thing?  This thing I’m doing here?  Incessantly?  Yeah… This, I do for you pal..so knock it off…k?

No.  S starts asking strangers to snap our picture with his camera!! Like we’re some adorable couple on vacation here.  People are all, “Awww..that’s a good one!  and “You two are so cute!”    S says, you’re good at posing…  I say yup…you have no clue…  Posers-r-me!

S was really a pretty nice guy but he seriously blew it off the bat by interrupting me telling a critical, and even somewhat interesting, story in my life and how my daughters and I came to be here.  That was just rude and socially inept and I was struggling to get past it…still.  If you can’t bring yourself to listen to a 45 second story that’s fairly critical to my life and the only reason we are even able to BE on a date on this day, then you’re already pretty much out.

Unless maybe you can do some tricks for me?  Huh?  What?  You “ummmm…dunno?”  Hmm..ok.  You’re out then.

I made the best of the day I could.  Thank GAWD the sights were interesting and I was able to take TONS of random photos to keep my hands busy…errr…of all that interesting stuff!

I just could not get over the initial interruption OR the fact that as academically smart as S seemed, he was just an idiot.  I’d swear if I’d asked him his favorite color, he wouldn’t have known the answer to that question either! Ummmm….I dunno?

Finally, we’re on our way home…yayyy!  And I just can’t fight this overwhelming fatigue anymore (really WTF is this?!)  I felt bad because I actually dozed off on the way home and it was only 5 PM…I just could not hold my eyes open!  Sure hope I didn’t snore or drool.  Woke back up as we were in my neighborhood and he’s asking when I’m next free.  I borrowed his repetitive line from the day and said, “Ummmm…dunno?”   I apologized for my lethargy and jumped out of his truck as fast as possible, given my dead-weight arms and legs…and groggy mental state.

The Tylenol hadn’t helped my Mother Nature issue much at all..so I ran straight to the medicine cabinet to grab a few more of those Motrins. And then I see what I had done.  NO FREAKIN’ WAY!!!!!

OMG!!

It was Motrin PM!!!  I had inadvertently taken two SLEEPING PILLS before I went on a date with one of the most boring persons I have ever met.  I swear my track record with OTC medication and dating is just un-freakin-believable!!

“F” is for (f#*& that)…fageddaboutit already

I recently read on another dater’s blog (http://simplysolo.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/five-dates-with-chef-recap/ ) about the annoying tendency of people (men) to jump to conclusions.  No one is exempt from this on occasion.  In fact, I may have been playing hop-scotch with conclusions just yesterday myself. However, over the past few years I’ve been privy to become acutely aware that it’s a basic thought process for some… and more interesting even is that said “some” are perfectly okay with any conclusions they’ve formulated, no matter how “off” they might be from the actual picture.

In my experience with this, I’ve found the shorter the jump, the closer to possible accuracy.  If we use a map of the U.S as our conclusion jumping mat, then let’s say if you jump from Nevada to California, you might not be completely off, but if your conclusions are more like jumping from New York straight to Arizona, you’ve most likely lost your way with your acrobatic and overzealous jumping.

I would love to list several rather amusing and/or frustrating examples I’ve faced with this over the past few years, but I fear that kind of detail might be just boring, so I’ll go with my most recent example.

Enter F…  F and I had emailed a few (maybe 2?  3 at most?) times and it was going along the line of any average starter-emails.  Nothing spectacular…nothing bedazzling, but still mildly worthy of a bit of my attention and polite responses.  Until I jump on to read my email and see I have one from him which has gone CLEAR from casual brief email chatting (we hadn’t even exchanged numbers or discussed it yet!) CLEAR into F sending me a short email simply saying, “meet me at such-n-such tonight at 6.”  WHAT???  Meet you??????  TONIGHT???  Wow..now that IS presumptuous!  Please put down the crack pipe Eager Eddie…you’ve clearly had enough…

Ummm…if I’ve not freely shared my number with you yet, it is so very NOT safe to assume, presume, and FLY all the way to “meet me at…”  Rome wasn’t built in a day pal, haven’t you heard? And unless you’ve access to being beamed up by Scotty, you’ve got a tad of travelling there to do just yet to get from point “E” for E-mail to point “M” for Meet-up….

I’m not exactly sure why I chose to even respond to this.  Typically, I’d have thought it best at that point to just ignore this one completely….ceasing all communication instantaneously.   However, I instead chose to write him a polite email saying I would not be able to meet him that evening and I offered up my phone number so we could discuss this and other get-to-know-you-E-to-M things prior to him making such further pompous and presumptuous invitations/demands with regard to me.

I received a call from Mr F. the next evening.  Ahhhh Mr. F, Mr. F., Mr. F…tsk…tsk…tsk…

Mr. F is the kind who makes a mere conversation challenging, frustrating, and borderline dangerous by his half-listening skills which lead him to make a jump like, say, jumping from Indiana over to Russia in one fell swoop!  These massive conclusions mean two things in a conversation:  1. You must watch everything you say very carefully in the conversation or you’ll spend over half the damned conversation explaining to dip-shit why and how he’s so off base that you don’t even really know how he came to that in the first place; which in itself is not only a ridiculously lengthy explanation, but just feels preposterous altogether because the dots do not even connect.  And 2.  Because of this, as well as the exhausting task of having to carefully analyze everything you even casually say within that lengthy and frustrating explanation itself, with this very explanation you’ve most likely only succeeded in providing  Mr. Country-to-country conclusion-jumper onto yet another miscalculated and totally off-base conclusion, as you were focusing on explaining his miscalculation in the one area, he has gone off in an entirely different one…  and is still totally lost in la-la land!

This, then carries the conversation back to step  1.  ….And thus, this futile exercise in explaining what shouldn’t have to be explained anyway has become the very sole substance of the conversation itself.  Not a very pleasant or coherent one, but it’s what you’ve got.  After only a few moments of this, if you’re anything like me, it begins to feel like a ludicrous elementary school game.  That piece of paper passed around in kindergarten which said, “How to keep a dummy busy” with an arrow instructing you to flip the paper over…and the same message on the other side…and on and on and so forth.

Far worse than the painfully grueling act of conversation itself here is when you add into the mix the person who stops listening as you’re explaining…because they’re so confident and practiced enough in their mass conclusion jumps that they really believe they’ve already got a good understanding of what you said, or meant to say, or were trying to say… Ugh…these people are exasperatingly impossible!

 Mr. F.  asks me what I do for work.  Innocent enough so far that without much thought, I just tell him.  I also throw in there that I’m hoping to get away from that field because it really felt unhealthy for me over time.  (I happen to have worked in an area of social work which leads the industry in burn-out rate.  I’ve been in it for 6 years, which is 2 years beyond the average rate for the typical “I hate my job” burn-out…)  And I confess I’ve been fighting against said burn out and feel it’s time for a career switch. 

F’s response to this is, “So you’re the pessimistic type”. 

WHAT?  This man clearly doesn’t even know the definition of job burn-out, as I’m not even sure how he got from A to W right there?  I say, No, I don’t think that’s an accurate assessment, but I do think when the case load and your effectiveness feel like you’d be far more effective just to macramé plant hangers all day to give to your clients,  then it’s probably time to do something else.

Well F has already made his assessment. And several times throughout our conversation, he alludes back to my “pessimistic” nature.  Seriously, I wasn’t even having a bad day!  My glass was two-thirds full during this conversation… a little spilled in the process perhaps, but I had my SHAM WOW! in close proximity and quietly and quickly wiped that right up as though it never happened.   Hell, I had rainbows and unicorns jumping around me even as we spoke. WTF?  I was done “explaining” after the first exercise in futility, but I did offer F one bonus attempt and after that, I had no interest in explaining any further.  This guy clearly is either just not that bright, is hearing or attention deficit impaired, or over time has just become ignorant by proxy of his chronic conclusion jumping. 

I don’t know why in spite of all of this mentally futile discourse, I still agreed to meet him for a drink on Wednesday night…maybe that’s merely yet another working example of my overly-optimistic nature?  Maybe this guy just isn’t good at phone conversations?  Had distractions running amok at the time?  Maybe my thick Russian accent threw his ability to hear and comprehend the words coming out of my mouth off into another direction? 

Wait.  I don’t have a Russian accent.  Okay, well maybe it was one of the other two possibilities then…  At any rate, I optimistically agreed to meet up.

…So, I’d be out-n-out lying if I tried to convince myself or anyone that I wasn’t beyond delighted to get a message the following day from a dear friend back home telling me he was in town on the very night of my planned date with F.  No.  I was truly ecstatic.  I not only was going to get to see my friend.  Yay!  But I had a legitimate and understandable excuse to cancel with F.  Of course, I didn’t feel like telling this to F via an actual conversation.  No, I opted to text it, with a brief explanation even!  Damn, I AM a considerate soul!

You know what? Mr. “Optimistic” F. didn’t even bother responding!  Not even an acknowledgement of my text itself. Well, well, well…this leads me to jump to two conclusions of my very own and I just don’t need any circumstantial conversation around to get to them either.  Mr F. obviously is horribly pessimistic and was making all kinds of further assumptions, conclusions, and massive country-jumps by my cancellation text or there would be no reason not to at least respond with an “ok”.  I get the distinct feeling he wasn’t “buying” my excuse, however coincidentally truthful and truly serendipitous it was…and it was both truthful AND serendipitous!

Perhaps the other possibility here is that F did not receive my text?  We had not texted at all prior…I merely assumed he texts…everyone texts…right?   Yeah, I admit I jumped from Rhode Island to Connecticut with that one.  Ahem…

So bye-bye Mr. F… toodley-do pal…hasta la vista, bayybeee… Happy conclusion jumping and conversation-torturing with the rest of the online daters out there!

Please assume that's me...

P.S.  Meet me at the bull fight in Mexico tomorrow night at 6…would ya? I’ll be the one waving the SHAM WOW! at the bull… ‘k…thanks…xoxo 😉

Wait a minute….is it pessimistic that I even own a SHAM WOW! ?!