2008 wasn’t that long ago but I’m having the hardest time remembering the specifics of my brief interlude with eHarmony. I know I was on there for three months and I distinctly remember one date but I fear that I may have had more but they were either too boring for me to remember or to terrible and I have blocked them from my memory.
The one guy I do remember was a doozy. I can’t remember his name at all – I think it was Rick, Steve, or possibly Ken although in truth it may have been none of those. Rick/Steve/Ken and I had jumped through all the communication hoops at eHarmony and had shared a few open emails. We decided to meet in person to see if there was any real life “chemistry.” I picked one of my favorite restaurant-pubs.
Bad sign #1: Lateness
He did call to say he was lost after he was 15 minutes late so I can’t fault him too much, but 30 minutes of sitting at the bar waiting for him to show left me a little perturbed. The lateness combined with his being very flustered and sweating profusely upon arrival made for a less than thrilling beginning. After he finally arrived and settled down somewhat, we sat down to eat dinner.
Bad sign #2: Extreme indecision
This pub has an extensive libations menu. Thicker than some novels, it can be a bit intimidating. Still, it was disconcerting to have him thumbing through it, muttering to himself, for a solid 15 minutes just to pick out a drink. Every time the waitress came by he needed more time. I feared that it would be morning before he ordered a main course but he eventually picked the very first beer on the multipage menu and the very first entrée on the list.
We start exchanging information about ourselves but I notice that like a majority of the guys I end up dating, he was primarily interested with talking about himself. In his case, I think he was pretty insecure and had a spiel that he was comfortable delivering; I don’t think he was an egomaniac or anything but it was still a little annoying to sit through a monologue of his life, while I asked him questions and was interested in what he was saying, and he pretty much went along his script as if it were memorized.
He was in IT but was in the process of starting up his own business dealing with corporate wellness. He was trying to get businesses to buy his services and he would provide them with health seminars, nutrition consulting, exercise consulting, and massage…
Bad sign #3: No Understanding of Social Norms
The massage was what brought us to bad sign #3. I guess I had been rubbing my temple as a headache had started to form about 20 minutes into the date. I did not intend for that to be an invitation to him, but apparently that was a signal for him to lunge across the table at me with his arms outstretched, looking for a startling moment as if he were going to choke me. As I saw his hands reaching toward my neck, seemingly to throttle me, I kind of smacked the one away at which point he spilled my drink onto the couple at the table next to us. He explained that he thought my neck was stiff and that he was attempting to massage me to make it better as he had just taken part in a massage demonstration. I told him that it was just a little unnerving and while it was kind of him to offer, that really I was feeling ok.
Bad sign #4: Awkwardness with the Bill
Thankfully the date eventually wound its way to the end with the waitress bringing the check over. I reached for my bag to pay for my half of the bill but he shooed me away saying that he would be happy to pay the bill. At that point, he began closely examining it. He looked at that sucker for at least five minutes. Considering we had each had a sandwich or burger and one drink a piece, the examination seemed extreme. He even got out his cell phone and used the calculator to double check the total. After five minutes he said to me, “Well….I’ll get the bill…but you can get the tip.” I was a little surprised. In my experience either the guy pays if it’s the first date or we go dutch. I didn’t have any cash so he asked the waitress where there was an ATM nearby then he waited patiently while I got some money out, got change from the waitress, and left the tip – of which he told me the precise amount down to the nickel, that I should leave.
I decided that I really didn’t want a 2nd date with Rick/Steve/Ken so when he called me a few days after my date I told him I didn’t think it would work out and wished him luck on his next date. Actually I think that’s what I wanted to tell him but I probably lamed out and told him I had started dating someone else. Somehow it seemed kinder than saying I just wasn’t interested.
I know there were a few other guys on eHarmony but I really can’t remember them at all. Next up was Match and I think I joined that site for six months. The dates on that site were way more memorable and probably more entertaining for anyone that is still reading this dating diary of mine. We’ll save Match for another time as I have to log back onto the site I’m currently using and send a few reply emails to some potentials. I can already tell that one will annoy the bejeezus out of me but at least one of them feels more promising.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Sometimes Technology Really Sucks
Before I go back in time to describe my brief eHarmful journey of 2008 that eventually led to me dating an angry midget on Match, I have to check in for the here and now with a complaint about how modern technology has impacted dating. At times it seems like I’ve just found new and more prolific ways of humiliating myself. I had dipped my toes back in the waters of okCupid a few weeks ago to see what was out there and thought I had caught a good one. He’s 36, likes writing, is happy in his job, moved back to the Baltimore area recently, and his profile was pretty interesting. We emailed back and forth for a couple of weeks. The conversations weren’t scintillating but not everyone is great at e-mail and he seemed like an intelligent guy who’d be worth getting to know better. I thought in the next couple of emails he would ask when I wanted to meet in real life to see what happened.
Instead the last email I got from him was over a week ago and at the end of the email he mentioned he asked what street I lived on – he thought since we lived in the same smallish suburban community that there was a real chance that we might have already seen each other around. I was a little freaked when he wanted to know where I lived before we met (after some of the guys I’ve dated, I’ve found it pays to be careful) and even more freaked out when he said he lived right off of my street. When I wrote him back, I answered all his other questions, asked him a few, and just ignored the “where do you live” question.
Since then, nothing. Nada, zip. And the negative little voice in my head – the voice that after years of being everyone’s single friend, attending showers and weddings, getting to know people’s fiancées, spouses, and eventually children; meanwhile I’m dating freak after freak, ok guy after ok guy – that voice started whispering the annoyingly negative question, “what if he saw you walking down the street and didn’t like what he saw?” “What if the day that you were walking Charlie, sweating like a pig, wearing the shorts with the paint all over the butt and had your hair all ratted up in a messed up pony tail, he took one look and ran for the hills?”
If I didn’t know that he lived on the same street as me and he stopped communicating, I’d just assume that he met someone else. But now, the little voice in my head, the one that says, “Why are you still single when everyone around you is married or at least can successfully date someone for more than six months,” won’t shut up. The worse thing is with this idiotic website I joined I can see that he’s been online. Like every day. So every day he’s choosing to not email me. It was a little easier before I experienced the joy of internet dating and I didn’t have to feel rejected by strangers before I even met them.
This could just be the root canal talking. I’m in the midst of extensive and heinous dental work currently where time not spent working whilst holding a bag of ice to my face while I type is being spent sitting in the dentist’s office while he tries to figure out how to most painfully work on my teeth in the most time consuming way possible. My ongoing dental drama has put me in a rather negative state of mind. I think I better take another pain pill and call it a night, hoping for a little more positivity later. But before I do this, I’ll pick myself up, dust off a little more of my pride, and go back on that site, find an intriguing guy or at least a good-looking one who can pull of a good internet profile, and send him a quick note. Although at times it feels like madness to carry on, it feels too much like giving up for me to stop entirely.
For now, it’s time to cuddle up with my faithful canine and try not to dread the dental dilemma tomorrow. Next stop on my stroll down amnesia lane on the road to romantic recovery will be the two guys I can remember from eHarmony before the longer and more amusing/alarming stint with Match.
Instead the last email I got from him was over a week ago and at the end of the email he mentioned he asked what street I lived on – he thought since we lived in the same smallish suburban community that there was a real chance that we might have already seen each other around. I was a little freaked when he wanted to know where I lived before we met (after some of the guys I’ve dated, I’ve found it pays to be careful) and even more freaked out when he said he lived right off of my street. When I wrote him back, I answered all his other questions, asked him a few, and just ignored the “where do you live” question.
Since then, nothing. Nada, zip. And the negative little voice in my head – the voice that after years of being everyone’s single friend, attending showers and weddings, getting to know people’s fiancées, spouses, and eventually children; meanwhile I’m dating freak after freak, ok guy after ok guy – that voice started whispering the annoyingly negative question, “what if he saw you walking down the street and didn’t like what he saw?” “What if the day that you were walking Charlie, sweating like a pig, wearing the shorts with the paint all over the butt and had your hair all ratted up in a messed up pony tail, he took one look and ran for the hills?”
If I didn’t know that he lived on the same street as me and he stopped communicating, I’d just assume that he met someone else. But now, the little voice in my head, the one that says, “Why are you still single when everyone around you is married or at least can successfully date someone for more than six months,” won’t shut up. The worse thing is with this idiotic website I joined I can see that he’s been online. Like every day. So every day he’s choosing to not email me. It was a little easier before I experienced the joy of internet dating and I didn’t have to feel rejected by strangers before I even met them.
This could just be the root canal talking. I’m in the midst of extensive and heinous dental work currently where time not spent working whilst holding a bag of ice to my face while I type is being spent sitting in the dentist’s office while he tries to figure out how to most painfully work on my teeth in the most time consuming way possible. My ongoing dental drama has put me in a rather negative state of mind. I think I better take another pain pill and call it a night, hoping for a little more positivity later. But before I do this, I’ll pick myself up, dust off a little more of my pride, and go back on that site, find an intriguing guy or at least a good-looking one who can pull of a good internet profile, and send him a quick note. Although at times it feels like madness to carry on, it feels too much like giving up for me to stop entirely.
For now, it’s time to cuddle up with my faithful canine and try not to dread the dental dilemma tomorrow. Next stop on my stroll down amnesia lane on the road to romantic recovery will be the two guys I can remember from eHarmony before the longer and more amusing/alarming stint with Match.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
My Most Awkward 2nd Date Yet
My memory is a little dim on the exact time frame when I made the leap from IJL to internet dating. At some point after a period of dating detox, I decided to fling myself back out there; I just wasn’t sure where “there” was. I mean where do people go to actually meet people to date? The vast majority of my friends were married or engaged so it’s not like they would go with me trolling for potential dates. At the time I wasn’t meeting any desirable guys during my every day life and I didn’t know where to start.
I kept hearing about everyone finding people on the internet and decided to give it another go. Eharmony had annoyed the crap out me when I tried it a few years previously in between boyfriends, so I wanted to try somewhere else. When I think now about what finally made me quit Eharmony, it was that every guy I had met on Eharmony all swore that their favorite book was the “DaVinci Code” but seemed to know little about the actual book and way too many of them asked me about my hopes and dreams as part of the prescribed series of getting-to-know-someone-questions. I found this vastly amusing at first and then highly annoying. The forcing of conversational intimacy before I’d even met someone was disturbing. Eharmony would start out with picking out a few multiple choice questions to ask your match and they would do the same. Then you’d progress to asking people questions where they could provide a little more information. After that it moved on to something like mini-essays and then you could just send regular emails but through the site so the people you were talking with would still have no real idea how to contact you off of the server. I ended up eventually trying Eharmony again but first I turned to Catholic Singles.
Catholic Singles was certainly an odd pick for me. I’m not that devout a Catholic; now more often than not I’ll go to a Unitarian service or something different. But at the time I still somewhat identified myself as a Catholic and had heard okay things about the site, so I decided to give it a go. I really had wanted to try J-date as I’d heard awesome things about the people there, but they tend to want people to be actually Jewish and although my mother has always said she would like to be Jewish if they believed in Jesus and let her eat ham on her matzoh, sadly I didn’t think that would be enough.
Most of the people that I first saw on the site were highly odd. One guy’s screen name was “Eye Who Art In Heaven” which was not just creepy but also seemed slightly sacrilegious. I had a couple conversations with some guys but nothing developed for a while. About 3 weeks into my membership, I started talking with Justin*. We exchanged a few emails and decided to meet. Our first date was okay. Not great but not terrible. He was really into fantasy baseball. Every year he and his friends would go to a casino for the fantasy draft. They would wear suits and try to wheel and deal each other. I really couldn’t identify with that but compared with machine guns, euthanizing my dog, taxidermy, or similar, fantasy baseball didn’t seem all that terrible.
I wasn’t a smitten kitten but he was a decent guy and I had decided at some point that if a guy did not show obvious signs of being deranged, that I would go out with at least twice. I figured that nerves could be a factor for the first date, at least for the guy. By the time I got halfway through IJL, I was no longer nervous on first dates. Honestly what I needed to work to avoid was being so apathetic about the date that I canceled before it even happened, as after 10 or so crummy dates in a row I really started almost dreading them.
For our 2nd date, I suggested we meet at the Lebanese Taverna at Pentagon Row. One of my favorite restaurants, this place usually had a good crowd plus was right near his work so I thought it would be more convenient for him since he had been kind enough to head my way for our first date. He said that sounded okay and we settled on a time to meet.
Justin* showed up about 20-30 minutes late which wasn’t too cool. I wasn’t overly annoyed as I just hung out at the bar and chatted with some of the people there, but it was kind of inconsiderate of him. But all of that paled in comparison with what would happen next.
As we sat down and started looking at the menu, he started making all these weird faces and sighing. Then he started muttering about how he couldn’t eat this, he couldn’t eat that, etc. I started getting really annoyed at this point. I asked if he wanted to go somewhere else and he said no, that he would figure something out. A few more minutes go by and I told him that we really should go somewhere else if he didn’t like any of the food. He said he would have that problem no matter where we went. Then he told me he had inoperable stomach cancer and had a hard time eating anything.
I think my response was to stare at him blinking repeatedly, mouth ajar, totally unsure of what to say.
This continued for a while and then I moved quickly into repeated apologies and me feeling like a total ass. He said it was okay, that it wasn’t like he was going to drop immediately it was just that the particular kind of stomach cancer he had meant that the doctors couldn’t remove the masses as it would be too dangerous. So he spent a lot of time flying around the country to various specialists trying out different treatments.
We had a completely awkward conversation where I wasn’t sure what to talk about, what was okay to ask him. Neither of us had a great time. At the end of the date we shared a quick hug and then went on our separate ways. I didn’t know if he would want to go out again as we didn’t have all that great of a first date; but based on our 2nd date I didn’t want to ‘dump’ a guy who just told me he was sick. It turned out that we both kind of realized that we weren’t a good fit. He and I kept in touch for a while. He ended up meeting a more religious woman on the site and they were doing really well the last time we spoke. He’d tell me how he was doing and what new treatments he was trying. But it was a really awkward type of friendship. I don’t even know if I’d call it a friendship; more like we both felt strange completely severing all ties.
That was my only date from Catholic Singles. I was pretty freaked after that. I was so freaked that after a while, I eventually returned to eHarmony. That story will have to wait for another day as I don’t think I can do justice tonight to the guy who tried to massage me across the dinner table on our first date and knocked over my drink. Guess which part made me more upset…
I kept hearing about everyone finding people on the internet and decided to give it another go. Eharmony had annoyed the crap out me when I tried it a few years previously in between boyfriends, so I wanted to try somewhere else. When I think now about what finally made me quit Eharmony, it was that every guy I had met on Eharmony all swore that their favorite book was the “DaVinci Code” but seemed to know little about the actual book and way too many of them asked me about my hopes and dreams as part of the prescribed series of getting-to-know-someone-questions. I found this vastly amusing at first and then highly annoying. The forcing of conversational intimacy before I’d even met someone was disturbing. Eharmony would start out with picking out a few multiple choice questions to ask your match and they would do the same. Then you’d progress to asking people questions where they could provide a little more information. After that it moved on to something like mini-essays and then you could just send regular emails but through the site so the people you were talking with would still have no real idea how to contact you off of the server. I ended up eventually trying Eharmony again but first I turned to Catholic Singles.
Catholic Singles was certainly an odd pick for me. I’m not that devout a Catholic; now more often than not I’ll go to a Unitarian service or something different. But at the time I still somewhat identified myself as a Catholic and had heard okay things about the site, so I decided to give it a go. I really had wanted to try J-date as I’d heard awesome things about the people there, but they tend to want people to be actually Jewish and although my mother has always said she would like to be Jewish if they believed in Jesus and let her eat ham on her matzoh, sadly I didn’t think that would be enough.
Most of the people that I first saw on the site were highly odd. One guy’s screen name was “Eye Who Art In Heaven” which was not just creepy but also seemed slightly sacrilegious. I had a couple conversations with some guys but nothing developed for a while. About 3 weeks into my membership, I started talking with Justin*. We exchanged a few emails and decided to meet. Our first date was okay. Not great but not terrible. He was really into fantasy baseball. Every year he and his friends would go to a casino for the fantasy draft. They would wear suits and try to wheel and deal each other. I really couldn’t identify with that but compared with machine guns, euthanizing my dog, taxidermy, or similar, fantasy baseball didn’t seem all that terrible.
I wasn’t a smitten kitten but he was a decent guy and I had decided at some point that if a guy did not show obvious signs of being deranged, that I would go out with at least twice. I figured that nerves could be a factor for the first date, at least for the guy. By the time I got halfway through IJL, I was no longer nervous on first dates. Honestly what I needed to work to avoid was being so apathetic about the date that I canceled before it even happened, as after 10 or so crummy dates in a row I really started almost dreading them.
For our 2nd date, I suggested we meet at the Lebanese Taverna at Pentagon Row. One of my favorite restaurants, this place usually had a good crowd plus was right near his work so I thought it would be more convenient for him since he had been kind enough to head my way for our first date. He said that sounded okay and we settled on a time to meet.
Justin* showed up about 20-30 minutes late which wasn’t too cool. I wasn’t overly annoyed as I just hung out at the bar and chatted with some of the people there, but it was kind of inconsiderate of him. But all of that paled in comparison with what would happen next.
As we sat down and started looking at the menu, he started making all these weird faces and sighing. Then he started muttering about how he couldn’t eat this, he couldn’t eat that, etc. I started getting really annoyed at this point. I asked if he wanted to go somewhere else and he said no, that he would figure something out. A few more minutes go by and I told him that we really should go somewhere else if he didn’t like any of the food. He said he would have that problem no matter where we went. Then he told me he had inoperable stomach cancer and had a hard time eating anything.
I think my response was to stare at him blinking repeatedly, mouth ajar, totally unsure of what to say.
This continued for a while and then I moved quickly into repeated apologies and me feeling like a total ass. He said it was okay, that it wasn’t like he was going to drop immediately it was just that the particular kind of stomach cancer he had meant that the doctors couldn’t remove the masses as it would be too dangerous. So he spent a lot of time flying around the country to various specialists trying out different treatments.
We had a completely awkward conversation where I wasn’t sure what to talk about, what was okay to ask him. Neither of us had a great time. At the end of the date we shared a quick hug and then went on our separate ways. I didn’t know if he would want to go out again as we didn’t have all that great of a first date; but based on our 2nd date I didn’t want to ‘dump’ a guy who just told me he was sick. It turned out that we both kind of realized that we weren’t a good fit. He and I kept in touch for a while. He ended up meeting a more religious woman on the site and they were doing really well the last time we spoke. He’d tell me how he was doing and what new treatments he was trying. But it was a really awkward type of friendship. I don’t even know if I’d call it a friendship; more like we both felt strange completely severing all ties.
That was my only date from Catholic Singles. I was pretty freaked after that. I was so freaked that after a while, I eventually returned to eHarmony. That story will have to wait for another day as I don’t think I can do justice tonight to the guy who tried to massage me across the dinner table on our first date and knocked over my drink. Guess which part made me more upset…
Monday, June 7, 2010
What Eventually Drove Me to the Internet
Technically I had tried one of the dating websites before but I chickened out when it came time to actually meet any of these cyber dates. What eventually drove me back to the internet was how craptastic the expensive matching site ended up being. I figured if I was going to end up spending a lot of my free time meeting weirdos and having awkward meals, I should at least pay less to do so.
Before I can tell you about those exciting experiences, there’s one last date to describe from IJL: the parking lot pisser. Gary* and I met up in Ellicott City for drinks and eventually dinner. He was a pretty decent conversationalist and we had a good time. I wasn’t thrilled that he was a serious smoker but he was ok looking, had a fairly good sense of humor, and seemed fun.
The weirdest part was that we had actually met back in high school. My senior year in high school, I was in a play and it turned out that Gary* was an impressionable young freshman. I had absolutely no memory of him whatsoever but he remembered me and we had fun talking about that show and the people from both of our schools who were in it.
By our second date I started picking up that he had some fairly dramatic mood swings. We’d be going along all fine and dandy and then he would get really angry. I convinced myself that I was over-analyzing it and looking for things to be wrong when they weren’t. We went through a couple more dates like that, with things not feeling quite right but not being horribly bad enough for me to call it quits.
Fast forward to the first date when I actually let him pick me up at my house. He had said that I could pick the restaurant so I picked this fantastic restaurant/winery. As he helped me into his truck he started running down the place I had picked; apparently his friend had been there and said that the portions were too small. Gary* went on and on about this for the entire car ride. He kept grumbling that he might have to go to Wendy’s or Burger King afterward if he didn’t get enough food. A couple of times I tried to suggest a different place as I didn’t want to sit through dinner with someone sulking and complaining. But he was adamant. It was highly weird. To be followed in weirdness by his riding the bumper of the old people in the car in front of us, and flipping them off and cursing as they were making us late.
At this point I was highly nervous about the evening. More so than I had been on any previous date as now I was trapped in a moving vehicle with the guy. I told him he was being an ass and told him if he didn’t slow down and calm down I was going to jump out of the car. I think that threw him for a bit and he stopped ranting and raving and we drove the rest of the way in silence.
Once we got inside the restaurant, it’s like he was a completely different person. He totally charmed the waitress, didn’t complain about the smallness of the portions, and even bought several bottles of fairly expensive wine for himself and for me as well. I really thought I was losing my mind; just minutes before he had been a raving lunatic and here he acting as if he had the sweetest disposition in the world.
Upon leaving the restaurant, however, he reverted back to being a jerk. I saw him start to walk to the side of the restaurant and followed him but he told me that he “had to take a leak” and would be right back. Since he wasn’t heading back into the restaurant and was instead walking to some bushes that were in total view of the restaurant patrons I became highly alarmed. I asked him what the hell he was doing and if he was actually going to pee in the parking lot where everyone could see him and told him to go back inside and use the restroom there. He insisted that he didn’t want to walk all the way back inside and that outside was good enough for him.
I started to panic as I actually did like that restaurant and hoped at some point to go back there with a non-lunatic or even by myself and not die of total mortification having been the companion of the Parking Lot Pisser. I pleaded, I berated, and finally I threw a modified tantrum and said that I was going to call all four of my brothers to drive me home. He petulantly gave up and said he would hold it. The car ride home was less than pleasant, especially because as we arrived at my house he asked if he could use my bathroom since I hadn’t allowed him to go outside the restaurant.
This is when I learned that although I love my dog dearly, he is not the best judge of character. I tried to give him signals that he should hate Gary*, try to hump him, bite him, something. But no, Charlie thought Gary* was the best thing ever. Once I let Gary* into my house I had a really hard time getting him out. Eventually I got him out of my house and the next time he called I said that I was taking a break from dating for a while…or forever.
I finished up with IJL back in 2008 I think. Man, that was a long time ago! They recently contacted me and asked me to rejoin as I was “one of their most valued customers.” After laughing raucously/maniacally in response, I assured the lovely man with IJL that there was no force on earth that could compel me to rejoin.
Looking back though, it wasn’t completely a bust. Yes, by far and away, most of the guys were completely unsuitable. Some were even frightening. But I think I came through it with a better idea of what I didn’t want and more importantly what I did want. More than that though I have begun to develop a better idea of who I am and I totally dig me. So even if my friends and family lament what they see as my pickiness, I don’t agree. I’ve given a lot of very strange guys first and even second chances. I think it’s a good idea to be particular. To quote one of the more interesting film adaptations of the novel Emma: “you see how picky I am about my shoes, and they only go on my feet.”
Whenever I get to the next post, I’ll start in with all the many dating websites I’ve tried. Here’s the scorecard for IJL:
1 Year
21 Guys
1 Millionaire
3 Rage problems
3 Can’t leave the nest’s
16 First Date Only’s
4 two dates or more
2 Ok guys that were cool for a while
1 Guy I really liked
Sanity: still somewhat in tact
Hope: dimmed but not completely gone
That's it for IJL. Next stop Catholic Singles (no I'm not kidding), eHarmony, Match, and OkCupid. And I may be working on my next batch of stories as we speak as I've thrown caution to the wind yet again and have dared to respond to one of the guys contacting me on my latest internet dating site of choice... (*Name has been changed)
Before I can tell you about those exciting experiences, there’s one last date to describe from IJL: the parking lot pisser. Gary* and I met up in Ellicott City for drinks and eventually dinner. He was a pretty decent conversationalist and we had a good time. I wasn’t thrilled that he was a serious smoker but he was ok looking, had a fairly good sense of humor, and seemed fun.
The weirdest part was that we had actually met back in high school. My senior year in high school, I was in a play and it turned out that Gary* was an impressionable young freshman. I had absolutely no memory of him whatsoever but he remembered me and we had fun talking about that show and the people from both of our schools who were in it.
By our second date I started picking up that he had some fairly dramatic mood swings. We’d be going along all fine and dandy and then he would get really angry. I convinced myself that I was over-analyzing it and looking for things to be wrong when they weren’t. We went through a couple more dates like that, with things not feeling quite right but not being horribly bad enough for me to call it quits.
Fast forward to the first date when I actually let him pick me up at my house. He had said that I could pick the restaurant so I picked this fantastic restaurant/winery. As he helped me into his truck he started running down the place I had picked; apparently his friend had been there and said that the portions were too small. Gary* went on and on about this for the entire car ride. He kept grumbling that he might have to go to Wendy’s or Burger King afterward if he didn’t get enough food. A couple of times I tried to suggest a different place as I didn’t want to sit through dinner with someone sulking and complaining. But he was adamant. It was highly weird. To be followed in weirdness by his riding the bumper of the old people in the car in front of us, and flipping them off and cursing as they were making us late.
At this point I was highly nervous about the evening. More so than I had been on any previous date as now I was trapped in a moving vehicle with the guy. I told him he was being an ass and told him if he didn’t slow down and calm down I was going to jump out of the car. I think that threw him for a bit and he stopped ranting and raving and we drove the rest of the way in silence.
Once we got inside the restaurant, it’s like he was a completely different person. He totally charmed the waitress, didn’t complain about the smallness of the portions, and even bought several bottles of fairly expensive wine for himself and for me as well. I really thought I was losing my mind; just minutes before he had been a raving lunatic and here he acting as if he had the sweetest disposition in the world.
Upon leaving the restaurant, however, he reverted back to being a jerk. I saw him start to walk to the side of the restaurant and followed him but he told me that he “had to take a leak” and would be right back. Since he wasn’t heading back into the restaurant and was instead walking to some bushes that were in total view of the restaurant patrons I became highly alarmed. I asked him what the hell he was doing and if he was actually going to pee in the parking lot where everyone could see him and told him to go back inside and use the restroom there. He insisted that he didn’t want to walk all the way back inside and that outside was good enough for him.
I started to panic as I actually did like that restaurant and hoped at some point to go back there with a non-lunatic or even by myself and not die of total mortification having been the companion of the Parking Lot Pisser. I pleaded, I berated, and finally I threw a modified tantrum and said that I was going to call all four of my brothers to drive me home. He petulantly gave up and said he would hold it. The car ride home was less than pleasant, especially because as we arrived at my house he asked if he could use my bathroom since I hadn’t allowed him to go outside the restaurant.
This is when I learned that although I love my dog dearly, he is not the best judge of character. I tried to give him signals that he should hate Gary*, try to hump him, bite him, something. But no, Charlie thought Gary* was the best thing ever. Once I let Gary* into my house I had a really hard time getting him out. Eventually I got him out of my house and the next time he called I said that I was taking a break from dating for a while…or forever.
I finished up with IJL back in 2008 I think. Man, that was a long time ago! They recently contacted me and asked me to rejoin as I was “one of their most valued customers.” After laughing raucously/maniacally in response, I assured the lovely man with IJL that there was no force on earth that could compel me to rejoin.
Looking back though, it wasn’t completely a bust. Yes, by far and away, most of the guys were completely unsuitable. Some were even frightening. But I think I came through it with a better idea of what I didn’t want and more importantly what I did want. More than that though I have begun to develop a better idea of who I am and I totally dig me. So even if my friends and family lament what they see as my pickiness, I don’t agree. I’ve given a lot of very strange guys first and even second chances. I think it’s a good idea to be particular. To quote one of the more interesting film adaptations of the novel Emma: “you see how picky I am about my shoes, and they only go on my feet.”
Whenever I get to the next post, I’ll start in with all the many dating websites I’ve tried. Here’s the scorecard for IJL:
1 Year
21 Guys
1 Millionaire
3 Rage problems
3 Can’t leave the nest’s
16 First Date Only’s
4 two dates or more
2 Ok guys that were cool for a while
1 Guy I really liked
Sanity: still somewhat in tact
Hope: dimmed but not completely gone
That's it for IJL. Next stop Catholic Singles (no I'm not kidding), eHarmony, Match, and OkCupid. And I may be working on my next batch of stories as we speak as I've thrown caution to the wind yet again and have dared to respond to one of the guys contacting me on my latest internet dating site of choice... (*Name has been changed)
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
The Dangers of Social Networking
I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated you with my dating tales but I was avoiding computers like the plague as I had convinced myself that I was still FB friends with at least one of my more colorful dates that I’d described in detail. My wise, wise sister had cautioned me ages ago when I began posting less than awesome reviews of some of these guys to be certain that I hadn’t accidentally friended any of them or be prepared to deal with them seeing my reviews. After I verified that none of my victims/victimizers were privy to my telling of their tales, I really was going to log back on but I suffered from a lack of texting sense and I accidentally (read: with the aid of some champagne) texted Professor Hickey to advise him that women over the age of 15 do not appreciate getting hickeys.
If you want to hear the tale of the good professor and the phase where I only dated professors, you’ll have to suffer for a while longer as I still have to wrap up with the end of my lunch date service tales. Let’s see, where were we? Oh, yes. I had fallen short of the fashion sensibilities and grooming standards of Metrosexual Matt* and was back at the drawing board.
Next up was Clint.* What is there to say about the 2nd skinniest man I’ve ever seen, who bathed in some type of impostor cologne spray? Clint* was very enthusiastic. Of course maybe I would be enthusiastic too if I had four children under the age of six years old and believed I had just found the perfect new baby momma for them. Unfortunately for him I had not been forewarned that he had such a brood – in fact the service had assured me that although he was divorced he had no children. So I really wasn’t prepared for all of his offspring, the fact that they were so young, etc. I think I sat there for several minutes with my mouth agape, eventually stammering something unintelligible and repeating the number four over and over. Clint* had been divorced for over a year and his kids lived with his ex-wife in Texas. He was having some sort of identity crisis; he really couldn’t decide who he wanted to be. Did he want to be the loving father who spent all his free time flying back to Texas or did he want to be the single man who had plenty of time to spend on his lady? He tried to play both roles at such a manic pace my head was spinning.
My next date was the date that almost wasn’t. I was supposed to meet Franco* at a bar in downtown Baltimore. I arrived pretty much on-time and sat in the bar for a while with no Franco*. Little did I realize that the hostess had placed him in the restaurant to wait for me while another of the wait staff had seated me in the bar. And we waited. And waited. Sad to say that he gave up before me. When I eventually spoke to the seating hostess she told me of the mix-up and apologized. Franco* was an exceedingly pleasant guy and we agreed to give it another shot, this time meeting in the waiting area of a popular restaurant downtown. Honestly I can’t remember anything else about him so he couldn’t have been too freaky. Then again, he couldn’t have been that wonderful or at least neither of us recognized the wonderfulness of the other at the time and we subsequently went on our merry yet unmarried way.
And now we come to the one guy that I actually really really liked. Bobby* was a veterinary surgeon. He was tall with dark hair. I don’t think he would be considered hot by most ladies, but I thought he was pretty swell. We had a fantastic conversation, the kind where you talk about everything and nothing. He was slightly sarcastic, entirely witty and really charming. I was a smitten kitten. But all for naught as he was not whatever the guy version of a smitten kitten for me. Our date lasted over two hours which I thought was a good sign; I also thought it was a good sign that he said he had fun and would like to go out again. And then he went into some sort of awesome guy black hole. I’ve had a few like that before him and a few after. It’s like how you lose a sock in the dryer and never really know where it ends up. You miss it for a while but you never really had enough time to get too attached to it so you move on after a while. After too many of these incidents though you start to wonder what is wrong with your dryer that it keeps eating all of your socks. Why do your socks think they’re too good for your dryer? And then you realize that you’re going way too far with this metaphor and its time to move on to the runner-up in the best date category.
The runner-up for title of my favorite guy from this particular dating service owned an Ethan Allen store. That’s really all I can remember about him. I was filled with fantasies of living in lovely furnished homes or better yet, living in the Ethan Allen store after everyone had gone home for the evening. We’d have decorative magazines on our cherry coffee tables and wine racks and conversation pieces and maybe even some rocking chairs. His family owned a couple of the stores and he seemed a pleasant enough guy. We had an ok time, but no sparks and I think he may have seen the crazed look in my eye or heard me muttering about living in one of his stores because sadly he never booked a second date.
After Ethan*, there were four more dates with the lunch dating service. Three of them ended up being only first dates. The fourth would become forever known as the parking lot pisser. He’ll get his own post as sadly my bedtime is nearing. One of the dates I literally remember nothing about him. The only thing that worries me is considering how some of my dates have gone, perhaps he was too unspeakably terrible and my subconscious has blocked him out of my mind. But more than likely he was just ok and he thought I was just ok so we parted ways none the better nor worse for having spent part of an hour together.
One of the other guys was Rodney* the Redhead who enjoyed competitive ballroom dancing and talking about himself. A lot. Like seriously a lot. By this time I didn’t put up with nearly as much crap as when I had started the dating service so I was out of that joint in under 20 minutes.
The last guy of this particular post was a doozy. I tend to be fairly prompt on dates as I hate it when I’m kept waiting, so when I was 10 minutes late for my date with Bill* I was highly apologetic. He assured me it was ok and went on to say that he had purposely arrived 45 minutes early to sit in his truck and listen to KISS to psych himself up for our date. I waited to see if he cracked a smile to show that he was joking but he was extremely serious. He then went on to tell me that his only friends were his mother and Jesus Christ. He told me not to worry though that he was positive that his mother would adore me and in fact she would be love to meet me the next evening. I stared at him for a while trying to figure out the best escape route. I finally actually said, in a fairly kind way, what I had meant to say with some of the other crazies. That while it was definitely interesting meeting with him, I did not feel that we connected and I wished him luck on his future dates. I gathered my purse and belongings as I was saying this as I find that any attempts at conversation from him just make things even more heinously awkward. Then I made like a bread truck and hauled buns. (*Name has been changed)
If you want to hear the tale of the good professor and the phase where I only dated professors, you’ll have to suffer for a while longer as I still have to wrap up with the end of my lunch date service tales. Let’s see, where were we? Oh, yes. I had fallen short of the fashion sensibilities and grooming standards of Metrosexual Matt* and was back at the drawing board.
Next up was Clint.* What is there to say about the 2nd skinniest man I’ve ever seen, who bathed in some type of impostor cologne spray? Clint* was very enthusiastic. Of course maybe I would be enthusiastic too if I had four children under the age of six years old and believed I had just found the perfect new baby momma for them. Unfortunately for him I had not been forewarned that he had such a brood – in fact the service had assured me that although he was divorced he had no children. So I really wasn’t prepared for all of his offspring, the fact that they were so young, etc. I think I sat there for several minutes with my mouth agape, eventually stammering something unintelligible and repeating the number four over and over. Clint* had been divorced for over a year and his kids lived with his ex-wife in Texas. He was having some sort of identity crisis; he really couldn’t decide who he wanted to be. Did he want to be the loving father who spent all his free time flying back to Texas or did he want to be the single man who had plenty of time to spend on his lady? He tried to play both roles at such a manic pace my head was spinning.
My next date was the date that almost wasn’t. I was supposed to meet Franco* at a bar in downtown Baltimore. I arrived pretty much on-time and sat in the bar for a while with no Franco*. Little did I realize that the hostess had placed him in the restaurant to wait for me while another of the wait staff had seated me in the bar. And we waited. And waited. Sad to say that he gave up before me. When I eventually spoke to the seating hostess she told me of the mix-up and apologized. Franco* was an exceedingly pleasant guy and we agreed to give it another shot, this time meeting in the waiting area of a popular restaurant downtown. Honestly I can’t remember anything else about him so he couldn’t have been too freaky. Then again, he couldn’t have been that wonderful or at least neither of us recognized the wonderfulness of the other at the time and we subsequently went on our merry yet unmarried way.
And now we come to the one guy that I actually really really liked. Bobby* was a veterinary surgeon. He was tall with dark hair. I don’t think he would be considered hot by most ladies, but I thought he was pretty swell. We had a fantastic conversation, the kind where you talk about everything and nothing. He was slightly sarcastic, entirely witty and really charming. I was a smitten kitten. But all for naught as he was not whatever the guy version of a smitten kitten for me. Our date lasted over two hours which I thought was a good sign; I also thought it was a good sign that he said he had fun and would like to go out again. And then he went into some sort of awesome guy black hole. I’ve had a few like that before him and a few after. It’s like how you lose a sock in the dryer and never really know where it ends up. You miss it for a while but you never really had enough time to get too attached to it so you move on after a while. After too many of these incidents though you start to wonder what is wrong with your dryer that it keeps eating all of your socks. Why do your socks think they’re too good for your dryer? And then you realize that you’re going way too far with this metaphor and its time to move on to the runner-up in the best date category.
The runner-up for title of my favorite guy from this particular dating service owned an Ethan Allen store. That’s really all I can remember about him. I was filled with fantasies of living in lovely furnished homes or better yet, living in the Ethan Allen store after everyone had gone home for the evening. We’d have decorative magazines on our cherry coffee tables and wine racks and conversation pieces and maybe even some rocking chairs. His family owned a couple of the stores and he seemed a pleasant enough guy. We had an ok time, but no sparks and I think he may have seen the crazed look in my eye or heard me muttering about living in one of his stores because sadly he never booked a second date.
After Ethan*, there were four more dates with the lunch dating service. Three of them ended up being only first dates. The fourth would become forever known as the parking lot pisser. He’ll get his own post as sadly my bedtime is nearing. One of the dates I literally remember nothing about him. The only thing that worries me is considering how some of my dates have gone, perhaps he was too unspeakably terrible and my subconscious has blocked him out of my mind. But more than likely he was just ok and he thought I was just ok so we parted ways none the better nor worse for having spent part of an hour together.
One of the other guys was Rodney* the Redhead who enjoyed competitive ballroom dancing and talking about himself. A lot. Like seriously a lot. By this time I didn’t put up with nearly as much crap as when I had started the dating service so I was out of that joint in under 20 minutes.
The last guy of this particular post was a doozy. I tend to be fairly prompt on dates as I hate it when I’m kept waiting, so when I was 10 minutes late for my date with Bill* I was highly apologetic. He assured me it was ok and went on to say that he had purposely arrived 45 minutes early to sit in his truck and listen to KISS to psych himself up for our date. I waited to see if he cracked a smile to show that he was joking but he was extremely serious. He then went on to tell me that his only friends were his mother and Jesus Christ. He told me not to worry though that he was positive that his mother would adore me and in fact she would be love to meet me the next evening. I stared at him for a while trying to figure out the best escape route. I finally actually said, in a fairly kind way, what I had meant to say with some of the other crazies. That while it was definitely interesting meeting with him, I did not feel that we connected and I wished him luck on his future dates. I gathered my purse and belongings as I was saying this as I find that any attempts at conversation from him just make things even more heinously awkward. Then I made like a bread truck and hauled buns. (*Name has been changed)
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