At some point around the time of the self-tattooer, a friend pointed out that I was dating a lot of guys that had never gotten around to finishing school. They’d all graduated high school and had done a few semesters of college but had never graduated; one of my exes spent a total of almost 6 years in college flirting with a variety of different majors. When we were dating quite a few years ago (before my internet dating hobby began) he first decided to be a songwriter and then a dentist, requiring him to take a few more courses before he could even think of applying for dental school. We haven’t seen each other in a while but I’ve heard he’s made his way through several more career choices and still hasn’t decided on a major.
At first, I didn’t really think too much of my friend’s suggestion as I have seen enough educated jerks to realize that a degree doesn’t always mean the guy is a prince. But the suggestion that I make criteria for dates even stricter than previously was a novel idea. I’ve had other friends offer up the opposite of the Air Force motto. “Aim Low,” they tell me. In their opinion I have grown far too particular and have significantly reduced the size of my dating pool to a point where it will be impossible for me to find anyone.
My friend’s suggestion coincided with a time when I was getting quite a few suggested matches that were professors, PhD candidates, and other professions requiring post-graduate studies so it seemed as it was fate. First up was Matt.* Matt and I only went out once and I’m trying now to remember what the hell he did – I know he was in some sort of engineering. His emails were well-structured and slightly humorous. What was most intriguing about his profile was that in each of the 5 pictures he posted on his profile, he looked like a completely different individual. It was highly odd. Only one of them was unattractive; the rest were all okay.
We met for coffee at one of my favorite coffeehouses, a joint that I had gone to in high school with my best friend after play practice and we would buy frothy beverages or chocolate concoctions and just shoot the breeze. The place has changed hands over the years but it’s still a good place to hang and one of the few non-chain coffeehouses that has been left standing. When I walked in, I realized that of course, Matt* looked the most like the unattractive photo. Undeterred, I brazenly ordered some steamy caffeinated goodness and sat down to learn all about Matt.*
What I learned first was that Matt* had some sort of nervous tic/eye condition. He spent the majority of the date blinking at me non-stop with his mouth slightly ajar. When I would speak, he would stare at me with no expression on his face other than what appeared to be the concentrated look of someone hell bent on not blinking. When he was speaking or when there were uncomfortable pauses (you guessed it – there were PLENTY of those), he blinked approximately 634 times a minute. I might be exaggerating slightly but that’s what it felt like.
What with all the blinking and uncomfortable pauses, it might have been difficult for even the most determined of men to make a favorable impression. Matt* was a perfect gentleman, but the stilted conversation and switching between staring and prolific blinking had me shaking his hand firmly at the end of the date and saying it was nice meeting him and wishing him luck on the site with his future matches.
After Blinky McStaresalot, there was a period of time when I dated two professors both named Mike.* The first professor stuck around longer so I’ll probably have to get to him in another post. The second professor Mike* was yet another one-date wonder. He was a research professor who worked in artificial intelligence. Saying he was wicked smart is a bit of an understatement. Saying that he was wicked obsessed with his facial hair is the biggest understatement in the history of dating.
In his profile pictures, there was one of Mike* with a full beard and several of him clean-shaven. The night I met him, he was sporting a very oddly pointed goatee thing with weird sideburns. I think he was it was kind of like a Vandyck. I had no idea what the hell this was so I guess I have no one to blame but myself for his 20 minute monologue of the various stages of his facial hair. At first I thought he said he had a Van Dyke as in Dick Van Dyke and thought that he was indicating a preference for dressing like a chimney sweep or wearing a full white mustache. But apparently a Vandyck is a legit style of facial hair. Well, its not legit in my book but it is apparently a style that other people have heard of and condone.
So Mike* went on for about 20 minutes about how sometimes he likes to have a full beard and sometimes he likes a flavor saver, sometimes he likes a goatee, etc. etc. He explained how it related to his moods and his goals at the time, blah, blah, blah. I zoned out a bit as I kept thinking, “is he really talking this much about his facial hair? Would he notice if I got up and left? If I reached across the table and shaved off his facial hair would he change topics or just keep going?” After the monologue, there wasn’t really anywhere else to go conversation-wise. I flirted with the idea of trying to start up another area of discussion but my heart wasn’t in it. It may not have been fair of me, but it really felt like I had learned all I wanted to learn about Mike* and it was time to run off into the welcoming dark night and hope that my next date would not be as fussy with or fond of his facial hair.
Alright, I will definitely have to wait until later to tell the notorious tale of Professor Hickey to really do it justice.
*Name has been changed
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Putting the Aw in Awkward
Considering how much of my life must appear to be consumed with dating if you’ve read this blog for any length of time, it may startle some of you to know that I have other less extreme activities that take up my time. But given the ridiculous amount of dates that I’ve been on relatively recently, it was just a matter of time before this somewhat hazardous hobby spilled over into the rest of my world.
I’m getting ahead of myself as usual. My next date after being propositioned by a man technically old enough to be my father was with a cute young whippersnapper. Kurt* was ridiculously adorable – he looked like he should be in a boy band. Not the lead singer or that guy with the weird sideburns who can’t really sing and just speaks in a deep voice in a rhythmic manner, but the cute guitarist. And Kurt* actually was a musician. He played in a metal band.
Kurt* didn’t look like he belonged in a metal band at all. He had hair vaguely in the style of the Jonas Brothers and he was beyond clean cut. He could and did talk at length and without lacking in authority on the differences between metal and hard rock. He also didn’t drink at all, was vocally anti-drugs, and very much into healthy living. It was vaguely intriguing but a little off.
What was wrong was that he seemed so darn young. He was young enough to date my niece. At the time, my eldest niece who is only seven years my junior, was staying at my house. At some point during the date with Kurt*, I thought to myself how great I thought he would be for my niece. That’s when it became impossible for me to date him. For although apparently some men actually want to date women half their age plus seven years (google it – the fact that this theory is prevalent is for realsies not just the idea of a misguided few), the idea gives me the heebie jeebies. At that point in my life I wasn’t cut out to be a puma so I said goodbye to Kurt.* Notice that I didn’t say that I’ll never become a puma as I realize such a statement would ensure that my next date would be dangerously young and even as I write this I’m remembering the age of some of my exes in real life before I started this internet dating craziness so I’ll move on to the next thought.
Here’s where we get to the particular awkward moment that I referenced at the beginning of this post. One of my non-dating activities is volunteering at nursing homes with my dog. Its fun and he and I both dig it and the residents seem to as well. Basically we just go there and visit some of our regulars in their rooms, stop by the common areas, and spend time talking or just hanging out with the residents.
Anyway, I took my dog to the nursing home the night after my date with Kurt* and we met a new friend in the lobby. I hadn’t remembered meeting with Sharla* before but she kept saying she thought she knew me. As the residents have varying levels of mental coherency I just smiled at her and continued chatting away, coaxing my dog to do some tricks to entertain her. She became more insistent though, she definitely knew who I was and grabbing my name tag she stated authoritatively that I had in fact dated her grandson.
I assumed that she meant Kurt* as he was the most recent date I’d had; I started babbling embarrassed as she began asking me why I didn’t like her very nice grandson. I assured her that her grandson was great and a gentleman and that I wish that it had worked out, etc, etc. In the back of my mind I was a little freaked that I had only gone out with him once and that he had told his grandmother about me but I was becoming more and more embarrassed as she looked at me unflinchingly and asked again why I didn’t like her grandson. I assured her that Kurt* was a great guy and that maybe the age difference wasn’t that bad. At this point, things slid downward on the mortification scale as she asked me who the hell Kurt is. It turns out her grandson was Jim* who I had dated a few months prior (Jim being the slightly over-serious, loner, hiker, self-tattooer).
If I thought she was upset before, that was nothing compared to how she felt after she realized I had dated people after her darling grandson. Here I was a floozy, working my way through all the wonderfully sensitive gentlemen of the area and picking them off one by one, snubbing her grandson and not even remembering it right away. I hoped that the floor would open up and swallow me whole, but sadly I had to stand there and take my comeuppance shamefacedly while my dog became increasingly bored. I attempted to apologize again and shrank off into the building. I was going to go home at that point; chastised by a resident, I really just wanted to crawl under my covers and not come out. Thankfully I saw one of my regulars down the hall and decided to suck it up and press on. I can’t blame Sharla* for sticking up for her grandson, but I don’t blame myself either for not being in love with Jim.*
Next up, Blinky McStaresalot and a Tale of Two Professors. Or at least I’ll tell the tale of one – I might have to give the main professor his own post all to himself.
*Name has been changed
I’m getting ahead of myself as usual. My next date after being propositioned by a man technically old enough to be my father was with a cute young whippersnapper. Kurt* was ridiculously adorable – he looked like he should be in a boy band. Not the lead singer or that guy with the weird sideburns who can’t really sing and just speaks in a deep voice in a rhythmic manner, but the cute guitarist. And Kurt* actually was a musician. He played in a metal band.
Kurt* didn’t look like he belonged in a metal band at all. He had hair vaguely in the style of the Jonas Brothers and he was beyond clean cut. He could and did talk at length and without lacking in authority on the differences between metal and hard rock. He also didn’t drink at all, was vocally anti-drugs, and very much into healthy living. It was vaguely intriguing but a little off.
What was wrong was that he seemed so darn young. He was young enough to date my niece. At the time, my eldest niece who is only seven years my junior, was staying at my house. At some point during the date with Kurt*, I thought to myself how great I thought he would be for my niece. That’s when it became impossible for me to date him. For although apparently some men actually want to date women half their age plus seven years (google it – the fact that this theory is prevalent is for realsies not just the idea of a misguided few), the idea gives me the heebie jeebies. At that point in my life I wasn’t cut out to be a puma so I said goodbye to Kurt.* Notice that I didn’t say that I’ll never become a puma as I realize such a statement would ensure that my next date would be dangerously young and even as I write this I’m remembering the age of some of my exes in real life before I started this internet dating craziness so I’ll move on to the next thought.
Here’s where we get to the particular awkward moment that I referenced at the beginning of this post. One of my non-dating activities is volunteering at nursing homes with my dog. Its fun and he and I both dig it and the residents seem to as well. Basically we just go there and visit some of our regulars in their rooms, stop by the common areas, and spend time talking or just hanging out with the residents.
Anyway, I took my dog to the nursing home the night after my date with Kurt* and we met a new friend in the lobby. I hadn’t remembered meeting with Sharla* before but she kept saying she thought she knew me. As the residents have varying levels of mental coherency I just smiled at her and continued chatting away, coaxing my dog to do some tricks to entertain her. She became more insistent though, she definitely knew who I was and grabbing my name tag she stated authoritatively that I had in fact dated her grandson.
I assumed that she meant Kurt* as he was the most recent date I’d had; I started babbling embarrassed as she began asking me why I didn’t like her very nice grandson. I assured her that her grandson was great and a gentleman and that I wish that it had worked out, etc, etc. In the back of my mind I was a little freaked that I had only gone out with him once and that he had told his grandmother about me but I was becoming more and more embarrassed as she looked at me unflinchingly and asked again why I didn’t like her grandson. I assured her that Kurt* was a great guy and that maybe the age difference wasn’t that bad. At this point, things slid downward on the mortification scale as she asked me who the hell Kurt is. It turns out her grandson was Jim* who I had dated a few months prior (Jim being the slightly over-serious, loner, hiker, self-tattooer).
If I thought she was upset before, that was nothing compared to how she felt after she realized I had dated people after her darling grandson. Here I was a floozy, working my way through all the wonderfully sensitive gentlemen of the area and picking them off one by one, snubbing her grandson and not even remembering it right away. I hoped that the floor would open up and swallow me whole, but sadly I had to stand there and take my comeuppance shamefacedly while my dog became increasingly bored. I attempted to apologize again and shrank off into the building. I was going to go home at that point; chastised by a resident, I really just wanted to crawl under my covers and not come out. Thankfully I saw one of my regulars down the hall and decided to suck it up and press on. I can’t blame Sharla* for sticking up for her grandson, but I don’t blame myself either for not being in love with Jim.*
Next up, Blinky McStaresalot and a Tale of Two Professors. Or at least I’ll tell the tale of one – I might have to give the main professor his own post all to himself.
*Name has been changed
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Never Say Never…or You May Too May End Up Dating Yukon Cornelius
I had heard a couple friends mentioning joining free dating websites and I said I would definitely never do such a thing because you get what you pay for. Having made such a statement it was only a matter of time before I joined a free website. I can’t remember how I found OkCupid but I did find it and created my free profile and prepared to sort through even more crazies than I had on the sites that charge a fee.
One of the first guys I happened upon described himself as “fixing up my house some whenever I gets some cash. When I finish that up I’m debating some other options to broaden my horizons.” That coupled with a picture of himself with Carrot Top like hair holding a paper sack and standing next to a guy with teeth missing helped me realize that although this site did not charge a fee, there was definitely still a cost. I was very curious as to what was in the sack but since I decided the answer could have been something like “a human head” I decided against emailing him to find out.
The next guy had a picture of himself with a snake wrapped around his neck and he used his profile to talk about how much he liked to poop. He believed that this is when he gets his best thinking done, during an activity he referred to as “dropping some booty fruit.” Once he thought so hard he fell asleep and almost fell off of the toilet.
Compared to these first two members of the site I chanced upon, Jim* was Man of the Year. He really was an extremely nice guy, but a little bit off. Cute, but too skinny like one good hug would break him in two, he didn’t talk about his pet snake or pooping so he was already ahead in the game. He seemed like a bit of a loner, liked to hiking by himself for long periods of time and didn’t really talk about any close friends. We went out a few times but there were no sparks for me. I was slightly alarmed at his proclivity for giving himself tattoos, but other than that the really only negative thing was that he wanted to get really serious, really quickly and I wasn’t feeling the same way.
Next up was a doozy. Up until fairly recently, I had never really been into facial hair on guys. I mean on some guys it looked ok, but a full beard kinda weirded me out. When I started chatting with Christian* on the website, the current status of his facial hair was unclear. In one picture, he had a full dark beard. In another, he was clean-shaven. In yet another, he had a goatee. There were other intriguing things about him, such as playing guitar in a band, claims of inventing recipes featuring chocolate and bacon, and an interest in archaeology. I definitely wanted to meet this guy. By this point, however, I should have learned that it’s easy to have some chemistry on email but that you need to have an actual conversation with someone to see if there’s something worthwhile there. You also need to meet in real life to discover that he has the longest, bushiest, red beard possible. The type of beard that will collect food and beer foam without his knowledge or worse still that you will witness him take some crumbs from his beard and eat it.
It took me forever to figure out who he reminded me of. I had some time to ponder this as the minutes dragged on during our stilted conversation. He really didn’t find our conversation enjoyable. Or if he did, he chose to express this by staring at me with his mouth slightly ajar. I think of myself as being at least slightly humorous but not once on the date did he laugh or even smile. He just alternated between looking serious and looking semi-catatonic.
The date with Christian* was in January of this year and I was really racking my brain to figure out who he reminded me of; I had definitely seen him or someone like him in the not too distant past. I was pretty sure it was around Christmas time. That’s when it hit me: this guy was Yukon Cornelius from the animated classic Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. You remember the guy – the arctic prospector with the pointy red mustache and bushy beard? Well I dated him.
Needless to say that was not a match made in heaven, I closed out that month being hit on by a man who I’m pretty sure was married. He traveled to DC quite frequently and wanted to meet up with me on his next trip. He is memorable only in delivering what has to be the best worst pickup lines I’ve had in quite some time. Here is a transcript of the email he sent me:
Hey! Please read my profile? I hope that you find me intriguing, as well. I think that the first thing I notice are your eyes. They are very sensitive and adventurous!
I travel to DC frequently and plan to be in town on February 7 thru 10. I thought that I might reach out to you to see if dinner or drinks might be of interest to you. If so, maybe we can talk. (I much prefer talking on email (and phone) rather than cupid)
I am a 55 yr old professional white male seeking an articulate woman who is honest, fun loving, adventurous, and has a great sense of humor. I'm not someone strange. I am just a nice guy who enjoys meeting new people and loves to laugh and have fun. Oh, and I love younger women who have depth and maturity. I do hope you like mature men who are stimulating intellectually, as well as physically.
If I have piqued your interest, please write back? Who knows? We might hit it off. I look forward to hearing from you.
While I do think I might need to consider older guys more than I have been since men my age seem to be looking for girls between the ages of barely legal and not old enough to rent a car, I decided to pass on this one despite his affinity for my sensitive and adventurous eyes. Next up, some more misses and how I almost became a puma (youngish cougar).
*Name has been changed
One of the first guys I happened upon described himself as “fixing up my house some whenever I gets some cash. When I finish that up I’m debating some other options to broaden my horizons.” That coupled with a picture of himself with Carrot Top like hair holding a paper sack and standing next to a guy with teeth missing helped me realize that although this site did not charge a fee, there was definitely still a cost. I was very curious as to what was in the sack but since I decided the answer could have been something like “a human head” I decided against emailing him to find out.
The next guy had a picture of himself with a snake wrapped around his neck and he used his profile to talk about how much he liked to poop. He believed that this is when he gets his best thinking done, during an activity he referred to as “dropping some booty fruit.” Once he thought so hard he fell asleep and almost fell off of the toilet.
Compared to these first two members of the site I chanced upon, Jim* was Man of the Year. He really was an extremely nice guy, but a little bit off. Cute, but too skinny like one good hug would break him in two, he didn’t talk about his pet snake or pooping so he was already ahead in the game. He seemed like a bit of a loner, liked to hiking by himself for long periods of time and didn’t really talk about any close friends. We went out a few times but there were no sparks for me. I was slightly alarmed at his proclivity for giving himself tattoos, but other than that the really only negative thing was that he wanted to get really serious, really quickly and I wasn’t feeling the same way.
Next up was a doozy. Up until fairly recently, I had never really been into facial hair on guys. I mean on some guys it looked ok, but a full beard kinda weirded me out. When I started chatting with Christian* on the website, the current status of his facial hair was unclear. In one picture, he had a full dark beard. In another, he was clean-shaven. In yet another, he had a goatee. There were other intriguing things about him, such as playing guitar in a band, claims of inventing recipes featuring chocolate and bacon, and an interest in archaeology. I definitely wanted to meet this guy. By this point, however, I should have learned that it’s easy to have some chemistry on email but that you need to have an actual conversation with someone to see if there’s something worthwhile there. You also need to meet in real life to discover that he has the longest, bushiest, red beard possible. The type of beard that will collect food and beer foam without his knowledge or worse still that you will witness him take some crumbs from his beard and eat it.
It took me forever to figure out who he reminded me of. I had some time to ponder this as the minutes dragged on during our stilted conversation. He really didn’t find our conversation enjoyable. Or if he did, he chose to express this by staring at me with his mouth slightly ajar. I think of myself as being at least slightly humorous but not once on the date did he laugh or even smile. He just alternated between looking serious and looking semi-catatonic.
The date with Christian* was in January of this year and I was really racking my brain to figure out who he reminded me of; I had definitely seen him or someone like him in the not too distant past. I was pretty sure it was around Christmas time. That’s when it hit me: this guy was Yukon Cornelius from the animated classic Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. You remember the guy – the arctic prospector with the pointy red mustache and bushy beard? Well I dated him.
Needless to say that was not a match made in heaven, I closed out that month being hit on by a man who I’m pretty sure was married. He traveled to DC quite frequently and wanted to meet up with me on his next trip. He is memorable only in delivering what has to be the best worst pickup lines I’ve had in quite some time. Here is a transcript of the email he sent me:
Hey! Please read my profile? I hope that you find me intriguing, as well. I think that the first thing I notice are your eyes. They are very sensitive and adventurous!
I travel to DC frequently and plan to be in town on February 7 thru 10. I thought that I might reach out to you to see if dinner or drinks might be of interest to you. If so, maybe we can talk. (I much prefer talking on email (and phone) rather than cupid)
I am a 55 yr old professional white male seeking an articulate woman who is honest, fun loving, adventurous, and has a great sense of humor. I'm not someone strange. I am just a nice guy who enjoys meeting new people and loves to laugh and have fun. Oh, and I love younger women who have depth and maturity. I do hope you like mature men who are stimulating intellectually, as well as physically.
If I have piqued your interest, please write back? Who knows? We might hit it off. I look forward to hearing from you.
While I do think I might need to consider older guys more than I have been since men my age seem to be looking for girls between the ages of barely legal and not old enough to rent a car, I decided to pass on this one despite his affinity for my sensitive and adventurous eyes. Next up, some more misses and how I almost became a puma (youngish cougar).
*Name has been changed
Thursday, August 12, 2010
The Eternal Truth of Seinfeld and Parisian Greetings
Although I’m nearing the end of my Match stories and getting to the exciting decision last fall to join a free dating website, there are two last memorable ones I wanted to share. First, there was Jared* the Caveman. Do you remember that Seinfeld episode where Jerry was dating a woman whose attractiveness was completely altered by changes in lighting? One minute, she was beautiful and he was smitten. The next, she looked like a ghoul and he couldn’t get away fast enough. Well, that was Jared. From one angle, he was fairly hot. From another angle, he looked like a slightly less hairy caveman. We met up at a bar and when he first sat down next to me, he looked great. We chatted, joked, flirted; it was all good. After I returned from going to the ladies’ room and sat down on the other side of him, I thought he had just hopped out of those annoying commercials selling car insurance. He had a distinctly Cro-Magnon look about him. His personality also tended slightly to the Jekyl/Hyde dynamic. One moment he was charming and witty. The banter was excellent –slightly sarcastic and biting but not too mean. Just 30 minutes later, and he was a creepy slimeball. This became even more evident when he discovered that I wasn’t immediately going to invite him back to my place. Although he said he would call so we could meet up again I was not surprised and was a little relieved when I never heard from him after that initial date.
The second match was perhaps more memorable for the beginning of the date than for any resemblance to a Seinfeld character, although he was a bit of a close talker. Bill* and I had emailed for a while and he really peaked my interest; he was funny, intelligent, and actually volunteered his time with the elderly. No, that wasn’t a line – I really do believe him. It’s just unusual and really cool; we actually did similar types of volunteering by visiting nursing homes with our dogs just for different organizations and at different facilities. And when I say he is intelligent I should be more specific; he was an actual physicist. I felt a little out of my depth but he did seem too good to pass up for fear of intimidation.
As promising as all of that sounded, I pretty much knew from our phone conversation that the date was not going to go well. He was highly nervous and had very annoying conversational habits. He ended every sentence by repeating the last phrase of that sentence or by clearing his throat and saying “uh huh uh huh ok.”
For example, when I asked how is day had been going he said “Today’s been going pretty well, pretty well. It’s been very busy at work, though, very busy at work. How was your day (throat clearing) uh huh?” I thought maybe it was a fluke but when I asked him where he wanted to meet the following day for a drink he said “How about that bar down by the lake, down by the lake? Its pretty cool (clears throat) uh huh, ok.”
There was a split second when I thought about ending it then, not even bothering to meet him. But I convinced myself that I was being too hasty and that he was probably just bad on the phone. Uh huh. Ok.
To set the scene, keep in mind that Bill* and I had never met before. We had exchanged several emails, seen each others pictures, done a little instant messaging, and talked once on the phone. So when I walked up to the bar and saw him standing outside, I was more than a little taken aback when as I reached out to shake his hand, he tried to kiss me. Open mouthed. With tongue. In my shock I was still able to turn my head so that instead of him frenching me hello, he ended up licking the side of my head and my hair. That’s right, I said hello and he licked my hair.
Time stood still for a bit as I gave a sort of strangled yelp and he looked at me nonchalantly as if nothing strange had happened. That is when I really needed the ganas to just walk away. Inexplicably, I stayed. I felt too mean to leave even though I was totally freaked. So I just kind of hurried inside the bar and he followed after me. I was a little smarter than usual though and ignored him when he was standing at the hostess stand saying he wanted to get a table and have some dinner. I pretended I didn’t hear him and hurried to an empty stool at the bar.
After such a horrible start, the only place to go is up right? If you actually believe that, then this must be the first of my posts that you’ve read. For the conversational “quirks” I had noticed during our phone conversation were omnipresent during our conversation at the bar. The scary thing was that I found myself adopting some of his habits, some of his habits. Trying to take control of the conversation and prevent me from losing all powers of thoughtful speech, I decided to talk to him more about his volunteerism. How could that go wrong? Well, when he told me that the name of his dog was Nixon and that he named him after the single greatest human being who has ever lived and then waxed rhapsodic about the wondrous traits of our former president for TEN SOLID MINUTES I knew it was time to call it a night. I knocked back the rest of my cocktail, slapped some money on the bar, and told him I had to hit the road. At this point, he tried to french me again! Yes, that’s right. He is that bold and I am that clueless. Of course he would try again! I had stayed in his presence for almost 30 minutes and hadn’t run away screaming so clearly we were meant to be together. This time I intercepted his face with my hand which he almost licked so I wiped it on the barstool, wished him luck in his future endeavors, and fled. Even as I was running away I heard him saying that he would give me a call so we could do this again, do this again…
The second match was perhaps more memorable for the beginning of the date than for any resemblance to a Seinfeld character, although he was a bit of a close talker. Bill* and I had emailed for a while and he really peaked my interest; he was funny, intelligent, and actually volunteered his time with the elderly. No, that wasn’t a line – I really do believe him. It’s just unusual and really cool; we actually did similar types of volunteering by visiting nursing homes with our dogs just for different organizations and at different facilities. And when I say he is intelligent I should be more specific; he was an actual physicist. I felt a little out of my depth but he did seem too good to pass up for fear of intimidation.
As promising as all of that sounded, I pretty much knew from our phone conversation that the date was not going to go well. He was highly nervous and had very annoying conversational habits. He ended every sentence by repeating the last phrase of that sentence or by clearing his throat and saying “uh huh uh huh ok.”
For example, when I asked how is day had been going he said “Today’s been going pretty well, pretty well. It’s been very busy at work, though, very busy at work. How was your day (throat clearing) uh huh?” I thought maybe it was a fluke but when I asked him where he wanted to meet the following day for a drink he said “How about that bar down by the lake, down by the lake? Its pretty cool (clears throat) uh huh, ok.”
There was a split second when I thought about ending it then, not even bothering to meet him. But I convinced myself that I was being too hasty and that he was probably just bad on the phone. Uh huh. Ok.
To set the scene, keep in mind that Bill* and I had never met before. We had exchanged several emails, seen each others pictures, done a little instant messaging, and talked once on the phone. So when I walked up to the bar and saw him standing outside, I was more than a little taken aback when as I reached out to shake his hand, he tried to kiss me. Open mouthed. With tongue. In my shock I was still able to turn my head so that instead of him frenching me hello, he ended up licking the side of my head and my hair. That’s right, I said hello and he licked my hair.
Time stood still for a bit as I gave a sort of strangled yelp and he looked at me nonchalantly as if nothing strange had happened. That is when I really needed the ganas to just walk away. Inexplicably, I stayed. I felt too mean to leave even though I was totally freaked. So I just kind of hurried inside the bar and he followed after me. I was a little smarter than usual though and ignored him when he was standing at the hostess stand saying he wanted to get a table and have some dinner. I pretended I didn’t hear him and hurried to an empty stool at the bar.
After such a horrible start, the only place to go is up right? If you actually believe that, then this must be the first of my posts that you’ve read. For the conversational “quirks” I had noticed during our phone conversation were omnipresent during our conversation at the bar. The scary thing was that I found myself adopting some of his habits, some of his habits. Trying to take control of the conversation and prevent me from losing all powers of thoughtful speech, I decided to talk to him more about his volunteerism. How could that go wrong? Well, when he told me that the name of his dog was Nixon and that he named him after the single greatest human being who has ever lived and then waxed rhapsodic about the wondrous traits of our former president for TEN SOLID MINUTES I knew it was time to call it a night. I knocked back the rest of my cocktail, slapped some money on the bar, and told him I had to hit the road. At this point, he tried to french me again! Yes, that’s right. He is that bold and I am that clueless. Of course he would try again! I had stayed in his presence for almost 30 minutes and hadn’t run away screaming so clearly we were meant to be together. This time I intercepted his face with my hand which he almost licked so I wiped it on the barstool, wished him luck in his future endeavors, and fled. Even as I was running away I heard him saying that he would give me a call so we could do this again, do this again…
Sunday, August 8, 2010
It’s Raining Men: Hallelujah?
A few weeks ago I was asked how many dates I went on in an average week. Ever since my date with the man who feared electricity, the average has been easy to calculate: zero. I’ve been traveling a lot and have to admit I’ve been a bit reluctant to throw myself back out there as the odds of me dating a fascist who practices taxidermy and witchcraft seem to be rising with every new oddball date.
Instead of the average week, today I’ll relay the tale of the week where I went on the highest amount of dates. It was about a year ago that from a period of Tuesday to Friday I went on 3 dates and was introduced to 3 other guys at a happy hour. Yep, that’s right: 6 guys in 4 days. It was exhausting and a little confusing. I didn’t start out the week intending to take up all the time not spent working or sleeping with dating; that’s just how it ended up happening.
Tuesday: Tuesday was my first blind date not arranged by an internet site in a pretty long time. A friend set me up with a teacher she knew from work. She didn’t know him extremely well but said he seemed nice and was cute; to make things ostensibly less awkward, my friend and her husband joined me and Pete* at the bar where we were to meet for trivia night. I even harangued another friend into joining us to check this guy out. Pete was great. He was pretty quiet, but had a decent sense of humor and was attractive. The conversation was a little awkward but then again I don’t think he had been on a blind date in a long time either and we did have an audience. We didn’t kick butt at trivia but it was still a fun time. Then we all walked over to another spot to get some ice cream. At the end of the evening, Pete said he had fun meeting me and would give me a call so we could meet up again, with my friend saying she’d send him a note with my contact information.
And then nothing. No calls. No emails. Nada. Of course I wouldn’t really determine he was not going to call for a few days. So I went on about my hectic dating week fairly confident that if none of these other guys worked out, it was ok because I had already met a really great guy. My friend said he never really mentioned it again but said something about how she thought he didn’t feel any sparks right away and was the sort of guy that if the chemistry wasn’t there for him right away he didn’t see the point in wasting time. I can understand that point of view; but obviously it was still disappointing. But all that would happen later because shortly after Tuesday there was…
Wednesday: Wednesday was actually my 2nd date with Albino Dan*. Ok, he was technically not an albino but I do give nicknames to these guys with their more memorable traits. Albino Dan was extremely fair: white-blond hair, fair complexion that inevitably pinked up in the warm weather, and had very light-colored eyes. Those who have known me for a while know of my misplaced fear of/anger towards albinos due to an unfortunate viewing of a Mentos commercial with a very fair man when I may or may not have been inebriated (yes, you read that correctly and no, it won’t make any more sense if you read it again); those same individuals were surprised that I went on one, let alone two, dates with Albino Dan. Regardless, we met up for our 2nd date and he was perfectly nice and I had an okay time. Not great, but ok. He was a very nice guy, however, and I have a problem with leading on very nice guys when I am fairly confident that I cannot see myself in a remotely romantic situation with them. Since I would rather have woken up with my head stapled to the floor than have been in a romantic situation with Dan, it was time to end it politely but firmly.
Thursday: Now to put Thursday in perspective, I have to mention that on my Tuesday date, I saw a guy at the trivia bar that gave me a very, very strange look. I stared at him for a while myself as I was pretty sure I had met him before or knew him in some capacity. That all became clear on Thursday when I realized that I had seen my Match date for coffee that day back on Tuesday at the bar. He looked at me strangely as we had been emaling for a while and had seen each other’s pictures. So when I first walked into the coffee shop, he started off by fairly aggressively mentioning that he had seen me talking to a guy at the bar a few days earlier and asked if I was already dating someone. Off to a good start, I said that I had been there with several friends and that he was a friend of one of them and that was the first time we had met. Tim* got pretty huffy and made a point of letting me pay for my own coffee before we sat down at a table to get to know each other. Tim also was a teacher but spent the entire time talking about how much he hated his job. I found it a little disconcerting how much he blatantly disliked the kids he taught and the job itself, especially since at the time he was on summer vacation and hadn’t seen them for a few months but stayed preoccupied stoking up his anger and frustration. The date more or less fizzled after that; it’s hard to try to get a conversation going when the other person, whom you have just met, spends the entire time talking about how miserable they are. We ended the date by shaking hands and wishing each other luck.
Friday: I would need all the luck I could get come Friday as I was going to a work happy hour with a friend to meet all her colleagues and not one, not two, but three potential guys that she wanted me to check out. With that ratio going, how could I lose? Well, by the time I got there, her first pick for me was already hitting on the waitress and her second choice was chatting up one of their coworkers (who he would eventually follow on a trip to Paris or somewhere else similarly wonderful). The third guy was actually a friend of my friend’s boss and he was decidedly not warm for my form. He was a firefighter from the country and decided early on that I was a city-slicker who wouldn’t fit in with his way of life. Thinking of me as a city-slicker is fairly absurd but this guy had his mind made up and I might have tried to sway him had I not decided to drown my sorrows in fruity beverages and shuffleboard. At this point, I apparently caught the attention of Smelly Will* who unlike the firefighter was decidedly a smitten kitten for yours truly, but my friend was so aghast at the thought that she forbade me from spending any more time with Smelly Will. Since I could tell early on where he got that nickname from and I was more than a little socially lubricated, I took her advice and called it a night when she and her husband decided to go home.
After my week of intense dating, I took a mini-break before diving back in with Jared* the caveman and the Hairlicker. You’ll have to wait for another time for those stories. The gym is calling to me and although my couch is louder and more persistent, I will attempt to get going while the getting is good.
*Name has been changed
Instead of the average week, today I’ll relay the tale of the week where I went on the highest amount of dates. It was about a year ago that from a period of Tuesday to Friday I went on 3 dates and was introduced to 3 other guys at a happy hour. Yep, that’s right: 6 guys in 4 days. It was exhausting and a little confusing. I didn’t start out the week intending to take up all the time not spent working or sleeping with dating; that’s just how it ended up happening.
Tuesday: Tuesday was my first blind date not arranged by an internet site in a pretty long time. A friend set me up with a teacher she knew from work. She didn’t know him extremely well but said he seemed nice and was cute; to make things ostensibly less awkward, my friend and her husband joined me and Pete* at the bar where we were to meet for trivia night. I even harangued another friend into joining us to check this guy out. Pete was great. He was pretty quiet, but had a decent sense of humor and was attractive. The conversation was a little awkward but then again I don’t think he had been on a blind date in a long time either and we did have an audience. We didn’t kick butt at trivia but it was still a fun time. Then we all walked over to another spot to get some ice cream. At the end of the evening, Pete said he had fun meeting me and would give me a call so we could meet up again, with my friend saying she’d send him a note with my contact information.
And then nothing. No calls. No emails. Nada. Of course I wouldn’t really determine he was not going to call for a few days. So I went on about my hectic dating week fairly confident that if none of these other guys worked out, it was ok because I had already met a really great guy. My friend said he never really mentioned it again but said something about how she thought he didn’t feel any sparks right away and was the sort of guy that if the chemistry wasn’t there for him right away he didn’t see the point in wasting time. I can understand that point of view; but obviously it was still disappointing. But all that would happen later because shortly after Tuesday there was…
Wednesday: Wednesday was actually my 2nd date with Albino Dan*. Ok, he was technically not an albino but I do give nicknames to these guys with their more memorable traits. Albino Dan was extremely fair: white-blond hair, fair complexion that inevitably pinked up in the warm weather, and had very light-colored eyes. Those who have known me for a while know of my misplaced fear of/anger towards albinos due to an unfortunate viewing of a Mentos commercial with a very fair man when I may or may not have been inebriated (yes, you read that correctly and no, it won’t make any more sense if you read it again); those same individuals were surprised that I went on one, let alone two, dates with Albino Dan. Regardless, we met up for our 2nd date and he was perfectly nice and I had an okay time. Not great, but ok. He was a very nice guy, however, and I have a problem with leading on very nice guys when I am fairly confident that I cannot see myself in a remotely romantic situation with them. Since I would rather have woken up with my head stapled to the floor than have been in a romantic situation with Dan, it was time to end it politely but firmly.
Thursday: Now to put Thursday in perspective, I have to mention that on my Tuesday date, I saw a guy at the trivia bar that gave me a very, very strange look. I stared at him for a while myself as I was pretty sure I had met him before or knew him in some capacity. That all became clear on Thursday when I realized that I had seen my Match date for coffee that day back on Tuesday at the bar. He looked at me strangely as we had been emaling for a while and had seen each other’s pictures. So when I first walked into the coffee shop, he started off by fairly aggressively mentioning that he had seen me talking to a guy at the bar a few days earlier and asked if I was already dating someone. Off to a good start, I said that I had been there with several friends and that he was a friend of one of them and that was the first time we had met. Tim* got pretty huffy and made a point of letting me pay for my own coffee before we sat down at a table to get to know each other. Tim also was a teacher but spent the entire time talking about how much he hated his job. I found it a little disconcerting how much he blatantly disliked the kids he taught and the job itself, especially since at the time he was on summer vacation and hadn’t seen them for a few months but stayed preoccupied stoking up his anger and frustration. The date more or less fizzled after that; it’s hard to try to get a conversation going when the other person, whom you have just met, spends the entire time talking about how miserable they are. We ended the date by shaking hands and wishing each other luck.
Friday: I would need all the luck I could get come Friday as I was going to a work happy hour with a friend to meet all her colleagues and not one, not two, but three potential guys that she wanted me to check out. With that ratio going, how could I lose? Well, by the time I got there, her first pick for me was already hitting on the waitress and her second choice was chatting up one of their coworkers (who he would eventually follow on a trip to Paris or somewhere else similarly wonderful). The third guy was actually a friend of my friend’s boss and he was decidedly not warm for my form. He was a firefighter from the country and decided early on that I was a city-slicker who wouldn’t fit in with his way of life. Thinking of me as a city-slicker is fairly absurd but this guy had his mind made up and I might have tried to sway him had I not decided to drown my sorrows in fruity beverages and shuffleboard. At this point, I apparently caught the attention of Smelly Will* who unlike the firefighter was decidedly a smitten kitten for yours truly, but my friend was so aghast at the thought that she forbade me from spending any more time with Smelly Will. Since I could tell early on where he got that nickname from and I was more than a little socially lubricated, I took her advice and called it a night when she and her husband decided to go home.
After my week of intense dating, I took a mini-break before diving back in with Jared* the caveman and the Hairlicker. You’ll have to wait for another time for those stories. The gym is calling to me and although my couch is louder and more persistent, I will attempt to get going while the getting is good.
*Name has been changed
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