Swingers Redux

The same week that I went out with Glen* the maniacal driving range date (see At Least I Got To Hit Some Balls), I was supposed to go out with another guy as well.  Marty* and I had emailed a few times through the dating website and he seemed like an okay guy.  He said that he had been on the site for a while and had gone on a couple of dates but nothing had really panned out.  His emails were non-threatening, pleasant chats; with the clarity that is hindsight, I now realize that in his emails he revealed very little of his personality. 

We decided to meet on a Friday for drinks.  I have to admit that after my disastrous date with Glen* on that same Tuesday, I was not looking forward to another date.  But I was about to head out of town for a mini-break with a friend and then would be swamped with finishing up my old job, getting ready to start a new job; so, Friday looked to be as good a day as any other.  Of course, I was forgetting at the time how much I excel at procrastinating.  By Thursday night I realized there was no way I could make all my appointments on Friday, pack for my early flight Sat morning, and meet Marty*. 

Earlier in the week Marty* had said that I should text him so we could chat and while I’m against texting when you don’t really know someone (I don’t think you really can get to know someone over text, there’s no way to read someone’s expressions, get their sarcasm, etc plus I’m not that skilled in the texting arena) I decided to send him a quick text Thursday night to let him know that I wouldn’t be able to meet him the following day and to arrange a time when I was back in town to meet up.

What followed was eerily reminiscent of a scene from the movie that first introduced me to one of my favorite pretend boyfriends, Vince Vaughn.  In Swingers, Vince’s character’s friend Mikey (played by Jon Favreau) meets a girl at a bar, they have a flirtatious conversation, she gives him her phone number, and he proceeds to leave a bajillion voicemails.  This understandably freaks the girl out and she instructs him never to call him again.

The following is a transcript of the texts that followed my first text to Marty* on Thurs night at 9:01pm apologizing for postponing and seeing if it was ok if we met up when I returned from my vacation.

Him (9:03pm): I’m gonna have to think about that

Him (9:07pm): Well, ya gotta do Whacha gotta do…I was looking forward to tomorrow but…when do you get back?

Me (9:16pm): 15 Sep not free til 17^th or 18^th.  Sorry but changing jobs & am swamped. Will email when back and we can plan.  Gotta run, on my other phone with a friend.  Talk w/ you next wk.  Have a good wknd!

Him (9:20pm): Ok.  Sounds good.  I sent you an email too btw…

Him (9:23pm): You don’t seem like crap at txting…I’m more of a phone person myself…but I have an awesome phone that makes texting easy…

Him (9:32pm): So tell me more about yourself.  Where are you going on vacation?  Are you excited?  Sounds like fun.  I’m jealous.  Can’t wait to meet up when you get back.

Him (9:41pm): Your turn…

Him (9:49pm): Hello?  Are you there?  What happened?

Him (9:56pm): Sorry, if you’re busy its cool, but if you have time and want to, gimme a call.  I don’t want to bother you but would love to chat!

Him (10:07pm): Seriously, I really want to talk to you.  Please call soon.

Him (10:09pm): What’s up?  What are you doing? I’m starting to wonder…

Him (10:15pm): You there?  Did I say something wrong?

Him (10:22pm): I had to put the phone down for a bit. Did you try to call?  Please give me a call soon.  I really really really want to talk to you.

Me (10:24pm): As I said before, was on phone with a friend.  You’re coming on a bit too strong for me.  Sorry but I don’t think we should continue with this.

Him (10:28pm): What? I’m sorry. I was just expecting a call from you tonight. I get a lil excited sometimes.  Don’t take it the wrong way.

Him (10:32pm): And I’ve never done this before so…I’m really sorry, please reconsider?)

Him (10:38pm): I also feel like txt msgs can be easily misinterpreted, gimme 5 mins and you’ll feel much better about this…can I call you?

Him (10:42pm): Really, I’m so sorry.  But you can’t blame me.  I really wanted to talk to you.  That should be considered a good thing.  Please call or I’ll call you.  Please…

Him (10:50pm): You have got to think this over.  We could be great!  I really have a good feeling about us.

Him (10:55pm): Can you do me a favor at least and check your email?...if not, well…please!

Thankfully that was the last I heard from him.  While he was texting away and I was freaking out trying to discern if there’s any way he could have found out where I lived and was on his way to my house, I went onto the dating website and blocked him from being able to view my profile.  I nearly had a panic attack and called a friend as Marty* really did frighten me.  She tried to calm me down but agreed that he was bad news.  He had also lied at some point as he originally told me that he had been on the site for a while and dated a few women he met through the site, but in one of his MANY texts to me that night, he claimed that this was the first time meeting someone on line and for that reason I should excuse his habit of texting me approx every five minutes. 

In a brilliant fit of self-preservation, I have since quit that particular dating website.  While some of the guys I had met on that service were perfectly nice, there were far more crazies than I was willing to put up with, especially since they seemed to be getting scarier and scarier.  As for if the new site I’m on will prove to be any better (or please, God, no, please not worse), only time will tell.

*Name has been changed

How Not To Adorn Your Dating Profile

Fear not, faithful readers.  For I have continued to show that the possibility of psychopathic taxidermists will not deter me from providing a few laughs for those who take the time to read my blog (plus I hope to actually meet a guy that I dig and who is not crazy...at least not in a dangerous type way).  I joined a new and untested, at least not by me, dating website this evening.  Its far too soon to tell but there seems to be scads of potentials and some of them actually seemed intriguing.

There was one that made me want to update an older post on choosing what to put on one's profile on such a website.  Back oh so many moons ago (perhaps June or July) I wrote about some of the more unusual things I've seen on profiles.  For example, one guy had a picture of himself with crazy eyes and hair, standing next to a guy with some teeth missing.  The main guy was holding a paper sack that had the look of something that perhaps held a human head or something equally nefarious in it.  In another picture, a guy posed with his wife on a motorcycle.  They were both looking to add to his collection of wives. 

On this new site, which of course promises to help match you up with dates that fit to your personality and the character traits you desire in a date, there was a picture of a man standing in front of a row of teddy bears.  That's right.  Most significantly, this was his only profile picture.  I was left with many questions.  Were these his teddy bears?  Does he live with his mother or an aunt and they had a display of their teddy bears that they thought he would make a good backdrop for his picture?  He didn't have any kids so they couldn't belong to them.  Why would he think this would be a good look?  Was it to show off a softer side?  Did other women actually find this appealing?  Do women do this in their profile pictures too? 

All these questions made my head hurt so I finished sorting through the rest of the initial group of potential dates and decided to call it a night.  I still have one remaining old match from the previous site I was on and its a cautionary tale worth sharing so that will probably be my next post.  For now I'll just go snuggle up with my teddy bears and assorted other stuffed animals and dream of a date who does not scare me into hermiting myself away in the Twilight saga books.

**for the older post on what to put/not put in a profile, see "Is a Picture Still Worth 1,000 Words If Taken with a Cell Phone Camera?" http://extremedatingdiary.blogspot.com/2010/07/is-picture-still-worth-1000-words-if.html

Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Find me a Blowtorch

If I don’t get the lead out and get a new site to try or the courage/stupidity to try one of the MANY dating sites I’ve already tried, this may be one of my last posts.  I must confess that my most recent two encounters (the latter being Glen* the golfer, the other you’ve yet to hear his story) have left me a little gun shy. 

But back in the spring of 2010 I was still raring to go and that was what found me emailing a guy that I not only had never met but my friend that was setting us up had also never met him.  This matchmaker friend and I have somewhat similar tastes and she knew the things I was looking for in a guy (stick fighting a plus, ability to do own housework essential).  She had met a fantastic guy at work but he was a bit older.  Ok he was old enough to be one of our dads.  This guy sounded awesome though; they had the best conversations and really connected.  Wonder upon wonders, he had a son our age who wasn’t having any luck meeting lovely young ladies in the area.  It seemed like a perfect fit.  The silver fox described his son in fairly glowing terms and it didn’t seem any crazier than talking to the freaks I meet on the internet, so I said she could give Chip* my email address.

We emailed for a while and that went okay.  He seemed a little shy at first but gradually we had some good conversations going over email.  We eventually decided to meet up for a drink.  When I walked into the bar I have to admit that he didn’t make the best first impression.  He had on a sweatshirt that had a few stains on the front, work jeans, and old sneakers.  Within the first two minutes he breaks the ice by telling me that he’s not a good conversationalist.  It’s really hard to make a conversation go anywhere good from there particularly when he was being honest.  He was a horrible conversationalist.  For the first few minutes of the date, he gave minimal answers to questions and didn’t seem interested in anything that I had to say.  And then it got worse.

I tried to work with the “I’m not a good conversationalist” comment; I teased him and said I was sure he was just kidding.  He soberly shook his head and assured me that he wasn’t but informed me that it was all his brother’s fault.  The next few minutes involved him blaming his brother for his own social ineptitude.  Apparently his younger (and apparently more attractive) brother was always the outgoing one with lots of friends who had a ton of fun and outshone his older, less appealing brother.  He whined on and on until I couldn’t take it anymore.  I was pretty sure I wanted to date his brother instead of him (sadly his brother had a girlfriend already).  So I asked him if it was only difficult for him to make conversation or extend himself socially when he was around his brother or when he was on his own.  He answered that it was only difficult around his brother, so I looked around and remarked that his brother wasn’t at the bar right then, so what was his excuse?

I thought my blatantly rude remark would have gotten his attention but nope, he was impervious.  He kept complaining about how it had always been this way –his brother had always been the center of attention ever since they were little kids—and how could he possibly change decades of history.  That’s when I told him that “at some point, you’ve got to take responsibility for your own actions and not blame people from your past and incidents from years and years ago for your behavior today.”  It’s like I was channeling Dr Phil or Dr Joyce Brothers or someone.  I thought this would get his attention, give him pause, something; but no, he remained untouched. 

At this point, he at least stopped talking about his brother and started making inane conversation about the weather, sports, etc.  I just stared at him in disbelief.  He was on autopilot.  It didn’t matter that I responded or listened or even that I was there.  I started making my move for the door, saying that I had to get going.  This put him in hyperdrive.  I should have known better as the same thing happens whenever I’m having a prolonged phone conversation with my mother and say that I have to get going.  She finds about 15 other things that she has to tell me right then and an additional 20-30 minutes are added to the conversation for every time I say I have to get going.  It was the same with Chip* but I didn’t feel the need to stick around.  I told him twice that I had to get going and as he kept talking about his upcoming trip to California and baseball spring training and the chances for rain later in the week, I signaled the bartender for the bill for my drink.  All the while, Chip* kept going. It was like a floodgate of autowitter had opened and there was no stopping it.  I paid for my drink, got my purse, stood up and pushed my bar stool in reaching over to shake his hand and tell him to take care. 

As I was fleeing, I heard him continue jabbering, finally realizing that I was leaving, and he yelled after me that he would call me when he got back from his trip.  I wondered then if we had been on the same date.  How could he possibly think that we had more to talk about? I must have misheard him. 

But no, when he got back from his trip he sent me a couple of emails telling me about his trip, asking how I was, and saying he wanted to take me to dinner.  I thanked him for the invite but said I didn’t think we had made a connection and I wouldn’t be meeting up with him again.  He responded that while it was my choice, he liked to give people more than one chance and that he didn’t believe in instant chemistry but that maybe he was a bad judge of character.  Of course with my predisposition to feeling guilty I wondered if I should reply back to him that he was right and meet up with him again but thankfully I contacted the matchmaker friend that had set us up in the first place and she told me to run.  She apologized left and right that Chip* wasn’t anything like his awesome silver fox of a father. 

I wasn’t upset with her – I knew what I was getting into.  She said up front that she hadn’t met this guy, just that if he were anything like his dad he would be a good catch.  And it wasn’t the end of the world – I have had far worse dates with far worse guys.  In the end, I’m glad that I gave him a shot and am grateful that she was thinking of me when she met the awesome client.  Next time, I’ll just have to make sure that she meets and verifies that my actual date is the catch and not his dad.  Or I’ll have to make sure he at least pays for my drink. 

*Name has been changed