Date & Dish

I was hanging out with the real-world contact I mentioned in my last post this weekend, and he asked me, “So what would I be called if you were writing about me on your secret blog?”

(Which I found funny, because the blog is not so secret that he doesn’t know about it.)

I went through a few possibilities, most of which I cannot even remember now. But tonight, while logging in to give an update, it struck me…I shall call him “The Reader.”

It is a little odd writing about your date on a secret blog that your date reads. I told him that it wouldn’t be fair if I wrote about him, because then he would know what’s inside my head, and I wouldn’t know what’s inside his. Not fair.

But I changed my mind. I wanted to let you all know that it’s been really, really nice with The Reader. It’s just been so easy and fun and sweet. I certainly don’t think I’m saying anything he doesn’t already know, but if he reads this, I hope it makes him smile.

He makes me smile.

Sometimes I wonder if I am saying too much, but I’ve always had a mouth as big as my heart when it comes to being smitten. I told him the other night that when I kiss him standing up, it makes me dizzy. I sometimes wonder if he thinks I’m the world’s biggest goofball weirdo girl, but I think he thinks the goofy weirdness is cute.

See, if he had a secret blog that I could read, I would know.

Anyway, there’s the update on The Reader. If I’m ruining the game (boy chases girl, girl runs away…) people sometimes like to play by posting all this here, then please, sweet Reader (that’s capital “R”…not the rest of you!) — just stop visiting and reading, okay? I promise I won’t say mean things about you or otherwise take advantage of your absence.

Sheesh…this is weird, isn’t it??

Back in ancient times, before the advent of computers and the online dating age with online pictures, there was a method people met that is probably less common than in it is today: the sometimes positive, more often scary Blind Date. Your friend says they have someone of the opposite (or in certain cases same) sex, they’d like you to meet and ask you if you are interested in meeting with someone you’ve never met before whose picture you’ve never seen.

From friends experiences, The Blind Date story is usually told as one awful experience from start to finish with two people completely unattracted to each other’s minds or bodies. As a result, in most cases, when friends ask me the blind date question, I cringe for a second, followed by a brushing off of, “Well, maybe we could all hang out sometime for something low key”. The idea of this is to avoid sitting down across the table from someone I have no attraction and to avoid offending with my disinterest my friend who with all good intentions set up the blind date.

Admittedly, girls on the whole who ask me if I would be OK with being set up do a worse job. See, the instant I am asked whether I would like to be set up, the thought that pops into my head is “Is she hot?” However, the recommendation usually comes that she is “really really nice”. Of course, I would never overtly ask that question to my friend, since it would invite a “Ooooooh, Men are JERKS!” response, but online, doesn’t everyone really look at the picture first too? The sardonic side of me has a theory that women see their friends as nice and really great, so why wouldn’t someone else find them wonderful as a companion? Unfortunately, the logic doesn’t always or even often follow.
In a first, a girlfriend of mine asked me if I would be open to being set up, and two of the first things out of her mouth were, “You too would make a very attractive couple” and “You might have to fend off a lot of the guys she’s been seeing.” Of course, she also added many similar interests we shared. I’m not *that* shallow.

I’m not sure whether we will eventually meet or not or whether if we do meet it will be though a blind date, but definitely, this friend knows how to work it to make me interested in the feared Blind Date. I would certainly be interested.

I’m tired. Literally and figuratively, I suppose. I realized that I hadn’t logged into one of the sites I’m on in nearly a month, and I voided my 6-month guarantee of success by doing so.

Oh well.

I hung out with Data Guy recently. We went to see a movie and it was just as I expected…totally friendly. As in, we’re friends and nothing more. I’m fine with that…and it’s nice to know what to expect from him, you know?

German Guy IM’d me several days ago. It was your basic chit-chat. Then his computer froze and he went offline, so a few minutes later I got a text from him. He said he would let me get back to work and he would call me later. Well, of course he never did call. But that’s fine because I didn’t even miss it, until he wrote me today and said he hadn’t heard from me in a while. I’m like, helloooo! You said you would call, so call, stupid!

Okay, maybe I’m being a little hard on him. But I guess you could say I’m over any notion of getting together with him…can you tell? I’m not even sure if I’m that excited about the idea of being friends with him anymore. But I do have a DVD of his that I need to return. I’m not going to pull a Book Thief on him and keep his DVD — I’m not that kind of girl. So I guess I do have to see him again at some point. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’ve had two interesting conversations with guy friends recently. One of them admires me from across the country, telling me that I should move out there to give things a shot with him. We knew each other a long time ago, and we haven’t seen each other in about six years. We chat every now and then and I consider him a friend. A recent conversation went like this (we’re talking about online dating):

Me: i’ve had 99% positive experiences too. i’ve made a lot of friends. it’s funny, so many of my latest myspace friends are all guys i’ve gone out with.

Him: they still want to f*ck you, that’s why….and that’s being honest.

Me: you think? see, there’s the guys being simple thing. i’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. aww, they want to be friends.

Him: watch When Harry Met Sally…so true, everything that Billy Crystal says…..

Him: guys want to sleep with everyone….even their friends.

So, guy readers (all two of you) — is this true? Perhaps I’m being naive when it comes to my newfound friendships with some of these guys.

The other conversation was with a guy at work. I really think that guys think women have it soooooo much easier than them, and it’s just not true! He’s having a hard time online, and I’ll admit — as a girl, I get tons of e-mails. But how many of them are actually people I want to go out with?? Quantity does NOT equal quality, for sure.

On another note, I’ve gone out with a real-world contact lately…someone I didn’t meet online. We’ve actually known each other as acquaintances for a while and are now discovering that we have tons of common interests and know a lot of the same people. He also happens to be a reader of Date and Dish, so that’s about all I’m going to share for now.

So, that’s all the news that’s fit to print, kiddos! Till next time….

I figure I owe it to you guys to share a funny date story every now and then.   My match subscription ended around the beginning of November.  I was IMing Country Boy (CB) for about a month and speaking to him on the phone for a few weeks.  Normally I would have been completely bored with him.  I guess he has really good timing since he asked me for my number soon after I broke it off with KP.

It amazes me how very attractive guys can be such freaks. I mean, who knew?  CB can make me laugh, I’ll give him that.  Also, his online pictures didn’t do him justice.  Beautiful blue eyes and a hot body.  How did the pictures fail to show me that?  Anyway, when he asked me if I dated guys who drove camouflage trucks, I should have taken that as a sign to run very far away.

CB claimed he wasn’t nervous for the date, but he had trouble making any eye contact except for his occasional intense stare.  Enough to make anyone uncomfortable.  He dropped a few clues he wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, but then he told me it took him 9 years to graduate from college.  A-it was a state school and B-he didn’t take any time off.  He told me he was slow.  Ummm-I guess so.  Still-he was very sweet and almost had an innocence about him.  I almost felt bad for him.

CB was very affectionate and he seemed like a really nice guy.  So when he walked me to my car, he asked me what else I wanted to do.  Umm…like what?  He asked if I wanted to get in his truck and listen to music.  I declined.  Sounded like something serial killers say to their victims.  He told me he wasn’t going to hurt me and after ten minutes he had somehow talked me into it.  I blame it on the alcohol.  So he starts the engine and drives to a nearby parking lot.  He proceeds to feel my leg and I tell him I hadn’t shaved.  He was like “Ewww!”.  Yeah, I don’t shave for first dates, buddy…because you know, I don’t plan on taking off my jeans.  So he sees some people 50 yards away and says, “Well, I would kiss you but there are some people over there.”  Well, I am pretty sure that they can’t see us.  So he drives to another parking lot.  Oh wait, this won’t work either because someone is taking out the trash.  So he drives to yet ANOTHER remote parking lot.  Jeez.  So we eventually kiss.  Then I notice his eyes are open.  “So why are you kissing me with your eyes open?”  Him:  “I’m keeping an eye out for cars.”  How romantic.  I told him he was a little strange.  He told me I was a little strange too.  Okay, so I guess I deserved that one.

So for the good news:  A nice dinner and a nice make-out session with an extremely attractive guy.  Up next:  finally, a non-online date.  Details next week.

Can anyone really be friends after dating?  It’s just hard to go backwards. KP has annoyed me by calling me every day since Wednesday.  I feel if I was friends with him, I would be because in the back of my mind I would hope that he would change his mind about me.  I know there is absolutely no chance of that happening.  I mean, I gave him 3 months to figure that one out.  I shouldn’t waste anymore time.  Maybe if I was dating someone seriously, I would be fine with being friends.  But how long is that going to take? I  like to think I don’t have feelings for him right now, but maybe I am confused.  I guess I am terrified of them coming back. He hurt my feelings once, and I will not be around for the second time.  I shouldn’t have to explain that to him.

Being friendly, that’s fine.  But he insisted that I hang out with him on Saturday.  I declined by text message around 11pm.  If I had hung out with him on Saturday at a bar with his friends, I would have flirted with every guy at that bar plus KP’s friends.  Just to prove a point.  Would I want him to do that to me?  Absolutely not.  So that makes me a good person, right?

I’m tempted to wonder what is behind his actions.  What is he really thinking?  Is he just playing with me?  Does he love the fact that I was more into him than he was into me?  I’ll never know and I refuse to waste any time overanalyzing (one of my new year’s resolutions).  So I’m moving on and declining any Saturday plans with KP that involves spirits.

So in my last post, I shared how things went south with Data Guy. Well, I suppose he and I have fallen into the land of being “chat buddies”…he continues to IM me almost every day but still hasn’t asked me out again. Whatever. As I mentioned before, I decided to set up some dates with new people, and I’ve been out with two guys since I gave up on Data Guy.

The first guy I went out with was Music Guy. We met for coffee one evening last week and had a great time talking about music. We have very, very similar taste in music and were actually at a lot of the exact same shows in college (we were at the same university over the same five-year period). He was super-nice and cute, and we got along great. He’s in the process of getting divorced after being separated for nearly a year, so he’s interested in taking things slowly and starting out as friends, which is totally fine with me. At the very least, we discussed being concert buddies. I haven’t spoken to him since then and will probably wait for him to contact me. That’s what I’m supposed to do, right? Let him “pursue” me?

Sigh. I’m not very good at playing the game.

Anyway, I went out with someone new tonight. I’ll call him Small World Guy, and you’ll see why in a bit. We first started communicating a few months ago, and then I never heard back from him. Before totally writing him off, I sent him a fairly direct e-mail that basically said “I was just curious whether you were still interested in communicating with me or not. If not, that’s totally cool, I’m just trying to simplify things a bit and would rather close out our communication than keep it open if you’ve found someone you’re interested in, taking a break, changed your mind, etc. So could you let me know? I appreciate it!” He wrote back immediately and suggested we get together, citing business at work and in his personal life and apologizing for not responding earlier.

We exchanged a few e-mails and he was going to send me an e-mail last night with a suggestion on where to meet. Well, I never got any e-mail, and last night came and went. I thought maybe I would get one today, but no. Finally, around 5:30 or so, I figured I was getting stood up tonight. Can you believe it? But just as I was going to give up, I got an e-mail from him asking if we were still on and saying he hadn’t heard from me yet about tonight. I called him and learned that he had indeed sent me an e-mail the night before, but I hadn’t received the mystery message. We made plans to meet a little later at a local café, and I was just glad I wasn’t being stood up.

We actually had a great time tonight! I expected to have a pretty quick first date, but we ended up talking for nearly four hours and could have talked longer if it wasn’t getting so late. It turns out that we actually have a lot in common, including some common friends. It turns out that one of my friends from my last job is Small World Guy’s next door neighbor. I kid you not. And one of his very good friends is someone I worked with a few years ago at another job. How crazy is that? It’s such a small world.

Anyway, Small World Guy and I agreed to get together again this weekend. He’s really an interesting guy. He likes to read all sorts of books, which I find fascinating since I feel like I have so little time to read these days. He also writes fiction and is considering going back to school to get an English degree just for fun. I could appreciate that since I have an English degree — I thought it was pretty cool.

Meanwhile, good old HH and I keep in touch and will likely get together again at some point to hang out. German Guy wants to get together again sometime. Data Guy added me as a MySpace friend. And do you remember the guy who suggested we split the bill on our first date? We have continued to chat via IM almost every day since then. I’ve made a nice new Internet friend.

So that’s where I am, folks. Not much exciting to report, I suppose, but hey…who knows? I’m open to possibilities!

I have been asked more than a few times lately “How on earth are you still single?”

It’s getting annoying.

If I knew, I wouldn’t be single!

I mean, I guess it’s flattering in some sense, but it’s also like, do you really want to know? Because I’d be happy to go into the whole meeting the right person at the right time, liking the wrong guys, and having the wrong guys like me thing if you want.

Grrr. Just wanted to vent.

So Data Guy and I went out for a third time exactly one week ago. It was fine — we had a good time and exchanged a sweet, simple hug and kiss goodbye. I have been getting that weird “does he like me?” thing I had with CB a long time ago, and I should know by now that that means trouble.

I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he does really like me but he’s shy? Intimidated? Trying to play “the game”?

No…I think the bottom line is that if he wants to see me, he’ll let me know. I was this close to sending him an IM tonight and just saying, “Hey, I understand online dating can be weird sometimes, and people meet other people, decide to take breaks, change their minds, get busy with life, whatever. I’m just curious as to whether or not you’re still interested in going out with me, just being friends, or none of the above. It’s all totally cool…I’d just like to know…thanks!”

I say I was this close to sending it, but I actually sent him an IM saying “hey” and never got a response. So I attempted to confront him about it but didn’t even have a chance to go there.

Oh well. It’s probably better that way. I need to write him off and move on. Obviously something is going on there that I am not aware of, and my somewhat controlling nature really wants to know, dammit! Even if he thinks I’m a total loser and wants to dump me…I’d just like to know.

I don’t think I’ll ever find out.

I’ve removed him from my IM contact list so I’m not always faced with seeing him online. What sucks is that I actually liked this guy. I realized how difficult it was to see multiple people at once, and I haven’t been on a date with a single other guy since my first date with Data Guy.

However, now that I realize that he’s probably just not that into me (awww), I am going to set up a few dates for the coming weeks. I am also thinking of tweaking my profile a bit. I’m not sure what exactly I want to add, but I really am tired of this guessing game. I’d like to date people who can do for me what I totally expect to do for them…be honest and upfront about things.

Oh…on another note, the Student wrote me back after my last e-mail to him. The gist of it was that he thought I should have told him these things earlier, and he would have corrected it. I think that’s bullsh*t. Pardon my French. I just don’t think you go around changing yourself for other people. I guess what I really mean is that the kind of guy who is that willing to change what he’s doing because some girl (i.e., me) doesn’t like it…I’m not sure how I feel about that. I want to like a guy, faults and all, and have him feel the same way about me. I don’t plan on changing myself if I encounter someone who doesn’t like the way I approach things. And the thing is, I did basically tell the Student many times that I wasn’t interested in a relationship…I just left off the “with you” part. Does it take being that brutally honest? If so, I can start doing that if it will help me out.

So we’ll see what this next round of dating brings. So long, Data Guy…I had fun with you and wish you well.

KP and I are finally over.  It’s my fault for dragging it out for 3 months.

KP failed to say happy birthday on my birthday a month ago.  To me, that was a huge red flag.  I tried to blow it off, telling myself it wasn’t a big deal.  But it was.  I finally brought it up when we went out last night.  I told him it made me feel like he didn’t like me and it hurt my feelings.  He apologized and gave me some bulls**t answer.  I wasn’t satisfied with what he told me, so I asked him again around 4 am.  He finally confessed that he didn’t want to mislead me and he wasn’t looking for anything serious.  He said he had already done the serious thing and never wanted a serious relationship again.  That he had issues and that the therapy was never going to change that.  I told him that we were obviously in different places and that I couldn’t see him anymore. I wanted a serious relationship and eventually marriage…with someone.  I was strong enough to say it but not strong enough not to shed a few tears.

Why can’t we all have a crystal ball to let us know that there will be someone else?  Someone else better.  Something to help make all these decisions a little easier.  I am not confident that there will ever be another guy.  I’ve been saying that since high school.  I knew he didn’t want anything serious, so I am suprised that I got upset.   I guess I thought if I hung around him long enough he would change his mind.  About me, about wanting something serious.  How did I trick myself into believing a lie? I can’t help but think when guys say they aren’t looking for something serious, it translates into “I don’t want to be serious with you.”  So for now, it’s okay for me to take a break. It’s okay for me to hold on to his t-shirt.   It’s okay for me to be sad for one day.  

Hey, Student…hope you had a great weekend!

After doing some thinking, I think my decision to stop seeing you really came down to a few things. I am not totally against the idea of ever being in a relationship again. And I wasn’t totally against the idea of ever being in a relationship with you. But I think that perhaps you were simply a bit ahead of me in terms of what we were doing, and that was expressed in the way you acted with me. In every relationship, each partner will be comfortable with a certain amount of closeness and distance. I think that our comfort levels were not in the same place at the same time. You would come closer to me, so to speak, and I would take a few steps back. In the end, I didn’t see things ever resolving to the point that we’d be on the same page, so I thought it was best to end things.

I think very highly of you, Student. Trust me…it is rare to meet someone that I click with so well so quickly. The decision to stop seeing someone who made me feel beautiful and adored was a tough one. But I think in the long run, I just didn’t see things working out, so I thought it was best to give us both the freedom to move on.

I don’t know if this helps at all or makes things more confusing. I hope you at least kind of understand what I’m saying and know that I wish you nothing but happiness and success.

Have a great week,
Friday