Holiday With My Parents Part 2

Never mind the fact that I am 30ish; I will always be seen as my parents’ little girl until I am married. Which, apparently, my parents think is never going to happen.

My parents recently bought a condo, and furnished it for visits from the whole family. A bed big enough for my brother and his wife, bunk beds for the kids, space for my aunts and uncles, and me? I got my own room.

You know how it’s creepy to go back to your parents’ house after a decade of living away from home to find your childhood room preserved as your room? Imagine your parents preserving that space when they move into their new condo.

But I showed nothing but appreciation as I knew that their motivation was that they wanted me to always feel welcome. Then they proudly showed me the furniture they bought for my room. There was no bed.

To be specific, there was a big fluffy chair that, when you removed the bottom cushion, revealed a mattress that folded out into a single bed.

“And look at this!” my dad said. “The ottoman flips open, and that’s where you store the linens! Isn’t that neat?”

I know what happened. My parents were out shopping for a whole bunch of furniture, they saw this, they thought, “What a neat idea!” which was quickly followed by, “Would this fit any of our needs?”

But I stared at my new chair/bed and thought, “My parents think I’m going to be single forever.”

A little too slow with the positive reaction that was expected of me, my father asked, “So, do you like it? Here, did you see the ottoman? It’s where you keep the linens!”

Holiday With My Parents Part 1

My preverbal cold shower is hanging out with my parents. God forbid I lose my job and have to move home. Then I would be living at home AND asexual. Yeep.

This holiday-sanctioned hanging out with parents had a new dimension to it, however. There was the usual cringing at the kiss scene(s) in every holiday movie my parents and I watched. But there was an additional bucket of cold water thrown on my growing frustration at singlehood. With my parents’ 40-plus year marriage on display in front of me, bemoaning my status was quickly turned into, “Jesus Christ, what’s my hurry?”

My parents are well matched. Where it counts, weaknesses in the character of one is made up for in an overabundance of that trait in the other, and there is a great balance of give and take in their marriage. Most importantly, they’re happy together.

Don’t worry; this isn’t going to turn into a belabored prose version of “I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl that Married Dear Old Dad.” In addition to her myriad wonderful qualities that should qualify her for sainthood, my mother frets to the point of a low-level whimpering whenever anyone else is driving. My father’s jabbing humor is funny about 20 percent of the time, and he scratches his balls more than any daughter would like to see.

I could go on, but I don’t mean to skewer, just to illustrate that after a few days of witnessing my parents’ marriage I came to this conclusion: I better be damn sure. If I’m really going for one of these “in it for the long haul” relationships, I better be damn sure that I love the person enough to put up with the ball scratching, or that I am not bothered by constant low-level whining from my passenger. The humor thing would probably be a deal breaker before date two.

I was happy to be given the larger perspective. True, I haven’t had a good date in a very long time. But any rush is my own creation, and my punishment would likely be a lifetime of ball scratching.

Damn Mistletoe.

At a party a few years ago I shoved a guy up against a wall and kissed him. It wasn’t a romantic thing or an attraction thing; it was to show him who was boss. (It made sense at the time -- just go with it.)

I have often seen this gentleman in the intervening years in common friend-of-a-friend type situations. At first I think he was intimidated by me and waiting for the next impulsive semi-inappropriate attack. But we soon settled into your garden variety power dynamic of looking for ways to stick it to the other person while pretending to be friends. We would hurl insults at each other, loudly make fun of each others’ lovelife (or lack thereof), all under the pretext that we were picking on each other like friends do. But I believe it was clear to all onlookers that there was a clear struggle for dominance. Or maybe the struggle for dominance was only on my side.

I have no idea how I fell into such a pattern, but it likely started years and years ago when I met him. Add a little attraction to the mix, and you have me throwing him up against a wall and kissing him. Did I mention that I then fake punched him in the stomach and walked away? Yup. Classy, all the way.

It was just a matter of time before the tables were turned. And oh how they turned.

We ended up at a holiday party together where Christmas had exploded. Of course there was mistletoe, and I did a fairly good job of avoiding it until it was time to leave. You can guess the next part: I was thrown up against a wall and assaulted with kisses while the other holiday revelers hooted and hurrayed. And then, as if it was nothing at all, he walked away.

Next kicks in my side of the power dynamic. And hey, I have the attention of everyone at the party. “That wasn’t even a good kiss!” I yelled at him as he walked away. Bad move. This was a challenge, and he turned and came after me again.

This power dynamic started so long ago I can’t remember what triggered it. But what puzzles me is why I kept it up for so long. Although I saw him infrequently, we kept this up for years. I wasn’t getting anything out of it, and moreover it’s rather exhausting to be caught up in a power dynamic like that. And furthermore, I’m a caring person! Why wasn’t I showing that side of myself to him? It was time to let go of any hang ups I had about appearing to be in control. And for letting go, hey, how about this very moment?

We had an amazingly hot kiss under the mistletoe. Onlookers later commented on their jealousy. There was a rhythm to it. There was a cadence. It was as if we were having a conversation with each other that ended with us drawing out the last words in perfect agreement. There was also deafening cat calling coming from all sides.

The first moment I drop all attempts at showing I’m more in control than he is, and I am thoroughly rewarded. Any benefits of a power dynamic can’t hold a candle to that. And that, kids, is the moral of the story of The Hot, Hot Kiss Under the Mistletoe. Merry Christmas!

Green Dating Part 2

Well, you certainly are a ball of energy, which is what i’ve always been and have run circles around everyone, even those younger than me. Past lovers use to comment about needing an assistant to be able to handle me. I also relate abt the interest vrs time in a day, and it does go faster as one ages.

I need to run as I’m heading out of town to do a show today, please do check out my business, since you like giving back, are green, etc you’ll love all is stands for.

This is a taste of the attention I am attracting on the green dating website. Mostly business advertisements. This was from an older woman on the east coast who wanted to tell me about her business helping pet owners reduce their pets’ carbon footprints. Oh, right: pawprints. Of course.

There was also the guy who lives on a boat and is trying to find like-minded individuals for an intentional community based on environmental principles, as well as sensuality. An intentional sensual community. Great. Now I’m being recruited for polygamy.

I did, surprisingly enough, receive one legitimate inquiry from a guy in Madison. He seems nice and has some similar interests...but he’s 15 years my senior and...okay: I try not to make a big deal about peoples’ photos. Appearance is secondary to personality, and a static photo isn’t a good indicator of appearance anyway. But occasionally red flags come roaring through photos. Like a guy who has not changed his look since the 70s. I kid you not, he has a bad White Guy Fro and is standing in front of paisley wallpaper. PAISLEY, people!

However, over 50 people had viewed my profile. Most were significantly older and only a fraction were within the tri-state area, but hey! It’s another way to put myself out there. One of these ways will eventually work, right? Right?

The Co-op

For those of us organic food loving Madisonians, the Willy Street Co-op is an institution and a shrine. It’s also the place you run into people, desired or not.

On my last visit to our esteemed co-op, within 10 minutes I had run into a friend of mine, laughed at a good-natured couple walking past me where the woman told the man that he was about to get slapped, and then ran into someone I had seen online.

To be fair, I knew this guy through a friend and we had met in person a few times before I came across his profile online. I sent him a message in an attempt to say, “Hey! I’m striking up a conversation with you!” but all I got in a reply was essentially, “I am politely returning your email because we know each other and not because I’m interested in furthering this conversation.”

And now here we were, accidentally locking eyes in the co-op, now required by civility to greet each other. We dutifully did so, and had a pleasant, brief conversation despite the fact that my constant inner monologue was, “Does he think I’m coming on to him? Am I acting flirty? Will this come off as desperate? When can this end?”

Upon returning from the co-op I was surprised to discover this message:

Re: Co-op

Noticed your amusement at my partner's comment about slapping me while in the co-op tonight. 

Anyway, I recognized you, and just wanted to say hi; sadly, I'm so pressed for time I don't have any extra to spare writing you some more. 

Hope your week is excellent...

Wow. Really? The Guy About to be Slapped turned out to be someone who has viewed my profile several times but never wrote me, and I had no interest in him as he was clear that he already had a partner and was looking for...uh...variety. So this guy that I have never met recognized me in passing? I am not that striking! And I don’t have a giant face tattoo or anything to give me away. This I had to respond to.

Whoa. I can't believe you recognized me. That's got to either say something about you or something about me, and I don't want to go too far down that path for fear that I'll find out. 

And here I just thought you were another guy about to get slapped in the co-op. 

Hope you have an excellent week, too!

His response:

For fear? That sounds either playful or dire! 

(I generally am going to remember someone that (this dating site) gives such a high grade to...) 

Thanks! How has (this dating site) been treating you? Any success/horror stories?

Oh honey. Yes and yes. But I’m going to end the communication here. I’m not interested in having a pen pal who already has a partner, despite the fact that he wouldn’t mind getting slapped around in the co-op.

Ballroom Dancing

For the single girl, there is a spectrum of physical needs that we do not get from a relationship and must find elsewhere. Hugs from friends completely satisfy one end of that spectrum, and vibrators take care of the other. But what about that middle area? Where can a single girl get a little bit of chemistry? A physical spark or two? I go for the staged, upright variety. No, not that. I’m speaking of ballroom dancing.

Not to say I feel a spark every time I dance with someone or even that my primary reason for going dancing is to get my hands on someone. It has been a rare occurrence that I am interested in anyone that I've danced with, or even want to have a conversation with a dance partner longer than, “What’s your name again? Thanks for dancing with me!” But at the end of a night of dancing, my body doesn’t seem to know the difference between chemistry and ballroom. I have that warm glow of a sated middle of the spectrum.

And then I go get a monster crush on my ballroom dance teacher. And I do mean crush. The type where I don’t have any inclination that we would be compatible, I have no reason to think it is returned, and for all I know this guy has four kids, three wives, two husbands and a partridge in a pear tree. All I know is that he’s got that caring patience of a good teacher, he’s cute, and when he dances with me he makes me feel beautiful. Done! Crush. Wheeeeee!

After months upon months of ho-hum dates, a crush is absolutely refreshing. I’m excited to see someone. Thoughts of him linger for days after. Ed Norton gets a break from being my go-to fantasy.

And since I have to have something to worry about, here’s what I’m worried about: that he will say something that will make my crush deflate like a soufflé. I'm worried that he’ll mention a wife in a pear tree or whatever, we’ll get a chance to have a conversation that is more than a few lines and he’ll turn out to be insipid, he’ll mention that he’s on parole, etc. So newly reintroduced to the glassy-eyed grins of a crush, I’m so worried that it will all suddenly be lost that I’m avoiding speaking with him.

Oh god. What if he corners me and starts talking? Would it be allowable to say, “Could you not talk to me? I have a huge crush and you and I really don’t want you to ruin that,” and still ask for the next dance?

Green Dating

For awhile now friends have been recommending that I check out a green dating site. Quite logical, since I find myself looking through profiles for any hint of environmental consciousness. Why not start with a pool narrowed down to these folks? Efficiency! Huzzah!

First I did my homework and compared green dating sites. Since I’m not over 50 or living in the Bay Area, really my only choice was a site I’ll call Green Shmingles. So to Green Shmingles I went.

Almost immediately after setting up my username and the basic questions of age, rank and serial number, I was asked, “Do you have kids?” followed by “Do you want kids?”

Squeeee!! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for asking this upfront! Thank you for making this as prominent a question as it really is! After so many awkward conversations, both online and in person, over how I don’t want kids, it was absolutely relieving to have this up front and out of the way. I was liking this site already.

So onto the diet section. My first thought was that this was the green way of asking what kind of body type I was. Instead I found a long checklist of diet options, including vegetarian, vegan, macrobiotic, and gluten free. It even had an option for organic. “This,” I thought while checking off organic, “may be the only time I will get a checkbox for organic on a dating site!”

Unless, of course, I start dating nitrogen-based beings. But I’ll leave daydream meanderings of being a dating ambassador to an alien race to myself.

Where was I? Right. Green dating. With my profile complete I jumped right into doing a search to see what kind of people were on here. Just wanting to do a wide gander at the Madison folks, I specified my city, upped the matches per page to be displayed from 15 to 50, hit search, aaaaaaaaaaand.......got one match. One! The guy looks nice and all, but seriously? One?

I went back and double-checked. Did I accidentally search for a narrow age range? Did it automatically search for people who also don’t want kids? No and no. Wait! I only did a search for men. Let’s try women. (And why can’t I search for both at the same time, Green Schmingles? Bisexuals: not just in porn anymore.) And my search for women came up wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiith....none. Goose egg. Zilch.

Well, that was fun. But perhaps I’ve answered why I’ve had such trouble finding other environmentally-minded singles. They’re not there. Really, Madison? I expected better from you!

To add insult to injury, my welcome email from Green Shmingles included this: We expect you to respond to all messages you receive, even if only to say "thank you, but I'm not interested at this time." It's just the polite thing to do.

Thanks for the lesson in manners, Green Shmingles. I don’t think I’ll need it.

Mr. Something To Do

There is a cafe downtown that I have had so many first dates at that when my latest internet find suggested a different cafe a few blocks away I gave him points for originality. So of course when we met there after work one day it was closed and we ended up walking the few blocks to my normal first date cafe. It was as if the dating gods were saying, “Oh no no no. You haven’t made it past here yet.”

But I gave him further points when he was good natured and easy going about it all, including the fact that the cafe was so packed that we had to sit on the staircase for awhile until a table opened up.

But as we chatted those points began to slide. We chatted about his work (which he doesn’t really like but it’s okay and he can’t think of anything he’d rather be doing) and about where he has lived (various areas of the state but didn’t really like any of them except Madison’s alright) and about his one hobby, bike racing (which sounds cool at first but when asked why he likes it he shrugged and said, “I dunno. Something to do, I guess.”)

So there I was, sitting across from Mr. Something To Do, thinking, “I am way too interesting for you.” This thought didn’t come from a feeling of superiority. Just incompatibility. I animatedly talked about my career and all my other interests, and he named cities that he did bike races in this summer.

But we kept the conversation going for an hour until he had to run meet up with his friends for a movie. And as I walked home I found myself trying to convince myself that he was worth dating. “He would be fine to date in the short-term. He’s nice! Maybe we could just do a lot of activities together instead of focusing so much on the talking. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s not crazy, so he’s go that going for him.”

It was just loneliness talking. It’s ironic how loneliness can feel like a presence, one that I definitely felt that night, alone in my apartment, as I made dinner for one and went to bed. Some nights are just like that, where hanging somewhere in the air is the constant reminder that no one is there. Despite all my efforts at meeting people and all the positivity I can muster as I work my way through the dating scene, loneliness followed me into my apartment to sit and my dinner table and say, “You’re eating dinner alone again.”

So what did I do? I ate dinner. I went to bed. I went to work. I went to the farmers market. I hung out with friends over the weekend. I just held on until loneliness went off in search of something better to do.

And it did. It always does. I don’t think the point is to keep from being lonely, and I’m not convinced that even in the right relationship I won’t feel lonely from time to time. I think the point is to not make any dumb decisions while lonely, but ride it out until I have a better perspective.

So sorry, Mr. Something To Do, but I’m having dinner alone tonight.

Speed Dating

A year or so ago I tried speed dating. While I could say that it was really a friend of mine who wanted to try speed dating and wanted a wingchick, which is true, I’m not going to hide behind that excuse. I wanted to try speed dating.

So here’s how it worked: all of us girls sat at numbered tables, and the guys rotated around the room. We had six minutes to talk, a little bell rang, and the guys had one minute to get to the next table. We all had little sheets to write down the names of the people that we met and check yes or no. A couple days later, for each match was made (meaning both people checked yes), both people got emailed each others’ contact information.

Immediately I discovered one of the downfalls of speed dating: the age range. I decided to go on the 20-somethings night, thinking that most people, like myself, would be on the far end of that spectrum. No 21 year-old in this college town is going to find it difficult to meet women and resort to speed dating.

Wrong.

I found myself sitting across from an undergraduate. An undergraduate! This guy was living in the dorms, no doubt his high school graduation only a slightly dimmed memory. Okay…four and a half minutes to go.

Which was my first discovery of the benefits of speed dating: you can talk to anyone for six minutes. Someone with terrible conversation skills? Tell them a five-minute story. Someone droning on about themselves? Don’t worry: a bell is going to ring soon and they have to go away. I wanted to take that bell with me.

The night I went there were a few more women than men, so occasionally I was left to twiddle my thumbs. Or go to the bathroom. Or chat with the guy who plans these events.

I asked him if he ever did same-sex speed dating events. He said not yet, which led me to momentarily dream of the first bisexuals-only speed dating service. (Everybody gets six minutes with everybody!) He also told me that most of the guys that participate will check yes for every girl.

“Really? The majority?” I asked. “About 60 percent,” he answered. Which means that 60 percent of guys want to know how many women said yes to them, or thought it was worth at least a date with anyone they met, or their standards were really that low. Or some combination thereof.

If I wasn’t already picky, this made me extremely so. In fact, as counter-intuitive as it sounds, I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone I connected with.

Wrong again.

I found myself in a very interesting conversation with a cute, spiky-haired, much more appropriately aged guy. We seemed to have skipped over introductory conversations and went straight to discussing where we’re at with our lives and what we hope to accomplish. The conversation was so interesting that even though our six minutes ended, we happened to be at the halfway point in the evening and had a ten minute break, which we continued to talk straight through. In fact, by the time we had reconvened, I had to tell him that as much as I enjoyed talking to him there was someone waiting for his seat. He hadn’t heard the bell.

As he got up he smiled and said that it was nice talking to me, and as he walked to the next table he did the “one last look over the shoulder” move and locked eyes with me for a moment.

“Yahtzee,” I thought. “Huh. I guess I will check yes for one of the guys after all.”

So you can imagine my surprise when I got the email a couple days later that said I had made no matches. I was stunned. I thought there must have been a mistake. I considered emailing the event planner and telling him that he was wrong. I mean, I got the one last look over the shoulder!

A bunch of possible scenarios leapt to mind, aided by friends who agreed this made no sense. But I will never know and he was lost to the dating ether. Turns out that knowing someone’s first name and their views on life doesn’t make them google-able.

So after all of that, why am I considering going speed dating again? Eh, why not? It’s just another way to put myself out there. And I can talk to anyone for six minutes.

Spammed by a Soldier

Hey there how are you doing? 

Well I just am trying my hand at this online dating thing and saw your profile... I was impressed to say the least and figured it wouldn't hurt to reach out and say hello :-) 

So here I am hahah 

Anyway, I am sure you get plenty of random introductions so I will try my best to keep this short and sweet. 

If you are interested in chatting sometime, I have both yahoo messenger (his username here) and skype (his username here). 

Hope to hear from you soon. 

PS It says I am from Denver... But the reality is when I return from Iraq (roughly a month from now), I will be returning back to Madison for good.

Yes he spammed me, but...he’s a soldier! I can’t blame him for not taking the time to read my profile and write something specific to me when he’s over there fighting insurgents and shit.

I know we owe our soldiers. More than I could probably ever provide. And if there is ever a battalion of women dressing up as nurses to go meet the boys (and girls!) coming home, I am THERE. Tell someone to take a picture. But do I have to chat with you? Because we probably have nothing in common. I can respect you and be grateful for you without having to interact with you, right?

Goddammit. I never thought that not responding to somebody would feel like failing my patriotic duty.

Outside of the Ballot Box

On Tuesday two of my friends worked the polls. Please note which homophone I used.

Polls: Location to exercise your democratic right to vote.

Poles: Rods that appear to be fun to dance around but chafe more than you think.

Although these two friends of mine don’t know each other, they both sent back important messages for a single girl.

“I found where all the cute men are. Holy crap,” was one of the reports. Which may be the only poll that has never been taken: what is the voter turnout of the attractive?

My other friend joyously reported that she was poll watching at a fire station. With firefighters on duty.

Of all the ways I’ve thought of to meet people, I never considered hanging around a polling station. This has possibilities. And now I have a couple of years to perfect how to ask out a voter. I should probably check to see if that’s legal.

Maybe I’ll just stick with the firefighters.

Was That a Wingchick?

Awhile ago I a guy hit on me online who turned out to work in the same field as me, and we met in a semi-awkward situation where we ran into each other and he recognized me instantly and I thoroughly did myself justice by explaining that I couldn’t remember him because I’ve talked to so many guys online. Class. That’s me. Nothing but class.

So...this connection that has only resulted in a stray email or two from him and him occasionally looking at my profile, added to the fact that we are in the same field and we might have to work together at some point, plus the excruciatingly dull conversation we had when we met in person, equals what? Inviting him to a fundraiser. Hey, he probably has money.

In my defense, I invited almost everyone I could possibly think of, and I didn’t think he was actually going to come.

Wrong! He came. With a date.

I don’t know why I was so annoyed by this. It’s not like there’s an established set of societal guidelines for this situation. And if there was, I probably broke it by inviting him to a fundraiser. It was like a day-pass into being a gold digger.

But he and his chick didn’t have any PDAs, he talked to me whenever he got the chance, and most importantly, he gave generously to the fundraiser. So did he just need a wingchick? Was he out of wingmen? Maybe he was just using this as an opportunity to get to know me better. And a couple of times he said some truly funny things.

“He’s annoying. Don’t date him.” This pronouncement came a couple days later from a friend of mine who was also at the fundraiser.

Oh. Right. Reality check. A rating of “better than I thought” does not mean that he qualifies. Gotta look at the whole picture, and the whole picture is, “Uh...no.”

So, in conclusion: I got his money, got completely confused, and got away unscathed. I’m going to say that’s a win.

Getting Turned Down

A friend of mine has a cute roommate, and he and I always had fun chatting when our paths crossed. But asking him out was more difficult than you might imagine. I could never find the opportunity to ask him without my friend standing right there (she lives there, after all), or without just walking into his room and closing the door behind me. Now THAT would have been a good impression. Perhaps enhanced if I held a gigantic knife.

Anyway, I finally just emailed him asking him for coffee, telling him that I’ve already been vetted since his cat likes me. He replied that he’d be happy to have coffee with me, but made it clear that it would not be a date. It would be a non-date. He included that in his first sentence. “Non-date.”

Well, at least he was straightforward. Maybe he read my mind that I was thinking about walking into his room with a gigantic knife.

So what to do? I’ve learned my lesson not to go on non-date, date-like situations with people I’m interested in, especially if I don’t know if they’re organ donors. So I write back and tell him he’s off the hook, and I move on to feeling really bummed.

Being turned down sucks. You’re putting yourself out there, and essentially asking for someone’s opinion of you. For their approval. It’s taking a risk, and in that moment of being turned down, I truly thought that it was not worth the risk.

So! What does this sound like to you? Why the beginnings of a scientific experiment, of course! How would my assessment of my level of risk-taking change over time? Translation: how long would it take me to get over feeling bummed? So I started the data collection:

Day 1, 8:30 a.m. Feel bummed. Totally not worth it.

I was going to keep tracking it, but at noon I realized that I hadn’t thought about it since 8:30 and I didn’t really care.

End of experiment. Conclusion: go for it.

The Baby in the Meeting

I will not go into the explanation of how I ended up at a meeting with a coworker and a three month old baby of no connection to either of us. It is enough to say that my coworker was thrilled to be babysitting at work for three hours, which happened to be exactly how long we were supposed to meet for.

As I am not good with children, you can imagine how much help I was. And as my coworker could simply not get enough of this baby, you can imagine how productive we were. At least I got to check my email during a diaper change.

One of the various times my coworker tried to get the baby to stop fussing so we could again look at our agenda and wonder aloud how we weren’t making any progress, my coworker decided that the baby was hungry and heated up some milk. With arms full of baby, she asked me to stick out my wrist so she could test the temperature of the milk, which I absentmindedly did while trying to maintain a thread of a productive conversation.

“Too hot,” I said, and went back to discussing event logistics.

But then I saw all the paraphernalia laid out: the bottles and nipples, the pacifiers, the pan for warming the milk and the strange, IV-drip looking bag that the milk was stored in.

And then it hit me. I had breastmilk on my wrist. I was standing there with someone’s overheated breastmilk on me.

Maybe other people know what to do in this situation. Maybe this is common. Maybe there is some socially correct response. But for a single girl who’s not good with kids, I stood there staring at someone else’s bodily secretions wondering what the hell I should do. Do I lick it up? It is just a couple drops of milk; perhaps that is the polite thing to do. But there was no way in hell that was going to happen. Do I wipe it on my jeans? I just washed these jeans, and I don’t want to go around the rest of the day thinking about the dried breastmilk on my jeans. Do I go find the nearest sterilizing equipment? Perhaps overkill.

In the end I pulled a high school boy move and wiped it on my sock.

Now, I’m pretty good at not being awkward and taking things in stride. First dates don’t get to me anymore, and I’m willing to stick out a three-hour meeting with a random baby. But when the baby’s mother showed up to reclaim said baby? I had trouble making eye contact. Seriously. I knew if I looked at her only one thought would be in my head:

Your boob juice is on my sock.

How My Non-Date Was Like a Date

So Friend Boy and I went out for dinner for our non-date, date-like friend auditioning situation. Maybe I just haven’t been in many non-date, date-like friend auditioning situations, but it sure felt like a normal date. For these reasons:

Awkward meeting: First few minutes were date-like awkward. “Is my nervousness showing? Do I have something in my teeth? How the hell did we get on this topic immediately? I don’t want this to be his first impression of me!”

Basic questions: Instead of getting into subjects that are fun to talk about or diving into common interests like I would with a friend, our conversation focused more on the getting-to-know-you stuff. “How long have you lived here? What did you get your degree in? Where do you work? Do you still have all of your fingers and toes?”

Internal monologue: Every five minutes I thought, “Do I like him? Am I having fun? Is he good enough for me? Should I wait another five minutes before I determine this?”

Going dutch: I know this is backwards for most people, but with friends I’m happy if one of us grabs the check and with dates I always go dutch. With friends I know it will eventually come out even. With dates, I don’t want to feel obligated to anyone, even if that obligation is just being nice to them afterward. I made sure Friend Boy and I went dutch.

Constantly looking for dealbreakers: With friends I tend to find commonalities and build from there. On dates I tend to look for potential dealbreakers. Guess which approach I took with Friend Boy. (Hint: I found out he’s not an organ donor. And he doesn’t have a good reason for it. He just hasn’t really thought about it. What the hell? The ability to save someone’s life hasn’t ever been important enough to you to think about? Dammit. I think I just discovered another dealbreaker.)

Here’s the part that sucks about it not being a date: if it had been a date, turning him down for a second date would be much easier. I know that seems counter intuitive, but it’s true. If I turn him down for a second date it could be for all sorts of reasons -- different values, different lifestyles, the fact that he’s a dog and not a cat person, whatever. There are all sorts of reasons for romantic incompatibility, and as such romantic incompatibility is likely not a personal statement on the other person. But an audition to be a friend? If I turn him down, there is no other way to take it other than I don’t like him.

God. I’m just sticking to dates from now on. With organ donors.

To Hide or Not to Hide

The online dating site I use will let me choose whether or not other people can see that I’ve visited their profile, but the site gives me an ultimatum: I can either let people see that I’ve visited and I can see who has visited me, or I can go stealth and no one will know if I’ve looked at their profile, but I don’t get to see who has visited me.

It’s fair. And it makes me feel like I’m a kid whose mother is trying to teach her a morality lesson. “You can get the set of blocks if you share it with your brother, but if you don’t share you don’t get any.” Yes, I just compared an internet dating site to my mother. And, come to think of it, I just compared all my potential dates to my brother. I’m not going to think about that too long.

Anyway...like most morality lessons, there is of course a way to game the system. While I was blithely strolling along, content to see and be seen, a fellow internet dater and I were trading war stories when she asked me, “So do you have a fake account?”

Blink.

“What?”

“A fake account. Basically a blank profile so that when someone visits you you can go read their page without them knowing that you’ve read it since if they look at who has visited them they will just see an empty profile. And then you don’t have to run the risk of reading a profile of someone that you end up not liking at all and having them know that you’ve looked at them.”

Blink.

That seems like a lot of trouble. You would have to go back and forth between accounts all the time. And that takes, you know, moving my fingers around on a keyboard. Effort, people. EFFORT.

But every so often I get visited by a blank profile and I think, “Somebody never learned how to share their blocks!”

The Boy Looking for Friends Part 2

In the cathartic activity of blogging, I realized that I had nothing to lose by telling Friend Boy the truth. He might take offense or misread it, but as long as he had at least moderate self-confidence I figured that letting him know that I wasn’t looking for friends was better than the void of silence at which we throw all of our self-conscious fears.

Whoa...how the hell did I end up in that sentence? Oh. Friend Boy. Right.

So I emailed him a chunk of what I explained in my last post, and concluded with:

Problem is, the only way to determine someone's fabulous quotient is to meet them in a very date-like situation, which it seems you are trying to avoid.

And this is his response:

I have no objection to a date-like situation. In fact, I would say that I function at my best one on one. Historically, I keep few friends, but those friendships tend to be quite close.

Currently, I am just coming off of a long term relationship. While it ended it basically the best way that such things can end, I want to be careful that I do not enter a new relationship with undue haste. I also think it's better to find a solid friendship and build from there than to get into a situation where you might be overly intense with someone before really knowing them.

I would be glad to take you out to dinner or find a comparable activity where we could get to know each other. If this isn't really something that interests you right now, I can understand, but hope this is not the case. I'm just here to try to meet awesome people.

What is one's fabulous quotient divided against?

Okay. First, I just want to say I totally called the just-getting-out-of-a-relationship thing. Second, did you catch the nerdy math joke he ended with? Total win.

Thus I responded:

Creepiness. Fabulousness needs to always be given as a ratio to creepiness. Otherwise the far end of the bell curve is engorged with the smarmy.

I appreciate your candor. Dinner sounds great, and so does a comparable activity if something presents itself.

So what does one wear to a date-like, friend-auditioning situation?

The Boy Looking for Friends

Re: Good evening!

Do you have any interest in making new friends? I'm not currently looking to date, but I get the impression we might have a lot of fun together.

You have many interests but you must choose between them when you decide what to do with your weekends and such. What to you tend to do most frequently? What do you wish you did most frequently?

Feel free to write back and we can swap contact info if you'd like to chat. Hope to hear from you soon!

What are you doing on an internet dating site if you don’t want to date? Oh, wait. Not currently looking to date. Got it. I’m guessing recent breakup or wanting to play the field without having to endure the high-pressure situation of The Date. Which, if you want to meet people through the internet, is impossible to avoid.

But all of that is irrelevant. The answer to his first question is no: I don’t have any interest in making new friends.

I know this makes me sound like an asshole. What kind of shallow person am I that I would go on a date with someone but not hang out with them as a friend? “It’s all or nothing, baby! I want to know that at the end of the day I either get to turn you down or sleep with you!”

Here’s why it’s true: I’ve got friends. Fantastic friends. Oodles of ‘em. There aren’t enough days in the week to hang out with all the amazing peeps that I got. Okay, I just learned that I can’t get away with saying “peeps.” But you get my point. Why would I go out looking to add people to this list?

I would absolutely make room for somebody fabulous. And who can tell? This guy might be fabulous and I would want to make room for him as a friend. But the only way I’m going to find that out is if we meet in some situation where we are both allowed to determine if we like each other. A situation like, say, over coffee. Or dinner. Or taking a walk on a fall day with the leaves crunching beneath our feet...

It's not like we can just hope that we end up being assigned to the same homeroom. Ask a mutual friend to invite us to the same dinner party. Wait outside the other person's door and then "accidentally" run into them. That seemed to stop happening to me when I took my home address off of my profile...hmm...

You can take smooching off the table, but if we're going to meet, we cannot avoid The Date.

The Feminist

After we set up a date, the signs started coming out that this girl was crazy. First she sent me to her website expounding on the type of feminism she studied. (If you didn’t know that feminism had multiple subcategories with separate research tracks, you are in good company. With me.) I got a few paragraphs in, but after having to look up 12 words I realized that I wasn’t getting anywhere. Just put that on the list of things to ask her about.

Then, before we met up, she sent me this:

I've currently got on blue jeans and a rather playful t-shirt with a somewhat wild print featuring turquoise, black, taupe and white. I don't imagine that I'll change clothes between then and now. But I'll certainly throw on a jacket. It's too cold out there to be walking around without a jacket!

Really? I mean, I once jokingly sent a note to someone saying, “I look like the girl in my photos.” But that was a joke. And I certainly didn’t give an update on weather-appropriate outerwear.

When I finally sat down across from her I was ready to have this first impression before me supplant any previous first impression, and I soon asked her about her studies in feminism.

I still could not tell you what she studies. Not because she continued to use obscure words, but because she didn’t explain it at all. Perhaps she misunderstood the question, or perhaps she just thought an appropriate answer was to talk about a previous professor who sexually harassed her but she couldn’t report him because she was in love with him and he had incriminating emails from her.

Huh? Completely confused but without any standing in our five-minute relationship to ask for a thorough explanation, and a pretty strong feeling that I didn’t want said thorough explanation, I decided to let myself remain completely confused and move on to other topics.

We ended up having a fine conversation, although I remained forewarned about the crazy. A couple of times my mind wandered to a conversation I had with a friend and fellow Madtown internet dating girl. My friend is, in her own words, “having lots of fun.” This girl is getting action. Where the hell is my action?! I’ve been internet dating for the better part of a year, and I’ve been to first base with one of ‘em! I’m meeting hot people, so it can’t be a lack of opportunity. The barrier must be allowing myself to take that opportunity.

Funny, but the couple of times that popped into my head during my date with Feminist Chick corresponded with when she would lay her forearm on the table, lean forward, and place her breasts on her arm, causing them to slightly pop upwards.

Do girls do this? Is this some technique I never learned? Is it code for something? Was I a complete douchebag for staring at her breasts when she did this?

Damn boobs. Making me consider a second date with a crazy chick. 

The work date I wanted to turn into a date date

So...cute guy that I know from work-related stuff runs into me twice in one weekend. Hmm...common interests. This should be investigated.

Figuring that we have enough work-related stuff to talk about, I invite him out to a work lunch, hoping to leave it open to being a not-so-work-oriented-and-I-think-you’re-really-cute lunch.

So here’s the problem with dating in the real world versus the virtual one: I know nothing about this guy. Nothing! No profile to read. Was he single? Was he straight? Does he want children? Am I just supposed to find all of these things out on my own? Like, get to know him? That seems incredibly risky. And a potential colossal waste of time. As opposed to the rest of my dating life...right...so....

Our work lunch started off by talking about what we did on our respective weekends. I chose to believe this was more date-ish than work lunch-ish, this choice not based in reality but in sheer eagerness. Then we turned to work.

We do similar work although in slightly different fields, and it was like the veteran reporter talking to the gumshoe. He kept asking me questions that began with, “Have you done...” “Have you thought about...” and “Are you planning to...” I walked the fine line between truth and trying to slightly mask that I was feeling more and more inept at my job. He must have sensed this because he said, “I don’t want you to feel I’m attacking you. I’m not doing all of these myself. I just want to see where I might be able to help you.”

Okay, he’s just super enthusiastic. No offense taken. In fact, he gets points for that. But it didn’t stop the onslaught of questions. At one point he asked if I had “planned when to do a tracking flipper mooga mooga mooga.” I looked at him while three thoughts battled for my next move: should I ask him if he could repeat that in English, should I pretend I knew what he was talking about so I didn’t look like the one idiot who didn’t have her tracking flipper mooga mooga mooga set up, or should I simply look at him and say, “You’re now making shit up to see if I’ll go along with any crazy word collage that comes out of your mouth.” I went with admitting that I didn’t know what a tracking flipper mooga mooga mooga was, while admitting to myself that this wasn’t even slightly resembling a real date.

We did get on some more neutral topics and I was impressed by his passion, a rare trait in the online dating world in my experience. And just as we parted he put forward that we should get drinks after work sometime. Hmm...is that date-ish?

I haven’t been on a real-world, offline date in a long time. How does this work? I just let this naturally go where it goes? And along the way, if it comes up, answer those big questions about relationships and kids? That seems...inefficient.

Hrumph.

Conversation I’m most proud of

I wish I could tell you the username of this lad, but to protect the imbecilic, I shall just tell you that his username was a combination of a large animal and slang for penis. So I shall refer to him as Large Animal Penis Man.

First of all, Large Animal Penis Man spammed me:

Re: heyJust hitting you up to see if you are interested? I saw your ad and I am very interested. I am sending you my picture! I am 30 years old, 5'7" tall, 175#, medium build, hazel eyes, shaved head. Hope to hear back from you! XOXO

I found this entire situation amusing, and egged on by friends, I sent this reply:

(Large Animal Penis Man),I'm afraid we wouldn't fit.-MouseTwat

I was pretty proud of that. That may be the best email I’ve ever sent. But alas, it was lost on Large Animal Penis Man:

Okay are you being serious your not interested???

Let’s review, shall we?

1.) Ridiculous username

2.) Spamming

3.) Missed sarcasm

4.) Wrong form of “you’re” (obviously the worst offense)

Yeah...good luck on the dating scene!

Dating a Stripper

I realize that a direct result of not going on any dates in awhile is that I have no embarrassing, awkward, and/or borderline horrifying stories to entertain you with. It looks like I may be going out on a few dates soon, but until then I thought I'd entertain you with a dating story from my not-too-distant past.

Awhile ago, and I still can’t believe I’m saying this, I went on two dates with a stripper. The male variety.

As I enjoy taking classes in a variety of subjects, it was no surprise to anyone when I took a class in the art of stripping for your partner (no matter that I had no partner). What was a surprise was I emailed the teacher afterward and asked him out.

For our first date I dressed like a whore. Now let me explain – I did NOT do this for him. He had already expressed that he thought I was hot, and was fairly established as a sure thing. I dressed like a whore because I was going on a date with a HOT HOT STRIPPER, and honest to god my biggest fear was that people were going to look at him, look at me, and think, “What, he couldn’t do any better?” Or, worse, “I bet she has a great personality.”

After chatting for well over an hour while we had a couple of drinks (that he paid for with crushed dollar bills. Nice.), I was struck with the brilliant idea of playing pool. Instead of being stuck on bar stools where neither one of us could really make a move, walking around a pool table would afford us a multitude of opportunities for something like, say, him running his hand across my back. Success!

Unfortunately, we played the worst game of pool that two able-bodied adults have ever played. It took 45 minutes of us missing and missing and missing some more, and by the time I finally sunk that damn eight ball I felt victorious, not for winning, but for the fact that the only thing that now stood between us and sex was the walk back to my apartment. Which is a much better form of winning.

Now for all of you guys who feel inadequate in comparison with muscled men, please read the next two sentences in their entirety. Having sex with a completely ripped, waxed man was hot. Once.

By our second date I had pretty much seen his repertoire, and without great conversation or any other kind of connection, the romance died a quick death.

But it was all worth it, if for this story alone: he needed to drop off something of mine, but was headed out of town for a gig and had to drop it off outside my abode when I wasn’t going to be there. While on the phone with him he paced around his place saying, “I need to put this in some sort of box so that people won’t mess with it, like it’s just some piece of mail for – OH! Of course! I have some UPS boxes that I bought to go with my UPS stripper costume!”

Of course you did.

SpamMan

From SpamMan:

    Hello there! I am kinda new to this site and I am not sure what the trends are in here.. But I am pretty sure there are a lot of jerks in here with half naked photos :-) Hey I am not a jerk like them, I am just a nice guy who would like to hang out with a nice girl ;-) Let me enlighten you more about who I am.. I'm an intelligent person, genuine, and respectful. I am 5'11, dark hair/dark eyes, close-to-fit, single, never married, college educated and 27. Also, I am a fun person to hang out with.. What else do you need? :-). I am living on the west side of Madison, close to west town mall. I have a pretty good job and I am currently happy with my life in general..

    I would like to know more about you, if you do not mind messaging me back.. I really love movies. How about you? Which part of the town are you living in? What do you like to do for fun? How was your week? :-)

My reply:

    This appears to be an email that you prepared separately to cut and paste into an email to send to women you find interesting on this site. Am I correct? 

    If so you may want to change your first line that you are "...kinda new to this site" since your join date was four months ago.

SpamMan’s retort:

    You are correct, but four months is not a long time; so that statement should be fine. You sound like sending the same message to "initiate a conversation" to different women is a bad thing, but I do not agree with that. The conversation happens to be a lot different with every women after they "reply". So why should it be a problem to "initiate" the contact the same way?

I never “wrote him back” because why “argue” and give him another chance to “totally overuse quotation marks.” And all I really wanted to get out of him was an admission of spamming. Win.

But I will say this: you can be a sniper or you can be scatter-shot. One will likely land you your target and the other might get you a duck. Or, if you’re Dick Cheney, a lawyer. So perhaps this is a good method if you're trying to land a lawyer.

Also: if you’re going to spam me, of the various adjectives you use to describe yourself, don’t include genuine.

Concentration

Thoughts that went through my head today when I should have been focusing on my meeting:

At least three people have told me I should try a dating website for environmentalists. I should probably do that. Could I just use my same profile or is that cheating? Would it be any less fresh? Wait, what the hell am I that I need rebranding?

Is he single?

Ugh. This haircut does make me look like a lesbian. Which wouldn’t be such a bad thing if I was getting hit on by more women.

So if I was the one who emailed him first, and after he emailed me back I sent him a message when I saw he was online, and he signed off by saying that he had to go to bed, was that a “Please stop contacting me” or could I get away with initiating contact one more time? And really, what am I worried about? Pride?

I need a good makeout session. Maybe I could just daydream about one with…uh, how about the guy who…no. Well, who have I been attracted to lately? (…) Okay, so we’re going with Ed Norton again? Maybe I’ll just pay attention to my meeting.

It seems like coed sports are a great way to meet people. But is it totally counterproductive if I am terrible at said sport?

I wonder how many people at this meeting are happy in their marriages.

God, she’s so smart. And she’s single and my age. This does not bode well for me. What the hell is the matter with this town?

So…Ed Norton?