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.