I’m not single anymore

I’m not single anymore. Huh.

Kayak Guy soon proved to be someone who makes me happy whenever I’m with him. He often tells me how lucky he feels to have me, so there was really nothing to decide here. And with that, singlehood quietly slipped away.

I suppose in the arc of this story this is the place where I reveal some insight into dating and looking for love, but I don’t have any. The dating game seems just as much dumb luck as I thought it before. Perhaps here I should have a moral, or at least share my secret to finding someone. But I’ve got nothing. A year of writing about dating, and it’s just as elusive as before.

But I will say this: one reason I started this blog was to help me learn to enjoy the process. I used to look at every bad date as a failure; each one was one more possibility that was no longer. But a bad date isn’t a failure. It’s just a bad date. It’s like a bad hair day. A bad hair day isn’t a failure of your hair. It’s just a bad hair day. As long as you don’t do anything crazy like reach for the scissors or the hair dye, a shower will do the trick.

So my grand advice after all of this? Find enjoyment in the process. Yes, the dating scene is inefficient, often annoying, at times embarrassing, and occasionally painful. But it can also be completely amusing, provide great stories for friends, occasionally teach you something, and even be personally validating. Whether or not you find someone at the end of it.

And besides arranged marriages or incredible luck, it’s pretty much all we got. 

Good luck. Have fun.

sg

Kayak Guy dates #2 and #3

As we were eager to see each other again, my next two dates with Kayak Guy happened in quick succession. For date number two we met up at a restaurant and then grabbed a drink at a nearby bar. “Nearby” is misleading in this case, however, since we were absorbed in conversation we walked right past the bar and kept going. 

As it’s winter in Wisconsin it goes without saying that this walk was cold. But it was one of those days with a wind that cuts through any layers of clothing to slap ice against your skin. He wasn’t wearing a hat or gloves. I kept insisting that the bar must be on the next block. At times we were straight up running because it was so freaking cold. So despite the fact that the bar was three storefronts down from the restaurant, I succeeded in taking him on a 10 block frostbite march detour. Go me! But he was completely good natured about it while not missing the opportunity to mock me. Perfect balance. Points, Kayak Guy.

It got to 9 p.m. on this school night, and he suggested that we go. This was perfectly reasonable: we both had to work the next day, it was only date number two, and we had already talked about what we were going to do on date number three. Absolutely, completely reasonable. My brain, however, was not. 

“He wants to go? That must mean he does not like me! Why doesn’t he want to spend more time with me? I must be boring him!” said the irrational girlish part of my brain.

“Shut up, irrational girlish part of me,” the rest of my brain said. “We have been hanging out with him for three hours already. Also, do you have an off switch?”

“No, I don’t,” my irrational girlish part of my brain stuck out its tongue. “But do you think he’s going to kiss us? SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!”

Outside the bar he gave me a cheek-to-cheek hug. As he pulled away I stayed exactly where I was in hopes that he wouldn’t pull away too far and we could have one of those “Oh! Look! Our lips are so handy to kiss each other right now! Well then...”

No dice. Sigh.

Date number three started with sledding. I wish most of my dates started with sledding. We laughed until we were out of breath, covered in snow, and slightly injured. At one point as Kayak Guy was sledding down the hill a six year-old girl came over and asked if he was my husband. I managed to keep myself from saying, “Oh honey, I haven’t even jumped him yet,” and went with the standard, “No, he isn’t my husband.” Most of this was to her back since at the word “no” she turned on her heel and walked away. It was if she was saying, “Ugh! Get it together!”

After sledding we had tea and ended up renting a movie and heading back to my place. This was looking good. The movie was from the 80s and was about a broke Afghan man in Iran who, to raise money to pay for the medical care his wife needed, road a bike in a circle for seven days straight. Yeah. The sad part is the movie isn’t even as good as it sounds.

More unfortunate: decidedly NOT a cuddle movie. 

Kayak Guy was certainly trying! We were smushed up next to each other on my couch,  and he was doing cuddly things like putting his head on my shoulder. I was trying to reciprocate, but I couldn’t figure out when was a good time to try to hold his hand: during one of the scenes where his wife is writhing in pain in the hospital or one of the flashback scenes of his abject poverty?

But the movie ended, we had a thumb war, and we finally started making out. Thank god. Three good dates in and cuddling through a movie left me about to explode. And now if that six year-old asks me if he’s my husband, I can at least point to the bite marks on my neck.

Holy crap! I had a good date!

I know. I’m shocked, too.

First of all, ice skating is ridiculous fun. I don’t know why I’ve been living in Madison and not ice skating. Even the falling part wasn’t that bad.

Kayak Guy, despite being a great skater, did not skate circles around me. He was more content skating slowly next to me while asking me questions. Then listening to the answers. Then asking me follow-up questions. And then answering my questions. It was almost as if we were...conversing.

Social skills. What a nice change. He also taught me how to do crossovers and skate backwards.

Then onto the tea house he recommended, which ended up having a really nice, pretentious-less vibe, although I did maintain the fear that I was going to accidentally commit some taboo and that the tea house ninja was going to jump out and kill me. Kayak Guy had a similar thought, and “Shhhh! The ninja!” became a running joke.

When we first sat down at the tea house we were overheated from ice skating and began stripping off layers and and OH MY GOD TATTOOS. His forearms were covered in ink.

I am not into tattoos. I have probably seen two tattoos that I liked, while the majority of tattoos fall into my “You probably didn’t think that one through” category. I’m not against tattoos and I like hearing the stories behind them, but when I come across an online profile of someone proudly showing off full sleeves of tattoos or lists “getting tattoos” as an interest, I move on.

Kayak Guy had done neither, so I was not prepared when he stripped down to t-shirt. I tried to hide my surprise, mildly asked about them, and enjoyed hearing the stories behind them. It did cross my mind that had I known about his tattoos I would not have gone out with him, and would not be enjoying the conversation we were having. Note to self: tattoos aren’t enough of a reason to write someone off. Glad he snuck in.

The date ended with me driving him back to the ice skating rink to drop him off at his car. He said he had a good time. I said I did as well. He said he would like to do this again. I said I did as well. And with that he, to my utter bemusement, climbed out of my car backwards. Yup. He climbed out of my car backwards.

You know how the usual way to get out of a car is to open the door, put one leg out, and then step out? That didn’t happen. He opened the door, curled his arm around the roof of my car, and led with his butt. It was eventually effective; he did get out of my car, but seemingly with much more effort than was required. 

Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps he felt that with the second date already agreed to he didn’t have to hide that he was half monkey.

As a rule I don’t like to discuss the possibility of a second date on the first, and not because of the likelihood of my date reverting to a monkey. The five to 10 minutes after a date is completed illuminates a lot. This is the time span it takes to switch from trying to keep a conversation going and positive energy flowing to space for reflection. This is usually where I go from, “I could go on another date with that person,” to, “Oh God. No.”

This time, I went from, “Sure I’ll go on another date with him,” to, “I really want to see him again. Huh.”

Upping the Ante

Emailing back and forth with my latest internet find quickly progressed to having too many topics and too many questions to fit the medium. So we agreed on tea. Trouble was I was traveling, and then he was traveling, and then despite the fact that I sent him a cheery, “Drop me an email when you get back and we’ll set up tea!” I had not heard from him for a week after his planned return.

Eaten by bears? Well, he had checked his online dating account recently, so unlikely. Just didn’t feel like talking to me anymore? Possible. Was just being a dink and waiting for another message from me? Most probable.

This is the second time this has happened to me: chatted with a guy who was off traveling, told him to get back to me when he returned, silence. With the last guy I figured it was a bad sign and wrote him off. 

I probably would have done the same with this guy except for this fact: he owned four kayaks. Images of paddling dates did not dwindle. Especially when he spoke of kayaking in power plant cooling ponds in the middle of winter where the water never dips below 60 degrees. Am I the only one who hears this and immediately has a new vision for the perfect date? Yes? Well, it takes all kinds.

So with a cheery, “Are you back in town? If so, let’s get tea!” we were on our way to scheduling our first meeting.

It took some back and forth to find a time that worked for both of us, and among the ensuing emails “let’s get tea” grew significantly. First, there was the tea itself. Sick of my overused first date spot, and worried that they would soon name a drink after me, I asked him where he would like to go. He gave two suggestions for tea houses. Not cafes, mind you. Tea houses. Where you take of your shoes. And go sit in a room and drink a pot of tea. Their websites spoke of their tea harvesting and curing practices.

This just had danger written all over it. I imagined sitting the wrong way and offending an entire culture. Or ordering chamomile to the horrified gasp of Kayak Guy. But hey, I’ve been through worse on dates.

Then there was the add-on. Tea became tea followed by a walk, and then morphed completely into ice skating followed by tea.

Ice skating? Are you freaking kidding me?

1.) I haven’t ice skated since I was 12.

2.) How did we go from meeting over tea to the stereotypical romantic winter date? Shall I wear earmuffs and red mittens with a matching red scarf? Shall I cling to you to keep from falling down, only to eventually pull us both down into a snow bank where we laugh and then have an awkward but lovely moment where we are caught in each others’ eyes, unsure what to do next, with so much unspoken? Oh! And at one point one of us must say, “This cold air makes your cheeks rosy.” But I think that goes without saying.

Oh, the things I will do for kayaking. If I don’t break myself ice skating you will get a full report.

Conversations That Went Nowhere Fast

California Boy: Hi there how are you tonight?\

Me: Excellent! How's California?

California Boy: It's great. Sunny and warm!

Me: At 11:30 at night? It IS a magical place!

California Boy: It's 9:30

Me: Forgive me for not calculating the timezones, but surely the sun is not still up.

California Boy: It's not

Oooooookay then.

Random guy: hey

Me: greetings

Random guy: how u doin 2night

Me: Just grand. And yourself?

Random guy: terrible

Please explain to me what on earth would be motivation for me to ask you why.

Crazy Chick: HI

Me: Good evening!

Crazy Chick: HOW ARE YOU

Me: Very well. And yourself?

Crazy Chick: ok, me and the boy are just watchin tv

Me: How is the multitasking going?

Crazy Chick: good actually nuttin really on lol

Me: What kind of contraception do you think is morally wrong?

Crazy Chick: what ya mean

Me: In the match question "Is contraception morally wrong?" you answered "Depends on the kind."

Crazy Chick: i did? i meant no lol

Me: Oh. Good.

Crazy Chick: lol My bf woul dhave a million kids lol

Me: Wow...that's...um...not necessarily an attractive quality.

Crazy Chick: lol, well not that many, lol, but we do have our moment of threesomes lol i have a couple more pics if ya want to see btw

In the name of if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all, I will just go with this: Thank god you’re not against contraception.

Going for Younger Women

It’s an internet dating pet peeve of mine when the age range that men seek out doesn’t reach up to their own age. Thus this interaction.

From Cradle Robber:

I just loved your awesome profile and you have awesome personality. Do you mind being a friends and get to know each other? And by the way, you have great smile, it is true that a smile is the light in your window that tells others that there is a caring, sharing person inside.

My response:

Thanks! 

So you're 39 but you're only interested in women between the ages of 23 and 33? That's some chutzpah.

His response:

Thank you indeed to reply me. I don't mind dating someone 30 to 33 to have a few kids. By the way, how are you doing?

What I sent:

Ah! Well, as I hate children, that solves that. Good luck finding someone who doesn't!

Unsent P.S.: You would have learned that if you had read my profile instead of just sending a message to every cute girl that is too young for you. Also, I hope you are rich. It really aids the whole trying-to-find-a-younger-woman-to-pop-out-four-kids-for-you game.

Second Date with Mr. Landlord

For our second date Mr. Landlord and I went out for sushi. Bad idea. I love sushi and visit this restaurant often enough that a waiter there knows me and likes to scare me by silently coming up behind me to take my order/put food in front of me/suddenly have a spout of water falling into my glass from somewhere above me.

Mr. Landlord, on the other hand, had never had sushi. So points to him for being up for something new, but as much as I tried to be helpful in his meal selection, he took so long intently reading the menu that I ended up speaking less to him and more to the ninja waiter in his many passes by our table to try to figure out what was taking us so damn long to order. Mr. Landlord did find something to eat that didn’t scare him, and then we could settle in to conversation.

Yeah. Conversation.

Although I was laughing constantly on our first date, I soon grew weary of a conversation that focused entirely on following whims of nonsense and Simpsons references. All of my attempts to turn the conversation to some more substantial quickly fizzled, and the pauses in our conversation grew longer. I even tried to turn the conversation back to the random points that we were awarding each other, a running joke from our first date, but it seemed that tonight we couldn’t find anything to award each other points for.

After we paid the ninja waiter and determined that his car was parked along my route home, I walked him to his car. Sort of. More accurately I walked with him until he indicated his car and then I continued walking while saying, “Have a good night! Thanks for dinner!”

In my defense: it was cold, I was tired, and the last thing that I wanted was a lingering, awkward goodbye at his car after a not-so-great date. I felt it was fairly obvious that we weren’t going to contact each other again. 

The next day I got this email:

Let me know if I'm reading you wrong or not. I'm getting more of a vibe that you just want to be friends as opposed to dating. If I'm wrong all my points go to zero.

This email broke my heart, in a way that an image of a lonely puppy at a shelter breaks my heart.  It seemed like he wanted to trade the random points I had awarded him for another date with me. The adult equivalent of saying, “You can have all my marbles if you come over and play with me again.”

But as I’m not looking for points or marbles, I told him he was right, wished him luck, and moved on. 

Looking for Ambition

In a very typical case, I came across a profile of a guy that looked like he might be fun, and we started emailing about muppets. Naturally.

He took a more fundamental position on Sesame Street, arguing that everything within should be taken literally, as it is a documentary about life in New York City.

My argument:

If it's all real, then WHY HAVEN'T I MET MISS PIGGY YET??? I mean, we travel in all the same circles, hang out with frogs, are fashion icons...okay, none of that is true for me. But still. I want my damn Miss Piggy.

His response:

Piggy knows you want her and that's why you'll never have her. She is a tease with everyone but her Kermy. 

If you ever want to meet up and discuss muppets or other life altering topics. Let me know.

And thus:

Sure! But only if we can talk about muppets, the letter Q, and whether or not Elmo is a media whore.

And so it goes exactly as it is set up to go: browse profiles, initiate conversation, move toward meeting. And that’s exactly what it feels like: I’m going through the motions. I guess it’s true that  if you do anything long enough it becomes normal. I’ve done this so many times that when I meet people on first dates now I think to myself, “He/she seems nervous. Why is he/she nervous? Oh! Right! This is a date. And people get nervous for those.”

Which is exactly what happened with this guy. But he calmed down quickly and ended up making me laugh for the two hours we hung out. Now before you go opening that bottle of champagne you’ve been saving for me, let me say this: when asked what he loved to do he said watch movies. Not for the art form, mind you. Because he likes to see what movies he can illegally download online. 

Just a way to unwind from a stressful, fulfilling day at work, you ask? Nope. He’s a landlord, and more or less fell into it, which affords him a lot of free time that I’m not entirely sure what he does with. Other than always emailing me back within a half hour of me writing him.

By now I have a trunk full of stories of men who have no ambition. This has always been a sign for me to look elsewhere. It’s not that the person I want to be with must be a career ladder climber, but they have feel passionate about something. Introduce me to something. Take me along for the ride. Show me why it excites you. Because I’m going to do that to you, and there should be some semblance of balance here.

So why exactly did I agree to a second date with Mr. Landlord? If my experience is any indication, finding someone with ambition is an ambitious goal. Perhaps too ambitious, even for me. So, why not see where this takes me? I might even be surprised.