The Problem with Picky

A few weeks ago I went out with a friend and the GBF to a bar on a Friday. This part isn't particularly shocking - aside from the fact that on a lot of Fridays, I can be found at the local pool. But perhaps I have avoided that place since my awkward moments with a 10 year old I caught checking me out underwater for at least a minute as I was stopped at the end of my lane. I stared at the top of his head until he popped up again so I could give him the proper "stop that" stare. 

via

That was a really awkward 10 seconds.

Anyway, before we left for the bar, the gal pal and I got ready at my house, which included drinking a half a bottle of wine as dinner. We were in a hurry, wine is delicious and doing both my make-up and hers led me to forget to eat. Whoops. So we go to one bar, I talk to a bunch of really unattractive men who seem to feel the need to tell me they had girlfriends.

Hoooooookay. Get real, tee-ballers. This bitch is semi-pro.

I also end up with the bartender's number (...again), who later texts me when we're at the second bar; the bar in town with Jello shots. I forget myself for a moment and probably mostly out of hunger, eat about five of them. The gelatin dissolves and the world quickly becomes a blur: I remember hooka; I made Mac'n'Cheese. Bed.

In the morning the GBF is on my couch. He recounts a story of my making out with a "HOT" guy in a bar. Imagine that breaks skidding noise. That. Errrrrt. What? 1. I don't make out with guys in bars. I think it's weird, trashy and also I'm 29. 2. I found someone hot?! Seriously. That never happens. I'm the pickiest of picky. And everyone found him sexy? Even the straight guy?! Holy shit.

I guess that's what a good bra will get you.

Apparently, while nomming on some Jello - undoubtedly attractively - I turned to him and, without hesitation announced to his face "You're fucking adorable". And, as the GBF tells it, he turned into me and said, "You're fucking adorable". He bought me drinks and, as I'm told, followed me around. Until we went to the hookah bar, his phone rang, he didn't have his credit card, I never got his number and he left and drunk me forgot he ever existed.

"He looked like he belonged in a GQ spread," said the galpal the following night. "And you two had a really hot make-out session at the bar."

Great. All of this happened and all I remember hooka and Mac'n'Cheese? That's cute, brain.

***

This past Friday the galpal asked me to go speed dating with her. The weekend before last I forewent going to Chicago for an impromptu visit in attempts to be fiscally responsible and deeply regret not going. So after that, I texted my girl who invited me Chitown that "responsibility be damned" and I immediately reinstated the Yes Year. And so, I had to go speed dating. Plus, she paid.

My girlfriend up in Boston asked me to extrapolate on it a bit today:

me: tra-ge-dy 
Boston: go on...
me: it was like 20 women and 12 men.
the men ranged in age from like 22 to 75.
and at least half still lived in their mom's basements.
5 definitely play D&D on a regular basis.
one guy didn't have 2 brain cells to clink together, but he may have been on drugs.
or it was just the war injuries.
that or simply being a product of brooklyn.
one of the smartest things i ever did was make sure i was half drunk before heading to speed dating in dc.

Upon doing this I learned that 1. I really can talk to anyone; without lull in conversation; 2. I do not care if a man wears a suit or doesn't wear a suit, but I do care if he wears a cheap suit (don't wear a cheap suit); 3. Speed dating is amusing, but only if you expect nothing out of it - much like online dating. It also reiterated to me the absolutely slim-pickings of attractive men in DC - or at least ones I'm attracted to. Although there was a guy that was staring at me quite flirtatiously, while heading out after speed dating, as I was riding down the escalator to metro and he, up. Eventually I yelled across the escalators to him "You're going the wrong way".

To this, he replied, still staring quite intently while riding in the opposite direction, "I know".

Damn. Another one bites the...nothing, unfortunately: He went up to the bars and I went down and out in VA cause the galpal needed to go home after the speed dating fiasco; wherein I was being text-chased by a guy in a bad suit and she didn't want some guy's card because "he came in wearing a helmet". I ended my night playing Rock Band with some ladies until 5am.

This is getting pathetic. Although Rock Band is fun. Especially drunk.

Or, maybe, I'm still just stuck kicking myself about the hot guy two weeks before that I missed out on. The next night - this past Saturday - I was out again - back to the Jello shots place, which I was careful to only consume two of and this was after I made sure to eat. Solid start. If I'm making out with a hot dude I better damn well remember it this time. Only problem is, this time a guy who was wearing a three piece suit with his tie on the outside and top button undone came up to talk to me; then later, a semi-attractive 24 year old. Sorry, blondes need not apply. Perhaps I should have told this to the Mississippi guy I met the day after the GQ guy - he texted me for a week non-stop till he finally gave up with "we're never gonna hang out are we".

Correct.

Much like the guy in the cheap suit from speed dating, he asked me all weekend to go out. He finally gave up after a few unrequited texts. Or the blonde that talked to me for 30 minutes at the second bar on Saturday - eagerly trying to get somewhere; tall, attractive - but when he asked me to dance, I said I preferred my girlfriends. Or the guy I met on the ski lift last month; we texted for three weeks before he realized I wasn't going to say: Come to DC - let's bang it out. Or Even the way that RH gave up a few weeks ago again when I wasn't "excited" to hang out. (And then about a week later opening up about the last girl he dated breaking his heart a little.) Why am I the authority on love and broken hearts? I can't even seal the deal on a hot kid I made out with at a bar and even declaring "we're gonna have sex" because I'm a four second vodka goldfish and squirrel on to the next adventure, forgetting all about the peen.

But even just that one is particularly frustrating because over the past few months I'm really beginning to notice how little I find attractive. I get hit on all the time. I get made fun of by my girlfriends for giving guys my number and then trying to figure out how to wriggle away from them. But I can't find anyone I'm genuinely interested in - or - at the least attracted to enough to take home a couple of times to scratch that itch of single. I know (and my natal chart agrees) that I can't just do the casual thing, but this is getting a little ridiculous.

Throw me a bone, Universe.  See what I did there?  I love puns.