Online Dating: The Last One

Realizing that the past couple of months' posts have been far too overtaken by the saga of blithering boys - which, in time, I'm sure will show happens for some reason - it reminded me that I never finished (re)posting my online dating entries. So here is the last one. And then I'll finish up the rest for you...

October 24, 2012 

TWS Catching Up, Month 10  

I saw each guy – MH and RH – one more time before I never saw them again. It was a week in the books for me: I had three dates that week. This was a month ago. One was Wednesday with a random guy that went well enough but I think we were both fine it didn’t go anywhere. Or maybe it was the fact that he kissed me at the end of the date when I literally ran away into a cab. (To be fair, I was drunk and forgot it was Wednesday and cabs are not at all hard to find at 1am on Wednesdays in downtown DC. Whoops.) Oh well, he had this weird way of reminding me of my brother-in-law anyway. And worked from home, had all married friends and I’m fairly certain only went out with girls for something to do…and nookie.   

Friday, I ditched RH to go to a free concert in Baltimore with a friend of mine. Instead, I offered him Saturday. After an 11 mile training run, I was just about to hop in the shower to get ready when he texted that his friend fell and he had to take her to the hospital. He’s a clumsy person. That was fine with me; I went to The Nurse’s house party. He later called to apologize for cancelling, which I said was fine, but what wasn’t fine was having hung up on my earlier. His frustration with his stuff is not mine, nor do I intend for it to affect me. And I fucking hate being hung up on. After he went to hang up again, I called him out on it and he quickly apologized after I offered my brief explaination of why that was unacceptable. Lesson of Note: Men respond well when you speak to them like children in a soft, subtle voice. So I quickly masterminded a plan and told him that we could go out tomorrow afternoon to Frisbee golf and maybe that would make him feel better.  

Here’s the thing: I just really wanted to Frisbee golf. It really had very little to do with his day gone wrong. And I had already made plans to play that afternoon with MH. 

So I texted MH and started to talk about the next day’s plans, slyly suggesting that we meet that evening so that he could watch his football team play at 1 and frolfing wouldn’t interfere. He agreed and in 20 minutes I seemed like the hero to both guys. 

I just got way too good at this.  

However, that Sunday was the last time I saw either boy. MH decided I was “fucking with him” because he waffled about inviting himself to sleep over my house and going home. Eventually I suggested – after he again said, “I’m just going to stay” – that he just go home and would thank me tomorrow. He got flustered and I didn’t much care, but gave him a kiss (or 2 – remember: “I like kissing la la la”) upon departure to which he responded “Are you just fucking with me”. So, I didn’t hear from him again and wasn’t particularly interested so he gave himself the boot and I’m totally okay with that. I didn’t hear from him again until last night – exactly one month later – when my phone decided to call him because it somehow went to a voicemail he left me on that night. I hung up quickly, but it had connected and he texted me. Awkward. 

RH just got busy. And I got busy. And there were a few incoming texts from him over the weeks saying he wanted a “reunion”, but nothing has come to fruition. So for now, that’s dead in the water; which I’m also totally okay with, however leaving me sexless still. 

Otherwise the Universe has been cockblocking me. The last full moon offered me 3.5 men to take home with me.  I chose one. One that had shared my bed back in February; one a stranger; and one the roommate of some jerk I'd stopped dating last year. The Bed Share was looking mighty fine: I picked him. He paid for the cab to my place and making out in front of my house, decided then to come clean that he has a girlfriend. And so, I remain temporary celebate. Damn Universe: It's up to something.  

So, currently there’s a new guy. The OkC algorithm says we're a 96% match: My highest yet. We texted for weeks before going out last week. I tried to convince him to bring me waffles when I woke up hungover on my birthday from festivities the night before, 10 days before we met. I now call him Waffle Guy (WG), even though he brought me homemade ice cream on our first date; I got to pick the flavor, because I had ankle injury (and still ran) and we are in agreement that ice cream makes everything better. It was like an edible trophy…from a stranger. He dropped about $200 on dinner. That check sat there for a while, but there was no way I was going anywhere near it. We saw each other again four days later last Saturday - for about 14 hours. I think have been in contact every day. He has his shit together. He treats his mother well. But he has four chiuauas. FOUR. And they are assholes. And they don’t like me. I’m not sure I could get over that enough to re-enter the loop’o’sex – we are now entering month 10 - but I suppose time will tell.

That guy I kissed and ran away from went silent...until April. He texted me out of the blue to ask me out again. I declined.

Coincidentally, the night I posted this entry, I hooked up with someone I've known for years - of whose identity I will disclose in my book (because it's like that). Evidently, 10 months is my cut off. After that, I went out with the Waffle Guy for a couple of weeks: That first date he picked me up and took me to Morton's.. This is the second time someone who didn't know where to go picked the expensive steak place at the bottom of the hotel near my house. They lose points every time. The second date was a winery (I suggested) and then dinner. That was the 14 hour date. The third date, a late brunch at his house. At this point, I knew I wasn't into him (or his fucking dogs), but he was way too into me. The brunch night I literally said, "You're acting like you want to wear me as a coat. I don't want to be a skin coat."

He laughed. I wasn't kidding.

It quickly became evident he wanted me to meet his family and have his babies. I can't be with a man who allows his four want-to-be-dogs poop in his house. There are few things more awkward than watching man who is clearly into you pick up poop off of Puppy Pee Pads and then want to hold your hand.

And even still, I went on one more date with him. It was my last hurrah; I had a goal to fulfill - and since I hadn't heard from RH or MH for weeks, I said to myself, in the mirror, "I'm prepared to make a bad decision tonight." While in the car on the way to dinner, I realized I had a huge runner and my hose. As it was unseasonably warm, I decided to just take them off. Walking down M St. in Georgetown, I quickly realized by that way I was being stared at that half of the people assumed I was a prostitute; the mismatch of attractiveness not helping my cause.

The night wasn't going well.

From there it was one (prepped-for) bad decision after another. Then he left in the morning early to feed his dogs after a drunken evening in which I exclaimed "I'm not going to have your babies!" and then magically condoms that "fit" appeared where before they never were. Men are stupid. And the universe will reward bad decisions with the need for Monistat. This combined with the skin coat, combined with the money bragging, combined with the dogs, combined with that weird condom thing, put me in back out of the room quietly situation.

Prior to tip-toeing into oblivion, I did, however, briefly - and legitimately - consider going out with him again just for the free dinners. For whatever reason I feel guilt and reservations about letting men pay for me (which I"m attempting to let go of because being female is effing expensive), but at dinner he mentioned he bought a $300 bottle of olive oil in Italy and I was flabbergasted. He scoffed a bit and said "$300 isn't a big deal".

I am not impressed by money. I am even less impressed by men who try to impress by money. I'd be more intrigued if he asked what kind of food I liked and then bought a Groupon to match. Which brings me to another issue from that evening: He was coming to DC (and lived in Maryland) and asked where I wanted to go. My response was: "You figure it out. I'm not your tour guide." I knew once that came out of my mouth that I wasn't interested, could trample him, use him and leave him and should probably stop talking to him (because that's not who I am). I went silent and he caught the drift.

At the end of the day, I stuck to who I am. And bought my own dinners.

WG, combined with a friend who made a bad, bad attempt at becoming more than a friend, combined with that hook-up squirreling off a potential FWB situation, led to me signing off of online dating and stepping away from dating and the idea of hook-ups altogether. This of course, all led to accidentally dating someone. And from there we entered 2013.

The moral perhaps being that online dating is not for me. I tried it. I'm done. The observation deck of dating is little more than a shit show of flying hormones and half witted attempts at giving it shit. It does, however, help to get your feet wet and not find the idea of a date to be so anxiety inducing. So at least there's that.