Foot On The Gas. Foot in Mouth.

How many times have you been told or said “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, in your life? I know this was told to me many, many times. Unfortunately, I have found myself guilty many, many times of judging the cover. Today, I did it again. Today, this phrase smacked me in the face. Right after I ran into the back of its car.

I’ve been kind of in a funk lately. My previous posts have lightly touched on it. I’ve had a lot of time to myself in the past few months, and a lot of times I will go for morning drives to enjoy the day and think before I have to go into work. Today on one of those drives I was coming to a stop light and at first I actually stopped. A few seconds later something in my brain told me to go and I hit the gas and ran into the car in front of me. The first wreck I had ever been the at fault driver. Angry at myself, I look up as the driver points to a parking lot where we can go and sort this out.  As I pulled next to the car I see two mid forties men who looked pretty rough and pissed. Wearing leather jackets, long hair, and beards I immediately say, “I hit the wrong guys” as I get out bracing for angry words if not more.

To my surprise the two men ask me if I’m ‘ok’. Not in a condescending way either. Maybe the look on my face told them there was more behind my mental lapse than just a mental lapse.They tell me that their car is fine, and that I don’t need to wory about anything. They shake my hand, pat me on the back, and tell me to have a good day. They get back in their car and head on their way.

Now, their car was fine, and so was mine, but how often do these kind of meetings go this way? For complete strangers that I inconvenienced to not even for a second be angry or hostile towards me blew me away. I had judged them and couldn’t have been more wrong.

To those guys, thank you. You really helped me see how much I do judge, and how often I am probably wrong in my judgements.

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The Wall: Part Two

Last week I told you all how I cut myself off from all the girls I had been dating. This felt really good, and has continued on this whole week. This was the smartest thing I’ve done for some time. I was so disconnected mentally from all the girls I was involved with, and it just wasn’t fair to them. It wasn’t a selfless act by any means though. I, no longer needing to worry about others emotions, can now focus on my own. I have shut down my match account and am pretty positive my days of online dating are over. I wasn’t finding what I needed there, and I believe the whole meat market look to it aided in my disconnect. That and my mind just needs to focus on other things. Mainly my next step to a career.

I left school a little over two years ago without a degree. I had spent a total of four years in school at two universities. First two at a local school where I commuted, and my last two at a university about three hours away from home. I had three different majors and growing debt. I knew home was where I needed to go. The original plan was to get my old job back that had allowed me to pay for school out of pocket my first two years. I would go back to school, get whatever degree I was closest to and be done with it. That didn’t happen. It didn’t happen because I was approached about a job that paid very well, and put me back working in surgery which I missed. I would have to take a couple courses to get certified, but they would pay for those and so I agreed. Two years later the excitement of being back in the OR has faded, and the idea of school is creeping back up. The money is making it hard for me to dedicate myself to that idea. I could scale back work and go back to school. I could. I know that ultimately I’d feel more self actualized if I did go back and finish. The fact I still don’t have a concrete idea on what I’d like to study to completion is part of the reason I’m struggling. This needs to happen though. Someone come smack me around and force me to get going.

Hitting The Wall

Here recently I’ve been neglecting my blog. I have still been dating, and still have stories to tell, but my excitement to tell them has faded drastically. The reason for this is simple. I just can’t stomach dating anymore. This feeling has been creeping up on me over the course of the last few months. Date after date I would go on with varying levels of failures and successes. I kept soldiering on thinking I just wasn’t finding the right girls. It wasn’t until my most recent date that I came to the conclusion that no girl is the right girl, right now.

The last year and a half of my life has been revolving around dating. I would go from one to another seamlessly. Thanks to online dating this was pretty easy to accomplish. With each passing girl I lost a bit more drive. The emotional connection I had hoped to find when I started had never came, and my desire to search for it left.

With that being said, I have severed ties, at least romantically, with the couple girls I was involved with. I’ll now be happily out the game for an undetermined amount of time. I still plan on blogging about my life in general, so keep looking for posts. For those still in the thick of dating, good luck. It’s time for me to go grab a drink and only have to pay for mine.

Laid For Days…

This sounded like an ideal way to spend the extended holiday weekend, but I was on call for work and was never awarded to opportunity to spend the weekend in the way that I had hoped.

I had a quick coffee date Saturday which was nice. Simple. Nothing spectacular nor damning. I won’t speculate on where it may go just yet. Rather I’d like to hear how everyone else did on their long weekends. Let’s hear it.

Crazy Girl Headache

The last couple weeks have been pretty quiet on the dating front. This is part on purpose part by way of flakers. Anyone who has done online dating has surely come into contact with a few of these. You talk for a week or so. Maybe you have exchanged numbers and have moved onto the texting/phone call phase of easing into meeting when suddenly, without warning, they are gone. You spend a hopefully small amount of time wondering what went wrong and then you hopefully move on.

The last girl I talked to really left a bad taste in my mouth. This was the girl I was referencing in “And On The Seventh Day, She Ruined It.”

I have probably been over analyzing the last few girls who I’ve had contact with. Having someone go a little crazy on you will do that to you I suppose so I’m not too worried about it. She has left me with the crazy girl headache. The best cure for that is a nice little break from the game so to speak. This is exactly what I’ll be doing. It’ll be nice to take a mental vacation. I believe I deserve it.

How is everybody else doing out there? 

Thursday: A Day That Sucked

Yesterday was one of the most unfortunate days I’ve had in quite a while. It was marked by one morning blunder that subsequently led to the end of a great relationship.

The blunder that started it all…

 It occurred at about 9:00 AM Thursday morning. I had just gotten done going to the bathroom and was pulling up my pants. My phone, sitting on the toilet paper dispenser, shifted and fell…My hand reached towards it, but I missed. It fell into the toilet. A flushed toilet if anyone was wondering. Living just a few minutes from work I took a quick break and drove it home to drop it in rice. I wasn’t very hopeful. Five hours later I come home to find that my phone has died.

This isn’t a good thing, but this also isn’t a terrible thing. I bought it, and insurance from Best Buy so I’m good. I go ahead and drive over to the nearest one and get a loner phone while the factory replaces mine. This is the fifth time I’ve done this in less than a year. My next phone will most certainly not be my last.

On the ride home my route is shifted because the ramp I typically take is closed. This new route sucks because it involves me sitting in traffic as this particular exit I now must take is one of the busiest in the state. Everyone around here knows it. The kid from Washington driving a UHAUL with a trailer did not. At about fifty miles an hour he plowed into the truck behind me throwing it into me. This domino effect continued until the pile up was six cars deed. With the exceptions of a couple bumps and bruises everyone involved was fine. The three cars in front of me had pretty minimal damage. My truck and the two behind me were all in pretty rough shape. Two hours later the wreckage is cleared and I can go home. My truck was able to be driven home, but the damage ultimately is too much. I’ve already been told the insurance company is totaling it. I have just a couple more days with this, the only vehicle I’ve ever had. I have to admit, I am as bummed as I will let myself be over losing something that’s not a person. Pretty much every important event that has happened in my life the last nine years have been facilitated by this vehicle. The memories are endless, and I can’t help but sit and get a bit nostalgic. The good dates. The road trips. The bad dates…Your first vehicle is a big moment in your life. It is a big step in gaining your full independence….

Alright, before this post reinforces any more stereotypes about Kentuckians I’m going to end it. I know this had nothing to with online dating, or any kind of dating, but I needed to express my bummedoutness.

The Importance Of Laughing With Yourself

Dating ultimately sucks. I liken it much to my college experience for many reasons.

1. Like my major the girl I date seems to change with each semester.
2. There are many moments where I wonder what all the money I’m spending is going towards.
3. The tools in which to learn the subject constantly change thus costing me even more money.
4. To cope with the stress I drink large amounts of alcohol.
5. Dropping out is an increasingly tempting option with each poor experience.

Outside of the recreational side of college and dating they both suck actually.

How am I surviving the bad experiences?

I’m laughing with myself.

Laughing has saved my sanity on several occasions. The laughing itself might sound as if I’m losing my mind, but in fact, its preserving it.

It’s so easy to get beaten down in the dating game. Unless you’re one of the lucky ones to meet your “one” early on its going to be a long journey. You’ve got to have some conditioning to be able to hold up through the long, painful experiences. I’m not going to say have faith and to be patient and things will work out. Those things are important, but I try to not sit on the generic statements like that. I write my bad experiences because they are comical. Writing helps me laugh at the experience and then move on from it. It sucks that there have been so many failed attempts at finding someone who sticks, but that’s what I’m faced with. That’s what a lot of us are faced with. I just know that for me, having a sense of humor towards it all has saved me from the desperation that I’ve unfortunately seen in others. So next time a date, while chewing with their mouth open, stops and smiles at you…laugh. Get another drink and the check and laugh.

Fifty Shades of Awkward

It had been about a month since I had gone on a date. I wasn’t feeling desperate, but I was jonesing for some female company. A smiling, pretty face was greatly needed. This led to me shortening my typical screening process from a week to two hours. Impatient is a good word to describe me at times.

This girl had sent me a message while at dinner Halloween night. She was a very cute black girl, and I definitely enjoyed a woman of color. I’ve had a couple cases of jungle fever in my day. She seemed a bit anxious to meet which was nice. After just a couple messages she suggested I meet her at a local bar for a drink after dinner. This worked out perfectly. The bar was loud and full of costume clad patrons. She was in the corner in regular clothes. My first thought was how pissed she looked. Our conversation was good despite the noise and her scowl. Through our shouting we managed to set up a movie date for the next afternoon. She always watched the original Halloween on or around Halloween and wanted me to join. Fairly confident she wanted something else I agreed.

The next day I head over for our date. Almost immediately I see this isn’t going anywhere. With the noise level normal we are able to actually hear each other. She had the most boring voice I had ever heard. She sounded exactly like this lady you see first in this clip.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

I thought she was joking at first, but that wasn’t the case. During the movie it was silent and awkward. Silent except for her little pug she had. He got ahold of a piece of Little Ceasers pizza and had the worst gas I had ever encountered in my life. Man or beast this dog reigned. The tag line hot and ready was far too accurate of a description. The haze of this stink lingered for most of the movie. The poisonous gas had made my host tired and wanting a nap. She asked me to join, and for a moment I thought things were looking up.

As we walked into her room she looked at me and said “I’m not a narcissist. Just so you know.” I laughed and said ok in the only perplexed way I could. As I walk in I am immediately made aware of why she prefaced my entry with that statement. Her wall was covered with nude sketches of herself. Top to bottom the wall was covered with her top and bottom. She explained that she loved her body and that she volunteered as a nude model for the art school here in town. In lew of payment she picked one students drawing after each session and took it home. She literally fell asleep looking at a wall of her. Her mattress, sans bed frame, sat infront of her shrine. You’d think this would open things up to go in a sexual direction, but again I was wrong. She passed out almost immediately. Her farting dog and I sat there and discussed the art work for a few minutes, but I could take no more. I snuck out of bed, took a picture of her exhibit for proof and bolted.

This is the closet I’ve ever come to a one night/afternoon stand.

The Closest I Came To Love…

Little break from online dating woes to talk about the days and girls that were.

Her shoulder length blonde hair glistened from the reflection of her LA GEAR shoe lights off the linoleum tiled floor. Luckily for me I was still years away from puberty. The pit sweat that would plague me in the coming years was nowhere to be found. No other physiological signs of nervousness had found me in life yet. Except for the time I threw up before my pre school graduation because I had to lead the entire gym in the reciting of the pleadge of allallegiance. My friend dared me to go ask her. That’s all that it took for me was a dare. If he simply would of told me to go talk to her I would have declined instantly. But he dared me, and there’s no walking away from that.

As I walked up to the ala carte line she stood In I prepared my opening statement. We had just had a fund raiser where we sold magazine subscriptions. Our reward for every three subscriptions was this tiny thing called a weeble. Each one was themed and you put them on your back pack. They were awesome. If you got ten or more of them you and a friend got a limo ride to McDonald’s for lunch. She had about 20 of them. That made her the coolest girl in all of second grade. I wasn’t sure what a plus one was just yet, but I was sure I was going to be hers.

“How’d you get all those weebles?”

That was my opener. I’d like to say I’ve gotten better opening up conversation with a cute girl since then, but I can’t say for sure. Because we were only 8 at the time this line totally worked. She told me all about the fund raiser I somehow knew nothing about all the sudden. Even the part about the Limousine and McDonalds to which I was all to cool about. When asked who she was taking she told me she wasn’t sure yet. I told her she should take me. I also asked if she would be my girlfriend. She agreed. It was that easy.

Where in the hell did those days go?

Her and I dated for most of that second grade year. We talked on the phone, sat next to each other at lunch, and I even met her parents. She is still, to this day, the only girl that wasn’t family to tell me she loved me. Sadly it marked the end of our relationship. To reciprocate my love I snuck a quarter from my mother’s purse and purchased a ring from the vending machine at the grocery. I told my older sister about my plans to give it to my girlfriend. She told my mom. My mom confiscated my ring and told me I was too young for a girlfriend. She actually made me call my girl and break up with her that night. I was the worst second grade boyfriend ever. The next day it was all over class. What a jerk I was for letting my mom call the shots in my love life. That was the only time my mom would directly affect it. She does all her work in the shadows of my sub conscious now.

And On The Seventh Day, She Ruined It

Last Wednesday, bored at work, I turned to match to pass the time. I wasnt really into anyone who I was seeing locally, so I broadened my search a good bit for the hell of it. I saw someone who struck me and decided to just send a message. We were hundreds of miles away, but good conversation is good conversation when you’re online. That is how I chose to look at it at least. If she didn’t message me back I lost nothing. Why the hell not?

She messages me back interested in chatting. We share some stories and she asks if she can call me. I had never had a girl ask me that before online. Not so quickly. She seemed pretty cool though, so I was game. We ended up talking for two hours that night. Longest I’ve been on the phone in years. We had great conversation. Oddly open conversation. It was by far the biggest surprise I’ve had in my year of online dating. Over the next five days we talk and text. Usually about two hours a night. We talked a ton about our dating history without sharing too much. We talked about our families, our interests, and our goals. After a few days we actually talk about possibly meeting up in the future. All this had taken place in just five days. Very quick to be thinking about traveling to meet someone, but it didn’t feel like it at that moment. All our interaction up to this point felt extremely natural.

*Let it be known she sent me a video* via text to confirm her realness. Catfished I was not.

At this point I’m really starting to get interested in this girl. She seemingly has her head on straight, very smart, very attractive. I was on the verge of being hopeful. Then, on the seventh day, she ruined it.

This actually started on the sixth day, but the line was there to use.

During our conversation the 6th day I noticed a lot of skeptic, self depricating comments. She was trying to mask them within joke like banter, but they didnt fit. A simple conversation about our day, and then randomly inserted would be a quick comment on how I’m probably not interested anymore. That we will talk later on unless I’ve met someone else in that time. Things along these lines. I decided to point it out though just to see what she says. She says shes a little skeptical just because of her last few relationships ending poorly. She says she’s making an effort to stop thinking that way and that is that. Everything else up to this point had been great, so I tried not to dwell on it. I gave her some words of encouragment and drop it. She is going out with friends this particular night so we don’t talk on the phone. I go to bed early and all was well.

2:00…

My phone rings. Its her. Awake but not alert I don’t answer. I know she’s probably drunk, and I really hate trying to talk to drunk people. My phone rings again. Its her. I don’t answer. Immediately after she calls again and then again…4 consecutive times she calls, and to top it off she leaves a three and a half minute voicemail. Now each time she called I let it ring through. Never ignored the call as to make sure she didn’t know I was actively ignoring her. I was afraid of the awkward message that was waiting for me so I turned the phone over and went back to sleep. I would deal with this later on in the morning.

I awake a few hours later by my phone. A text this time. She’s apologizing for all the calls and the voicemail. Says that her phone was messed up and she couldn’t tell if her call was going through. She claimed that was the reason she called four times in a row. The way I saw it was her phone was trying to tell her to stop and to go to bed. It was merely trying to help and she ignored it. At this point I know the voicemail must be pretty bad. I pull it up. I close my eyes and I listen.

The first two and a half minutes are typical drunken jabber. Nothing too bad at all. The last minute, however, was a disaster. She started to say goodbye and that I should call her tomorrow….if I was still interested. That she probably just screwed everything up. That I should just ignore this message and…long bout of nervous laughter….click

After hearing this voicemail I am pretty let down to be honest. My interest had evaporated with each syllable of the last minute. I knew I couldn’t continue on after that. It was a fatal mistake, but she was not done.

A couple hours later she sent me a video message telling me how sorry she was. Said to call her…if I was still interested. As I’m writing her to tell her that I am a bit overwhelmed she calls. I ignore it. She leaves another voicemail. It is much the same. Its now I start getting flashbacks to episodes of Seinfeld and all the strange encounters with women he had. Man hands. The girl who only looks good in the dark. The mutton maker. I wonder what Larry David would tell me to say to this girl. He would want me to be brutally honest I decide and so I am.

I was working and could really only text, but this action was time sensitive. I tell her I’ve seen a different side to her the last couple days and that her insecurities showed me she wasn’t ready for a relationship. This didn’t make her very happy. She said she wouldn’t change for me and that I was missing out on something great. It was a message that I knew I couldn’t respond to. I had to just let it die. And that is exactly what I did. For almost six days I had the best online experience I had ever had and then it came crashing down in a fury of insecurity. This situation brought light to one of the best things about online dating. That being that you get a chance to really get to know someone before you meet. Because of that I saved myself from something that could of ended up a lifetime movie.