It’s a new year and time I start trying to write some entries on here again. I’m still happily single and dating non committally. I have seen a few guys over the past few months but only recently started actively … Continue reading
This week I went with 2 of my girl friends to a speed dating event. None of us had been to one before and this one in particular was going to be free because the company running it was opening a new branch in our city and wanted to get some new clients. Normally this would cost almost $50 per person to attend. The only thing included with it was a couple appetizers during the break. We had to pay for our own drinks. Now normally I am not a big drinker so I wouldn’t really NEED to get a drink (I’m on a strict budget after all), but in this case I did end up ordering one about half way thru as I figured it might dull the pain.. Yes..it was THAT bad. We went figuring it would be an entertaining Wednesday night out and none of us had been speed dating before so it was a bucket list item we could all check off, a kind of rite of passage for us “singles”. Now none of us had any high expectations going in, we just figured worst case scenario it would be entertaining. Also we figured that going together would make it less scary/ awkward. We really weren’t sure what to expect but I’m sure everyone has at least a tiny glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe they will meet someone amazing. Well to be honest I had zero hope of that but I think the others maybe did. Us girls put in a fair effort to look good and dress nice etc.. Apparently this may not be the norm or perhaps this group is an exception? I can’t really say since it’s so far the only one I have been to. As soon as we walked in and saw the 11 guys we were to be spending 7 long minutes talking closely to, we all looked very concerned. We figured -whatever maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised- and that -really how bad can 7 minutes really be-………. WOW. You have NO idea how long 7 minutes is until you go speed dating! There were moments where I was pleadingly looking around thinking this has GOT to be longer than 7 minutes surely. Although I’m normally super shy, I was there with good friends so I was pretty confident when talking to the guys and when I’m comfortable I’m the type of person that usually loves to meet and learn about new people so I thought it wouldn’t be too horrendous. I was wrong.. soooo very wrong. So first off, of the 11 guys that we had the -pleasure- of meeting, we were all sure that 2 of them were 100% gay. None of us remembered anyone’s name but as soon as we’d start talking about a conversation we’d had or any observations about someone, we would all know instantly who the person was. One guy told me how he’d like to quit his job because he doesn’t like to work (he told my friend he is quitting his job cus he’s lazy) and that he wants to retire so he can hang out on facebook all day, and then told me he wants to try naked yoga because he likes walking around naked. He told one of my friends that he came to speed dating hoping to get laid, and he gave my other friend equally lovely information. Not to mention he was basically wearing sweat pants and a dirty baggy t-shirt, had major acne and wore Urkle style glasses pushed up against his face .. now you may think this is a joke.. but no.. he was serious. Another guy was french and had only been speaking English on occasion so it was impossible to understand him and the place was kinda loud so it was already tough to hear people to begin with. He asked what I did for hobbies and when I mentioned that I like to cook and bake, he said “oh good cus I don’t do women’s work… I only do manly stuff like with cars.. cooking and cleaning is woman stuff..” to which I of course thought to myself ‘Oh please can I date you?..’ OMG! I actually made him repeat it because I thought maybe I just misunderstood him with his accent.. nope.. he meant it. He also was dressed like a slob and looked like he’d just rolled out from under a car carrying a beer. Then there was the a few other special cases who couldn’t speak English, were very freaky, super creepy and/or just overall WEIRD. There were about 3 nice ‘normalish’ seeming guys as well but they just weren’t any of our types physically. One guy in particular we actually all really liked so we invited him to hang out with us during the breaks ( he was finding us and our opinions of the dates thus far highly amusing). We all wanted him to be out new buddy but the person running the event said that “just friends” wasn’t an option. :0( Funny enough, 2 of the worst guys were also the ones we thought were gay. They were by far the most obnoxious of the bunch. That’s nothing to do with thinking they were gay, just that they happened to also be highly arrogant. One kept telling each of us about how much money he made, how rich his family was, how his uncles have beach houses and yachts, and how amazing he thought he was essentially. Then the second ‘gay’ guy was WAY more feminine than us 3 girls and kept swinging/sweeping his shoulder length hair the whole time he talked to each of us. At least with him I didn’t have to worry about making conversation though because he was more than happy to go on about himself for the entire 7 minutes (which I was perfectly fine with..saved me from having to be fake). He kept making swooping hand gestures and giggling and I had to bite my tongue the whole time to keep from asking him if he was sure he wasn’t gay. He even started flirting with the other guys (touching their butts and giggling) after the event had finished. Needless to say none of us actually checked off [yes] to any of the candidates on our cards. Actually because there was 12 girls and 11 guys, each girl got to sit out one 7 min period and mine happened to be the last one, so the event leader came up to me to take my card since I was done and before she even looked at it she looked at me and said “I’m guessing you didn’t say yes to anyone?”. I laughed and smiled at her and said “no, but it was entertaining”. She’s been in the business for awhile so I imagine she wasn’t expecting most of the females in this group to be dying to date the majority of the guys that were there. Now again I don’t know if this is the norm or the exception or somewhere in the middle for what an average speed dating event is like. You don’t get told who the other candidates are prior to the event so you really never know what you are going to get and perhaps this one was worse because it was free,. who knows. I bought an online deal with a friend awhile back for a different speed dating company and we are booked to go at the end of November,. So if I decide I want to subject myself to 2 hours of torture again then perhaps I’ll get to see if its the same or better.. I really hope it can’t get worse.
In my past 3 yrs of singledom, I have dated extensively and only once attempted a ‘committed monogamous ‘ relationship. I have had a couple ‘friends with benefits’ along the way and many 1-2 week long dating stints but I have to say I’m starting to wonder if a committed relationship is really something I want to strive for anymore. With all my friends going thru break ups faster than I get the roots done on my hair and marriages ending within 5 yrs, I’m really reevaluating what it is I want. Obviously there are pros and cons to both sides but my current situation I think has so far been the most satisfying mentally, physically and emotionally.
For 9 yrs I lived with a guy who was my roommate, lover, best friend and committed (monogamous) boyfriend. So when he got annoying in any one of those roles, as a result I’d be annoyed at all of the roles he played.
Whereas in my current situation;
-I have a male (100% platonic) roommate,
-the ex (“the one that got away”) from 13 yrs ago who is back in my life and I now spend a fantastic weekend with once a month,
-a wonderful guy friend who I spend a large portion of my time with, going to movies, dinners, comedy shows etcor staying in to watch movies (and who is more than happy to let me use him for sex whenever I need it)
-and I have no commitment to any of them so I still get to date and talk to/meet whoever I want if I so desire.
So when any one of them pisses me off it only affects that one aspect of my life rather than all of them. I’ve found this is making my life soooo much easier and happier. I suppose after being cheated on by pretty much all of my ex’s , I’d rather just know that it’s open on both sides if we so choose than to be a good and faithful girlfriend only to find out later that my so called committed partner was not.
I realize some will think this sounds bitter, jaded, negative or defeated, but I honestly find it makes me so much happier. I get to have way more fun and things (personality traits) that would normally annoy the crap out of me don’t bother me much because I know that person is only a small percentage of the overall picture and that I am not ‘stuck’ with them. I don’t have to have the ‘make it work’ mentality we all grew up with. Because if that piece no longer makes me happy then I can just walk away and replace it without having to worry about losing all the other pieces. I’m finding its been helping immensely with my usual obsessiveness as well. I’m much better at just letting go and/ or walking away from someone when I know it will be much easier to fill that small space with someone else and that I still have other people around in the meantime. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting this is the answer for dating or even a good fit for most but I would argue its merits in a lot of cases.
I often debate the subject with people as I have never been a huge proponent of marriage to begin with. Sure I’d like to be proposed to one day and have the wedding ceremony : reception on a beach and all that hoopla, but as far as being legally married or committed to the same person for life.. no thanks. I think the old mentality of ‘you just make a marriage work and stay it in no matter what’ is completed ridiculous. Why would you choose to be in something that makes you miserable when you could be in something that makes you extremely happy? Even if its only a few years. I’d rather have 50 awesome short term relationships than one miserable long term relationship. It’s similar to jobs I guess. I know back in my parents day you didn’t expect to love your job, you just did it and stayed with the same company forever being diligent and faithful. Well after my dad was with the same company for 30 yrs they laid him off to replace him with someone younger who they could pay less… Sounds a lot like some of the marriages I know ….
Therefore, much like people my age and younger don’t stay in jobs longer than a few years because they want new challenges, growth or not to be bored, why shouldn’t we see romantic relationships & marriages the same? I have always said I think marriage certificates should come with 5 yr expire dates and that you can choose to renew at that point or just opt to go find a new one. After spending the past weekend at a friends second wedding (& she is 7 yrs younger than me), it just reinforced my belief that my current situation is truly awesome.
So over a decade ago, I dated someone once (briefly) before college and then again the following year while we were both in college (me in my first year and his in his second). We’ll call him Tony. The first time we dated, Tony dumped me after a month by simply never returning my calls. No explanation or anything. We ran into each other the next year at school (same college) and ended up dating a second time. The 2nd time we dated, it lasted for the school year and then we officially broke up when he left to start a new job in a different city. We kept seeing each other on a very “casual visit” basis for the next year until I started dating Ethan. (Ethan being the 9yr relationship I wrote about earlier).
Ethan was my best friend and truly an awesome guy. He helped to fix a lot of damage done to my self esteem that Tony had caused, Tony had none the less remained “The One” in my heart for the next 6 yrs or so until I finally managed to stop thinking about him regularly. I did however continue to have random dreams about him on the rare occasion. (I never wanted to wake up from them as they were usually quite enjoyable…) Now for the point of this story..
About 6 months ago I found a hidden (junk) mail folder on my facebook that I had no idea was there. I’d been searching for something else when I came across it. In there was a email that was 2 mths old from an account with the same first and last name as my ex Tony. I figured it was probably just junk mail as I had tried looking him up on Facebook a couple of times and so I figured the spammers were somehow able to access that info to spam me from a fake account. Even so, I started having a mild happy attack at the thought it could actually be from him.. (so much for thinking I was finally over him..). the message was pretty generic just asking how I was and referring to the city I was currently living in, all details anyone could have easily found on my facebook, and nothing specific enough to make me think it for sure had to be him. The account the message was sent from had no pics, no info, no friends, no updates no activity whatsoever so again it seemed questionable except that I knew when we were younger he generally avoided anything social media/messenger related. So I replied to the email saying I wasn’t sure if it was spam or not and that it had been sitting in my junk folder unbeknownst to me for a couple of months and to reply back if it was actually him. I tried sending an email to his old email address as well but it was bounced back as non existent and I didn’t hear anything back that week on facebook so I just assumed it had been junk and forgot about it.
About 6 weeks later I was away visiting a friend and got a message on my phone saying that I had a new facebook message from “Tony”. Again I had a mild happy attack and ran to my friend to tell her without even checking it yet because I was too nervous that it wasn’t him and even more nervous that it was. I read the message but again it was kinda generic and referred to current updates on my facebook so I replied back saying I needed him to tell me something only he would know. He wrote back immediately with details of how we’d met and how/ when we’d dated both times. I was elated! I couldn’t believe that after over a decade of not hearing from him, that he’d looked for me. (We have no mutual friends and live in different cities). We started off catching up and then rehashing the past and analyzing everything that had happened between us. It turned out that he was going through a divorce and decided he wanted to find me again. It was actually pretty healing go over old wounds with him. We both realized a lot that we didn’t know about before. We resolved some past hurt and misunderstandings and caught up on our current situations.
We messaged a bit at first and then more and more via text until we decided we needed to meet up sooner than later. So we made a plan to meet up about a week later when he’d be working in a different city closer to me (about an hour away from where I lived). I was soooo incredibly excited and nervous and freaked out. When he came to pick me up I was shaking with nerves and excitement. I figured maybe I’d be lucky and he’d have gotten fat and old looking after soo many years and I would have no feelings left for him. Yah that didn’t happen. He more or less looked the same with just a few extra pounds and few less hairs but still gorgeous to me. We went for dinner and drinks and caught up a bit more and then I invited him back for hot chocolate. It felt like nothing and everything had changed and my feelings were 100% still intact for him. We ended up cuddling up to watch a movie and kissed for a good long hour. It was like all my girly daydreams were coming true and that the “love of my life” came back to me.
To Be Continued……
So I have realized something very important about human nature.. we are all kinda stupid when it comes to attraction. It would seem we are all most attracted to those who are less attracted to us. Not sure why we were programmed this way.. it makes ABSOLUTELY no sense.. and in the case of girl brain it also makes us somewhat neurotic and otherwise unbalanced. The most sane, logical and well adjusted women I know suddenly become self conscious, neurotic, paranoid and self doubting when they are attracted to someone. This is where the “crazy” comes in.. You see we have major gut instincts as women.. so when our gut is telling us one thing but the guy we are crushing on is telling us something different, we are literally hearing voices in our heads.. because on one hand we REALLY want to believe what the guy is telling us since it’s always gonna sound better than the truth (guys are cowards and are NOT good at just being brutally honest) but yet our guts are busy screaming at us that we know better and are being delusional if we choose to believe what we are hearing from the guy. We still tend to go with whatever crap line the guy is feeding us though 9 times out of 10 in hopes that our gut is wrong or just being paranoid.. ALWAYS TRUST YOUR GUT!! IT DOES NOT LIE.. men however do.
Not to say women aren’t also guilty of this. I get to witness first hand how girls are with my best guy friends and my roommate. The funniest part to me though and this seems to be the case with more or less every guy I know.. guys seem to “like” the girls that treat them like shit (aka aren’t actually interested but stringing them along for now) and think that the girls who actually like them are “crazy” because these girls god forbid want to spend time with them and talk to them and give a crap what’s going on in their lives. This entertains me all the time. I just laugh at the male friends in my life because they all do it. Inevitably they all send me screenshots of text conversations they are having with a girl telling me “see!! she’s crazy” and when I read the portion of conversation they have chosen to share with me I ALWAYS ask to see what they said leading up to it.. and NO fail they have ALWAYS said or done something stupid or lied or have been very dishonest about their feelings therefore causing these poor girls to come off as “crazy” because these girls’ guts are telling them one thing and the guy is telling them something else. It is this male “stupid” that causes our female “crazy”. So the best and first piece of advice I always give to men I meet is that if you don’t want the “crazy” to come out, then be 100% brutally honest at all times. I will GUARANTEE to you men that if you straight up tell a girl you just are not into her that she will thank you for your honesty and move on.. IF you however decide to “be the nice guy” and either just drag it out slowly trying to stop replying or just being distant but not actually admitting the truth that you aren’t interested, then you will get “crazy” neurotic behavior in return because our brains are fighting internally about what the reality of the situation is and we REALLY just want you to tell us and put us out of our suffering. It is no secret that as women we generally over analyze and over think most things but it would seriously help EVERYONE if we were just told the straight up ugly truth from the get go. Then there isn’t anything for us to analyze. It would truly save us all from a lot of wasted time, effort, texts and energy.. not to mention the embarrassment and shame we women feel when we know damn well we are acting neurotic and “crazy” but can’t stop ourselves because deep down we know you aren’t being honest.
I know personally I HATE the way I act when I like someone. I can actually watch myself act like a moron and I can’t stop it. It’s like a car wreck that you know is going to happen but you can’t quite hit the brakes on time and are too busy watching it in awe to even realize til it’s too late and the damage is done. This is why I like to have lots of male friends. for one because they will always tell me if i am being stupid about a guy and what the guy is probably “actually” doing/meaning when he gives me an excuse for something. If I am not attracted to a guy he will like me sooo much more because I actually act like myself and not some strange contorted version of me. I keep hoping that eventually if I meet someone who is as attracted and head over heels for me as I am for them (beginning to think that’s a fairy tale) that this “crazy” won’t kick in because my gut won’t be telling me that they aren’t interested. Because that is what does it… If I can tell deep down the guy I like isn’t all that interested in me then I get paranoid and start acting like it. It’s awful!! I’d be scared of me too! Sooo please to all you men out there.. it’s better to be mean for 5 secs over text and tell us you aren’t interested than it is to just ignore us and hope that we will go away.
So I got past the initial shock I had experienced creating my first newly single online dating account. Then I decided to do what most dating newbies do and pay for the site that claimed to match you with people based on 100 points of compatibility or whatever their catch phrase was. I’d heard people say it was the website that ‘normal’ people who wanted actual ‘relationships’ used. It was not cheap to sign up… And it took me almost 3 hours to fill out all the questions and write a profile. But I had high hopes that this would work out way better than the free ‘hook up’ site (that’s how people refer to it) did. So it provided me each day with 5-10 “matches” whom I could then choose to look at their profiles and pics and select 3 of the pre-written questions to ask them etc if I thought I might like them. At that point the person would be notified and could chose to answer and move to step 2 questions or to say thanks but no thanks or just ignore you. I found that I was usually pretty disappointed with my so called “matches”… But one or two eventually caught my interest and I theirs, and I finally had a string of conversations with one guy {we’ll call him Nolan} I was pretty excited about. (It took him a week or 2 to respond to my first message… oh yes… that was my first clue and the first one I opted to ignore)… From what he said and what I’d read on his profile he seemed to be almost everything I was looking for. So we made plans to meet for a date. I’d been on a ‘few go nowhere’ and ‘have no expectations’’ meet for a quick coffee’ kind of dates before this one, but this was my first real date -date in 9 yrs! So I was a bit nervous to say the least. We decided to meet at a restaurant/ lounge near where I lived for a quick mid-afternoon drink, something casual and short in case we hated each other. He ran late which gave me the opportunity to down a free glass of wine they offered to me as I waited for him. That helped the nerves a bit. When he finally started walking towards the glass doors I was very happy to see that he was pretty attractive. He came in, we hugged and exchanged our hellos and grabbed a table. I had butterflies the size of whales. I mean this guy was everything I’d always wanted and I seriously wanted to rip his clothes off at first sight! We started off with some drinks and appetizers and ended up chatting for a couple hours and seemed to hit it off pretty well. I was pretty excited and optimistic. Once we were finally ready to leave and part ways, we went outside the restaurant and said our goodbyes in the parking lot. We hugged and as he walked towards his car I looked over and saw what looked like my Ex’s {Ethan’s} truck parked in the lot beside me. Yup I had a heart attack. I quickly got into my car and tried to sneak past to see the license plate and sure enough he was sitting in his truck dropping his buddy off. I got out of there as fast as possible freaking out that he must have just seen me hugging this guy outside of the restaurant. I didn’t want him to know I’d been on a date because we were still good friends and he was always on the super jealous side. I knew he would not be happy and then I’d have to deal with him being royally pissed at me & it wasn’t worth the fight. Two seconds later my ex called me and I thought for sure he must have seen me and that I’d been caught out. He asked where I was and I figured I better tell the truth about the restaurant at least so he didn’t think I was lying if he’d seen me get into my car or drive away. Sure enough he asked who I was there with to which I said some random friends name and then tried to come up with some back story as to why we were there in the middle of the day. As it happened, it turned out he hadn’t seen me after all… He just has impeccable timing for showing up and for calling at the most inopportune times.
{The thing about dating your soul mate for 9 yrs is that you are actually psychically connected to each other… My ex and I figured that out early on in our relationship. We’d always somehow know where the other was, what they were thinking, when they were in trouble, in danger, were in need etc, and apparently when they were dating someone else….. It had been an awesome connection when we were together but it would prove to be a serious pain in my ass for the next 3 yrs.}
You see even though I was living within a 20 min drive from him it was still a fairly large city with thousands of bars and restaurants and it was 3pm in the afternoon but somehow he knew exactly where to be and exactly when.. Fortunately it was by some small miracle that he didn’t actually end up seeing me.
So after I’d calmed down and freaked out on the phone to a few of my girlfriends, I decided to message Nolan whom I’d just been on the date with. We’d been discussing some random subject during the date where we were trying to think of the name of some actor or something and it had driven us crazy the whole time since neither of us could quite remember the name. It came to me shortly after so I used that as an excuse to text him after. We’d joked during the date about how the whole process seemed more like a job interview so after he replied to the first text I asked him how he felt the interview went. He messaged back fairly quickly and said he’d thought a second interview was a good idea. So needless to say I was super excited and pathetically happy.
I told him he could plan the next date because I wanted to see if he’d come up with something good or original (in other words if he’d put any effort in). He ended up picking me up and taking me to an Italian restaurant I’d never been to before for a nice romantic dinner. It was later in the evening after I’d gotten off work so we were the only 2 people in there. Oh yah I was hearing harps and violins in my head and picturing our wedding. He drove me home and I told him I’d invite him up but that I didn’t want to give him the wrong impression so that would have to wait a bit longer. He said he completely understood and gave me an amazing kiss goodbye that caused actual physical flutters in parts of my body that I didn’t even know still existed. I was in absolute heaven. We’d text sporadically throughout the days and our dates took place every few days or so. So we’d planned to go on our third date that following week. It was my turn to plan it. I decided that I’d buy him dinner at a new pizza restaurant that opened near my house and then a movie but he was going to pick me up. I was super excited and got all dolled up. I figured date 3 meant I could invite him up to at least see my place after the date. He wound up coming an hour late to pick me up claiming his GPS took him to the wrong address … (I questioned the truth in that given he’d been to pick me up once before and part of me thought perhaps he’d gotten my address mixed up with that of another girl he was maybe dating, but I tried to push those thoughts aside.) The later it got, the more anxious I was getting, so I decided to have a couple shots (I actually don’t generally drink so that unusual)… By the time he finally showed up I was half cut and a little miffed that he’d shown up an hour late. We went for our pizza and movie and I felt so happy to be with him that I mentally had to forgive and excuse his lack of concern at being on time. After the movie he drove me home and I told him he could come up for a drink if he wanted but that it was JUST a drink and that I would not be sleeping with him. So he came up stairs and we sat on the couch and had a drink and talked about life and what we wanted out of it and where we saw our futures etc. His answers all sounded so perfect and amazing and so again I found myself mentally picturing our wedding.
He kissed me again only this time it was crazy passionate and my whole body was on fire with longing, lust & 9 yrs worth of pent up sexual energy just waiting to be unleashed apparently. Who knew?? Certainly not me! So some clothing was removed /displaced and some fun ensued… Overall I was good on my plan of not having sex with him, although what we did do led me to believe that sex with him would most likely be AMAZING.
Eventually we pulled ourselves apart and he went home. I spent the next 3 days in lala land and developing a severe case of what I would later come to describe as “girl brain” (the theory will be described in great detail in a future post). My world was all hearts and rainbows, lollipops and butterflies. I was sure he was supposed to be ‘the one’ and that this is why everything had happened the way it did the last 6 months. We made plans for our 4th date which was for him to surprise me with some take out from somewhere we’d never eaten before and that we’d eat & watch a movie at my place. (He always seemed to suggest my place over going to his which I initially thought was great because it meant I didn’t have to drive to his side of the city… I was concerned about why he never wanted me to come over to his place but again tried to push those thoughts away).
So once more I got all dolled up, bought sexy new underwear and picked up a couple bottles of wine he said he liked and was prepared for a wonderful evening.
He showed up 2 hrs late… Yup.. 2 hours. I was about to tell him not to even bother but he said he had priorities & obligations to take care of and it couldn’t be helped, and that he was already on his way with food. I figured at least he’d planned and gotten some great food I could be excited about…. And then he showed up with drive thru Chinese food… Wow. I was soooo not impressed. The logic side of my brain said to write him off and move on because I was obviously pretty insignificant to him if he showed up 2 hrs late with no apology and picked up the fastest, cheapest and most convenient (right beside my house) food he could possibly get rather than going out of his way to go somewhere new and get something cool for us to try like we’d planned. But again the girl brain kicked in within 10 mins of him being at my house and I forgave all and decided I shouldn’t be mad and that I really liked him so I shouldn’t pout about it any longer and risk pissing him off.
I’m pretty sure there were about 1000 others clues, signs, flags and signals that my gut and logic brain picked up that my girl brain decided to sweep to the side. I was just soo happy to have him lying with me on the couch cuddling and watching a movie that I chose to ignore all the bells going off in my head.
When I made the decision to start dating again, I decided that I wouldn’t sleep with anyone before the 5 date mark. My rule when I was younger had been min 3 mths and an exchange of ‘I love you’ before I’d sleep with someone (there wasn’t many needless to say) but that seemed perhaps a bit of an excessive requirement at age 32. (At least compared to my other single friends). So I already decided this was not going to be THE sex date. We got some pretty awesome making out in however and I was thoroughly obsessed and thrilled with it all. I felt soo alive, happy, healthy and amazing that I just never wanted those feelings to end. I told him he could spend the night as it was pretty late, so he slept in my bed with me and cuddled a bit before we went to sleep and I was on cloud 9. The next morning he had a meeting which he chose to be an hour late to in order to stay in bed with me so I figured it must not just be me that’s he’s late with.. (Girl brain really clung to that justification). When he did finally leave to go to work, he seemed kind of distant and cold when he said good bye but I chalked it up to me just being a girl with silly expectations…
So then it was time for the infamous date #5 which was also going to be the double date where he’d meet my best friend and her husband. I’d planned a great date to go wall climbing and then dinner at a new restaurant none of us had been to. I was freakin crazy excited because if all went well, this would be the night I had sex with someone new after being with the same guy for 9 years! I was soo happy for him to meet my friends and for my friends to meet him.
The night before our big date he texted me to say that he had a customer who decided last minute to come into town for the weekend and he had to schmooze him so he wouldn’t be able to make it for the wall climbing but would try for the dinner. I replied back that I was pretty disappointed and asked if there wasn’t another option as my friends had gotten a babysitter and everything so they could meet him. Then the next morning he replied that he was taking his client out for dinner as well now and so would have to miss that part as well but would meet us at the restaurant as soon as he was done and that he’d go for drinks and dancing at the bar with us after. Oh man I was NOT impressed. Mostly because my gut and logic brain both agreed that he was full of shit and just making excuses so he could bail. I told him that it was pretty important to me but that if he had no choice then I’d have to be ok with it and that I was really hoping he’d change his mind and come. Then the girl side of me kicked in and I sent another message saying that if he didn’t show up to dinner at least, then I’d assume he wasn’t interested and leave it at that. I ended up asking another friend to come in his place and was determined to have fun despite him. Nolan emailed me early that afternoon to say that he was just going to cancel altogether rather than ruin my night with my friends because he wasn’t sure how late he’d be out with his client. I was super sad and pretty angry. It pretty much ruined all the joy I’d been building up my whole week and my happy cloud came crashing down.
I, my 2 girlfriends and my friend’s husband ended up having an awesome time on what was supposed to be a double date. We went to the bar after dinner and at the end of the night Nolan texted me to say he was at a different bar and that we should come there. This was about 30 minutes before last call so I felt bad about asking my friends to leave to go see him. He’d obviously not given a crap about me and just wanted me chasing after him, but the girl in me also really wanted to see him. My friends all said they wanted to go because they really wanted to meet this guy and see if he was a total douche or not. So we went… Even though my gut told me it was probably a stupid idea.
We got to the other bar and I looked around for him. I saw him and thought he saw me but when I started walking towards him he seemed to bolt for the bathroom. I stood there feeling like a moron and waiting for him to come out. While I awkwardly stood waiting, I saw a guy I recognized from the same dating site who I’d had conversations with before but never ended up meeting. He obviously recognized me as well and decided to come up and start talking to me. Nolan finally came out of the bathroom and saw us talking and came over to join us. It turned out they were friends and at the bar together… Well of course they were, just my luck, because you know that’s not awkward at all….
Nolan looking pretty drunk and somewhat disinterested asked if I wanted a drink so we all went to the bar. Nolan asked if I’d ever gone out with his friend or if his friend was one of the 2 guys I’d mentioned actually liking from online. When I replied no to both questions he got visibly smugger. As we were standing there, he’s douchy friends were hitting on some serious cougars beside us. I was pretty put off by his friends and by the fact that he seemed to be flirting with one of the cougars as well. Then his friends turned to me and asked if I wanted to come back to his place with them and the cougars to party… (Quite frankly the cougars looked like they wanted to harm me at the suggestion that I join their little party). At this point my self-respect finally showed its face and I pointedly declined the invitation. Of course rather than opting to stay with me, Nolan happily went off to his condo with the cougars and his douchy friends. Needless to say my friends decided he was a total jerk and that I was much better off knowing that before I’d made the mistake of sleeping with him. I was devastated regardless. (Little did I know that I had 3 more years of that kind of fun to come…)
Nolan actually came back into the picture a couple of times over the months that followed (mostly when he was loaded and got to drunk texting looking for a hook up).. At one point, about a year later, we even decided to try a casual booty call relationship. I soon found out that he actually wasn’t nearly as amazing as I’d initially made him out to be in my mind. It turned out he was an alcoholic, he told me he didn’t drink at all originally and then later admitted (after I’d seen for myself a number of times) that he had a bit of a drinking problem .. He even admitted, once we had agreed to “just be friends”, that he figured he must have a black heart because he felt incapable of loving or being committed to a girl. (He was super close to his mom though… For future reference, take that as a red flag). The few times we tried the booty call thing we never got any further than we had on our 4th date. I soon found out that everything I thought was earth moving those last 2 dates was really all he knew how to do. Whenever we’d get to that point it was just the same repetitive thing over and over. Nothing ever progressed past that point. I actually just kept getting bored and stopping him to ask if he was bored too…we never had sex.
Nolan was my weakness for a year but after trying out the casual relationship with him and seeing him without my girl brain rainbow glasses on, he finally stopped taking up space in my brain and in my heart. I realized how I’d seen what I wanted to see at the time and not the reality. It was both enlightening and depressing to be honest.
After all was said and done, I think he and I both made a lot of mistakes and we were obviously completely wrong for each other. He is a great guy overall and I honestly am happy to see him on the rare occasion we cross paths. I learnt a lot about what was to come in my dating life starting at that moment and over the 3 years that have followed since. Suffice it to say there are a lot more stories to tell about the past 3 years and new ones developing everyday…
So I forgot one of my main points in my last entry about the first time I created an online dating account. I mentioned how it immediately matched me to my ex’s friend but forgot the most important parts of that. You see the friend was pretty much the last guy on earth and I mean that quite literally, that I’d EVER date and pretty well the opposite of everything I said I wanted when I spent the hour filling out the questionnaire and profile. So not only did I think it was an extreme coincidence that he was matched to me as my ex was out drinking beers with him, but I couldn’t figure WHY???
Well since then and after trying 6 different sites later, I now know the ‘matching’ is actually based on postal codes.. So because we were both living in a smaller town, it matched us up even though my profile said I’d like to look within a 200 mile radius of where I lived.
So my first suggestion to anyone considering signing up for online dating.. don’t waste your time trying to answer the questions accurately. I now just click random answers for all of the questions to get it done faster and the resulting ‘matches’ are always the same.
So I was seriously nervous the first time I created an online dating account.. I was scared to death someone I knew was going to see me on there and I’d be mortified.. or that my very recently Ex’d boyfriend would find out that I was already looking to fill his spot in my life (I didn’t want to hurt him.. though everyone always asks me why..lol). I spent about an hour filling out the 100 or so questions on one of the most popular “free” sites just to “see what was out there”… (you’ll understand why that’s funny if you’ve been online dating..). I uploaded a picture (while my hands were actually shaking), clicked the “create account” button and was uploaded into the cyberspace of online dating. I walked away to grab a snack since I was seriously anxious and literally 1 min later when I went back to my laptop to finish up, I had 100 “views” and 10 messages!! and I hadn’t even written out an actual profile yet! that made me even more nervous because the guys could not have physically even read anything on my profile so were obviously just messaging my pic. Then 2 mins later when I checked to see who my “matches” were, the very first one was the friend that my Ex was at that moment having a beer with at our local bar.. (This was prior to me moving out of our house). So not only did I have a minor panic attack but I was sure this friend was going to see that he’d been matched to me and tell my ex that I was on there. I immediately tried to figure out how to delete the account but apparently it would take 24hrs to be deleted. So in the meantime I deleted my pic and posted one of some random girl I found on google. I called my best friend and freaked out about how my ex was totally going to find out and what the hell was I gonna do?? In the end I met up with my ex and his friend at the bar and just said “so funny story..” and told them so it didn’t seem as secretive if he found out. Needless to say my very first online dating experience was seriously painful and did not give me much confidence in finding my dream man via the internet.
So I guess a good place to start would be how I ended up back in the land of the dating at the age of 33 in the fist place. I was in a 9 year relationship with someone I’d known my whole life basically. He was my best friend and half of me. I always used to joke that I was glad I wasn’t single because I didn’t know how I could possibly date in the world we live in today. I used to say that I was terrible at being single and dating when I was younger because I was always so obsessive, clingy and just plain dumb.
Now don’t get me wrong.. I wasn’t in some fairy tale bubble happy land.. We had our problems.. a fair share of them at that but we loved each other and thought we’d be together forever though we never did even get engaged in 9 years and never made large purchases together so that it would be easier if we ever parted ways… soooo.. Anyways, due to a couple unfortunately (and inebriated) decisions on his part, the relationship ended after almost 9 yrs together. So I moved out of our home and into a condo and that’s when I woke up.
I hadn’t realized how much I’d adjusted myself, my life, my goals, my level of what I accepted and what I expected based on my life with him. I had been petrified of moving back out on my own after living with him for 5 yrs with no breaks. I had recently (a month before the break up) quit my job to explore other options.. and here I found myself unemployed and suddenly without my home and the family (his) that I knew. But then that first night alone in my new condo (new years eve ironically enough) I found myself visibly relaxing like all the tension and fears, and eggshells I’d been walking on all those years were suddenly melting off. Again.. let’s not get carried away and think this was all sunshine and lollipops as there was also many tears, many bad nights, a lot of weight loss (stress..but yay!), and a huge sense of loss for the life I had, my sense of self, my best friend, having a stable job and income and the home I’d built (literally) and designed.
My first instinct though was that he had set me free. I felt like now I could finally choose to find the man who would actually fit me and the lifestyle I’d always wanted.. Someone active, healthy , not a drinker, took care of himself and his appearance/ body, someone who’d rather be out hiking than sitting on the couch eating wings, drinking beer and watching the hockey game. Someone who would push me to try new things and be more active rather than someone who I felt guilty if I decided to hit the gym rather than hang out on the couch with him. My ex (the 9 yr one who for simplicity purposes I will here on in refer to as Ethan) was/is an AMAZING person with incredible attributes and I love him to pieces.. he really was never right for me though and vice versa, but we kept trying and failing to make things work because we loved each other so much,
So anyways, I pretty much decided right after we broke up before even moving out that I needed to start my search for my future “perfect fit” soul mate. Because I was absolutely sure he was waiting somewhere for me to find him.
So to begin, I have tried about 6 different online dating websites from free to costly.. to be honest I have found the bigger free ones to be the most effective if you want a decent selection.. Yes I realize the common belief is that only douche bags looking to hook up are on the free ones but I can attest that there are indeed plenty of “decent” guys on there as well and you just have to learn how to screen them properly.. after awhile you start to learn the code words, language and signs that will help guide you..
I have been on probably well over 250 “dates” by now (this includes meeting someone for coffee even if just for 15 mins..) and I have learnt that I love meeting new people. I learn something new from each and every one of them.. and you honestly end up learning a lot about yourself in the process. People are truly fascinating whether they are “good” dates or not.
Girl Brain and other side effects of online dating 