Gravitational Forces

 The other day I was randomly thinking about a former Friend-with-Benefits situation I had.  This girl I met years ago online.  Match, I think?  It was a quick few messages and I ended up inviting her to play for my coed softball team, Surrender the Booty.  She came out for one game and her first plate appearance knocked a fly ball into shallow left field, just past the shortstop position.  I was coaching 3rd at the time and watched the ball drop neatly on the grass.  I was clapping for what was clearly a hit and I turned to look at first expecting her to be standing there...  No.  I looked back to the batter's box to see her picking herself up off the ground and dusting herself off. Seems she slipped running out of the box and never made it to first.  Womp-womp-waah...  

Anyway, that was the only game she made it out to and we went on a couple of dates a few times after that but it never really clicked between us, so we agreed we could just be friends, hang out, do stuff with.  She was originally from back east and had only been living in California for less than a year when we met.  She was cute, no doubt.  Otherwise I never would have asked her for a date to begin with.  Yes, I'm that shallow.  Redhead, like a thick, curly mane of red, blue eyes, turned up nose and almost as tall as me.  And besides that, she had a body.  I wouldn't go so far as to say she was full-figured but she definitely had curves in all the right places.  That was especially true of her booty.  That's where the title of this particular story comes from.  When we would sometimes be walking back from being out and about, and odds are neither of us were entirely sober especially her since she LOVED to celebrate 420!  OMG, this girl would so rarely be fully sober whenever we'd be hanging out.  I distinctly remember several times she would wake and bake.  Literally roll out of bed, go to her living room where her bong was, grind some herb and hit the pipe a few times before we'd go back to doing what we were doing before.  Yes, she was extra intimate when she was buzzed.  And seeing as how at the time, I was the recipient of this increased intimacy, I wasn't about to complain.  

Anyway, as I was saying the title of this post is because when we'd be walking back from wherever, neither of us keeping a straight line, we would occasionally bump into each other and she'd declare; "See, my ass is so big, it's got it's own gravity!" Sometimes I'd 'scream' helplessly as I was pulled into it again.  

It's weird thinking back now since it's been at least 15 years since this all first started.  We were like a sine wave in how we'd hook up, FWB for a few months then out on our own separate ways for a year or two then we'd randomly run into each other and do it all over again.  What's funny is that, in a short span of time when she was meeting and hanging out with the group of friends I made when I got to HB, she was totally hands off, keep our distance from one another when we were with the group.  But as soon as we were out of their sight, she'd be inviting me over to her place for some nookie.  

I think the only time anyone ever really suspected something was going on between us was during a beach party I organized for the group.  Everything was going great, I was talking up another girl who I was hoping to get together with when Red blew out her knee.  She mentioned an old injury before that if she planted her foot wrong, her knee would give out.  Sure enough, someone brought hula-hoops, she went to try one and the next thing you know, she's laying in the sand holding her leg.  Knee blown out sideways.  Looked brutal to be honest.  Lifeguards came over and put a cardboard cast on her but she refused to leave the party.  Only taking some really potent stuff another girl brought for pain relief.  800mg of something  Vicodin, I think.  
Red took the Vicodin and tried washing it down with a cup of red wine.  What??!  No, you can't wash that down with wine!  And she kept trying to sneak it past me.  But since she was hobbled up, it wasn't too hard to stop her.  Until another girl thought; "What's the harm?" and gave her the cup behind my back.  About 30-45 minutes later, we all got to see what the harm was in that as Red decided she was ready to go home.  And tried to stumble her way to her car.  No way, you're in no condition to drive.  Someone suggested she could follow her since they were both going back to the IE and that almost would have worked except Red's cognitive decline was accelerating.  She was loopy by the time we made it from the sand to the parking lot.  Nope, she's not driving.  No way she'd make it in her condition.  So the next logical step for me was to take her back to my place and let her sleep it off.   I was pissed because this pretty much blew my chances with Paola that night.  And now I was trying to pack up all my shit from the beach party, get some dude to drive her car to my place while I'm apologizing to everyone for having to bail out early.  The bonfires were just getting started, that's how early we were in the evening.  

I'll never forget having just buckled her into the passenger seat, going back to pick up my EZ-Up and when I got back, she wasn't there.  fuck...  I put the EZ-Up away and started looking up and down the beach for her when Steve shot back at me, she's right here.  I looked back and he was pointing into my car's passenger side.  What?  I went over and there was Red, somehow managed to squeeze herself into the footrest space of passenger side.  This tall, curvy girl with the banged up knee was someone able to fit herself into a space that, sober, there's now way in hell she could have done it.  Facepalm moment for sure.  

We get back to my place, Steve helps me with her up the stairs, I dump her unceremoniously on the couch and drive him back to the beach, thanking him the entire way and in the back of my mind praying Red doesn't do anything stupid or damaging to my place while I'm gone.  

By the time I got back to my place, Red had managed to move herself from the couch to my bed.  Fine, it's not like she's unfamiliar with the territory anyway.  Seeing she was ok for the time being, I unpacked what I could from my car, got in the shower to wash off the sand, sweat and sunscreen and set out some water, Tylenol and a barf bag/pail for Red figuring she was going to need some of them at some point, and settled in for sleep when she got up and had to go.  Like, go to the bathroom.  I helped her to the door and she partially closed the door for a little privacy.  Funny that even in that condition, she seemed modest.  At least until she finished, got back into bed and decided her clothes were uncomfortable.  She tossed and turned for a bit as she stripped off her shirt, shorts and pretty much everything else she had on.  After a few minutes struggle, she was laying naked, spread eagle face up wearing only the cardboard splint the lifeguards had put on her earlier that afternoon.  Considering how much she had bent the thing with all her walking around, tucking into the floorboard space in my car and flailing around she was doing on my bed, I was honestly surprised it was still holding on.  

When all was said and done and she seemed to finally drift off to sleep, I looked at the time.  9:30...  9:30 on a Saturday night with everyone else I knew still out on the beach enjoying the bonfire and here I was babysitting Red.  

We saw one another less and less and she eventually started dating a friend of a mutual friend.  Moved in with the guy when she lost her job and when they broke up less than a year later, she moved back to Jersey.  We briefly reconnected online a couple of years before the pandemic.  She was engaged to a guy, living together at her place.  She seemed happy.  Until she kicked him out the summer of 2019.  He wasn't driven enough for her.  She wanted him to have bigger goals in life.  We talked for a bit about her coming out to visit maybe late Spring 2020.  Then the world shut down.  And while that happened, she also reconnected with a dude she originally met on Match right around the time we first dated.  She called him: The One That Got Away.  Shit lady, if that dude still has your phone number after 13-14 years or so and waited until the world shut down before he reached out to you, I'd say that's some really weird(desperate) timing.  But if you're going to be spending time with him, I bow out.  Once I told her that, she fully blocked me on social media.  That happens often, oddly enough.  Not just unfriending but a full block.  

Adventures in Online Dating - RPV

 It was a friend's recent post about Performative Receiving that actually prompted/reminded me about this girl I went out on a couple of dates with.  Honestly, I had forgotten about her mostly because we only went out a couple of times and both of those times, she was seemingly lost in thought during most of our dates.  

As the title states, this was another Adventure in Online Dating and RPV is because this girl, and I keep using the term 'girl' despite the fact that she was my age when we first met.  I would assume she's still my age but I digress.  Anyway, this girl and I met online, I forget which website or app, but it was soon after I had moved out to Huntington Beach.  And let me tell you something that I hadn't really thought much of but man, once I moved to HB, my dating life EXPLODED!  It was kind of ridiculous how many girls I dated/hooked up with/scratched that itch with those first few years I lived in HB.  I guess a single dude in his late 30s living in his own place(no roomies!) was a big draw for the ladies at the time.  And I took advantage of it as best I could.  Anywho, I met this girl and she was from Rancho Palos Verdes, RPV.  And for those who aren't familiar, RPV tends to be a little more hoity-toity, upscale neighborhood along the coast in LA county.  She did drive a BMW SUV so she was doing fairly well, financially speaking.  But she was also newly single.  And by newly single, I'm talking she was divorced within the past 6-months.  That whole "freshly divorced and making up for lost time" mentality was in full effect.  She was now a single mother of a teenager and using the dating sites to get her groove back.  

We originally chatted for a bit and she sort of dropped off for a few days, ghosted.  Didn't think much of it since it happens ALL the time but she was back and eager to meet up when she returned about a week or so later.  Dinner at some place in Hermosa Beach and then a walk along the pier.  But the entire time after dinner, she was distant.  Seemingly not into the rest of the date.  I walked her back to her car and we kissed goodnight.  She wasn't really into chatting much after that so I figured that was that.  No harm, no foul.  And when she dropped out of the dating website again, I took it in stride.  

Then maybe a couple of weeks later, she was back.  We talked a bit again and this time I got her to meet up with me and some friends at 80s karaoke at Alex's Bar in Long Beach.  Yes, Mr. Mister Miyagi, if you remember them.  Are they still even around?  They were fun but I stopped following them after their shows at Alex's got ridiculously packed.  First couple of times I saw them were cool but then the bar was starting to get nuts to butts crowded and getting on the list to sing was next to impossible unless you signed up as soon as they set out the list.  Which is ironic because I saw them perform once at The Gaslamp and NOBODY was there.  I think I went up to sing 3 times and when my name came up a 4th time, I said, "Pass!"  Their lead singer even bought me a shot just because I was willing to go up so many times.  But I'm straying from the story.  

So she met up with my friends and I at Alex's and for the record, one of those friends was my regular FWB but she totally gave me the thumbs up on my date.  RPV really was my 'type', if I had one.  She was about my height, curvy in all the right places, something to hold onto, I like to say.  Curly brown hair, cute AF.  Anyway, we were there for a while and when we all broke to leave, RPV followed me back to my place.  Yes, brown chicken, brown cow!  
We got back to my place and we're talking for a little bit, getting comfortable and she starts to explain/semi-apologize for ghosting me before.  Turns out I was right in assuming she met another dude and thought things with him were going in the right direction.  At least that's what she thought until she started giving him a hummer and he started taking pictures.  He hadn't asked, she just saw the camera flashes going off to clue her in.  Classy dude.  

***WARNING***
Some of you might feel a bit uneasy reading the details of what happened next between us but you can stop reading this at any time.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

The reason why the Performative Receiving topic triggered this reminder for me was because once RPV and I started getting intimate, I went to go down on her.  Gotta be honest, that's really something I truly enjoy doing to a girl.  REALLY, truly enjoy.  What can I say, I've got a really talented tongue and it's not just for pictures.  But that's when she started to tense up.  Her body language let me know she was uncomfortable with me going down on her and she told me after a few minutes that the reason was because she hadn't planned on our date going so far, not that she wanted to stop but because she had gone to the gym shortly before meeting us at the bar.  She didn't give herself time to shower.  So the entire time, she's worried she might be giving off a 'not-so-fresh' scent while I was down there.  

Rather than let that kill the mood, I shifted my attention to the rest of her and we continued on, eventually wearing each other out and falling asleep for a few hours.  She woke me up, it must have been after 3 a.m. when she said she had to get home.  She hadn't told her daughter she was going to stay out all night and her daughter had soccer in the morning.  I walked her out to her car, hugged and kissed goodnight, said we'd definitely see each other soon. 
I never heard from her again.  Ghosted a third time.  Never saw her on the dating website either.  

The First Ghost

Started writing my Reminiscing blog post when this random Adventure in Online Dating memory popped into my head.  It was unusual in that, we actually went on a couple of dates and the third time we met up, it was for her college graduation party, bachelor's but she had a late start on it so she was in her early 30s by the time she got her degree.  Anyway, she was really comfortable with me and us to the point that she was already talking about doing events in the coming months.  We met in May on Match, I think.  I'm pretty sure it was Match.  This should have been sometime around 2004-05ish? 
She was so excited about things we were going to do together, she even started talking about attending the Labyrinth of Jareth event in August.  For those unfamiliar, it's a masquerade ball where the patrons are encouraged to dress as fantasy characters.  And Miss, I cannot remember her name but I think it was Shannon, already had hers picked out and that meant I was going to be pressed to go as her partner/opposite.  In this case, she was working on a peacock costume, she was going to get fitted for a corset in the appropriate color palette, feathers and mask, the whole regalia.  Which meant that, to go as a couple, I was going to have to come up with my own peahen costume.  Not sure how familiar you are with the avian traits but, like much of the animal kingdom, it's the males that are the bright, colorful specimens while the females are often drab, dull creatures.  

Peacock & Peahen
©birdeden.com

So here I go looking for muted brown plumage for my Peahen costume, I buy the LOJ ticket and get to work on putting together my costume.  And curiously, Shannon kind of drops out of contact.  Mind you, I had just seen her at her sister's place in Temecula and she even pointed me in the right direction to find the correct color feathers to start building from.  But I'm still plugging away and still not a peep from her for nearly 2 weeks.  Very odd that she's not replying to calls or emails.  Texting was still .10 cents a message so no to that.  But still.  

Finally about mid-July, still over a month away from the Ball, I finally hear from Shannon.  
"Hey, I just want to let you know, I moved to Vegas.  I already found a job and am renting a room from a friend."  

Say what?  Holy fuck, are you kidding me?!  Just up and moved to another state on a whim?  What kind of sketchy shit is that?  Did you not know you were maybe going to move?  

To be totally honest, I have no idea what she said after she told me she had already moved.  I was disappointed and a little pissed.  Disappointed that she just felt like moving away, not even that we were at the start of a thing.  I mean, 3 dates isn't exactly a commitment but you'd think maybe mention that you were looking at moving out of state?  And pissed because I just dropped a good chunk of change on a ticket and pieces for a costume that I'm not about to fucking finish.  Fuck, I would never have chosen a Peahen as a costume if it were just me.  

I stayed on the ball's mailing list for years!  I think I still get mailed invites every few years but haven't ever gone myself to date.  

As for Miss Shannon in Vegas?  Not a clue.  After that phone call, I never spoke to her again.  She did offer to pay me back for the masquerade ball ticket money that I was out.  Nah, keep it.  I'm not going to ask anything of you.  You already ghosted me once.  Not again.  

Best By Date:

 One of those lingering issues (of many) over the years with dating, not just online dating but dating as a whole, it was during the early 2000s, until about a decade ago, I noticed there was this repeating trend I would hear from girls I met and would actually go on dates with that really stood out to me.  And it bothered me at the time but looking back, it bothers me more in that, how the scenarios were presented to me.  Allow me to explain.

The first time I heard this line was probably around 04, I had just bought Betty I.  I met a local girl online and we got to talking, she was totally cool.  Total nerd/gamer girl and we connected like crazy, Robbi.  We compared stories about Comic-con trips and found out we had both been during the same years a few times.  She was STILL playing Dungeons & Dragons with a group of friends regularly!  We went out several times, most often to Gameworks and Dave & Buster's in Ontario Mills, a few times we (I) would drive to Newport to hang out in the evening sand before driving back.  
It was on a trip to D&B that we were progressing to being a little more serious, a little more intimate and I'll never forget this...  She was wearing the tiniest, smallest white skirt she probably owned.  It barely covered her cheeks as she walked, just enough that the panty line was visible.  And then at one point, she made an overtly intentional move to bend over to pick something up in front of her, flashing me her Pepe Le Pew undies.  I swear, that was too damn funny.  Being so seductive and then turning it into a joke for me was the best.  
And as I mentioned, we were talking about becoming a little more serious and that's when she hit me with the infobomb.  She was sick.  She skirted the exact illness other than it ran in her family but odds were she wasn't going to live more than 5 years.  That was some heavy shit to process in that moment.  So, what you're saying is that if we become serious, it's entirely likely you/we are going to be going through this in a few years?  I honestly couldn't process it well.  Handled it even worse, I was really getting to like her.
We didn't consummate anything that night and in the following weeks, we both sort of tapered off how much we were communicating with one another until she wasn't much more than she is now, a memory.  But that obviously still lingers with me to this day.  

Something similar sort of happened a couple of years later, maybe 05.  Another girl I was talking to, her I also met online.  Match.  Really cool and ironically, she worked in customer service for a cable company.  I forget which but she was Girl in Blue.  She and I would start chatting it up.  Again, I'm still in Riverside and she worked in Montebello, though she didn't say where she lived.  After about a week, she mentioned she was housesitting for a friend and his place was in Cucamonga, I could come to see her that weekend, keep her company.  Wink, wink.  
Saturday night I'm driving around some heavy tree-lined streets in Rancho, almost lost since cell phones of this era still weren't the greatest and forget GPS.  In fact, I didn't even get my first GPS unit until 2009 when it was a standalone unit I plugged in before each drive.  No, this was me going off maps I printed off Mapquest before I headed out.  I finally get to the place and there's her Xterra parked out front like she said it would be.  I knock on the door and yes, there's the Girl in Blue.  I obviously don't remember her name this many years later.  But she looked exactly like her photo.  Too bad her photo was just of her face from the shoulders up.  
Now, I'm not saying this to be mean, I know I'm not the ideal body type for anybody's tastes.  Although you could say I've been rocking the dad bod since before it was a thing.  But Girl in Blue was much shorter than the 5' 4" she said she was.  And her 'average' figure was hardly that.  This girl had CURVES.  I'm not saying that in a negative manner.  I mean, she had curves in all the places they should be.  Just maybe a bit more pronounced than average.  Significantly more than average.  I wasn't complaining but again, I also wasn't expecting that.  
She welcomes me in and immediately, I can smell the cologne of the guy she's housesitting for.  One of those musky scents that mechanics always seem to lean towards.  If you know, you know.  Anyway, we're on the couch, TV's playing something random and we're just talking, getting a feel for one another and that's when she drops something new on me...  
She's dealing with a medical issue that I should know about before we get involved.  O.k...  Turns out she was maybe not so safe with a previous partner and was dealing with something like cold sores in and around her mouth.  I couldn't see anything and we were sitting right next to one another.  And then she may also be dealing with another problem and she needs to get checked out before she and I do anything.  Well, that's thoughtful of her...  but you waited for me to come see you before you told me this?  I stick around a while longer, just to make sure she understands I'm not freaking out over this...  but internally I'm freaking out over this.  What the fuck?!  You seriously couldn't mention this sooner?  
And by 10 pm, I'm ready to call it a night.  And she quickly offers the bedroom to crash in if I was tired, she'd stay up and watch some TV.  Odd, thanks for the offer but I'm 20 minutes from home, I'm good.  She walks me out to the driveway and we turn and hug one another goodnight.  That was the last I saw and spoke with the Girl in Blue.  She never reached out to me after that night.  Not even to ask if I made it home ok.  Once again, the only reason she remains in memory like this is because of the infobomb she decided to give me almost as soon as I arrived.  

Around 2004 or 05, I met a girl on Match, Megan.  She was a teacher up in the high desert but she lived in some apartments near Victoria Garden in Rancho.  After a few days of chit-chat, she agrees to invite me over for a movie night.  I'll bring a handful of DVDs she wanted to watch and we'll order some pizza.  And it's while we're on the couch watching Almost Famous, pizza on its way that we start to become intimate, heavy petting, getting worked up when the doorbell rings, Pizza!  Hah!  Saved by the bell?  We stop to catch our breath and get to eating the pizza, watching the movie and before anything else happens, she needed to tell me something...  You know it's coming.  Based on the two stories I've already mentioned above, you know exactly what she's going to say. 
"Before we go any further, I need you to know I've got an STD. I want to make sure you understand that before anything happens, I don't want you catching anything."  Well, that was considerate...  But, you couldn't tell me any of this sooner?  We half-heartedly watch the rest of the movie, eat some more pizza and later when she wants to continue with the intimacy, I'm obviously not going to be as involved/interested as I was before you dropped that bit of news on me.  We didn't go very far after that.  We had one more pizza and movie night a week or so later before we both just stopped talking.  
Last I heard/saw her on Facebook, she was engaged with 3 kids.  Guess the baby daddy either didn't care/wasn't bothered about the STD or there wasn't an STD in the first place...  

The most recent time this line of excuses was used on me was about 10-11 years ago.  I was already living here in the OC and the girl I did NOT meet online.  We had become friends through a meetup group we were in.  So it's entirely likely any of the friends I have left from that era might know her so I'll just use her initials, KM.  KM and I got along really well during the meetup groups and even though I dated other girls in the time we were friends, we stayed really cool with one another.  It wasn't until I had broken up with JB from a previous story, that KM and I were really starting to spend more time talking and hanging out more than with just the Meetup group.  But I wouldn't say we were "not-dating," we truly were just hanging out.  At first.  She even tried to introduce me to a redheaded friend of hers.  That girl was HOT, way too hot for a dude like me.  But I still tried.  She was just too needy of attention from everyone and if it wasn't me, it was going to be the 2 dozen other guys she could be talking to at any given moment.  
It's funny, red came out to a group Meetup event for the first time and while I was talking to her, one of the guys in the group who SWORE he could hook up with any girl, and dude, I've seen the girls you've hooked up with.  If I lowered my standards, I could hook up with that many girls, too.  Anyway, dude decides he wants to get to talking to red.  While I'M talking to red.  He nudges himself in-between the two of us and I marvel at the audacity of this creeper.  And start to laugh as I see red sidestep away from him.  Not a lot but it's noticeable.  Dude is utterly clueless as he steps to close the distance again.  She takes another step away, obviously uncomfortable about him violating her personal space.  And he doesn't pick up on it and closes the distance again.  Over the course of the next 10 minutes I'm watching them as they're now on the OTHER SIDE OF THE TABLE from me.  She literally kept stepping away from him and he'd follow her blindly, not picking up the non-verbal signals that were telling him to "stay the fuck away from me."  Red had finally had enough and excused herself and abruptly walked away from the table.  Dude watches her walk away and then turns to me and said, "Louie, what are you doing over there?" 
I felt awful when I heard she was in a car accident a year or so later.  Paralyzed from the waist down.  Only significant injury in the vehicle that night. 
But back to KM, we were all out one night as a group.  Me, KM, Red and two dudes Red invited to meet up with us at Slaters.  Hah, that was awesome, that KM was trying to hook me up with Red and Red was bringing other dudes to the party. 
Anyway, it was at the end of the night, Red ditched us to go with the two dudes.  KM and I went to another couple of bars in Seal Beach before I dropped her off at home.  She apologized for Red and how she ditched us and I rather turned the conversation to, what about us?  We get along great, I'm attracted to you, I'm assuming you're at least somewhat attracted to me?  And then she took a few seconds, literal seconds, to prepare her response(s).   
She thought we wouldn't make a good couple because I'm not her type.  She only digs redheaded dudes.  And I'm too old for her.  There was about a 10-year age gap between us at the time, it's true.  But there was an even bigger gap between me and Red and KM wanted Red and I to hook up so age doesn't seem to be a real issue...  And that's when she dropped the infobomb.  Can you guess which one it's going to be?  
This is the point where she mentions that she's suffering from some vague, medical condition.  And she's only got about 5 years left until she's gone.  

Was there some sort of seminar for women on how to blow off a guy and try to not be the bad guy?  Because that's really what it's feeling like.  The fact that these women were suffering from varying medical conditions, a few of them really vague but life-threatening, and didn't mention the illness at all until it was beneficial to extricate themselves from a situation.  Could just be the cynical side of me saying that.  But the frequency these happened can't possibly be just a random coincidence.  Especially when it comes to life-ending but vague illnesses.  

BTW- Last I heard, KM was married and living up in Northern California.  That was a few years ago.  5 years past her Best By Date.

There Be Dinos Here!

 This is a re-telling of a date and the events leading up to it from January 2011.  I could have sworn I had it written out before but can't seem to find it.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, my memory won't let me forget the lead-in, night of and even a follow-up.  WHAT?!  There was more?  Just wait...

Back towards the end of 2010, I struck up a conversation with a girl on a dating site.  I can't recall which.  It may have been POF, could have been Match, I don't remember exactly.  But we started off casually, opening up, getting to know each other and she seemed pretty interested in me.  She worked at a school district as a clerk/office assistant/something along those lines.  Since it was end of the year, we set our date for immediately after the new year.  I don't think it was anything like, New Year, New You mentality.  More like, we both had holiday parties, plans and celebrations to get through and bringing a date to any of those could be REALLY awkward to start things off.  

We set the date for right after the new year but before my birthday.  I'm well aware after so many years, the dangers of meeting someone new around the holidays because my celebrations carry over a full week (or more) into the new year.  Someone new at this time of year would be unfair to suddenly drop them into a "it's my birthday and here are all my best friends to help me celebrate" type of things.  I can't intentionally make it hard for someone new to come into.  

Anyway, our date is set and for the first time EVER in my dating life, I got REALLY curious about my date that I actually Googled her.  Didn't take long to find a couple of pages of hers.  Nothing on social media per se, MySpace/Facebook, et al.  But I did find a couple of blogs of hers, one much more recent than the other.  Both being photo heavy types.  Interesting layout but I digress.  The older blog mentioned a guy she was dating, the love of her life, guy she wants to be the father of her kids.  And the last post was maybe a couple of years ago.  Alright, we all make mistakes in who we think we're meant to be with for life or longer.  

But it was the second, more recent blog that got my attention.  In that, she openly shared about her RECENT ex.  The love of her life, the guy she wanted to be the father of her kids...  Yeah, same dude.  Apparently she and the dude had been dating for a few years, they had talked about marriage and kids and then some big blowout happened around Thanksgiving...  "But wait!" you must be saying, "Didn't you two just start talking just after Christmas?  A month later???  And you would be correct!  Wait, it gets better...  

Turns out she was talking about how she needed to put herself out there again, try to get over him.  But she wished he could give her another chance.  She was set to go out to dinner with a guy (That would be me!) but she still wished her ex would come around.  That's right ladies and gents, I'm the rebound.  Not just the rebound but the, if the ex comes to his senses, I'll be the guy getting dropped in a heartbeat.  Not the best mentality to take into a first date.  Which means, at this point, I have nothing to gain from my date in a couple of days.  

In the lead in to our date, and actually, something I started telling any potential dates was that I've been keeping an online journal cataloging all my bad dates.  And I'd follow that up with, "You can either be a great date or you'll be a great story I'll share with my friends later."  I said this warning to all my potential dates for a few years.  

Night of the date we meet up at a BBQ joint in Long Beach.  She lived in the LBC...  Which, come to think of it, I've had a LOT of bad dates with girls from Long Beach...  We meet, chit-chat as we're eating.  I wait until I've fully chewed and swallowed before speaking, I'm not an animal.  And we get to talking about random stuff for a while and I mentioned having gone to the Smithsonian the previous Summer and seeing the fossils on display at the Natural History Museum there and that lead into the most bizzare exchange.

I said something like, it's easy to see how stories of dragons must have originated in antiquity.  Older societies, not knowing what they were looking at, would have assumed these fossilized bones could be construed that these fantastic creatures were something they weren't.  The ancient Greeks thought that the bones of mammoths were giant, one-eyed men.  Cyclops.  How easily could a farmer plowing his field suddenly dig up large, serpentine looking bones (brachiosaur?) and assume it may have been a dragon?  Logically, it's plausible.  

Her counterpoint was that dragons were real.  That they were like dinosaurs.  And that dinosaurs lived alongside man.  

"Wait, what?"  

"Yeah, dinosaurs and cavemen lived at the same time."  

"What?  What makes you think that?"

"The pictures."  

"What pictures?"

"You've seen pictures of cavemen riding dinosaurs, haven't you?" 

I can only imagine the look I must have given her for legit believing that.  And it wasn't a joke on her part.  There wasn't any sly wink or knowing smirk.  No, she was dead serious.  And after a few silent moments, she finally asked,
"Is this going to be one of those dates you talk about with your friends?"

"oh, yeah." I nodded.  

"Awkward." was her nearly silent reply.

The rest of the dinner went, I walked her to her car and got the one-armed side hug.  You know the one that says, I don't hate you but I don't expect to ever see or hear from you again.  

So imagine my shock when 10 days later she texts me out of the blue.  Exactly 10 days later with not a peep between us since that night. 
"So I guess this means we're done?"  

Yep, genius.  

You Can't Catch Crazy!

June 11, 2011

But it may be hereditary. 

So if you thought the last Adventure in Online Dating was complicated, you ain’t seen nothing yet.  You see, this one was the primary reason I needed to create a timeline.  She and I were off and on, friends and strangers, more times than you can shake a stick at.  And believe me, I’m really good at shaking my stick.  Let me just forewarn you that it could indeed get very complicated towards the end as more people become involved in how it all went down.  Some of the names have been changed at their request.  Oh yes, this may involve people you already know, are familiar with and most definitely, there are some mutual friends that the 3rd parties have in common.  I told you it was going to get messy.  Please keep your hands and arm inside the vehicle at all time,

I met T…  Sometime in September, 2008.  We initially met on a dating website, go figure.  And while I was still living in Riverside at the time, she lived in Long Beach.  Casually meeting for drinks after work wasn’t going to be easy.  So we spent a few weeks talking, texting, emailing, getting to know one another.  Same old story.  And sure enough, I find out in no time that she’s a big fan of Disneyland.  Maybe we could meet there sometime?  Sure enough, with my 9/80 schedule at work, I happened to have a Friday off and she was going to have lunch with her sister at Club 33.  I know, I know.  Her old boss was a member and he took his employees there for a work-related thank you.  Anyway, I tried to finagle my way into being her plus one but her twin sister, who was also a Disney fan, took precedence.  Besides, how awkward would that be for a first meeting/date.  With your co-workers at a luncheon.  Anyway, I met her and her sister at the park and her sister quickly excused herself to join her husband and kids who were somewhere wandering around waiting to join her.  Leaving T. and I at Disneyland by our lonesome. 

All in all, it was actually a pretty good first date.  We didn’t want to kill each other and snuggled up for the fireworks.  She later told me she wished I had made a move there while watching the show.  I didn’t.  I waited until I walked her to her car at the end of the night.  We got to talking a lot more after that day and despite the distance, we got to see one another more than a few times.  Her twin lived in Lake Elsinore and she would make the drive out often to spend time with them so planning stuff wasn’t so hard.  We went to a couple of pre-season hockey games, once we were right across from Angels Stadium while the Halos were in the playoffs.  She was a Red Sox fan though…  I should have known back then. 

Anyway, things weren’t really progressing much, I’d say.  Yes, we had things in common but the spark was never really there.  And come November, I knew it wasn’t ever really going to go anywhere.  I’d already started talking to A. and D. at the time so it was time to let one of them off the line.  And that happened to be T.  Of course, she had already invited me to Vegas to go see Jeff Dunham perform at Caesar’s Palace.  Turns out, the real Caesar didn’t really live there. 

You could argue that I was being selfish for going on that trip knowing nothing was going to come of it…  and you’d probably be right.  But I really did plan on letting her down easy before the weekend was out.  A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum.  Well, ok, it happened WHILE we were at the Forum.  We ran into her ex-husband and his date while waiting in line for the show.  Odd, she was really pre-occupied with him and his date.  Trying to flag him down, doing what she could to get his attention while he pretended not to see.  Whatever, I wasn’t really hurt since I knew where I stood on my end with her anyway.  Besides, if I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t be worried about my ex in Vegas with another guy if I had brought a date with me too.  Right? 

It was after the show in the cab on the way back to our shitty little room at the Plaza Hotel.  Oh yeah, did I mention she picked the worst possible hotel for us to stay at?  Anyway, it was in the cab that I had to tell her that while I really enjoyed her company the past few months, I just wasn’t feeling any sort of…  well…  anything to really want to date her.  She seemed to take it fairly well but needless to say, she wasn’t as friendly as she had been up until that time.  Understandable.  I wasn’t offended by that.  After we got back to Cali, she kind of disappeared for a couple of months.  I didn’t have a problem with that since most of my time was then dedicated to A. and D.  I saw her one other time at the Shore shortly after that and she was already working on getting pretty hammered by the time I got there.  No big deal, I was with friends anyway so when she told me she was leaving before the band even got on stage, I didn’t think anything of it.  Oddly enough, she ended up scolding me the next morning via text for “letting her” walk out of a bar drunk.  Who knows what might have happened to her.  Um…  Sorry, what?  It wasn’t until about February that I heard back from her again. 

It was kind of random, what happened in February.  Details of exactly how or why we got to talking again, I genuinely don’t remember but she seemed friendly to me and I was ready to celebrate my new job offer.  Literally, I had just gotten the job with the PCTA and was heading to the Shore to celebrate, although my celebration party wasn’t going to be until March.  This was just a quick trip out and I had brought D. along with me.  Having broken up with A., I was feeling a little bad about what happened with D. and her seeing me with someone else on my birthday.  Yes, an argument could be made that she had disappeared, hadn’t gotten back to me and I even told her so much.  But I guess in the back of my mind I was thinking, things could heat up like they had back in December.  I never said I was a saint.

Needless to say, I’m no Alex P. Keaton by taking two dates to the club on the same night.  On second thought, that didn’t work out for him either.  The girls ended up chatting more with each other than with me and by the end of the night at Roscoe’s, they were like bosom buddies.  Without resorting to dressing in drag.  That, truly was the last time I saw D., once she got in her car and left my place.  We wrote a few times after that but there was a touch of bitterness in her messages.  But what I did find very odd a few days later was in one of the pictures of T. and D. that I had taken that night.  T. had posted it on her MySpace page (Yes, we were all still using that social network at the time) and one of the first comments on the picture was from T.'s ex-husband.  His exact words were, “Is she the one you were telling me about?”  I didn’t think much of the comment at the time but hindsight is always 20/20 and looking back at it now, it made much more sense as to what was going on. 

T. and I were strictly just friends for the next few months.  We didn’t see a lot of one another but she loved to text message.  BOY, did She LOVE to text message.  Literally, there were times I would get a series of texts in a row, moments apart from each other.  My favorite was a time she sent me 3 in less than a minute.  They consisted of:

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Hold on”

“Oh, wait, nevermind.  Thanks.” 

Seriously?  I mean, SERIOUSLY?  If you had taken a minute to think that through BEFORE sending me the first text, you wouldn’t have had to send me 3 in a row to essentially say NOTHING. 

Right around this time she was having all sorts of dealings with her daughter.  Now, I don’t want to get into too much detail about it because of there being a mental health issue involved but I can’t gloss over it since it does play a part in our story.  Just to give you some kind of background, her oldest daughter wasn’t living with her at the time I met T.  She was staying at a facility in Utah and would remain there until she was 18, at which point they could no longer keep her there.  So, right around this time is when her daughter was going to be moving back to California to stay with her.  T. was so happy to have her home and would go on and on about how much she missed her and so on.  That’s all well and good but she has to remember to stay on her meds.  Her daughter, not T.  Although… 

Anyway.  After a couple weeks of having her daughter home with her, it became too much for T. to deal with anymore.  She called me at one point in tears because her daughter had run away from home, again.  Not to sound callous but, 18 is too old to be “running away.”  I didn’t tell her that, just thinking in the back of my head.  She went on to say while she had reported it to the authorities; they quickly found some video footage of her daughter that had been captured at a gas station less than a mile from her place.  Her daughter was dancing in the gas station parking lot at 3 a.m. by herself.  All I could do was listen to her sob her story to me.  I have no words of advice or wisdom I can share with her and I wasn’t sure anything I could say would have helped but she thanked me for letting her get some of it off her chest.  So I left it at that and she eventually hung up the phone.  I really did feel badly for her having to go through this.  What I wasn’t expecting though was the nasty-gram I got from her the next morning. 

Via text, of course, she sent me a few messages telling me how horrible of a friend I was for not checking up on her last night.  She ended up in so much stress that she checked herself into a hospital for nerves.  Odd that I was a good friend for letting her talk last night but somehow, I was a horrible friend because I didn’t rush to be right by her side and look after her.  We wouldn’t speak again for almost a year.

We ran into each other again at the Shore and I have to say, she was looking pretty good.  She had just gotten her long-awaited tummy tuck done.  She got the lap band done before I ever met her and managed to lose somewhere around the neighborhood of over 200 lbs. which is why she always tried to order off the kids menu whenever we were out.  I knew this early on.  Anyway, she was dying to get her tummy tuck and when I ran into her again in Summer of ’10, she was looking pretty good.  We didn’t really get to talking or hanging out much though.  She was gone almost as soon as we had seen one another.  I remember she was so excited to invite me over to her birthday party in August or September and I agreed, sure.  About a week later, she’s “in a relationship” and I’m suddenly un-friended on Facebook.  Wow, thank you very much for that.  I wouldn’t be making it to her b-day party. 

I saw her again at the Shore a few months later.  It was a little awkward sure, but before the night was over, we were on speaking terms again…  and maybe there was a little more…  But if you thought it was bad getting this far, just wait until you see how much worse it gets.

She and I were speaking although we were both pretty much consigned to trying to keep an arm’s length from one another.  Try to keep it civil, although I also made no attempt to conceal what my…  how can I put this?  What my goal was.  I never said I was a saint. 

She knew and she still played along and we were pretty close to being where we were before.  She even starts confiding in me about her daughter, now pregnant, and how excited she is to be a grandmother soon.  Of course, there are the holiday dinners, Thanksgiving coming up and how the rest of the family wasn’t sure about allowing her daughter to be over there.  She was upset, of course, that the family would try to distance themselves from her daughter, practically screaming at them the phrase, “You can’t catch crazy!”  I could only think, “No, but it may be hereditary.” 

Then the Meetup event happened.  Get your scorecards out; this is where it gets messy.  I will change the name of the person involved because she is a friend.  But she is definitely involved. 

Towards the end of November, there was a Meetup event that I was hosting and I get to the venue and was told by the restaurant hostess that a couple of members of my party were already there.  I went to the bar area and started to chat with them.  She was a member of the group and here she was sitting next to her +1.  While we’re chatting amongst the three of us, I keep looking at him and think he looks really familiar but I wasn’t quite sure.  Then it hits me, I think this is T.'s ex-husband!  I don’t say anything to him but subtly text message her.  Since I was the event host, it was reasonable to assume that I would be calling and texting people making sure everyone’s on their way.  So, I quickly tap out the message, “I think your ex is here on a date.”  She quickly replies back to me, “I don’t know what he’s doing tonight.”  And that was the last I’d hear from her about it.  Fair enough, he’s an ex, not necessarily someone you’d be checking up on anyway.  Oh, but literally a second after I got that message, he gets a text on his phone.  And it starts blowing up all night long.  DINGDINGDING!!!  We have a winnah!  I felt a little bad about it but also wondering, why is she so concerned about what he’s doing or who he’s out with.  And at one point during the evening, we were watching the show and his date, the member of our meetup group, is standing in front of us, he’s in the middle and I’m in back and he turns his head to partially face me and in a loud whisper asks me, “Did she send you to spy on me?”  I had no idea he was even coming and wasn’t even sure it was him when I sent her the first text.  Yet, somehow, I was spying on him for her?  Paranoia strikes deep. 

I let it blow off in my own mind since I barely knew the guy and all of it was just from what T. had told me about it.  But the next time I spoke with my meetup friend, she told me that she had finally had enough and broken up with him.  This was more or less mid-December when she broke up with him and I suppose she told him not to contact her any more.  Apparently, they had been dating for several months and there was already tension in their own relationship when this connection between his dating life and T.'s finally came too close for comfort, he started on some bizarre smear campaign about my “intentions” with my meetup friend.  I just wish she could feel comfortable telling her side of the story since it seems so incomplete from just my end. 

Anyway, failing to convince my meetup friend I was a lout, he went and must have said something pretty disparaging about me to T. because at the end of December, my meetup friend posted on her Facebook something about “so what part of this is not clear of do not text,call, email and/or the use smoke signals to contact me...”  Meanwhile just a few minutes later, I get this little gem:

December 27, 2010

T.

Hi Louie -
I don't think we should be friends from this point forward. I was given some information that is NOT pleasing to hear and I feel that I can't trust you with any information at all. I feel completely back stabbed and I'm hurt beyond words right now.

I wish you luck in life - please do not contact me any further.
~T.

All that was left to say was, Wow…  I mean, really?  Wow…  Not that I really cared by this point other than to tell her to please keep her drama between herself and her ex-husband from now on.  Quit dragging other people into your little games. 

I’ve since heard from my meetup friend that T. told her ex all sorts of things about me and our “friendship” including some different variations on the truth.  Like how I was always the instigator and “trying” to get with her but she wasn’t interested.  Funny I remember being the one to tell her I didn’t want to date her a couple years ago.  I can only imagine what other things she said about me and what we did, or didn’t do, according to her.  I’m sure she’s probably played the part of wingman for him in the past, finding girls for him to date and whatnot.  Looking back at that comment he had made about D. makes me pretty certain that’s exactly what she was trying to do, hook them up. 

Did I let this one go too long?  Of course.  Should I have let her back in my life after the first, second, or even third parting of ways?  Of course not.  But then again, I wasn’t exactly thinking with my logical head.  I never said I was a saint. 

Kick Rocks

November 29, 2017

 I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to label this.  Whether leaving it as-is or if it was more along the lines of a very delayed Adventures in Online Dating.  Because it kinda almost is.  Allow me to expound.  

 Shortly after moving to my current digs, I gave online dating another shot.  So we’re talking about 2 1/2 years ago, give or take that this originally started.  Same old story, talked to a girl, went out a couple of times and things didn’t work out.  Actually, if I’m going to be totally upfront about this, we talked for about a week, things quickly progressed to a date, then a second and I’m going to be honest, I really liked where we were heading after that second date.  She had other plans.  She ghosted me.  Multiple daily messages came to a total stop and  I was left wondering what happened.  Not that I lost any sleep over it, just that considering how well the second date went and everything leading up to it, I was curious.  At least an explanation would have been appreciated, right?  

Anyway, it was probably a couple months later that I got a wild hair and decided to look for her here on Facebook.  I know, what are the odds I’d find her but she had a VERY unique name.  Took me about 10 seconds.  And her profile was plastered with pictures of her and some dude.  “Me and my man.”  “The love of my life.”  “Blah, blah, blah.”  O.k., I see what happened.  She was talking to me, him and probably a handful of other guys at the time and narrowed it down to him.  I wasn’t going to hold a grudge over anything.  We were single, dating around to find somebody and she found someone.  Good on her.  Courtesy message to let me know would have been nice but she doesn’t owe me anything.  Whatever.  

That was May, 2015.  

About a month ago, totally out of the blue, I get a friend request on my work profile.  It’s her!?  What?  Why or how did she even find me?  I direct her to my personal profile if she wants to talk and we do.  

Simple, hey how are you, how have you been type of stuff.  

“It was a surprise getting a request from you,” I say.  

“Is it a good surprise?”

“It’s a surprise.  Let’s wait a bit before I say one way or the other.”  

After a couple of days of banal chit-chat, she finally opens up.  I don’t tell her that I knew she was seeing someone when she stopped talking to me 2 years ago but she goes ahead and fills me in.  She met a guy, fell “in love” and was engaged and married in less than a year.  Her divorce was finalized a few months ago.  You don’t need a degree to figure out the math on that.  Married and divorced in less than a year in total.  Turns out the guy was broke, mooching off her, moved in with her and she was paying his child support payments.  She even paid the legal bills for him to get shared custody of his child.  And despite all that, she still married him.  And then when the divorce was finalized, he didn’t move out until a few of her friends “convinced” him to leave.  

Boy, she sure picked a winner!  

Anyway, I figured once she was back on the market, that’s when she must have started looking up former interests and guys she dated.  Looking for a rebound and I must have popped up in that list.  So then, I guess we should go out?  Oddly enough, every time I asked her out, she wasn’t available but kept reminding me that her work schedule was changing in December.  This went on for a couple of weeks and lately she was hinting that she had been on a few dates.  

This is where I check out.  I already went through this song and dance before.  We were never friends to begin with and I’m not going to be a backup choice.  You’re not worth putting up with that sort of attitude.  Kick rocks.  

It's the Same Old Story

May 5, 2020

In another moment that could only really happen to me...

First, the backstory.

About 14 or 15 years ago, I met this girl on Match.com. We get to talking, seeing one another and things develop fairly well. She even meets my family for Easter Sunday and I'm spending the night at her place, once for almost a week. She lived in Rancho when I was in Riverside so it wasn't a bad drive home to get to work the next morning. It became routine. We had a dedicated dinner and movie night before long. 

But it was after that Easter Sunday when she pretty much just dropped me cold. Ghosted, call it what you will, I didn't get any reason for the cutoff, it just was what it was...  🤷🏼‍♂️

A few years later, I've moved out to HB, met a new group of friends and I'm not even sure how but this girl wanders back into my life I introduce her to all my new friends and we pretty much picked up where we left off a few years before. Only now I'm living in HB and she's in Montclair. Those Monday morning drives home were killer, only for me to have to head into the office after I cleaned up at home. 

Anyway, we do the whole FWB thing for a couple of years and then like a switch flips and she wants nothing to do with me again, she's hooking up and eventually moved in with the friend of a friend. That only lasted a few months before he kicked her out and after that, I heard that she moved back to the east coast. Ok, whatever. 

Then almost 2 years ago she pops up on Facebook as "Someone you might know". I reach out, what the hell she's back on the east coast anyway, right?  Living with her fiancé.  Good for her, finding someone.  Anyway, we talk off and on for almost a year. And then late summer she breaks up with the dude and kicks him out. Pretty drastic but you gotta do what you gotta do. 

Eventually our conversations turn to that and how disappointed she was in the guy, blah, blah, blah but how she'd love to come back to California. At least to visit, maybe even move back if the conditions were right. Cool, well if you make it out here, hit me up, we'll hang out. 

Over the holiday break we're talking, texting a lot more, she's opening up about a lot of other stuff and we sort of both agreed that if/when she came out, she could crash at my place.  And conversations went into greater depth from there. I'm starting to think she might want to rekindle what we had before. And we even set a vague April window for her trip. This was back in late January.

Right around Valentine's Day as we're talking about her visit, she casually mentions other people she wants to visit. Ok, cool. And then she drops the bomb. She's been talking to this one guy since November. And it was a dude from her past. She mentioned his name...  It was the guy she dropped me for to start seeing way back when. She's all about how he's "the one that got away." And she plans on seeing him during her trip, try to get that romance started back up again...

Well, at least she admitted to it. She was planning on just using my place as a "base of operations" but she fully planned on spending a lot of time at the other dude's place. 

Yeah, no...  I've been through this song and dance before. I'm not going through that again. Skip. 

She didn't like that. 

She pretty much stopped talking to me once I told her she could stay with him if that's who she wanted to be with.  She didn't like that either. 

Anyway, the reason I even bring it all up is because she unfriended me over the weekend. Well, not just unfriended but full on blocked me. 

Every Time I Try to Get Out, They Pull Me Back In!

Originally Published February 14, 2013

I'll let you all in on a secret.  I went back into the pond just before the end of last year.  Don’t know if it was because of boredom…  wait, no, that’s not true.  I remember exactly why I went back.  I was at a holiday party talking with a couple of friends and they admitted to having met on the most reviled of all dating sites I can think of.  And they’ve now been married for a little over a year and a half.  If it worked for them, why hadn’t it worked for me?  I figured, I was going to go ahead and plunge right back in and try it out again.  Maybe there was something or someone I missed.  Right?  Heh…  We all know how this is going to turn out. 

Of course, I immediately saw a lot of the same faces on there.  Some things never change.  Lots of girls who are still on Fish for their own reasons, sure.  Maybe they were like me?  They’d meet someone and things would go well for a while and when it doesn’t work out, they come back.  Or maybe they get sick of it and delete their own profiles only to come back, like Al Pacino in Godfather III. 

Anyway, after the first few regulars, I did start talking to a girl from up around Glendale.  Seemed very promising.  We started writing just after the new year, were on the phone on a Tuesday and made plans to meet up that following weekend.  She was an elementary school principal.  Very impressive for her age.  I drove up to Pasadena to have lunch with her and despite her running late, everything went…  pleasantly.  Nothing really sparked or clicked but that happens, I understand.  Still, I wouldn’t mind seeing her again.  She must have had other ideas because despite all our nightly phone calls the week leading up to our date and constant text messages, they quickly dried up and by Thursday, I was in pretty familiar territory.  Oh well, it happens. 

Luckily for me, it happened right away.  I was in contact with another girl, something about working in an optometrist office as an assistant.  She was pretty vague about it and she hated working for that particular doctor.  Again, things seemed to be moving pretty smoothly so when I asked for a Saturday date the following week.  She was/is a single mother and shares custody on alternating weekends.  I get it.  Anyway, she admitted she had kept her schedule open hoping I would get around to asking her.  That’s always nice to hear… 

But that was still over a week away and on Monday, she mentioned that she would prefer to move the date to the following week.  Uh…  ok.  Non-specific day mid-week?  Since she was supposed to have her son again that weekend.  Yeah, no problem.  Then she dropped an interesting ‘joke’ during one of our conversations.  I honestly couldn’t tell if she was joking but she said that I was her second choice for a potential relationship from guys she had been talking to…  Well, if there’s ever something a girl could tell a guy to make him feel like number 2 that would be it right there.  Needless to say, if she hadn’t stopped texting me after that, I’m pretty sure I would have.

And the last and certainly least in this whole debacle of online dating was the Argentine Queen.  At least that’s what she called herself on her profile.  If it hadn’t been for that really bad one last year that began and ended in a day, THIS one would take the cake for craziest in the shortest amount of time. 

I emailed her on Friday morning and she seemed pretty excited to have heard from me.  Granted, I saw her profile a few days before and made a mental note to maybe write her but hadn’t gotten around to it until I saw her again that morning.  Again, she was pretty excited that I had taken the time to write and we spent the rest of the morning writing back and forth.  It was pretty quick but I said, it was too bad she had plans that evening otherwise I would have asked her out.  She said she would let me know if her plans didn’t pan out.  She came back less than an hour later and told me she made sure her plans were canceled.  Wow, I was pretty impressed that this girl would change her schedule just to meet me that night. 

I wasn’t terribly creative as to what we were going to do since I had zero time to figure anything out.  All I really knew was that she lived in Long Beach so I suggested dinner at Claim Jumper (this will be important later) and a movie.  Normally I would NEVER suggest dinner and a movie as a first date but as I said, I had zero planning time. 

We meet up pretty late for dinner and she devoured her cheese bread so quickly, I jokingly took my plate and covered it up with my arms in a protective manner.   Again, this will be important later.

Movie wasn’t bad, horror movie, never my cup of tea since they tend to be unintentionally funny.  But she was squirming throughout and…  well…  I was the beneficiary of that.  As I walked her out to her car, we talked about when we could see one another again and since we both had plans for Saturday and Sunday, since Monday was a holiday, we agreed that we’d see one another then. 

But, my Saturday wrapped up early and hers did too.  She ended up coming over to my place and we watched another movie…  and stuff.  Later on, we went to a tattoo fund-raiser at a studio just a short drive from my place and it was just after midnight when she said she was hungry.  Well, not a whole lot open at this hour, thank you Orange County.  It was either Jack, In-N-Out or Del Taco.  She picked Del Taco since it was closer to my place and at the drive-thru, she ordered a quesadilla.  *Important! 

After we finished eating back at my place, she decided to get a little serious.  We had already had a conversation about her serious medical issues.  She was in remission, so I thought the hard stuff was already out on the table.  Nope.  This conversation turned into eating healthy and her wanting to lose weight.  And she needed to be with someone who could help her deal with that.  And, here’s the best part.  She was lactose intolerant and had difficulty digesting foods containing gluten. 

“Wait!” you must be saying, “What about the cheese bread last night and the quesadilla tonight?”  Yes, exactly!  Apparently, it was up to me to help her control her diet.  Despite the fact that I knew NOTHING about what she should and shouldn’t be eating.  I even said if I had known, I would have suggested something different.  I’ve dated women with special dietary restrictions before.  I can accommodate but I have to KNOW.  That didn’t seem to matter since she was already making up her mind.  She seemed ok when I walked her out to her car though.  I didn’t see her Sunday, she had to work and I went off to see the Spaz in Hollywood.  But I knew she liked the Spaz so I sent her text updates, wish you were here stuff.  But the next morning, I got the text message from her anyway.

“I’m sorry, it’s just not going to work out between us.  I need to be with someone who wants a healthier lifestyle and can help me reach my goal.” 

I could have told her what I really thought of her and how crazy it is of her to expect anyone to make a commitment to her within two days of meeting her.  But, what’s the use?  You can’t help crazy sometimes. 

Needless to say, I’ve since deleted my profile once again. 

There was one last girl I met up with last weekend but nothing went wrong there.  Nothing went right either.  She’s a nice girl but, not at all attracted to her.  I’d rather not take up her time if it’s not going to go anywhere.  I couldn’t do that to someone. 

Adventures in Online Dating - 2018 Edition

Originally Published November 2018

 Well, the fact that you’re reading this proves that, no matter how much I try to get out, it keeps pulling me back in.  Yes, I once again dipped my toes into the water of online dating and, as usual, came back with some, “Are you fucking shitting me?” stories. 

 Let me take you back to about mid-September when I put up a new profile for me next go-round.  I was going to come into it with a clean slate, I figured.  I know my personality can be a LOT for people to handle.  And while I usually kept it low-key online until I’d meet someone, I figured, fuck it.  Let them see me as I am from the get-go.  Love me or hate me, I’m not going to suppress any of me to try to appease the lowest common denominator.  See what happens. 

As always, I would come across profiles of women whom I had seen before years ago when I last tried the dating pool.  Obviously, they weren’t having any luck either.  And one girl in particular, I know I had seen multiple times, I would send messages each time, and this is going back YEARS now.  And never once had she ever replied to me...  until now.  I think it was the first weekend I had logged back in.  She must have lowered her “standards” to decide to talk to me finally.  And talk we did.  A LOT over a span of a few days, leading right into the weekend.  In fact, when we started talking on Thursday, we were already making tentative plans to go out on Sunday.  And then it all came to an abrupt halt.  She stopped talking to me Saturday night while her daughter was at homecoming.  And then on Sunday, ignored all my messages from that point on.  Did she find a better suitor?  Hardly, she was still pretty active on the dating website, updating new photos.  She just chose to not speak to me anymore.  Oh well... 

There was another girl...  I can’t even legitimately use the term “girl.”  This woman, we got to talking right away, and she had no problems sending me lots of photos of herself.  But what I thought odd was that she was sending “adjusted photos.”  She had that smooth skin feature on her cell phone camera turned up to MAX.  I mean, every photo she sent me looked like she was wearing a fine layer of putty over her face.  Totally unnatural.  Except that the camera could only do so much for her neck.  I hate to sound like an ageist dick but, I’m going to be an ageist dick.  I’d say there’s no way this woman was 49 like she claimed to be.  Unless she was lived a HARD 49 years of life, she looked to be closer to 60.  Her neck resembled a turkey.  You know exactly what I’m saying.  We only met the one time and I was cordial but that was in a dark, loud bar and that was intentional on her part, come on... 

Another girl I HAD been speaking to during that time, hey, I wasn’t about to put all my eggs in one basket.  Anyway, this other girl, she was really EXCITED to talk to me.  Wanting to meet up and join me on a few of my adventures.  Going so far as to pretending to be upset that I was going to Olvera Street without her.  So you know this is now early October.  We talked/texted for about a week and once again, just as we’re making plans to meet, she pulls back abruptly.  She thinks maybe we should slow down and just be friends first before we start dating.  Uhh...  You’re on a DATING website and you want to be just friends?  How about, no?  She gets really defensive, almost angry about it and that was it.  Just like that we stopped talking.  But unlike the other girl, she pulled her profile from the website.  Translation: she met another dude, decided she wanted to date him instead.  That’s why she got rid of her profile and pumped the brakes with me.  Keep me on the bench in case things didn’t work out with homeboy.  Sorry kid, I’m not playing “In case of emergency” for anybody. 

I will say, during this stretch, there was a chick I met that was really cool to talk.  She’s even a Disney Passholder and we did have a Disney Date out of it.  But the distance between us, I felt, would be too much to deal with on a regular basis.  We’re still friends though.  We still text every now and then.  And hopefully we’ll have another Disney Day or two coming out of it.  

But the final straw, the kicker of them all was actually a girl I DID go on a date with many years ago.  I came across her profile and I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t remember her at the time.  I mean, she KIND of looked familiar but like I said before, there’s a lot of women on there that have been doing the online thing for years, like I have.  Anyway. I wrote, she wrote back and as soon as she told me what field she worked in, it all clicked.  We DID go out years ago.  And if anyone’s read my stories from 2013, you’d remember she was the elementary school principal that pulled a ghost on me after our one date.  She was back.  

 It’s funny because as most of you are aware of by now, my memory is like a steel trap.  Which is why it’s funny that I didn’t remember her outright.  But as soon as she told me what she did, everything came right back to me.  How we were talking for weeks, we finally went out and then she was going to do a Disney Half-Marathon and I offered to go cheer her on which is when she ghosted me.  

 So as we’re talking, I mentioned MOST of that to her.  That I did remember her, and told her everything right up until the ghosted part.  I’d like to say I was giving her the benefit of the doubt.  I mean, honestly I could have just said, fuck it.  Once bitten, twice shy, kick rocks.  But I didn’t.  I let her be herself and see if she’d be willing to give it another shot, too.  (You all know where this is heading, of course.)

 So we get to talking and texting again.  And I’m kind of letting her lead the way, see how much she wants to open up or even admit to what she did.  She remembers most of it but she had to go looking for her old cell phone from almost 6 years ago to find the messages we were sending to give her an idea on why we stopped talking.  

 I’m pretty sure she found it and was almost apologetic for it even though she never fully addressed it.  Not to me, anyway.  We met up for brunch a couple of weeks later and what she did admit to was that she has a habit of overthinking/over-analyzing every scenario and situation to the point where she’s out-thinking herself over any subject.  And yes, obviously dating is one of them.  She goes so far as to admit that she may end up ghosting me again so I should be ready for it in case she does.  (This is what’s referred to as foreshadowing)  We’re texting a LOT over the course of the next few weeks.  We first started messaging again in mid-October.  In fact, I would be texting her when I was at Knott’s during Haunt a few times.  So things did seem to be on better grounds with her this time.  We made plans to see each other again a couple of weeks after that first brunch.  While she wasn’t a school principal anymore, she was working for the district and was taking coursework for her doctorate, so she was pretty busy, I wasn’t going to press.  But I did tell her I was hoping I’d see her often with the holiday season upon us and she was going to be taking holiday time off from work and school.  Plenty of time for us to see one another, right?  

 We kept messaging one another and leading into Thanksgiving, I wanted to see her.  If not the day of, at least during the weekend.  It’s not like she had plans.  Her family lives up north and she wasn’t going to see them until maybe Christmas.  Wished her a Happy Thanksgiving and when I was going to get to see her?  Black Friday she writes back: “Definitely not happening this weekend.”  Then the text immediately after that: “Now that I look at my weekends I’m all booked up through the holidays.”  

For a girl who admittedly hardly ever went out of the house, she was suddenly busy for the next month and a half.  At least she didn’t ghost me this time.  

 Yes, I’ve cancelled my dating profile once again.  

Adventures in Online Dating - 2017 Edition

Originally Published October, 2017

Truth be told, I didn’t want to write this out.  Truth be told, I didn’t want to admit that I’d gone back into the primordial ooze that is online dating.  Truth be told, it was a failed experiment that I started almost 3 months ago and finished 2 weeks ago.  Net sum number of dates: 2.  Neither date elicited a second meeting. 

Truth be told, I’ve gotten so burned out by the process of meeting women online that, it’s just become a giant waste of time.  Maybe I’ve become too cynical?  Maybe my standards are too high?  Maybe something I used to look past previous, I now realize, I can’t stomach? 

There were a lot of potential hits and plenty of misses in my recent foray into the cesspool.  Unsurprisingly, there were a couple of familiar faces still trolling the internet to find their perfect match.  But by and large, there were a whole new set of personalities that brought with them, a whole new set of issues. 

First and foremost, for some bizarre reason, according to my informal poll based on online dating profiles, all the women in their mid-40s are now making at least $75k per year and are at minimum 5’ 8”.  I guess every other woman that doesn’t fit this description must either be spoken for or not looking online for love?  Second, when a woman initiates first contact, believe it or not, I did receive more than a few first emails.  But in almost every single instance, their email consisted of this exact same message: “Hey there. :)” It’s almost as though there’s a How-To manual for women on how to approach a gentleman online and they recommend that as an intro message.  I’m sorry, my profile description was pretty in-depth.  As you all are probably aware, I tend to write a LOT when I write, so when I write about my favorite topic, Me, I’m going to be rather verbose.  So when I get a two-word and a smiley message, I’m just going to file that under the little trash can icon.  There’s a bit of an art to having a conversation and, well, clearly you’re still working with finger paints if you can’t form more than two words at a time.  What I find most curious is that, so many women complain that of the messages they receive, they get frustrated with the lack of creativity or even the cookie-cutter approach.  Yet, “Hey there. :)” is  as long as they’re initiating it? 

Of the handful of ladies that managed to make it to more than a cursory greeting, it got even weirder. 

Obviously, I’m going to mention my love of costuming/cosplay/Halloween.  And there was one girl who didn’t like to dress up.  Ever.  I’m sorry.  Did you READ my profile or even look at the photo of me in a costume when we started writing?  Sure, we don’t have to match up perfectly on everything but, I’d at least like someone to be moderately interested in joining me at some events. 

It probably took about a month before I finally connected with somebody and things went along so well that we talked about meeting for nearly a month before we finally managed to eek out an afternoon for lunch together.  Mind you, in the two weeks before we met, she started sending me more and more suggestive photos.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  One wasn’t even suggestive at all but a full-on look up her hoo-ha.  Good morning!  I think she was pretty eager to meet me.  Funny, she actually lives about half a mile or so from my office. 

Anyway, we finally meet up for lunch.  5’ 8”, blonde hair, green eyes, curvy hourglass figure...  Is what I’m SUPPOSED to meet.  I’m sure you can all guess which of those were true?  She did have green eyes and sandy blonde hair.  And the photos she had posted and some she had sent were from either several years ago or very creative angles. 

Actually, in all honestly, that worked out for the best between the both of us because immediately following the lunch date, we both sort of just stopped texting one another.  She didn’t seem all that interested when her replies to my texts turned into 4 word answers, if that.  So my texts eventually stopped and she didn’t seem to mind. 

In the time leading up to that date, however, there was a blast from the past.  A former Adventure in Online Dating story come back to life!  WHAT?! 

This here’s the story of a girl I met online shortly after I moved to Huntington Beach, so this was either 2009 or 2010.  Anyway, we hit it off pretty well from the start, messaging back and forth and even had a date set to meet after a few days.  We were going to go out on a Saturday and come Thursday, she messaged me that she had a dental issue going on, some swelling in her cheek that she was afraid made her look like a chipmunk.  Not the way she wanted to look for a first date so could we please reschedule.  Sure, no problem. 

Come Saturday night, she was texting me and she mentioned she was in Vegas.  What?  Wish you were here!  And sent me a photo of her in bed before getting ready to head out for the night...  Great...  So, it wasn’t that you were worried about your appearance, it was that you had a better offer and headed to Vegas instead.  Awesome. 

I stopped talking to her right then.  And again, that was 7 - 8 years ago?

Flash forward to almost 2 months ago and I see her profile online once again.  Hey, I know you!  Was pretty much my first message to her and it took her a few days to reply.  And even after that, it took a few more messages for me to remind her that we did know one another.  Her sister lived here, she worked there, she was into this and that...  “Wow, you’ve got a GREAT memory!”  Oh, if you truly knew...

Over the course of the next few weeks, we’re getting into a comfort zone and planning on a date, FINALLY meeting up after, 7 years?  Give or take.  I specifically DON’T mention getting stood up all that time ago because, I figure, things change, life happens, hopefully she’s grown up and matured since then.  I mean, I know what I’ve done in 7 years, and she tells me that she moved in with a guy, married and divorced him, moved back in with her parents...  oh, and she developed a heart condition.  During our messages leading up to finally meeting, she underwent a procedure to relieve pressure on her heart. 

Anyway, date night happened this last Sunday night, Haunt.  And I can tell you, even before the date, I was already checked out.  We had plans for dinner at 4 and she messaged me about 1 to ask if we could push it back to 4:30-5.  Seems her morning ran longer than she expected and needed the extra time.  Well, if Haunt opens at 7 and we’re just meeting up at 5 for dinner...  Whatever, I’ve got a pass anyway.  Then at 2:30, she messages me again, I can try to make it at 4!  Great!  I guess I should probably start getting ready because I thought we were meeting closer to 5. 

When we meet, she’s 15 minutes late even though she was parked and in her car when I pulled into the parking lot...  how does that happen?  The parking lot wasn’t that big!  To add to this, she kept doing something that KILLS me when I’m trying to have a conversation with someone else.  She asked me something specific, it’s going to involve me telling a bit of a story or background and after I’m about 2 sentences in, she cuts me off to interrupt with her anecdote.  Like she only asked the question so she could direct the conversation back to herself in some way.  By the third time she did it, that was it.  I was ready to go.  That’s just the way she’s going to be.  All about herself.  Sure enough, she got to talking about her and her twin sister’s incredible weight loss that made them nationally famous for a few months almost 20 years ago.  Everything I was a fan of, she “knew” or was “friends with” someone in that industry. 

My favorite burlesque performer is...  Oh, I’m friends with her!

I soldiered on but honestly, by the time we were leaving the park, I just wanted to go home and sleep.  Alone.  And I made it pretty obvious in my attitude towards her. 

When she texted me yesterday she said she had a great time but we just aren’t a match and wished me well.  I let her know I was thinking the exact same thing but, good luck! 

Would things have been different had we met 7 years ago?  I think so.  I think I wouldn’t have contacted her again this time around.