Month: September 2019

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The Ivy Leaguer

Out of the hundreds of men I’ve expressed an interest in on 3 different dating sites, one date. Out of the dozens of men I’ve chatted with, one date. Y’all know what happened with the Fire Captain, and it’s still better than I’ve managed to do so far meeting men in person. Good gracious.

While it’s not always evident, I am what my Boston friends call “wicked smaht” (or “smart” for the rest of the English speaking world). I used to have an IQ in the low 130’s, but that was a lot of wine ago. I’m still pretty smart and I have a hard time finding good men my age, with whom I have mutual interest, who are as smart as me. I’m not bragging, I wish I were genius or a fool. In between kinda sucks, but I digress.

Then one day I see a profile for a cutie patootie man, Ivy League educated, close to my age. Sounds too good to be true, and usually when it sounds too good to be it usually is. After a few chats I realized he is he who he said he is. It’s usually quickly obvious when a man is genuine. We decide to meet. A nice Mexican restaurant at a place called St. Phillips Plaza, a collection of higher end shops and restaurants in the foothills. He arrives, we’re seated, we have a quick introductory conversation and then he shows me a picture on his phone of these shoes he wants to buy. He wants my opinion. Really colorful and interesting $80 shoes. Odd, but okay. Maybe he’s trying to show he has money, or it was on his mind and wanted my opinion. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t really matter. I concurred that those were indeed very cool shoes and the conversation turned to other things.

Turns out he really is super smart, smarter than I in some areas. He knows 8 languages. He fluently speaks English (which should be implicit, but…), German and French. The other 5 he knows are ancient languages. I made a joke about ancient Sanskrit, and that is actually one of the languages he knows! I learned a lot more than I wanted to know about Sanskrit, it’s sentence structure and how it compares to modern languages. We had a light dinner during which I learned he has a 5 year old son. He and his ex-wife are good friends (I am good friends with my 2nd ex-husband so I understand). They are raising their son to be non gender identified, letting him decide when he’s ready. Okay, cool. It’s not really my business at this point how they raise their child.

One of the things I’m looking for is a man to go out with once in a while. Weekends mostly. It doesn’t have to be every weekend, but at least a possibility. Ivy Leaguer has his son every weekend. Every. Single. Weekend. This is looking less like a dating prospect and more of a friend. It was, at least, nice to have an intelligent conversation.

What happened next really threw me. When the bill arrived, I offered as I usually do to pay the tip. He said
“that’s really sweet, but lets split the bill.” WTH? You can ask any of my friends or dates and they will tell you I am not one of those women who expect a man to pay for everything. I have a hard time letting my friends pay for drinks or dinner, etc., and I almost always offer to pay my share or at least the tip. In this case, he initiated the date and he picked the place. It wasn’t a cheap place either. I thought it was reasonable to expect him to pay the bill and I would get the tip. Nope. Luckily I had enough cash to pay my half. The date ended with a hug. He was going out of town for a few weeks, maybe we could get together when he gets back. Okay, sure. I’ll get right on that.

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The Fire Captain

I’ve been online dating for a few weeks. I’m on 3 different sites and having little to no luck mutually connecting with someone. One night before bed I decided to look one more time. Boy was I glad I did.

There he was. Handsome, great profile, beautiful eyes, great smile. Obviously a fireman based on his profile pics. And a liberal. Yes folks, there are liberal firefighters. Not many, but they exist. I sent him a “like” and was going to get ready for bed. He messaged me right back! A lot of down time at the fire house. We chatted for a few minutes and I told him I didn’t expect a response so quickly and I needed to go to sleep, and can we chat in the morning? Absolutely. Cool.

The next morning we started chatting, and then he decided to call. Yay! I really wanted to talk to him! It was a great conversation on his drive home from the fire house. I discovered he’s a Fire Captain; really is a liberal (more liberal than I am, I am more center-left); plays guitar and sings, in public and gets paid for it; has a really cool radio holster he invented for firefighters that is sold throughout the world; all his words are spelled correctly; uses the correct your/you’re; understands multi syllabic words; handsome, tall. Wow. Too good to be true. Why is he single I’m wondering? He asked the same of me. Touche. It was so cute. He took a selfie at work so I could see he was the same man as in his profile. He asked for one of me at work so I obliged and did the same (it’s actually the photo you see of me on my blog). We chatted frequently, made plans to meet on his next day off – 2 days away

Finally, after weeks online dating, I have an actual date and I’m excited to see him. I arrive early at the coffee house, order an iced tea (I don’t like coffee, don’t @ me) and wait. And there he is. Um. Huh. Well, I knew he wasn’t svelte by any means, but I didn’t expect such a large man. I have no problem dating a heavy man. I’ve done it before. I’ve actually dated many different varieties of men – tall, short, skinny, heavy, black, white, brown, etc. Many times I am attracted to the person, not just the package, as was the case with the Captain. So I wasn’t put off by his weight, just a little surprised. We had a great time. He kept telling me how beautiful I am, how sexy I am, how he can’t believe how lucky he is, etc. I will admit that as I get older, I’ve gotten somewhat better looking, but I’ve never been beautiful. Cute, yes. Pretty, sometimes. Never beautiful. It was wonderful to hear! And he really does have the most beautiful eyes and smile. He wanted to take “our first selfie.” I love that romantic shit.

The next day was Saturday. Most Saturday evenings I go to a local bar called the Hut for a Grateful Dead tribute band called Top Dead Center, who is a good band in their own right. Although I am not a Dead fan per se, I love to dance and can totally just be in my own little dancing world if I want. I have a lot of friends that go there as well. I liked the Fire Captain enough to invite him to join me. We opted for an early dinner of Mexican food and then to the Hut.

Something you should know about me is I like to dress well for whatever the circumstance is. I don’t always “dress up,” but I wear nice looking clothes, I take pride in my appearance and I like to look my best. It’s partly my mother’s fault. She used to tell me that because I am a brunette, I had to look good from head to toe. Women who are blonde don’t have to worry about it because men will notice their hair 1st and not see or care about much else. As a brunette, they will notice all of me so I always have to look good. Thanks mom. I’ve gotten over it somewhat – I can go out in public without make up on, although I don’t like to; I’ll actually wear gym shorts and a t-shirt out of the house for other than just walking the dogs, a few other small victories over my mothers’ teachings.

Now, you have to understand, I realize what I did next was stupid. I won’t ever do it again with someone I don’t know well. He wore a t-shirt and shorts to our 1st date. I asked him if I need to suggest he wear a collared shirt to go out on a Saturday night. He did not like that. I totally understand. If someone did that to me I wouldn’t like it either. Like I said, I won’t do it again. Anyhow, he’s a t-shirt and shorts guy, he’ll dress up if he has to, etc. I backed off. I apologized, told him I didn’t know how important it is to him, of course he can wear what he wants. He said he likes that I take pride in how I look, but doesn’t feel it’s necessary for him to make an effort to dress nicer when out with me. Okay, so be it. No biggie. We chatted through it. Or so I thought. All of a sudden he says that it’s a “HUGE RED FLAG” that I’m too controlling and wants nothing to do with me. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. I tried calling him to talk about it, but he refused. Haven’t talked to him since. If it were me, I would have been concerned, but would have taken more time to see if the other person really is that controlling or if was that just an aberration. Not the Fire Captain. I get no 2nd chance. I was flabbergasted, honestly in shock for a few days that someone with whom I connected so well could so easily walk away for something like that.

Looking back, I know perhaps why he is single. He did the right thing, he just did it the wrong way. If he will so quickly fly off the handle over something so easily worked through, who knows what would have happened with more important issues. It’s too bad, I really liked him.

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Chat yes, talk… meh

Along the process of online dating, I’ve chatted with a number of men. Some chats were brief, some were over a few days, a few were a week or longer. There isn’t any one reason why I stopped chatting with any of them. Of course I ended chats with those easily identified as scammers. A few conversations that lasted 3-7 days just kind of ended with no follow up by either of us. No biggie. A few chats lasted more than a week. One chat in particular taught me a few things. It’s a man I started communicating with shortly after joining Plenty of Fish. I’ll call him “Keith.” He is a cute-ish, nice man that lives pretty close to me. After about a week of chatting he finally asked to meet me. I balked. I thought perhaps it was because I’m still not sure about the whole online dating thing. That was until I started chatting with someone else I wanted to meet right away. I quickly realized it wasn’t the trepidation about online dating, I just had no desire whatsoever to see Keith.

I generally try to be as honest as I can be, and with men specifically because good communication is one of the keys to a successful relationship. I had every intention of doing the same with online dating. Everything in my profile is accurate, pics are all current, etc. I wanted to be honest with Keith while also sparing his feelings as much as possible. So I told him I was listening to my “gut” when deciding which men I wanted to see. That is exactly what I’m trying to do when it comes to men I meet – listen to my body not my brain. My brain is hardly ever right. Marvin made my stomach upset which is how I knew it wasn’t right. Others have given me back pain or other physical indicators. When I thought about seeing Keith, I was filled with dread. I told him my gut was telling me it’s just not right for us, and I wished him good luck. Oh boy.

Keith freaked out. How can I say that when we haven’t even met (valid point from his perspective), he doesn’t understand why this keeps happening to him, I lead him on (I didn’t, our chats were always as friends, nothing romantic or sexual), blah blah blah. I felt berated, and he wasn’t going to let it go. So I decided to be more honest. I know it probably wasn’t the best way to handle it, but I told him the truth: I am really sorry. I was trying to spare your feelings. I thought my reluctance to meet you was because of how I’m feeling about dating. I realized that wasn’t the case when I started chatting with a man I wanted to see right away. Apologized again. Oh boy. As you can imagine, Keith freaked out again. He sent me a few kinda nasty messages. I sent him 1 more message, apologizing again, letting him know I was trying to spare his feelings, but when he berated me I opted to be totally honest. While telling me he’s not, he again proceeded to berate me. Keith had to send 2 more kinda nasty messages. Thanks for proving me right.

Lessons learned: if I have no desire to talk to a man on the phone, I’m not interested in him; if I know I don’t want to meet him, I’m really, really not interested in him; honesty is great, but maybe not always the best option; don’t get into extensive chats with someone if I know I don’t want to see him; if I’m filled with dread at the thought of talking to him or seeing him, pretty sure I’m not interested; if I’m in the bathroom for half an hour at the thought of talking to him, you guessed it – I’m probably not interested.

The man that made me realize I had no desire to meet Keith? My next post will be about him, the Fire Captain.

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Side Trip – Marvin

I will be posting blog entries that include subjects not related directly to online dating. Hence “musings on life, the universe… and dating.” This is one of those posts.

Warning: explicit language.

In my first post I mentioned that I had met a man that I wanted to date, but he is not dating material. About that same time I met another man I wanted to date. I’ll call him “Marvin.”

Out enjoying a band and dancing with friends one night, I saw a man by himself. He wasn’t really paying attention to anyone, just dancing and enjoying the band. It’s a great band, “Key Ingredients of African Soul.” What I call happy music. But I digress. I asked one of my friends if he is cute and she said yes (my eyesight at night isn’t always the best and it’s a fairly dark place). Having no interest in men for 2 years left me rusty and unsure. I was a big fat chicken and only met him because my friend shoved me toward him so we’d dance together. We exchanged phone numbers and he contacted me the next day. Long story short, it turns out Marvin is not dating material either. He’s married. I’ll give him credit for telling me right away. His wife (according to him) is a raging alcoholic. When she’s drinking, he goes out dancing by himself. Here’s the thing about Marvin, although he is really not very good at it, he loves to dance to almost anything, and so do I. It’s so hard to find a man who likes to dance to more than 1 or just a few types of music. So while he’s not dating material, he is dancing material. When his wife is drinking, we go out dancing. When she’s sober, we don’t. We aren’t dating, aren’t even really good friends. We dance and we flirt (because it’s fun). We both know the ground rules, or at least I thought we did.

I hadn’t heard from him in a while, and he randomly showed up where I was celebrating my birthday. He wanted to go home with me. What the hell? No! We don’t have that kind of relationship and he knows it. He spent much of the next morning trying to cajole me into letting him come over. Apparently his wife was out of town so he had a “free pass.” Uh, no you don’t. When he realized that wasn’t going to happen, he got mean saying things like we’ve been out enough times I owe him, I’m a tease (I’m not), I’m all talk (I’m not), etc. Fuck that. He was still giving me shit the day after that, trying to make it all my fault. Nope, nuh uh, I don’t think so. I told him to read back through his texts from yesterday and leave me the fuck alone. He did, well he read back through his texts. He did not leave me the f alone. Several days later, he contacted me. Marvin apologized profusely, promised he wouldn’t again pressure me for sex, and will abide by our original arrangement: dancing and flirting (because it’s fun). I accepted his apology because that was totally out of character for him, and because I really need someone to go out dancing with. He knows this is his only chance to keep his dancing partner. We’ve gone dancing 3-4 times since.

The last time we went dancing he again pressured me for sex. I called his bluff. I told him follow me home and I’d fuck him. I figured he wouldn’t go through with it, and I knew I wasn’t going to. Sure enough, he turned around and went home. Go home to your wife Marvin. No wonder she drinks…

It’s been a while since that happened and I haven’t heard from him. Good boy. Marvin is likely embarrassed I called his bluff, and he knows I probably don’t want to hear from him (he’s right), or at least I thought he’d know. Last night he shows up to the place I go almost every Saturday evening “shocked” that I’m there. He’s been there with me before, and he’s “shocked” to see me there. Don’t get me wrong, he’s got a slammin’ body especially for a man his age (60), always dresses really well, and is cute as hell, but seriously? He’s been a total dick to me on more than one occasion. He weirdly cries at the drop of a hat. And if that weren’t enough, he’s really not very smart. That should be obvious by the fact he just didn’t get it that he can’t pressure me for sex. But it’s other things like he almost never gets the correct your/you’re, or there/their/they’re. It’s dumb luck when he gets it right. We all know how much I like that.

And then there’s the part where he loves to dance to anything… By virtue of him backing down when I called his bluff, I now have the power in our dynamic. I might still go out dancing with him. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about Marvin. To be continued…

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No, no it doesn’t

I’ll say this for online dating, it’s good for my ego. Between Match and Plenty of Fish, I’ve had interest from hundreds of men. Keep in mind I am new meat and reasonably attractive, so it’s not surprising. But still… With that said, all I can say is “oof.” I seem to be saying that a lot. Plenty of Fish is just another site full of nope…. nope…. aw hell no…. seriously?…. that one looks interesting, but no …. likes to hunt for sport or something equally as offensive to my sensibilities…. and so on. Maybe 1 in 20 are men I want to contact. There are a few repeats, but at least they are mostly different from the men on Match.

Paging through pictures of 100’s of men, I have learned some things. Am I less likely to respond if he uses the wrong your/you’re or there/their/they’re? Yes, yes I am. Am I less likely to respond if he doesn’t have a profile picture, or blurry pics, or pictures of him really far away or so close up you can only see his nose? Yes, yes I am. And 1 of my biggest peeves, a man who is wearing a hat in all his pictures, or worse a hat and sunglasses. What are you hiding? A lazy eye? A horn growing out of your head? A hat is not appropriate attire all the time. Either own the hair loss or shave it off, but you’re not fooling anyone.

If you have only one profile picture you are not likely to get any interest from me (anyone can take 1 good picture). Men who actually get me to read their profile, but don’t write an “about me” paragraph or 2 in their own profile don’t usually get any interest from me. If you can’t be bothered to write a few things about yourself, you’re not serious about finding someone or you have nothing to say. There’s a man with a t-shirt on in his profile pic that says “Obey.” No. 69 in your user name, even if it’s your birth year, no. BBW in your user name, no. User name “fetish worshiper,” “bustlover” (I have small boobs, but even if I didn’t…), or “aggressor,” no, no and no. Pictures of just your legs or half your face, no. You’d be surprised at the number of profile pics where all you see is half the man’s face. If your profile picture is sideways or upside down it means you either think it’s cute – it’s not- or you aren’t proficient enough to post a properly oriented pic. A profile picture of just your slammin’ body or of yourself in the gym, no. I don’t want someone so into himself he has little left for me. A profile picture of just a landscape, your house, your pet, your horse, your ridiculously jacked up 4 x 4, noooo.

While I find profile names like the ones mentioned above off-putting, I also appreciate knowing right up front what a man is about. I’ll pass on any man in full hunting regalia with his favorite rifle. I have owned a gun, shot several different handguns, and shot clay skeet with a rifle and was a pretty good shot. But I don’t like hunting in general, and if you’re that into it I’d rather not. I’ll pass on a man with trump gear, or a man with a wad of money displayed prominently in his hand (that’s great, but what do YOU have to offer), or utterly ridiculous clothes, but I appreciate knowing right up front what he’s about. A profile pic should show who you really are, and in that regard honest pictures and profile names are helpful.

After a few days on Plenty of Fish, I’m going to try Zoosk. Might as well. If I’m serious about meeting men with whom I might eventually want a relationship, quantity will hopefully lead to quality.