The one who was a sexy kisser

I met the Hipster Lawyer online. He had a picture of him and Henry Rollins in the most hipster bars of hipster-dom in town. His handle was something about music being his crack.

I had to write to him:

"Please save some of that crack for me, I need the music to survive as well."

Hipster Lawyer was humanitarian lawyer, you know, the sexiest type of lawyer. He worked from home, so he didn't look like a lawyer at all. He was scruffy with overgrown hair. He was a little bit older than me, and super hot.

At the end of our first date (at a bar) he kissed me on the cheek and gave me a big bear hug. I loved it. At the end of our second date (also at a bar), I got out of the car claiming that I wanted a hug, and oops - we made out a little bit and...

OH-MY-GOD he might have been the best kisser EVER. A little nip there, suck there and oh-LORD-wowie-wow. I was hooked. Too bad he was aloof, texting me back at weird intervals and not contacting me at all after our dates. It was all me.

I'm not so good with waiting for guys to ask me out again if they make me wait for a few days. I figure, I want more, I'm going to go out and try to get more. Men are stupid and don't know what they want... HA! Wait, that never really works... but I do it anyway because I get antsy. I read "He's Not that Into You" and sadly, it's true. If they want to see you more, they'll make it happen.

But I just wanted to kiss him more. Really.

The third date we went to a music festival in town and were going to meet up with a bunch of his friends. All of them bailed except for this one girl. I asked him how he knew her,

"We used to date, is that okay?"

Sure it's okay, she was nice. And weirdly enough, it was nice to have someone else there to talk to. Definitely a sign that Hipster Lawyer and I were not meant to be. She just seemed a little nervous and was worrying about everything. I told her so - to her face. That might have been a bad move on my part because he asked me about it later. Was I annoyed with her? No. She was just worrying a lot.

We did get to kiss in the car later, and I told him that the only reason I keep called him is because of that. He seemed into it. We meshed that way.

Didn't hear from him again... but I figured I'd make a move anyway and ask him to a show. I heard back THREE DAYS later claiming that he'd like to go but had to "be up early the next morning."'

So I let Hipster Lawyer slip away. I did, at least, get some good kisses out of it.

The one who decided I was a slut before he even met me

When you meet a new person, and your ex comes up in a conversation, what does a smart person do? You refer to them as your friend, right? The word "ex" just raises red flags for me all over the place and makes my skin crawl a little bit.

So I guess I understood when Woody Allen got a little weird about me referring to my "friends." (I call him Woody Allen because he was a nebbishy Jewish Lawyer).

Over IM (BEFORE I met him) while I was on a business trip:

"So what did you do this evening?"

"I went to a comedy club with a friend of a friend. I met him a couple weeks ago and promised to hang out when I was in town."

"So are you going to see this person again."

"Uh..."

I finally called Woody on it, he explained that the dating site that we had met on was prone to being very sexually promiscuous. "You never know what someone means by the word 'friend' anymore."

Okay, I guess I could see that. Could have just asked me though instead of being subtly rude.

Also, he tended to accost me every time I hopped online. It was annoying, especially when it was midnight and I just wanted to check my email before bed.

I actually did go out with Woody, and the date was actually okay. I had a couple of drinks and probably told him a little too much about myself. I told him that my longest relationship was only 4 months. Oops...ammunition he would use against me later.

After the date, I didn't hear from Woody and he didn't hear from me. I figured I would go out with him again if he called though. Five days later I sign on really quickly to check email, he IM's me and we chat a little bit.

He says "I had a good time the other night, and I felt like the conversation flowed well, but I got the feeling you weren't really into me." Honesty! I can appreciate that.

My phone rings, it's my boss. "Can't talk now! Sorry!" Woody signs off while waiting for me to get back to him and his awkward statement, but sends me an email saying that we can talk about it later.

I go to play a gig and come back around midnight and start writing back to him. I was trying to figure out if I wanted to go out with him again, give him a second chance.. Woody IM's me the moment I'm closing the browser. I do not feel like having this conversation this late at night.

I get another email from him. "Nevermind." It says.

Uh, what?

I go back to my email, and rewrite it. "What the hell was that "nevermind" all about? Are you angry or frustrated with me?" It says basically. "No the vibe was not there, good luck in your dating adventures."

The next morning I wake up to this email:

I wasn't angry with the "nevermind," just resolute in my certainty of the outcome.

To be honest, I wasn't sure if we were relationship material, but I was open to seeing what happened between us. It can be hard for people to be themselves and make an amazing connection during something as inherently awkward as a blind date. Besides, some amazing relationships start with a slow burn instead of fireworks.

Unfortunately, I could tell that you weren't of the same mind. And at the risk of sounding cruel or meanspirited, I think your focus on instant chemistry is probably why your longest relationship has been 4 months long.

No hard feelings. I do hope you find something lasting. Take care.

Did I mention that this is after ONE DATE???

ONE DATE, people!!

I wanted to write Woody back and tell him he had no idea what he was talking about and to go eff himself. But I let it go.

Fly, fly nebbishy Woody Allen man who is so uptight and annoying!!

Good luck finding a cynical and jaded woman to make happy.

The one who must have thought I was hideous

I honestly don’t think he thought I was hideous, but that’s what I could have thought. I mean I’ll never know. And I don’t really care.

Let just called him “Mr. Confused,” because I was looking cute that night and he must have had some crazy shit going on in his head. And calling him “Asshole” just doesn’t seem right, although it warranted. I know, I’m being very kind to this guy by giving him this name.

I met Mr. Confused on the Jewish dating website. He was a school teacher, tall, skinny and really not much to look at. But I guess he seemed nice enough.

I was volunteering to work at a screening of a film at the Jewish Community Center. I told Mr. Confused about this he said he wanted to see the movie, so the plan was to watch the movie and go out afterwards. He had also told me that he used to work at that same Jewish Community Center. This was a good sign

Something funky happened with scheduling and some people thought that the film started a whole hour later than it actually did. Mr. Confused was one of these people. I was able to watch the film and grabbed a spot in the back so I could slip out quickly and do whatever need to be done afterwards. Mr. Confused walked in about ten minutes before the film was over and randomly ended up sitting right next to me.

“Oh, hi!” I said looking at him when he sat down, immediately recognizing him from his picture.

“Hey!” He said smiling.

“You must have gotten the time wrong too, sorry about that. There was a problem with the scheduling.”

I don’t remember where the conversation went from there, it was a little awkward but no big deal. The lights came up and I had to jump up to do my job.

As I was talking to my supervisor for a second, Mr. Confused comes over.

“I’m going to take off.”

“Um, okay, well you have my number.”

He bolts.

I thought maybe he didn’t want to stay for the Q&A for a film he didn’t see. Maybe we would meet up later?

No call, no text message, no email.

Nothing.

I’m sorry, but people get away with the craziest shit in the name of dating and it pisses me off. That’s just not right. And if I were someone else, I could have thought that he just didn’t like the look of me and so he bolted. Who knows what was going on in his life at the time, I don’t care, you don’t treat people like that.

“Maybe you should pick your dates more carefully” a friend said. He’s a Jewish day school teacher? What raises red flags about that??

I gave him a full 24 hours before I sent him this email:

Dear Mr. Confused,
I obviously can't claim to know what you're looking for, but the way that you've handled the last 24 hours is not the way you're going to find it. The fact that you bailed last night with no reason and haven't even bothered to email me saying that it was nice to meet me but there's other things going on with you is pretty disrespectful and rude. I don't care if we were supposed to be on a date or not, I think it's pretty terrible that it's okay with you that you would do that to another human being. Please think before you do something like that to the next girl you try to date.

Kinky

I felt amazing. It was so good to tell someone off like that. It’s one thing to ignore someone when you haven’t even met them in person yet. But it’s another thing to meet them, not give them a chance and then run away. Not cool.

I wouldn’t have cared if he emailed me back. In fact I expected him not to.

But he wrote this email right back:

Kinky,

I'm so sorry that I didn't handle this better. I just didn't know how to express what I was feeling.
I hope that I have learned something from this mistake.

Mr. Confused

At least “the one who went to the bathroom was funny.”

This was just lame: "didn't know how to express what I was feeling"? What the hell does that mean?

It only gets better and better doesn't it?

The one who made me cry

Just to get it out of the way if you were wondering, it was the good kind of cry: you know, the one where someone says something so sweet to you that you cry? Not the you-hurt-my-feelings kind of cry.

And also to get it out of the way, the one who made me cry, let’s call him “Sad Lawyer”, was the reason why my ipod is now broken.

Let me explain.

I met Sad Lawyer online as I meet most of these interesting characters. He was in his last year of law school, and he hated it. This dude was a downer.

Sad Lawyer and I went to another bar to talk some more. After a couple drinks, he fessed up to being recently out of a relationship. It ended because the love of his life cheated on him. Like I said, this dude was a downer. 

Somehow we got on the topic of education and the worth of each individual. I happen to believe every person in the world has some skill or talent that could be of productive use or enjoyment to the world. Sometimes individuals just don’t have the means or access to cultivate these talents. I mean how do you know you’re an amazing skier if you’ve never seen snow?

Anyway, the point is that this is a very optimistic, idealistic way to see the world. One which I suppose at the age of 29, I should have lost.  I'm very proud of this part of me, it's also what keeps me dating by the way. I am a hopeless idealist and romantic at heart.

“You’re a good person aren’t you?" Sad Lawyer said.  "Most of the people I know, including those older than me (he was 26 I think) don’t think that way anymore. We are all so jaded. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

That made me cry. It took a total stranger to look into me like that and say it to my face. I’m sure my mother has said something like that to me before, and maybe my friends think that about me. But hearing those words from an emotionally devastated stranger made me emotional. It was sort of embarrassing. 

Given Sad Lawyers' own emotional status, it is no surprise that he didn’t call me for a second date. He was probably too embarrassed too. I've found that if I drink too much on a first date, too much information is exchanged, and second dates are rare. There's also the occasional making out, but that didn't happen on this date.

But back to the dead ipod…

I had a little too much to drink I guess that night. And the next morning I had to get up relatively early for something and was a tad hungover. Not the I-feel-terrible-sort, more like the, I’m-in-a-grumpy-daze sort. I’m sure only some of that feeling had to do with the booze.

I went to the kitchen to fill my water bottle, when it was full I  put it in my purse.

“Why is your purse leaking?” My roommate asks.

What? I looked down. Shit. My purse was indeed leaking.

I was so out of it, I put the water bottle in my purse WITHOUT the top.

Oy.

Turns out that I drowned my ipod. It needs a whole new hard drive. That was several months ago and I haven’t spent the cash to get one. I work out at the gym without one.

I blame Sad Lawyer.

The one who was the Perfect Gentleman

I met the Perfect Gentleman on that free website, he was from the South and worked on the creative side of computer programming, to the point that he was not just your regular computer programmer guy. He was a little extra nerdy, if that was even possible.

We met at a club where his friends’ band was going to play. This was also a band he used to be in, but it seemed that he was more interested in talking to me and listening to the music (which he told me he never really liked anyway).

The Perfect Gentleman paid for the tickets and bought a round of drinks. I liked him immediately. He was cute, but had a face had a quality that can only be described as being a little squished (but it was cute). I liked his build: he wasn’t much taller than me, but was a little thick. I like them like that.

I met his friends before they went on stage, they all seemed perfectly nice, which is always a good sign. I bought another round of drinks and the Perfect Gentleman and I continued to have good, intelligent conversation about music and art and I even tried my best to understand what he does at his profession. There was chemistry, body language and grazing knees. He also had a fabulous laugh, something I personally love.

After the band was done, I suggested going to get some food since I hadn't eaten dinner. We went around the corner to a Polish restaurant and chatted more. I even broached the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, a topic he didn’t seem too excited to continue.

The Perfect Gentleman then walked me to my car, put his hands on my waist, kissed me good night (a nice quick peck on the kips), and told me that he was going to be out of town for the weekend just so I knew. I offered him a ride home, but he declined like a perfect gentleman and insisted on taking a cab home.

I couldn’t believe what a perfectly respectful first date it was. There was no pressure, I knew he liked me, I knew I liked him and he had paid for virtually everything and yet didn’t mind when I bought a round of drinks. I figured it was the Southern thing, but whatever it was, he was the Perfect Gentleman.

The weekend came and went, with no word from him. Not even an email the next day saying it was nice meeting me. By Monday evening I was starting to get antsy, so I called him and asked him out. The Perfect Gentleman seemed perfectly excited to go out again.

So the following Wednesday, exactly a week after our first date, I picked him up at the train station (after a misunderstanding of which train station he was supposed to get out at. Men: they’re not so great at following directions are they sometimes?) and took him to a good and not too expensive restaurant. We split a salad and a pizza and then went to a cool bar for some bluegrass, a game of scrabble and some drinks.

I had a great time with him. Again, the conversation was good and while we were picking out which game to play, the body chemistry was there. He laughed his hardy laugh at my jokes and I got him back on the train after midnight worried that he might miss that last one back to his house.

When I dropped him off at the train, he said he had fun and that we would talk soon. We had and awkward good bye as we turned sideways in the car to hug, I think he might have been going for a kiss but it was weird. So as he was getting out of the car, I pulled him back and laid a fat one on him. We made out for maybe a total of 30 seconds. I can’t say he was a great kisser, but he wasn’t bad either.

I drove home with a smile on my face. In recent memory I could not think of a dating experience that had gone this well. It was so normal! I do not have normal healthy dates, I just don’t.

I figured it was his turn to call and ask me out on a third date. A few days went by: nothing. A week went by: nothing. I don’t know what happened! 

I mean, the only thing I can possibly think that went wrong was that I farted while we were at the bar on our second date, was that it? Are farting girls a turn off for him? Are girls that kiss him a turn off? DAMN!! Is he that much of a Perfect Gentleman? Like Rhett Butler? I mean if Scarlett had farted, would Rhett have ceased to like her?

I just can’t get this right can I?

I decided to let it go, and not call him again. I am not a stalker. I refuse to do all the work.

I did have a moment of satisfaction when I was chatting with a friend of a friend a couple weeks later who knew the Perfect Gentleman. Turns out she had his old job and was rewriting all of his code. Turns out he wasn’t much better at his job than he was at dating.

The one who was so obnoxious

I met Mr. Obnoxious online. He was older than me by five or six years and worked as a bartender at private parties while he was studying to become a police officer.

The fact that he was Jewish was a nice added bonus and so I figured why not? He wasn’t necessarily my type, but you never know.

Mr. Obnoxious picked me up at my house in a double-breasted pinstripe suit, brimmed hat and bald head. He was wearing a tie with a matching handkerchief. He looked like a Jewish gangster. I was wearing jeans and insisted that I change into a skirt at least just to not feel out of place. He stated that the suit was new and wanted to break it in. No problem, it was certainly different and sorta classy.

We got into, what I call, his “penis car”: a stick shift two-seater sports car. I swear Mr. Obnoxious was going to give me whiplash before we got to the restaurant by the way he drove that thing. His voice was piercing, and I could tell from the first few minutes of this date that I didn’t like him much. The fact that he hadn’t really asked me any questions about myself from the get-go was an automatic turn off. He talked my ear off about the boat he was going to move into. Not that I don’t care about boats, I just don’t need to know all the details about this particular boat.

The restaurant was nothing special. Mr. Obnoxious had made reservations though which was thoughtful. It seemed he had taken some steps to make this date nice, which I did appreciate. I mean, no one has ever shown up to a first date in a double-breasted pinstripe suit before.

So far, I just had an idea that this guy was not for me. But when we got to the restaurant it became clear that I did not wish to spend much more time with Mr. Obnoxious.

He wanted to order a rye whisky. I don’t know enough about alcohol to know what that was. But he’s a bartender, so I’ll give him that.

“Well it’s obvious which one I’m going to get,” Mr. Obnoxious said looking at the menu, “they only have three and I own two of them.” Well, good for you.

“Oh look,” I said, “they have my favorite scotches” trying to sound somewhat cultured in that area.

“Which ones are your favorite?” Mr. Obnoxious asked (probably the first question he asked me all night.)

“Talisker and Oban,” I said.

“Oh, I figured you would say that.” (What was THAT supposed to mean?)

“Well I’ve been to the breweries”

“Aren’t they called distilleries?”

Alright, fine. It seems that this date isn’t that bad yet, I see that.  But getting rather obnoxious, no?

I noticed that when I was speaking, (not that he had asked me anything, I just decided to offer up information about myself) he would start looking at the menu or something, as if he wasn’t paying attention to me. I really don't like it when people won't look you in the eye.

During one of these times when I was talking, Mr. Obnoxious interrupted me and said,

“I don’t want to sound like an asshole, but do you want to go hot tubing?”

“No,” I said. “No, I don’t want to go hot tubing.”

“Okay, that’s cool, I just didn’t want you to think I was an asshole or something.  I mean, it’s not like I just want to see you naked, although that would be cool too… it’s just a nice place to talk.”

Right.

I declined dessert and getting more drinks, I just wanted him to take me home.

As I got out of the car, I wanted to make it clear that I did appreciate the nice dinner.

“See you around,” I said... DAMMIT! I panicked.

“Really, can I call you?” Asked Mr. Obnoxious.

“Um, maybe?” I said. SHIT!

I could see in his reaction that he knew I meant, NO!

He never called me, thank the powers that be.

I found out later after telling this story to a friend’s boyfriend that the only hot tubing place in the area is a naked one.

And hence, the story of the worst first date I’ve ever had, even worse than the one who went the bathroom and didn’t come back. Sure, that date was a disaster, but at least it wasn’t painful from the moment it began.

The one who stood me up on New Year's Eve

Okay, I really, really, really hate this shit. Why tell someone that you have a connection with them and then stand them up on New Year's Eve of all nights? That's just mean. What did I do to deserve that kind of treatment? And it's not like the one who when to the bathroom and didn't come back This one is worse because I was emotionally involved...

I met Darren online (for those of you that know the current situation, this is a reflection of current anxieties, not necessarily current status, but you never know, there might be a blog next week about it). He worked as a manager of a video store and lived in a studio apartment behind the park. Granted he wasn't the most ambitious among them, but whatever, on our second he looked deep into my eyes and asked "we have a connection don't we?"

I was swept up in it. I didn't know if I felt exactly what he was feeling, but I liked that prospect of someone feeling that way about me. And I liked him enough to enjoy the attention.

It could have been in a line, it could have been how he actually felt at the time. I don't know. But I do know that it was one of the most short-lived intense "relationships" I've ever had.

I understand that this happens from time to time, but I feel like this has become a pattern in my dating life:
1. I meet someone.
2. I experience really intense feelings for them.
3. We get physical pretty quickly.
4. He does something that hurts me or bugs me.
5. I call him out on it.
6. I never hear from him again.
7. I don't really know why and it takes awhile for me to accept that I will not be hearing from him.

It's often that one of these steps might be left out. We might not get physical, I might not call him out on something he did, because sometimes they disappear before I'm able to. Sometimes they don't even do anything wrong, they just disappear, and I'm left feeling that I did something wrong, even though I know I didn't.

But the end is always the same: I'm left waiting for a phone call or an email that never comes. Because of this I prefer being dumped, and while that's never fun either, at least I'm not left wondering. I get the closure to a "relationship" that happened so fast that sometimes I feel like it never happened at all. And otherwise, waiting is just a damn waste of my time.

Anyway, back to Darren, he got me into bed on the second or third date. I could regret this, but I decided to do it, and I stand by my decisions in life. I don't regret them, especially when it comes to feeling alive in a moment. I certainly could have said 'no,' but when I like a guy, it's really hard to say 'no,' and, like I said, I don't regret wanting to act on my feelings. I'm not good at that. I'm a bit of a heathen that way.

My mom once told me, in a very shocking conversation (because I view my mother is quite a prude: she once asked me what it was like to have sex wearing a condom, because she never had!!! I did not answer this question), that I should not jump into bed so quickly. You know me, I'm a slut! Such a dirty slut! You know you are when you're under-sexed mother calls you one!

But, and here's where the story gets super awesome, while Darren and I were having sex (which I don't remember being that awesome), the condom came loose (cause I've never had sex without one, Mom!) and came off without either of us noticing. Wait! You say, "guys should notice that!" Well this one didn't, and I surly didn't.

Well Darren didn't seem to be too bothered by this, and I didn't want to freak out right there in front of him. We might have had a little chat and that was it, it got uncomfortable and we changed the subject.

What sucked even more is that this happened right before Christmas, so Plan Parenthood wasn't open for three days or so, and I wanted to get the morning after pill just in case. I had to wait 72 hours. It was a pretty intense three days.

Darren didn't seem to mind though. He was working overtime because of the holiday season and I didn't see him.

You'd think that that would be enough for me to forget about him, but no. I figured that maybe it was just too awkward and he was just being a guy who gets squimish about anything related to the female reproductive system. Don't know why I would have chosen to have a guy around like that, but hey...

We did though make plans to spend New Year's Eve together though, and I was hoping to ask him to pay for half of the pill that I eventually bought (that shit ain't cheap).

But the motherfucker stood me up. I spent the evening at a couple of parties with some friends, I wasn't alone thank god, and he never got in touch with me.

I was pissed, I was really pissed.

I left for home on January 1st, the next day, and eventually got in touch with him on the phone and told him off. I remember the conversation well. I was in the Modern Art Museum, but not in the galleries, in the lobby. I have a little bit of class!

"I don't deal well with flakes and people that are unreliable, I experienced that too much in high school and I don't stand for it anymore."

Darren apologized. Turns out the loser was at a friends house and was too high AND drunk to get his ass off the couch, or even to send me a text message or voice mail explaining his condition.

For some reason I didn't even dump him there, I was going to give him another chance.

I get back to town a week or so later and call him.

I don't hear back.

I maybe called him a week later, no response.

The idiot probably did me a favor actually, now that I'm thinking about how pathetic I was being. I wonder if the dating gods believe that I subject myself to people treating me like crap, so they keep these "relationships" short so that I don't get too involved before I really get hurt. It's better this way.

You'd think that from this story I have super low self-esteem, but you know what? When you have intense feelings for someone and you want to see where the feelings might go, it's easy to give someone a second chance, and a third, and maybe a fourth if they're still around.

What really bugs me about this is that Darren figured that because we had only been dating for a few weeks, he didn't need to "break up" with me and that disappearing was a justified action. Or he was just a pussy, which I think would be more likely, except that others have disappeared on me as well.

I guess most men just are pussies.

I've actually wondered if I should actually take a listen to my mom's advice and not give it up so quickly. But this girl gets starved for attention! I'm not gonna lie! And when it's in my face and I like what's in my face (this part is important, I'm picky!) it's hard to say "no!" In fact, it usually doesn't even occur to me to say 'no.'

So who knows what to do?

The one who had a girl's name

In grad school I went on a lot of dates. ALOT. I started making a list once. That list helps me with this blog a bunch, especially since many of these dates were only first dates and I can't remember a damn thing about them.

I went online dating crazy. Crazy I tell you! It was a great way for me to get out of the house, meet someone new, and hopefully do something fun. But there's this strange first date syndrome I fell into and didn't know what to do about.

The first date syndrome: I only really had a couple bad dates: there was the one who pissed me off, and the infamous one who went to the bathroom and never came back . I went out with a lot of nice interesting people. But because I met them online, I didn't know if there would be any chemistry, and usually there wasn't. So there would be no second date. And that was because neither one of us would call the other. It's not like we didn't have a good time or good conversation, there was just no, you know, spark. I enjoyed it for what it was and just moved on.

So I went on a lot of first dates.

I don't regret this, but sometimes wonder if I should I have given these guys another chance? If I ever did get a call for a second date, I usually took it, unless it was a for a very good reason. And even if I didn't have that feeling, I would usually give them another chance. If they liked me enough to ask me out again, I'd usually give it a go. But if there's no spark, there's no spark.

But after a first or second date, if they didn't want to see me again, and I felt no dying urge to get on the phone and ask them out, that was it. Onto the next one!

But the one I think about when I recall this slew of first dates only, is this guy named Lindsay. I remember him as being cute and nice. He had a girl's name, lived with his two brothers, drove this awesome 1970s woody truck with the really cool side paneling and took me bar hopping in a city that I was somewhat new to.

We met at a favorite place of mine, with local history, lots of cool old pictures on the walls and a fun staff. Then he took me to a new hipster bar on the east side where the neighborhood was being gentrified. And then we finished off the evening across the street from governmental buildings where there was a 24 hour session going on. There was a huge tv monitor set up in the bar so that when government officials came in to grab a drink, they wouldn't miss anything. It was hysterical.

Whenever think about Lindsay, I wonder if we should have at least become friends. But so it goes.

If there's no spark, there's just no spark.

The one who said “This isn’t a date” on our first date

Two new blog entries cause I've been slacking lately...

Jon said that he really liked what I had written on my Friendster profile. I think I might have answered the “who I want to meet” section with something brilliant like, “someone who knows who they are even if they don’t know what they want to do with themselves.” This is perfectly acceptable for someone right out of college. You know, when you know what you like to do and that you want to do something really meaningful with your life, but have no idea what that is yet.

Jon had recently lost about 50 pounds and even though I’ve never done that (I wouldn’t look like me anymore) I have an idea of what havoc that brings into your head. I’d imagine it’s similar for men and women, but still quite different. I think it’s something you never really get used to, I know my dad still has the ghost of a fat little kid sitting on his shoulder most of the time.

Anyway, I was pretty new to this online dating thing, but Jon had done some online dating before. I know this because he told me, right after I show up to dinner. He’s sitting there at the table with a friend, a girl as a matter of fact, he was sitting at the table with a girl, a girl that was down right cute!

Awesome.

It was a little awkward, of course, not knowing what the hell was going on. There’s nothing better than sitting at a table with two people that know each other really well that spend a good amount of time talking amongst themselves about people and things you don’t know anything about.

A few minutes into dinner, she says something about us being on a “date.” And Jon says flat out “this isn’t a date, dates come with too much pressure.”

Ooooohhhhhh, I see now.

He’s a pussy. Got it.

So we’re on a non-date. I know sometimes this blog gets compared to Sex in the City but this “non-date” thing is right out of an episode where Carrie meets a cute boy in glasses sitting on a fountain in Central Park.

So anyway, Jon must have thought I wasn’t worth kicking to the curb, though, because we ended up going to back to his house without the cute friend to pick up his old crippled car. Two or three years out of college, Jon lived with his parents, which unfortunately is all too normal. He had a pretty cool part time job with digital radio, but got paid crap. I think this all explains why he connected with the “not knowing what to do with yourself” statement.

I honestly can’t remember what else we did on our first “non-date.” I feel like we may have gone to see a show at the indie club down the street. But it really doesn’t matter because we never went on a non-date again. Although we kept in touch over email and sometimes ran into each other at shows.

Turns out we live in the same city again and I’ve seen him out a couple times. And when he does see me he always seems to have someone better to talk to and hang out with, and he’s still single! Ha! We’ve talked about meeting up again at a club we both like, but something else always comes up.

Last time I saw Jon he was on a blind date. We were both in line for an invitation only party (I know, swanky right?) and my friend and I were able to get in, but he couldn't, even though he was supposedly on the list too. He called me later to apologize for being so stand-offish with me which I certainly appreciated.

I’ve come to realize that he’s kind of a social climber with probably bruised self-esteem. He definitely has his sweet moments.

But, like I said, he’s also a pussy.

The one who had been celibate for five years

Alex was a little weird, he was, I'll admit that. He was a DJ on the late night shift. And because he was often the only one in the station, he basically got paid to talk to himself for 5 hours each evening, 5 days a week. The one time my friends met him at a party, they thought he talked loud and was a little obnoxious. But that's because he wasn't used to talking to REAL people. And I liked him, and that's all that matters, right?

This station was one of the five in the country not owned by Rupert Murdoch, but he could still only play the same mediocre pre-approved tunes over, and over, and over again. And because of this new-fangled technology, he could pre-record all of his spots and simply man the computer the rest of the night and make sure it didn't explode.

I met Alex online and we emailed back and forth for several weeks before we met each other. He was crazy witty, very funny, flirtatious and had an endless amount of interesting information in his head. I later found out that he had film and political science degrees, to me the perfect combination of serious issues and pop culture topics. It was never boring hanging out with him. And I liked telling people that I was dating a radio DJ. To me Alex was a fricken' local celebrity! He even had stalker stories! And I made sure that I didn't become one of these stalkers.

Sometime early on in the dating, he told me that he had gotten published on a website for funny hook-up stories, you know, kind of like what I'm doing now... Actually this was more of a "how not to hook up" website; date stories that ended horribly, also like what I'm doing here.

Alex's story was something about going out with a co-worker on new year's, getting ridiculously trashed, trying to hook up, but because of the shear amount of alcohol he had ingested, the little man was down for the count. He also throws into this story that it had been almost five years since the last time he had sex, FIVE YEARS.

I was sort of confused, was this his way of telling me that he was out of practice? Or had he not realized that information was in there. Whatever is was, I realized that there might be something horribly wrong with this man. My friends even warned me: "GET AWAY WHILE YOU CAN! This is not normal for a 30 year old man!"

The other problem with this dating situation is that I only got to see Alex about once every week or two. We had completely opposite schedules, I worked during the day, he worked at night and it worked out that I would go out of town one weekend, he would go out of town another weekend, he got sick...whatever, I never got to see him.

I'm a patient person. I could wait. No problem.

So when things finally got to the point where sex was a possibility, the poor boy must have been so nervous that he had, well *problems,* not much unlike The one who was so hot and didn't speak much English .

I'm a patient person. I can wait till he was comfortable.

I could tell after a little while that he was kinda pulling away a little bit too. His emails became less frequent (at first we emailed once a day) and I would be the one to bug him to make plans. But of course when we did hang out things seemed all good. And, once again, I was getting ready to leave town for good, so I just wanted this to last until I left.

I also wanted to be sure to have a hook up-buddy if I back in town if I needed one. So I wanted to end things on good terms. I even had him promise me some nookie when I did come back to visit. But it never works out for me like that. Other people get hook-up buddies in other cities, but not me!

We really only had sex once. ONLY ONCE!! And by then the little man had no problems, in fact the "little" man was not so "little." It was darn right huge! But for me sex is never really amazing the first time. You have have to get used to each other, you know? So I was looking forward to more.

But more never came.

I left town. I heard from him a couple times. He didn't email me back once. Then I called him and he never called back.

So that was it.

My luck. Just my luck.

Oh, the potential. It was so sad.

I could listen to his show online right now if I wanted, but that would be like stalking him. I'm no stalker! And anyway, my new computer doesn't have the right plug in...

The one who went to the bathroom and never came back

Might as well start this off with a bang!

I do a lot of online dating. It's an easy way for me to avoid my fear of talking to cute boys that I think are out of my league. If they've read my profile, seen my pictures, and they still want to go out with me, the hard part is out of the way. It's just the actual chemistry that might be absent, but that's another story.

I met Colin online, on one of those "online dating for smart people" websites, how pretentious. We planned to meet at a bar and then go see a band I had found on myspace and was curious about. Turns out this guys is 32, grown an unemployed beard, and now that I think back on it, probably completely stoned. Not that there's anything wrong with these things, but let's just say this dude was not a winner. Conversation is fine, not amazing, but not awkward. His phone rings, he let's it go to voice mail, which I thought was classy. We've been there for about an hour, and decide to go to the club, but first he's got to go to the bathroom, and off he goes.

You know that feeling when you're out with someone, doesn't matter if it's a date or you're out with your grandmother, and they leave you at the table while they pee? It's weird right? So I wait, I watch the group of people laugh and giggle to my right, I chat with the waitress when she asks me if I want another drink. Wow, Colin has been in there for awhile... Did he fall in? Is he puking from an allergic reaction? Is he having a Ewan McGregor trainspotting moment in the loo?

"Hey, excuse me," I say to a nice looking guy that just came from where the bathrooms are, "was there someone in the bathroom just now?" "Um yea, I think there was someone talking on the phone in the stall" Hmm, interesting, maybe he really needed to call that person back...

I give it another few minutes and get another drink.

This is weird. It's been 20 minutes... I'm embarrassed now to say that I even waited that long. How long would you have stayed?

I ask another guy to see if anyone is in the bathroom? "No one in there." "Thanks anyway."

I talk to the waitress and tell her what's going on, she can't believe it. I tell her that I'm leaving and if the guy comes back, tell him that I left and that he's a big douche bag.

I feel a little BAD about leaving. What if he was on a really important phone call with his manic depressive mother around the side of the bar? What if he's puking in the street? He could have at least excused himself! I should NOT feel bad, it's not like he was super hot or anything either, the man is an unemployed stoner for gods sake!

I get home, I send him a rude email... why not?

"That was a very inconsiderate rude thing to do, please do not contact me ever again."

It felt good! He didn't write back trying to explain himself, and now I have a wonderfully horrible dating story to tell my friends...

A few months later, I get an email from him on the same dating website. He says "hi, you're interesting, want to get a beer tonight?" He's not only forgotten that he's been out with me, he doesn't remember that he went to the bathroom and didn't come back! I write back:

"I'm not going out with you. Are you an idiot or too stoned to remember that I don't go out with the unemployed?"

What a tard.