Tag Archives: drunk texting

Wish you were here: And other updates on L’s New Year’s Resolutions

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Believe it or not readers, we are well into our second quarter of 2014. Which means it’s time to take a step back. Reflect. Mediate. Think about who we are, and what we have accomplished.

Biden SOTU

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/01/29/the-state-of-the-union-in-11-gifs-and-pictures/

Whoa, calm down Joe Biden. This state of the union isn’t that serious. But I do think it’s time for me to take pause and evaluate how I’ve done on my New Year’s Resolutions that I so boldly embraced back in December. 

Let’s have a look, shall we?

RESOLUTION #1: DATE ONE GUY AT A TIME

dumbledore

http://giphy.com/gifs/NsFDCblOHz9QI

You can join Dumbledore in offering me some tepid applause, because I’m actually doing a pretty good job on this one. Sure, my success is at least partially due to the fact that I went one some pretty terrible dates this winter. But, I’ve honestly made a concerted effort not to pack my schedule with dates with any promising bachelor in the OKC universe. The good part about this? I’ve been seeing the same guy for just shy of two months, and I actually might like him. The scary part? I’ve been seeing the same guy for just shy of two months, and I actually might like him, and I can’t hide my feelings behind the distractions with other guys.

Of course, I’ve kept my OKC profile active, because 1) it’s early yet and 2) I’m a well-respected semi-famous dating blogger after all, and I need that profile for professional reasons. And, before I had decided I was actually dating the bachelor of the moment, I had been exchanging messages with a couple promising guys on OKC. Rather than just disappearing into thin air, as many many online daters before me have done, I decided to take the direct approach to let them know I wasn’t interested in going out:

one guy at a time

HAHAHA. I gotta tell you readers, this guy’s response actually IMPRESSED me. I have a weakness for negative cynics, and as you have probably discerned, there is nothing I give more credit to than a direct, blunt response. So, it’s good to know, if things with T (promising bachelor) don’t work out, my Prince Charming Miserable may be out there.

Anyhoo, speaking of T, that brings me to …

RESOLUTION # 2: STOP WORRYING ABOUT WHAT HE’S THINKING, AND FOCUS ON WHAT I’M THINKING

This is a tricky one readers. While I was walking around last year feeling like the most romantically wounded adult on the planet, apparently 5000000 people were having the exact same feeling. What I’ve learned from my friends, colleagues, co-bloggers, and you, wonderful readers, is that most people who have been in any serious relationship, which has then ended, amicably or not, is pretty worried about getting hurt again. As a result, most of us spend time protecting ourselves, which means 1) not getting close enough to anyone to let them hurt us and 2) anticipating the moment where the other shoe will drop, and we’ll get hurt again. In fact, this phenomenon is so common that there is a whole TED talk on it (recommended by my friend A. Thanks A!) I strongly suggest that, if you are one of the 5 million of the aforementioned people who fear rejection like me, you watch it–after you’ve finished reading this post of course.

So, inspired by the TED talk and the stories of many, I am trying very very hard to just embrace the feeling of liking someone again. And to explore all the other feelings, and questions, and reflections that come with it. Am I always successful? No. (Per the read receipt incident S mentioned a few weeks ago). But I’m trying, and this is one of those rare times I think the journey is as important as the destination.

joker

http://giphy.com/gifs/cEYFeE1QgHWH2YADVHG

Yikes! That is one scary GIF. I get the message, Heath, don’t worry. I’ll get off my emotional soapbox now and go back to trying to get some cheap laughs…

RESOLUTION #3: GET BUZZED, NOT DRUNK

Barring what I like to call “the Mormon surprise of 2014”  (which is covered by the well known resolution clause which reads, when you are out with someone you can compare to Tom, Cruise and John Travolta, all bets are off), I thought I was doing a pretty decent job on this one. During a recent post-date Sunday morning brunch with C, I was patting myself on the back for this feat when C interrupted me. 

L: “And I mean, T kept saying I was drunk last night. But I wasn’t. He just doesn’t understand yet how freaking fun I am, even when I am sober.”

C: “I thought your New Year’s resolution was not to get drunk on dates.”

L: “Yeah, that’s what I just said. I didn’t get drunk on my date.”

C: “Yes you did.”

L: “NO I DIDN’T. WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO CRUSH THE BUTTERFLY THAT IS MY SPIRIT?”

C: (Pulls out cellphone) “Um, please look at these texts you sent me.”

drunk text c 1

drunk text c 2

L: (mouth agape) “I don’t even remember sending those texts.”

C: “I mean, could there be clearer evidence I am right? You actually said,  I got drunk [drink] on this date. You also said you wished I was there, which was weird.”

God bless, C, my real life sassy gay friend. 

Thanks to C, I am back on the wagon (and by wagon, I mean 4 drink max on dates).  Now, if only he’d help T pick out some better fitting shirts…

Overall  resolution-keeping grade: B. I picked some hard resolutions y’all. (Esp 2 and 3!). I’ve done better on them than the year before, but there is still plenty of room for improvement in quarters 3 and 4.

Regrets: I don’t have any. All three of these resolutions are increasing my quality of life. And besides, I don’t believe in regrets.  YOLO.

Textual feelings: My short-lived, mostly virtual, romance with M

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Mark my words, in the next fifteen years, there will be a college course on dating, probably cross-listed under psychology and history. I mean, when I was in college, there was already a course, that, according to my loose recollection, was called something like, “Peeping under the Petticoat: Images of female sexuality in popular British magazines.” (Of course, being the gender studies junkie that I am, I think I took it.)

This hypothetical future course on dating would include, at the very least, three hours of course material on text messages, the form of communication that seems to dominate dating these days. We’ve already written about texting a bunch (texting too much, sexting, texting fails, etc) on this site. I personally HATE texting, but believe it’s one of those annoying, but inevitable things that one must do, especially when dating people you’ve never met in person with whom you want to avoid an awkward phone conversation full of long pauses, static, talking at the same time, and asking things like, “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. Can you repeat that?”

But texting too can have its awkward and frustrating pitfalls. I really think this Aziz Ansari clip says it all:

PREACH AZIZ! I hereby declare that the first college course on dating be named: Guess who is uninvited to the pizza party?: Texting and other humiliations you will experience when dating.

A couple months ago, I met a guy who was, at the very least, case study worthy for this course, if not a guest lecturer. His name was M, and he was a scruffy, tall, flannel shirting wearing, sarcastic, sound engineer. He worked at some very well known music venues in DC by night and made extra cash during the day shooting weird documentaries and promotional films for nonprofits and small businesses. Now, as I have alluded to briefly in my other posts, I am not exactly what you would call COOL when it comes to music and pop culture. I often find myself at the bar requesting a combination of Bob Seger and Whitney Houston, depending on what time of the evening it is. I get my clothes at Target (not ironically, for real) and the most recent thing I downloaded on my Ipod may or may not have been the soundtrack to Disney’s Frozen, which I sing along with while I fold my laundry.

C’mon, you’d be blasting this too.

Anyway, M somehow overlooked the lack of coolness on my profile and asked me out. After I agreed to meet, he wrote:

m message

Oh,  how M LOVED to text. But the thing is, he was pretty good at it. Funny, witty, and could keep up with my jokes.

M is a wit

We planned a date for the following week, so had a full week to know each other through text. The weekend before our date, M even drunk texted me.

Now, we all know that I don’t believe in sexting before the first date. Honestly, in my early years of online dating, this may have scared me off. But M played it off well, and soon enough we were joking around.

m drunk text apology

Sometimes, M’s texts reached beyond the point of my understanding. He liked to send me pictures, which was normal enough when he was in vacation in California, but less normal when he was texting me selfies from a brunch downtown. I mean, how many selfies can one woman take before she actually meets the fellow? 

When M and I finally met, I was super psyched to find out a few things about him.

1) He was better looking than in his profile picture. 

2) He was even funnier in person than in text.

3) He had access to free tickets to any show at any live music venue in DC.

M and I proceeded to have, what I thought, was a very good date. Drinks turned to more drinks turned to dinner and then to more drinks. We were joking around like old friends by the time we finished our first beer. I swear to god, readers, it was like a movie-worthy first date. People at the restaurant were literally jealous of our chemistry. The host at the second bar thought I was M’s WIFE. 

After the date, M and I began to walk home (it was 11:00 on a weeknight after all). He lived a block away from the bar and when we got to his door, and said goodbye, he went in for a kiss. And it was a pretty awesome kiss, though it took me by surprise. And then we stopped kissing, and I turned to walk away, and he pulled me back in for a second kiss.

kate and leo kiss

We were basically Kate and Leo at sunset, minus the good looks and the boat. 

We said a goodbye, and he said, “Promise me something. Never let go.” and I said, “I’ll never let go M. I’ll never let go.” And he then he shivered and floated away on a piece of driftwood. 

PSYCH, SUCKERS! What I just described is a scene from James Cameron’s Titanic. But it was almost that magical, I swear. 

The next day, he sent me this:

mysterious pic

What IS that,you ask? I. DON’T. KNOW. I sent the image to no less than three other experts, and they were just as stumped as I was. If you can figure it out, let me know.

So I replied in the only way I thought possible. With another inexplicable picture.

weird dragon photo

Yes, that IS me giving bunny ears to the stuffed dragon in my office. And, don’t worry, the actual photo was sent right side up.

And then, NO RESPONSE. FOR 2 DAYS. I was pretty bummed. I thought the date had gone well. I thought when someone kissed you and said they wanted to see you again, they meant it. I took the absence of his communication as a sign he wasn’t interested in me and sulked around for about a day, and then decided, the chemistry between us had seem so FREAKING GOOD that it was worth one more try. So, I texted him:

The next day, he replied:

M last time i heard from him

WHAT? HUH? I did not know what to make of this response. Was he flirting? Blowing me off? A little of both?

Sure enough, I never heard from M after that inexplicable text, and about one week later, he disappeared from OKcupid altogether.

Date rating: 9.5/10. Like I said, the chemistry going down would make Jim and Pam jealous. I deducted .5 for the two nasty remarks he dropped about his ex girlfriend. Ovaries before bro-varies my friends, even when the ovaries belong to a stranger.

Lesson learned: There is no way to predict what will happen after a date. People often don’t mean what they say, and they have a multitude of reasons for doing what they do. This date definitely contributed to my journey into cynicism.

**Author’s note: For those of you who are wondering about why I am blogging about something that happened around Halloween, please accept my apologies. I went on a man-bender for the last quarter of 2013, and got very distracted by W and some other gentlemen who I will write about shortly. The Chris Christie-esque traffic jam I’ve caused on this blog is one of the reasons I am trying to limit myself to one guy at a time in 2014. (Three weeks in, btw, and I am about .75 of a guy away from this goal. So TGFMA (thank god for my archives)!

First Date: Drunk Girl

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S here, coming at you with my last post as a 28 year old. That’s right, peeps. As of midnight tonight, the sun will officially begin to set on my 20s and I’ll be staring 30 in its mean, spinstery face. Woohoo! Also, a friendly reminder: if you haven’t already, please vote for your favorite worst date ever story here. Voting ends Friday!

Speaking of being a mature adult… do any of you loyal readers recall this lovely tale of first date tipsiness from L? Well last week, as I mentioned, I walked (or should I say stumbled) a mile in her shoes on a first date of my own. Allow me to explain, and by explain I mean post a screen shot of the text I sent D when I got home:

D prohib

It’s a testament to our friendship and to the bond we share that D a. did not bat an eyelash at the fact that I got drunk on a first date and b. was on her way to getting sauced herself after a rough day at work. Meanwhile, somewhere south of us, L was also out drinking heavily. Can you say cosmic connection?

Anyway, a little background on said date. The guy is M, a 36 year old high school teacher from Jersey. M and I had been messaging back and forth for a a few weeks. Things I liked about him: he’s an avid traveler and spends every summer at his family’s beach house in Italy, traveling all over the country and throughout Europe. Yes, you read that correctly. Summer beach house. In Italy. Um, hi. Sign me the f*ck up for that. He also teaches history, which is hot. And is 6’3. HOT. 

Things I wasn’t crazy about: he tried, from the moment we exchanged numbers, to CALL ME. There are few things I hate more than a phone conversation with a dude I’ve never met. I mean, what kind of sociopath wants to voluntarily talk on the phone with a total stranger, unless that stranger is a Comcast customer service team member and the cable is out? Even when the guy has a delicious British accent, it’s still inevitably the most awkward interaction ever. I successfully dodged the first few of M’s phone requests, hoping he’d take a hint, but he KEPT ASKING. I had to actively restrain myself from pulling a Regina George and shutting his Gretchen Weiners bullshit right down:

fetch

And then send him this insane little memo just in case he still didn’t get it:

Instead, I consented to 20 minutes of chatting the night before our date which was, AS PREDICTED, moderately awkward. I hate being right all the time. (Lies. I love it).

The night of our date rolled around, and mama was pretty grumpy. Here’s why:

  • The weird phone prelude freaked me out
  • I’d had a long ass day at work
  • the weather was disgustingly wet and humid, causing my hair to do some pretty unique things

I was just not feeling it. It was one of those days where I I wanted sooooo badly to go home and lay on my couch (aka pretty much every day), but I hate people who flake on plans last minute (ahem) so I dragged my salty self over to the bar.

How did the date go? Glad you asked. Conveniently I text-vomited a full summary to poor, unsuspecting D, which I will again post for your viewing pleasure:

d prohib 2

In case you haven’t noticed, yours truly is quite the drunk texter. I recently claimed (to no one who cared) that I live by the following motto: “When the drinks start flowin’, the fingers get goin’.” I mean, what? Also, it’s almost too easy, but…

Sorry/not sorry. Back to the date. I swear, I have never had my ear talked off by a man like I did with M. From the moment we met he was a Chatty Cathy, going on and on about his job, traveling, friends and family. This was actually a welcome development at first, since I usually have the EXACT opposite problem with dudes and have to essentially perform my own one woman show just to keep the awkward silences at bay. So honestly, up until the end of the night I truly enjoyed M’s chattiness. He was smart and interesting, not obnoxious or annoying.

It wasn’t until we arrived at the aforementioned whiskey bar and I was well on my way to being fully drunk that I realized… M had asked me almost nothing about myself. Literally almost nothing. In all fairness, I’m not exactly a shy wallflower (shocking, I know)  and can hold my own in a conversation, so there were plenty of times when I interjected with something and M listened with interest. So I guess it wasn’t that bad, just… weird. Anyway, on to my drunkenness. We had already had a flight of (delicious) beer at the first bar we went to, and then after revealing to him that I’d recently acquired a taste for whiskey, we decided to trek down the street to a whiskey bar for a “nightcap”. Except we walked in and it was like a budget remake of the Great Gatsby up in that piece. Champagne was a-flowin’. People were dressed in period garb. The normally wildly over-priced drinks were dirt cheap. You can guess what happened next…

Mama got sauced. M had to drive and is also gigantic in stature, so he was essentially fine, but I had 3 more BIG mixed drinks and a glass and a half of champagne. By the end I could hear myself slurring my words and also started to make best friends with our neighbors at the bar, something I only do when drunk. At one point the nice lesbian couple next to me discretely whispered, ‘is this a first date?’ and I practically shouted, so the entire (tiny) bar could hear, “It is a first date! Are we that obvious??” Smooth, S. Smooth.

Smart cookie that I am, I decided that we needed to go before I (further) embarrassed myself. I could at least tell through my haze that M seemed bemused rather than horrified by my antics, so I was confident that my behavior still passed for charming and hadn’t crossed over to fully obnoxious. Yet.But I calculated that I was roughly 15 minutes and half a drink away from this:

kristen-wiig-drunk-gif-sXMz

I announced that M needed to drive me home (in hindsight I was in no state to accept a ride from a strange man but hey, I obviously lived to tell about it. Calm down, mom.) M said he had a great time and would love to go out again (heard that one before!) and then went in for the kiss. It was a bold move, but drunk S was into it. It was actually a really nice first kiss, probably because we were in a warm car and I had a buzz on. But nice nonetheless.

The next morning, hungover and a little embarrassed, I went over the date in my head. And started to get annoyed by M’s apparent lack of interest in my life. I called in some experts, wondering if this was a red flag, but multiple sources told me he was probably either a. nervous (this seems most likely to me) or b. having a REALLY good time and was comfortable enough to open up. Either way, he didn’t berate me or lose his car, so I’m giving him a pass.

M and I have a second date set for Thursday. Let me tell you, there are few things more awkward than dating someone new right around your birthday. You feel like a weirdo not mentioning it at all, but you don’t want them to misunderstand your mention as a request for them to acknowledge it. I am probably ultra sensitive about this because last year I was in this very same position… I’d been seeing a guy briefly, it got out that it was my birthday, and he made a big fuss about it. Basically he INSISTED that we go out to dinner to celebrate even though I was super uncomfortable and told him ‘yeahhh we’re not seriously dating, that is sweet but really not necessary’. But again, he insisted, so I relented, thinking I’d at least get a nice dinner out of it. Then, the night of said dinner rolled around (also the day after my bday!) and this douchenozzle texts me to tell me 1. he was cancelling dinner and 2. didn’t want to see me anymore. Like I’m sorry, WHAT? I NEVER WANTED TO HAVE THIS WEIRD BIRTHDAY DINNER IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU LUNATIC.

Anyhoodle. Clearly I have birthday date PTSD after that bullshit. So when M (very nicely) referred to this next date as my ‘birthday dinner’ I practically shouted him down in sheer alarm in distress. I just feel like I’m tempting fate by agreeing to this again, even if it is just dinner and even if I SCREAMED that I didn’t want any sort of fuss made over my birthday by someone I literally just met. Let me tell you, if M cancels, you poor readers WILL be hearing about it. Probably in all caps. 

Date rating: 7.5/10. M was a nice, interesting, smart, fun dude and a great kisser, but he talked wayyy too much.

Lesson learned: DRINK LESS. That is all.