In order to explain today’s pics, I need to bore you guys for a hot second. Bear with me. When you upload a profile picture onto Okcupid, you’re prompted to crop it into a smaller thumbnail version. The small version is what appears in searches and on your profile’s homepage, so logically if your photo was taken from far away or includes other people, you can choose to zoom in on just your face so people can actually see you when browsing. Well apparently the cool thing to do these days (and I wouldn’t know because hi, rapidly approaching 30 over here)…
…is to crop your profile pic like a complete asshole.
Allow me to introduce the following samples into evidence. Here’s bachelor # 1’s thumbnail picture, which appeared on my homepage:
Admittedly harmless, but gee, I wonder who that ear and partial cheek belongs to? Probably someone super interesting. I mean, how coy. How mysterious. Let’s have a looky-loo at the rest of him, shall we? Clicking on his photo reveals…
A reasonably cute guy! Except he immediately kills my vibe with a newsies cap, and I have a strict no fedoras/newsies caps/pork pie hats rule. Seriously, if you’re wearing one of those, you’d better be on your way to sell some papes, or organize a child labor union with Christian Bale:
On to our next reveal, bachelor #2’s thumbnail pic:
What did we win? Oh just a creeper in a hoodie with gross looking cuticles. Swoon. How many failed attempts do we think it took this guy before he got the positioning juuuust right? 15? 20?
This is unrelated, but it must be noted that bachelor #2’s profile lists “going to the toilet” as one of his interests.
Bottom line: women don’t need you to show us that you’re pseudo-creative, unique, ironic, or mysterious, or whatever else you think you are by cropping your picture in this senseless manner. If you need to express yourself creatively please, get an Instagram account and bore your friends with your filter choices like a normal person.
Also, I’m sure you think your weird thumbnail will catch our attention, and clearly these have caught mine, but the only thing I feel is annoyance at having to work to figure out what you look like. I just. want. to see. your. face. And if I can’t, for me it’s an automatic…
Sure, he dared bring up the Jewish thing, which we all know I’m not very excited about. But his messages were short and sweet, which I appreciate, and I’m partial to anybody with Philly ties. Thereal worry I had about M was that he only had one profile picture. And, I learned very early on in the world of online dating, you cannot trust a single picture to tell you what someone actually looks like. So, when M replied with his name, I used his name plus the information from his profile to find him on the internet. So, I went to his facebook profile to see if I could find public photos to get a better sense of what he looked like. Sadly, what it revealed was that he was a conservative republican, and that the picture he used for his OKC profile was taken four years ago. Before I could pat myself on the back for being such an internet sleuth, something terrible happened. Maybe it was because it was late at night and I was tired. Maybe it was because I had consumed one too many hot toddys at a party. I. ACCIDENTALLY. CLICKED: “add friend.”
OK, OK, “Don’t panic,” I told myself. “There must be a way to cancel the request. And there was. Thank god for Facebook help page. I toggled over the request and pressed cancelled. All good.
However, several hours later, M messaged me again:
What Facebook’s help page NEGLECTED to mention was that if a person still gets email notifications about friend requests, those DO NOT get cancelled. So, how did I respond to being called out?
I didn’t. I did the mature thing and blocked him on Facebook and on OKCupid.
Can’t win ’em all folks. And here’s some advice from me to you: Do not drink and Facebook.
Turns out, a lady can go from having multiple men interested at once to a pretty dry spell of terrible dates and notably terrifying OKC messages and, as a result, spend most of February listening to Fiona Apple and reluctantly eating sensible things like vegetables and homemade salads while pretending that they taste like cheese products (unsuccessfully).
Don’t worry readers, I’d be regaling you with some of these sad tales, starting this week with the story of a lovely gentleman I went out with a few times who ENDED UP HAVING A GIRLFRIEND. YUP.
And, judging by this gem of a message I received the other day, I could continue the trend of being the third in people’s relationships if I wanted:
Yes, being married is an issue for me. I understand it’s not an issue for everyone, and that the internet can be a convenient and effective place to find someone with whom you can cheat on your partner. Or, maybe this guy is in an open relationship, in which case, more power to him!
But, as I clearly state in my profile, I am looking for single, straight men. So, on top of being married, this guy either cannot read or just doesn’t care.
But that’s ok. I’ll pass for now, at least until I am out of salad and Fiona Apple tracks. I’ve had enough of attached men for awhile.
G was a very handsome older guy who I met on OKC. So handsome, in fact, that my friends and I nicknamed him “the Cloon” because he looked like a poor man’s George Clooney. And let’s be real:
YUM.
There is really no such thing as a poor man’s George Clooney. Because anyone who can be compared to George Clooney is still a pretty handsome, albeit aged, piece of man meat. Other promising things about G included his professions (journalist), interests (bartending), and the way he got down to business planning our first date (fun, low key bar equally metro-accessible between his place and mine). Needless to say, as the day of the date approached, I was pumped cautiously excited.
Apparently, G was pretty excited about me too. Because when I got to the bar for our first date, he jumped up, hugged embraced me tightly, and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
This made me IMMEDIATELY uncomfortable. I actually prefer to greet all my dates with a business-like handshake. I am more into post-coital high-fives than cuddling. (In fact, I consider the next morning goodbye high-five a signature move.) Why?Hugs and cuddling are for family, out of town friends, and babies. WHY DO WE HAVE TO WRAP OUR ARMS AROUND PEOPLE WE’VE NEVER MET BEFORE? WHY? (Don’t worry. We’re not going to explore my hatred of intimate touch on this blog. I save that shiz for my shrink. YOU’RE WELCOME).
Despite my urge to turn and RUN from somebody who was showing early warning signs of being a Too Friendly Freddie, I decided to stick it out for a drink. And I was glad I did, because G was very interesting and funny. He was well-traveled and well-read and we had a very spirited debate about where to find the best hamburger in DC.*
*This is a legitimate quest of mine, btw. Think of me as Odysseus, but wearing more clothes and with a healthier fear of the gods. But if you have any burger recs in the DC area, seriously, leave them in the comments so I can come home before my wife gets tired of weaving and is bamboozled into marrying a Porci. (And, if you not only understand this nerdy metaphor but are also laughing at it, we MAY be soul mates.)
Anyway, all was going well, until…
G GOT UP OUT OF HIS SEAT AND ANNOUNCED: “You are so funny and cute, I have to kiss you right here.”
And before I could protest, he had run around to my side of the bar table, and grabbed my face and KISSED ME. IN THE BAR. ON A MONDAY. AT 10 PM. Less than an hour into our first date. I could literally feel the eyes of the four graduate students at the bar staring at us and my face burned with shame.
Because if there is one thing I hate more than hugs from acquaintances, it’s FULL ON PDA. Making out in a bar/restaurant ranks high on my list of “sins thou shalt not commit in public”, right below those couples who sit on the same side of a table (AHEM, S). Moreover, this was not some neighborhood dive turned Saturday night dance club where you’re supposed to make out with another 20-something at 1 a.m. while Ellie Goulding plays in the background and your friends first pump around you and pretend not to notice. This was a nice bar, half-filled with a mix of business people and students and other couples (who I will hopefully never ever see again).
Honestly, friends, after he pulled that move, I stressed myself out so much (remember Anxiety Girl? She got on her craziest tights and took over my body) that I cannot remember the rest of the date at all. At the end of the date, G asked if he could take me to his favorite burger place the following weekend. I mumbled, “Let me see if I’m free,” and fled for a train back to my apartment.
But, after some deliberation and consultation (as is customary the day after a date),people convinced me I decided it would be silly to write a guy off for something as minor as PDA, especially since there was no way for him to know I hated it so much. Plus, he agreed to give me a delicious burger!
I am sad but not surprised to report that the burger was by far the best thing that I got out of G. After a couple of dates, I decided that G was not for me and sent him back into the universe to work his charms on another woman who would perhaps be more appreciative. So, watch out ladies. This could be you:
Damn. George. Damn.
First date rating: 4/10. As you can imagine, I docked 5 points for the kiss. If only G waited to kiss me till after we left the bar it would have been a 9.
Lesson learned: Protect your mouth at all times. You never know when someone will plant one on you. (Real lesson learned: TRY not to write people off for little things. This is still a lesson in progress for me, but I am working on it readers, promise!)
First of all, if you ever have the opportunity, go to Iceland. Seriously, do it. If you don’t find it to be stunningly beautiful, you are dead inside.
Second of all, I leave the country for 11 days, and all sorts of crazy, awesome shit goes down at home. We won an award! We gained 7 new twitter followers! I suddenly became desirable again on OKC and HAW after a drought and months of this:
I received multiple messages on OKC containing 1 or more complete sentences! 5 guys were interested upon viewing one of my date ideas on HAW and messaged me! Match continued to serve no purpose other than to steal my money and send me e-mails suggesting ways it could steal more of my money! Ok, that last one isn’t actually awesome, but it was oddly comforting – it was proof I wasn’t in some alternate universe. I took all of these positive developments as proof that traveling is the greatest and I should do it even more often than I already do.
But back to my dating developments… I was getting my groove back!
Since I had limited access to wi-fi while away, I was able to respond to messages occasionally. This is where things went a little off track with some of the promising gentlemen. Let’s start with HAW.
First, a crash-course in How About We for those who are unfamiliar with it. Profiles are short and sweet – some demographic info and quick responses to specific prompts (e.g. a story you should remind me to tell you on our first date, I secretly want to be). Then, you post date ideas.
Users peruse the date ideas and if they see one they like, they open up the date and have two choices: “Message Him/Her” or “I’m Intrigued.”
“Message Him” is pretty obvious – it opens up a blank message and you type out your most charming, witty message and hope for the best. Clicking “I’m Intrigued” sends the other user a generic message that says “I saw your Publick House date and I’m intrigued.” It’s the equivalent of liking someone on OKC or winking at someone on Match. The lazy approach to letting someone know you’re interested, and/or the shy person’s way of reaching out.
So, one of my proposed date ideas involves night skiing locally. I got a personalized message from M who ultimately told me to let him know when I was home and we’d set up a ski date. Great right? Well I returned, sent him a message, and got no response in that thread. Rather, he sent me a separate, independent “I’m Intrigued” message 16 minutes later. I don’t know what to do with that. I know you’re intrigued. We already established that. In fact, we already established that we would make plans to go skiing. So why are you ignoring my attempt to actually make said plans, whilst simultaneously sending me messages coyly telling me you’re intrigued BY THE VERY DATE WE ALREADY SET UP?!
That was Wednesday afternoon. I still haven’t figured out what to do about M.
Another guy responded to the same skiing date idea. This guy simply clicked “I’m intrigued.” I checked out his profile, and though he looked vaguely familiar, I brushed it off and responded.
Side note: I’m obsessed with that gif. I laugh hysterically every time I see it. Ok, back to the regularly scheduled programming.
Setting aside the fact that he called me hun (which – DON’T), he starts off with a nonsensical response. What do you mean “what?” You fucking messaged me. It’s literally 2 messages up in the thread. What is confusing about my response? And when I don’t respond in a timely fashion according to his standards (3 hours, 46 minutes, and NOT A MINUTE MORE), he accuses me of bothering him. Again, you messaged me buddy. It was then, looking at his smiling profile pic next to that terrifyingly aggressive message, that it clicked. He WAS familiar. He’s nylon guy. Shudder.
Over on OKC, I exchanged a few messages with R, who pretty quickly asked if I’d like to make plans when I returned. My kinda guy! I said I would love to. I got back late Tuesday night. Wednesday morning he contacted me to see if I had made it home safely. Very sweet. Then he dropped this bomb on me:
I don’t even know where to start with that. For the sake of not being a total asshole on the internet, I’ll simply say that I did not find that poem charming or sweet.
Against my better judgment, when R asked for my number I gave it to him and continued to entertain the idea of going on a date with him.
That last comment is teetering on the brink of needy. Throwing an lol at the end doesn’t make it less needy. And that frowning winky face – what the fuck is that even supposed to convey?
I forge on though, despite the warning bells going off in my head.
STOP WITH THE VALENTINE’S THING. It’s so desperate sounding. At this point, mid afternoon on Wednesday, I feign a meeting and tell him I’ll talk to him later.
Thursday morning I wake up feeling refreshed after a good, long night’s sleep, see CC for the first time since returning and get a big smile from him, and get into work to a desk completely empty of a particular case. I’m feeling fantastic. So I decide to give R another chance.
Umm? Say what? Tuesday was your suggestion. But ok.
A little while later, he gets back to me.
This was completely befuddling to me. I mean, firstly, I had told him I was available Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. So what made him think I was available mid-afternoon? Not to mention that he’s aware that I’m a lawyer – which is pretty typically a Monday through Friday 9-5 job. Whilst still processing the above, he follows up with a picture of himself and this:
Even if you are joking (I presume that’s what Jc means), coupled with some of the other shit you’ve said (::cough:: valentine’s day ::cough::), I’m getting the impression that you’re extremely needy. And I don’t do needy. A) I don’t have the patience for it. B) If you’re that needy yourself, how are you ever going to field my 11:34 p.m. phone calls that I’ve got a piercing, radiating pain in my left mid-thigh and remember when I fell on my left knee a few weeks ago – IS THIS A BLOOD CLOT ON THE MOVE? AM I ABOUT TO DIE IN A SNOW AND ICE COVERED MBTA PARKING LOT IN SUBURBAN MASSACHUSETTS? Because, shit like that happens frequently when you’re a part of my life. That is a verbatim transcription of the shrill phone call my father received last night. And that saint of a man (along with my 3 EMT friends who also frequently field my hypochondriac freak outs) needs a break dude.
But I’m still feeling high on the freedom from that case and the 3 Kinder bars I ate at lunch (God bless you and your delicious chocolate confections Europe), so I keep going with the Poet.
I realize at this point that not only did he think we were planning a weekday, mid-afternoon date, but he also thought this date was happening in Wrentham. Despite the fact that we had established we would both be in Boston on Tuesday. His complete lack of ability to grasp time and location based on previous discussions snaps me out of my sugar high. This guy is not going to work out. Just to be sure, I ask:
Yup – this guy needs to go. Between the poem and the valentines day thing and his incompetence, I can’t. I was going to need to let R go. Tomorrow. I’m a procrastinator at heart.
This morning, I was all set to say goodbye to R and let this outrageously long post fly. But before I could click Publish, R wanted to know why I had changed my mind:
Yeah – I definitely made the right choice.
Oh, and just for good measure, I was propositioned late last night on the orange line after grabbing a couple drinks with a friend after work. By a guy who I presume is a low level drug dealer or pimp based on the enormous ball of wadded up cash he pulled out of his jacket pocket.
Ever wondered what the worst of humanity looks like and sounds like? Or where they are hanging out? Well folks, if you want an answer to that question, just go ahead and create a fake online dating profile.
Many months ago, a commenter altered me to this original piece, which demonstrates, in SCARY detail, just how far some individuals COUGHmenCOUGH will go to try to score with a somewhat attractive living, breathing person.
Now, if you have ever read this blog before, you are probably acquainted with my dear friend and alter ego, Tacosdelish. And if you’re new, welcome! I strongly advise you read this Introduction toTacos post partially for your amusement and partially for your safety, but in the meanwhile, let me summarize: Tacosdelish is my second, fake online dating profile where I take on the personality of a gaseous, gluttonous Chechen with an extra thumb. A few months back, OKC nudged Tacos incessantly to add a photo, so my friend and I googled, “mediocre looking girl” and slapped a blurry head shot from a random catalog up there (I am confident the model in this picture is either 20 years older by now or so significantly airbrushed she won’t recognize herself).
The new, cute picture resulted in the number of messages Tacos received SKYROCKETING through the roof. She also receives some unsavory chats, usually from “funcouple232” soliciting her immediate availability for a weird combination of a threesome and a poetry reading.
Usually, I immediately press ignore when I get chat requests on Tacos. But, thanks to the lack of new Sunday night programming on my favorite networks yesterday, (THANKS GRAMMYS! NO ONE WATCHES YOU, BTW!), I was performing a lackluster search on Tacos when a chat box from a fine young fella in the MD suburbs popped up, and I decided to engage with him a bit. And boy, am I glad I did:
First of all, let’s thank Bachelor #1 here for cutting to the chase. Even though he claimed to be a college student in his profile, he wasn’t scared off by Tacos’s information, which indicates that she’s 38 years old. I actually meant to type, “I think I’m friends with your mom,” which would have been scarier and funnier. However, this guy was not concerned with my wit. He was also not concerned with the fact that Tacos’s proclivity for guns matched that of a mass murderer. What would it take to scare this guy? I tried a different tactic:
That’s right. I was going to turn him off by misspelling things. Oh, and mentioning devil worship. And mentioning I was a DIY plastic surgeon. Oh, and mentioning I stole from my employer. But still, he did not relent. When he asked why I joined OKC, I replied:
Identity theft is real folks. Just ask these guys:
But yet, he replied:
CHECK MATE, SIR. I f you were trying to beat Tacos at her own game by being perverse, offensive, and just plain random, you have WON . I tip my hat to you!
Upon receiving this response from him, I promptly signed out of Tacos’s chat, fully disgusted by the whole exchange. (I also didn’t know which answer would be in the negative, yes or titties? They both sounded affirmative to me.)
I mean, I cannot lie, I did get a full seven minutes of LOL-ing out of this, and if you did too readers, we may make chats with Tacos a regular section on the blog.
And you thought this winter would be cold and boring…
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:
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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:
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)!
You know that feeling when you sign into OKC on a Sunday night (after a weekend of “swearing off online dating”) and see that you have 15 new messages? In the early days I called that feeling “hope,” because I believed that each of these messages would be from a nice, normal, cute guy who could potentially be my husband or at the very least, my jump-off.
However, after about one month I learned the cruel truth about the message to viable date ratio. Of the 15 messages you get each weekend, three will be from murders who aren’t even trying to hide the fact they are trying to murder you. Six will be some version of “hi hwo are u sexy grl? Free 2nit?”. Three will be from guys whose usernames are some combination of the words “dragon” and “daddy.” Three messages will be normal, and if you’re lucky, one will be from someone who you *might* be attracted to and have something in common with.
I’ve also learned that, apparently, men also message women on OKC for reasons other than wanting a date or even a lil something something. For example, I got a very promising message from a guy that read:
What a great intro message! Personalized (I love the League/TV), to the point, and somewhat funny! I took a look at this guy’s profile so I could craft a witty reply. It was pretty basic, except for this detail:
Now, those who know me know I love giving advice, even when I know NOTHING about the topic. So, I replied to him:
(I realize now I made a grammatical error, which I would totally judge someone for #languagesnob, so I apologize to the readers who caught that and are shaking their heads at my sloppiness and/or hypocrisy.)
But preposition mix-ups didn’t seem to bother this guy (probably because he was overcome with my wit and beauty). He responded:
Where I come from, we would officially call this bantering. And, we all know that bantering —> -love —> marriage —> babies —> co-writing our own sitcom about being a modern day couple balancing love, family, and work. (Preferably staring either Tina, Amy, or Mindy, of course). Eager to get started writing the pilot episode, I replied:
While I was busy congratulating myself on my candid, hilarious, honest response, I got the following reply:
Huh? That’s it? No, “can I have your number?” No, “would you like to grab a drink sometime?” Not even a follow-up question, like “what do you do when you’re not watching Law and Order?” NADA. NOTHING.
I understand I could have continued the conversation myself if I was DYING to go out with this guy. But I just got the sense he was more interested in getting career advice from a random stranger than actually asking me out. YOU’RE WELCOME, M, FOR THE ADVICE. Please know that if I ever hear about your successful career on the news I am going to stand at your doorstep trying to take some money/credit from you, all the while shouting, “We want pre-nup” or something equally insane.
Meanwhile, everyone else can just call me the Sheryl Sandberg of OkCupid, since apparently my purpose here is to give career advice. Lean. In.
I’ve been doing this online dating thing for about a year now. Technically, I set up my OKC profile during Hurricane Sandy, but then I promptly ignored said profile for over a month. So we’ll call it a year. I’ve tested out a variety of sites, went on dates, met some pretty cool people (and some not cool ones), and tried new things/places. But no one has made it past a second date yet. I haven’t even been on a first date since I moved to the ‘burbs back in August. I’m batting .000 on responses to messages I send lately. I was starting to feel like this:
And the messages I do receive are either worthless or from older men outfitted in collared shirts and sweater vests standing in front of Lifetouch type backgrounds prompting this uplifting message to S:
I respect her open judgment. Clearly I was on a downward spiral. Speaking of watching crying movies, I’ve been doing that a lot lately while moping at home and occasionally stopping at the liquor store on my way home. I have a small arsenal of “crying movies,” depending on what kind of crying I want to do. Love wins in the end: Breakfast at Tiffany’s or An Affair to Remember. The world is a disappointing place and life and love are hopeless because everyone just dies anyway so what’s the point?: Legends of the Fall or American History X. Reminder that everyday, ordinary life is full of awesome things too: Up! or A Cool Dry Place. General cry for no discernible reason: Apollo 13. It’s embarrassing how much use those DVDs are getting.
I took a break from my 2 month pity party this past weekend to do one of my favorite things: binge watch off-air, complete tv series on Netflix. It was the perfect weekend for that activity – a snowstorm was headed our way Saturday into Sunday. I made a huge mug of hot chocolate and started in on Friday Night Lights. And that’s when it happened. My epiphany.
The problem isn’t me.
The problem is that I don’t live in the fictional town of Dillon, TX.
Again, I texted S. But before I got a chance to tell her the importance of my weekend activity, she hit the nail on the head:
And then she beat the crap out of the nail:
Everything she said is correct. I only had 1 thing to add. That IS my type, y’all.
Guys – I clearly just need to move to Texas. Or back to upstate New York, where I came from and where that type is plentiful.
Congrats ladies! Your suffering has won you a tote.
Please email your mailing address to stucublog@gmail.com so we can send you some swag. We’re hoping that you’ll rock that shiz so regularly that Suri Holmes Cruise will beg us to create a line of children’s fashion.
And thanks again to all of our wonderful readers who shared their stories with us. And believe me when I say that your stories got us through some cold winter nights.
Speaking of cold winter nights, Momma has been feeling a lot of them recently, after breaking it off with yet another OKC bachelor. And contrary to what you may believe about me, pity parties/mini break ups involve more than whiskey. There may or may not have been some rocking out to this rather immature Avril Lavigne throwback:
Is there anyone out there besides me who DOESN’T hate this song? If so, holler at me, because we may be a match.
So, what happened? It’s really quite absurd, for so many reasons. Right around Halloween, I started messaging with a really cute 25 year old. I’ve always had a thing for younger guys. (No Mrs. Robinson jokes, please. I like to think of myself as more of a “Stacy’s Mom.”)
Besides, W was tall and handsome and had some solid ties to Philadelphia, my home city. While a quick read of W’s answers to OKC questions revealed that he, at most, would turn out to be a mildly intelligent jump off, I figured there was no harm in going on a date with him. At best, it’d be a Tuesday night adventure. And, if it sucked, I’d just bounce after one drink.
But here’s the thing. When we met up, it was so fun. This guy literally met every single one of the criteria that I love in a man, despite the $100 in weekly therapy and 1000 warnings I’ve received from my nearest and dearest.
On our date, W revealed the following gems:
He used to manage a Dominos pizza, but quit when “management was all up in his business.”
He was a liquor distributor who went to work “sometimes.”
He hated books because they told him “what to think” and “what to do.”
But before you shake your head and tell me just how many red flags you have already found JUST BY READING THIS BLOG POST, bear with me. W made me laugh. And, in a city full of guys who take themselves wayy too seriously, he was just such a refreshing change from what I encounter on a daily basis. And I love pizza. And liquor. So we have that in common. And did I mention I am a MESS for tall slackers wearing hoodies?
So after talking for 4 hours and closing down to the bar, we went back to my place. And if I provided you with the full details I’d have to charge you 99 cents per minute. And W revealed one more detail to me:
He was a recovering heroin addict.
I’m sorry, what? I must have heard wrong. Heron addict? Were you addicted to taking pictures of these water-dwelling birds?
No, I heard properly. Heroin. The shiz that the Barksdale gang is selling on the Wire.
WMDs! Pandemic!
Now, listen. I know I sound like Yuppie McPriveledged, and while in some ways I am, in many ways I am not. I really do think everyone has a past and makes mistakes and other people’s drug use is not something I get that bent out of shape about. The heroin part was not upsetting me nearly as much as the addict part. As you may have gleaned from my previous posts, I tend to fall for addicts. In fact, I have a pretty deep history with one. And I am not gonna get all Jerry Spring/Montell Williams Special on you, but let me just say that, having a relationship with an addict is the most fun/most stressful/most ultimately consuming thing that can happen to a person. So at that moment, even though I was 100% charmed by W, I knew that I could never, ever really date him.
But yet, when he texted me the next day and said he wanted to see me again, I said yes. And we had a great time. And so I said yes again. And again. And before I knew it, I was hooked. Some might say, ADDICTED. Bah Dum Ching–even at my lowest points, friends, I never pass up an opportunity for a cheap joke.
I knew one day it would have to end, but I convinced myself that day would be sometime next week, or after the next time we hung out. I figured, why ruin a fun thing? But the more we hung out, the more signs I started to see that the time was near. One thing that did bother me about him was that he was super flaky. I mean, he could not make plans for anything more than three hours in advance.
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
And this bothered me. Why?
1) Because I’m a busy woman! I’m not just sitting around my parents’ house, waiting for some guy to pick me up and take me to the commuter rail parking lot for some heavy petting # highschool #beentheredonethat
2) Because I thought it meant that he was just not that into me. I know that his inability to make plans could have also been explained by the fact that he was a 25 year old, barely-employed drug addict. However, I took this inability personally and thought that his flakiness was just a way of dicking me around. And, the more attached to him I became, the more the possibility that he was just not that into me bummed me out.
So the next time he reached out to me, I decided to end it.* And, while it sucked to momentarily disappoint him, and to voluntary turn down someone whose ahem, company, I was really enjoying, I am glad I ended it.
* What actually happened is I consulted no less than four colleagues, three friends over Facetime, my therapist, my sister, and two relationship blogs, and they all implored to me stop seeing him, and finally I listened.
Anyway, after a week, I recovered from the moping and was prepared to go on with my life. And there I was, a few mornings ago, checking Tacosdelish’s messages. (This is not something I do often, because, she seriously receives 20 messages per day, 15 of which are sexual innuendos mentioning food, butts, or farts.) But when I looked in her inbox, what did I see but a message from W!!!!!
Upon reading this, I did what anyone would do in my situation. I freaked out, ceased work, started to hyperventilate, and g-chatted S an SOS message and claimed that W was “in love with Tacosdelish”. To which she calmly responded:
S:
:
S was right. This message was benign, and even if it wasn’t, who cares? It actually makes for some unbelievable blog material and a funny ending to a somewhat depressing tale. So thank you W, for that! I hope you and Tacosdelish are very happy together. And I hope you bring a Chechen dictionary to your first date.
Stupid Cupid 
