Dating Dissonance

So I've been doing the eharmony thing for a few months now. I've had two dates (with the same guy) result so far. The guy was niceish, but so blah. He had no opinions on liking things and was just so blah. He was also, and I KNOW this is unkind of me, very unfortunate looking. I really want to believe that people become more attractive when they have great personalities and maybe that was the problem - he didn't have a sparkling personality.

I'm trying to be as open minded as possible while reviewing my matches and all that jazz, but the reality is that for the most part guys are who they are on the dating sites. If they are a conservative guy who indicate they are a conservative guy, there's no real reason for me to think otherwise and since I am not a conservative girl this match won't work. Giving him the 'benefit of the doubt' isn't going to work. And, as always, I'd rather be alone than miserable with someone. (Or alone with someone). I think I tend to respond, especially if they contacted me first, because I'm so excited someone - SOMEONE - is interested in me. I guess I get worried that might be the only one. Because the way things have been going, that MIGHT have been the only one. I've been alone a very long time. I frequently wonder if I will even be able to maintain a long term relationship, especially as I spend more time alone and dig deeper into my own ways of doing things.

Adventures in online dating

I've rejoined an online dating site. I'm pretty upfront with who I am I think. I have self identified as liberal. I have indicated I want kids. So one guy who starts communication with me is a self-identified conservative. When one of the questions I used said something like "tell me about your political beliefs." his response was "conservative." What does that even mean? I mean besides conservative. Plus once we got to the "open communication" stage all he said was I want to know more about you text me. So not happening dude. I'd consider emailing but texting involves me giving you a phone number. No, just no.

Another indicates he "might want kids" but in our email communications indicates that ship has sailed. So why bother. I very clearly say I do want kids. I DO want kids. So I replied with I can't have kids, but I do intend to adopt some someday. We'll see how that goes. Probably nowhere fast.

There's a 3rd who looks vaguely like a serial killer. Like the serial killers on TV not like Jeffrey Dahmer or anything. There's an actor he reminds me of but I can't think of the show he's on. He's an accountant.

I also don't understand those that post that they don't have kids in one section but then talk about their multiple children in another. Are they just stupid or did the change in the site design affect their answers. That one I don't get.

Online dating

So in an attempt to get something interesting or good or whatever in my life I've started online dating again. This is nerve wracking on a number of levels.  I don't think I translate well online. I've been trying to be more proactive than I usually am. Usually I post a profile and wait to see if anyone expresses any interest in me. They don't. Or sometimes super weirdos in other states do but that's really worse.  So this time I'm taking the initiative and contacting guys whose profiles I have thoroughly explored. I'm amazed at the number of guys who believe that both creationism and evolution should be taught in school.  I try to console myself with maybe they believe that since we're in Texas creationism is taught in school so evolution should be too, but I'm pretty sure that's not the belief.  That seems to be one of the lightning rod questions for me. I do like the fact that okcupid allows you to answer a lot of different types of questions (both publicly and privately) and use that to help match you up with someone. Although he's geographically less desirable, I've been texting with a guy who I am 99% compatible with according to their algorithms. I'll be meeting him on Friday night. We'll see.

Fait Accompli!

Remember earlier in the summer when I said I wanted to clean out my storage unit?  I did it.  Go me. Go me.  Go go go me.  I cleaned out 8 boxes into 3 trash bags and 3 boxes for charity and 1 tote to go back into the storage.  Not too shabby.

My car is in the shop this week.  Luckily the person who hit me hit the part that already had a scrape so that's getting fixed by default.  Yay!

I have a 2nd date with the minotaur this weekend.  Dating.  Yay! (Well that may be a stretch.  We'll see how it goes.)

I'm going to a volunteering meet up next Saturday.  If things don't pan out with the minotaur (and I really don't think they will... I'm not that interested), maybe I'll meet a new one on Saturday... one who knows how to use tools and volunteers. :P  Yay!

My sister and her kid came to visit last weekend.  Yay!  I'm sure they'll come again.

First Dates are Awkward

I went on a first date today. I haven't been on a date in awhile. I wasn't even actually sure it was a date initially since I kind of think I was the one who did the asking. We met via OK Cupid, which I never really knew was a dating site, I thought it was just a dumb (albiet totally silly) quiz site. Lyday turned me on to the site. It's free and honestly, you get what you pay for with them. I found more poly couples looking for a 3rd or 4th than I have ever seen. And it didn't stop once I moved to the Bible belt!

Anyway, we'd been emailing back and forth for about a month and a half. I wasn't sure if he was really interested. He'd email like 2 or 3 sentences and I think at least once I think he asked me the same thing he had previously asked. I started to not respond since I figured he wasn't really that interested and yet he'd email again.

So we met today at Fuddruckers which is not the restaurant I thought it was, but it was fine. We talked a lot and then went to get snow cones. He's a nice guy. It was a fine time. There's not a lot to say about that.

Go speed dater you're burnin' up the quarter mile...

Hee.

So I went speed dating with Lyday and her friend June yesterday evening. I was totally regretting it in the afternoon and contemplated backing out of it. I may still be regretting it but it has only been since last night that we all finished. (I just mean if nobody wants me and everybody hates me and maybe I should go eat worms fashion.) :)

It was fun in a weird way. (And in a 2 drinks in way but this is a straight bar so they don't pour as well as my gay bars used to) There were 9 guys and 10 girls. The host decided to sit in but he just chatted about nothing and wasn't actually an option (plus I think he might have been gay and by think I mean pretty sure). There were three Aussies, two of whom worked on the same boat and were H-O-T. Seriously one was so hmm... what's the word... engaging. He held amazing eye contact and it really seemed like you were the only person in the room at that time. All three of us loved him. The other one just seemed like he'd be really fun. ;) There were about 3 or 4 microsofties and 1 amazonian. Weirdly 2 of the microsofties were from Toronto but they didn't know each other. (I only think that's weird because they both currently worked at Microsoft and both had been there about 14 months and both were from Toronto so it almost sounded like Microsoft had acquired a business and then moved people here.)

So now I'm waiting. I said yes to a whopping 7 out of 9. None of them were too bad. (totally unlike Catholic speed dating). I might have a bit of self-esteem trouble if NOBODY says yes to me because seriously... 7 out of 9. But they were all mostly normal guys. None were overly physically hideous. It was fine. I survived. However if none say yes to me I'm never doing it again, just so you know. :)

Moving

Whenever I start to think about moving away from Seattle, I need to go down to the bakery in Maple Valley and be reminded I'll never find a place that awesome anywhere else. I spent a scandalous amount of money there this morning but... everything is oh so awesome. I've already eaten two donuts. TWO!

I've received a response to a personal ad I have on one for fatchicks. I haven't written back because I don't know what to say. :) He said I was beautiful. Do I say he's attractive back? He isn't unattractive. Do I ask questions? He didn't ask any questions of me. Why don't I know how to do this anymore? (Oh because I've had personals online before and nobody ever responds to them.)

I may not be going camping next weekend. I am fine with going caming in the cold. I am not fine with camping in either the rain or the wind. According to weather.com, there will be mucho raino on Sat, Sun and Mon. Camping in the rain is miserable. We'll check it out again closer to the weekend. Since it is winter, you can't make reservations anyway so it wouldn't be a big deal if we decided not to go. I tested out my little propane heater and my lantern. Both work so that's nice.

When I got back from Maple Valley at about 10:05 there was a guy waiting for the Flexcar. He said he was just about to call. I have the car until 10:30, I replied. No, says he, I have it at 10:00. Well he was wrong. As I was walking away I noticed he kept trying to unlock the door with his key card, which of course didn't work because his reservation was 10:30.

Clearly I have SOME standards. :)

Subtitled: Maybe Michelle was right. (Who am I kidding? Maybe??)

I've said that I am pretty open minded towards guys. I've even joked that they have to be breathing and heterosexual and that's all I'm looking for. Monday night I was given the chance to put my money where my mouth is. As Lyday and I were leaving a restaurant to the parking lot, two guys walked up to us and asked if we had any cigarettes. Neither of us smoke so we said no. Then one of them looks at us and looks at his friend and he says "Hey, there's two of us and there's two of you" and kind of gives that head jerk. He says "We've got the alcohol, you've got the transportation, where's the party?" Lyday and I look at each other and I respond with Fred Meyer (which is where we were headed) and she replies with "Not in my pants, thank you." And we both head to the car laughing. These men were older and drunk and quite possibly regularly so. So Michelle was right in that improving ones appearance improves ones odds of picking up a guy. :) She hadn't specified what kind of guy, just that it improves the odds. :D

A cox overdose

I went to help out V with his rugby stuff last night. First we were at RPlace where I was giving out packets to the various team members. That was fun and easy and I had a good time with it.



Then he mentioned he may need some help at coat check at the Cuff. I agreed to go with him to that for a little while. The Cuff has never been my favorite gay bar. In fact, I avoid it because I'm usually uncomfortable there. Unlike the other gay bars, this one rarely has women in it. I always feel like I stick out like a sore thumb there. I discovered last night the other reason I don't like it. They have gay p0nr on all the tv screens. AND right where I was sitting doing my coatcheck I was surrounded by it. If I looked a little to the left there it was. If I looked a little to my right there it was. If I stared straight ahead I could see the reflection of one in the picture in front of me. It was far more than I ever needed to see. It was fun doing the coat check though. I laughed and chatted with gay boys. I did end up staying much much later than I had intended. I had originally intended to not stay as late as I had but I ended up staying until 2:00 AM. I think working the coat check raised over $150 for the rugby club so that was good.

Shoulda woulda coulda

I walked past a condo building (is that right or am I being redundent?) this morning and noticed the flyer posted for one for sale. $268,000 for 1 bedroom and 687 square feet. Had I bought in that building when I first thought about it a couple of years ago, I could've bought one for $189k and roughly the same size. Sigh. At this rate, I'll move to someplace cheaper. :)

Also I'm seriously now regretting the decision to rejoin eharmony. If I didn't have friends who had success with it I wouldn't have done it. I was just saying to Lyday last night that I felt like I had been baited and switched. While I was not a member I was getting tons of matches blah blah blah. Now that I've joined I get very few. So then this morning I was semi-excited that I had 5 new matches. By the time I logged in, 4 had already closed. Le sigh. I know it has only been a week and I've paid for 3 months by gum but still.

Summer Project

So I have broken down and paid eharmony. I've signed up for 3 months. I'm jumping into this whole heartedly. I have sent the first communications to like 15 guys. We'll see what happens. I have a couple of pictures posted so they can see what they're getting. :) One guy was one who did the first communication and has already responded to my questions. We'll see how it goes. Big R and Lyday have both found men online. I have faith. (Cuz you got to have faith.... got to have faaaiith... :P )

Here's a sign...

I was recently speaking to my friend lyday and she surprised me by telling me that she doesn't believe things are coincidences. She believes that coincidences are really fate telling you to do something or not do something. I don't buy that. As an athiest believing in "fate" telling me to do something is as odd as me believing in underwear gnomes who hide my panties. (Oh well... maybe??) So with that thought fresh in my head I was logged into eharmony this morning (I haven't paid yet. I'm waiting to see if anyone wants to communicate with me first. :) ) when what should come on TV? A commercial for eharmony. Huh. If I were to by lyday's theory then I should subscribe, right? Except that I didn't. I had a lot of other stuff to do so tonight when I got home from hanging out with Stephen, I thought oh, if I'm going to resubscribe, I have to do it by midnight to get the special rate. I kind of wanted to log in and see if one of the guys that looked interesting maybe thought I did. I only thought he looked interesting because he talked about volunteering. Y'all know that's part of my dream man, right? Someone I can volunteer with. Anyway, at about 5 til midnight, I log onto the internet. I go to my yahoo to get the link so that I get the special deal. Time is ticking ticking ticking... finally at 12:01 AM I manage to get the email and the window open to sign up for the special deal. Of course it was gone. I suppose that's as good a sign as any. :)

Yellow Card of Shame

I tried to donate blood again today. Today was worse than any time so far in the past. Only 33%. Sad. My blood droplet in the blue water didn't even sink a tiny bit. It was like throwing an inflatable boat into a pool. Not a millimeter. Back on the multivitamin for me.

I was thinking of rejoining eharmony. They're constantly inundating me with deals emails. Why not, right? What's 60 bucks amongst friends? So tonight I logged back in and set up to get new matches emailed to me. First I have to say that it took 3 tries for me to log in. Lydy believed that was a sign. (She's a big believer in signs and fate which surprised me. As you know, being an athiest, I do not believe in signs and fate and all that.) Secondly, it wouldn't let me upload new pictures. It kept claiming that my pics were either not jpgs (which they were) or more than 5MB (which they weren't.) So finally, the system could find 6 people that matched my personality profile. That's 10 bucks a person (ok there might be more out there matching later on.). I don't know if it is worth THAT.

This does require some thought, though. Online dating isn't working. I only know gay men (who only seem to know gay men) or Stephen. Volunteering isn't panning out in this department. Where else does one go? (Please don't say bars because let's be mostly honest here... (and I mean this not as a slam about me) fat chicks don't do well in bars. Too much competition from the size 0 hankie wearing chicks. Also, the less I drink, the less likely I am to want to hang out with people who drink.)

Inappropriate!

I was walking past the former work crush as he entered the bathroom. For a brief fleeting moment I wondered what he would do if I followed him in there and jumped him. And then I laughed my ass off at the thought.

Also, the bug guy came into the main office while I was down there and looked for ants and did a spraying thing. After he left, my coworker and I looked at each other and both our eyebrows shot up at the same time as we were both awe inspired over how hot he was. Woah. We then joked about how we may have ants more often. :) He was yummy!

Pornstache!

I've been smiled at 3 times by people on my alternative site. The similar factor on all 3... the presence of a pornstache. Not that I ever think mustaches are attractive, but all 3 seem to have an especially smarmy quality about them. They are definitely of the R0n Jeremie (total misspelling I know) school of 'stache. Vastly icky. Oh and one of the 3 lives in Kentucky. What the hell is he even thinking?

Alternatives...

Michelle and I were discussing today alternate ways of meeting men for Joanne. (Ok, I think we actually talked about this yesterday but still...) She had been on the Freakonomics blog and it was mentioned that there are all sorts of niche dating websites. The blog was actually highlighting a farmer's dating site so they can meet a wife and then create farmer's daughters. One of the other sites the blog listed isn't actually a real site but it was basically for bigger gals. I googled plus sized singles sites to see what could appear and here's where my problem with niche sites starts. I like the idea of using a site like that becuase really it is easier to go that route than to go on a site like match.com where all the people (including the over 300 lb men) want "Slender or toned or athletic" chicks. The part that disturbs me, though, is how fetishized it can all be. And that disturbs me. One site was for "...and their Admirers FA's - (Fat Admirers) with thousands of personal ads currently listed here on our website." Something about that phrase just creeps me out. On another in a gentleman's intro he says "likes tattoos /piercings rockbilly gothic kinky fetish BBW WOMEN" which yes, clearly he's not someone I'd be into but the whole fetish concept just bugs the crap out of me. Is it a fetish if a guy wants a skinny chick? Or if he prefers an athletic chick? Or if he likes them curvy like J-lo? If he prefers large ta-tas... or smaller ta-tas? (I'm assuming y'all have answered rhetorically no to all of those) ... so why is liking a big chick a fetish? I think ultimately, even though I don't necessarily agree, the word fetish has an implied bias of 'not normal.' And that bugs me a lot.

So ultimately I'm going to try one of the alternate sites and see what happens. Can't hurt, right? (You know unless I can't even find a guy on a site that is supposed to be for gals like me...)

I give up

Last night, well okay technically this morning, I was all set to write a rambling drunken post about boys and how I really and truly am over lusting after and crushing on the former wc. I fell asleep instead. So unfortunately for you you won't get the drunken maudlin rambling; you'll just get sober maudlin rambling. : ) You also miss out on my musing about whether or not I'm going to hell for using a juice box as a mixer with rum. It is pretty good... Capri Sun Tropical Punch and Mango Rum. Although you should probably use less mango rum than I did because when I got to the bottom of the cup, it was mostly rum.

I know I said it before but thanks to my own delusions and those delusions of my friends I've still managed to convince myself he's interested. But now I'm really done. Last week he was in my office (he still visits daily despite the fact that his office has moved) and we were talking about his band and he had two shows coming up. He said I should go to one. We discussed the relative virtues of the two shows and I said I'd go on Friday. I go. BY MY SELF! So I go and I see him with his band and a bunch of their friends. That's just too much for little ol' me. I can't go up to that entire group. I think that's worse than when men say they don't want to go up to a gaggle of girls. So I position myself in several spots where I think I must be in his line of sight and hang out and drink. The bar had a type of cider in the bottle that I can drink. Finally the 2nd band ended (and they were pretty good) and it was time for his band to go on. They do their show, and they're really good. They were the last band to play. So after they were done I was sitting on a chair in the front and after he broke down all his gear he came over and we talked. For like 5 minutes and then he went to get his car to leave. I helped him load his drum stuff up and he left. What's the point? Honestly.

The other thing I learned... Pioneer Square is freaking FAR from my apartment. It is just over a mile, but going TO the bar was easy since it was all downhill. Coming back from the bar... A whole other story. And it was 1:30 in the morning. It is nice, though, that I can walk home at 1:30 in the morning from a bar and have no problems. :)