Friday, October 30, 2009

Would you submit a paper to your professor without proofreading it first?  Would you send in a report to your manager without first giving it a "once over"?  No? Well, I have a feeling that the majority of men feel differently about sending a woman a message via a dating site.  I'll never understand this.

Listen guys, your first email MAKES OR BREAKS YOU.  I can't shout this enough.  I don't care what your profile says or how many shirtless pictures you take.  If you can't formulate sentences without making a grammatical error in each one, please don't bother to send any.  I don't know about you, but I can't just skip over the mistakes.  I have to stop and correct them in my head.  Call me crazy, nuts, OCD, or extremely picky but it's how I roll.  No one is perfect. We're all going to make spelling mistakes or use the incorrect form of 'your' from time to time, but it really shouldn't be in every sentence - especially if you're trying to impress someone. 
 
Bottom Line: If the person you're interested in (male/female) is even moderately attractive, he/she will receive several emails from people just like you.  It's in your best interest to put forth some effort to stand out or be lost in a sea of the other sub par emails.  Trust me on this.


Saturday, October 24, 2009

What's the surest sign that you've lived in a town for too long?  You date guys you've had crushes on in high school in your 20s.  "St. Pete" was on my rowing team in high school and was labeled as the "bad boy".  If my memory serves, he got kicked off of the team twice for drinking or some other bad boy-esque thing.  He was a few years older than me and ran into me at a team reunion.  


He was instantly drawn to me - as if he didn't see the other people he hadn't greeted yet.  We talked for a while and I began to notice a few whispers and laughs our way.  I thought nothing of it until one of our mutual friends told me to be careful of him.  He had baggage and was known to be a player.  I shrugged it off, I was seeing someone else after all and wasn't looking for something serious.
 

We went back to my place that night and he shocked me by telling me that he's always had a crush on me and that he was too scared to say anything as I was always "surrounded by guys" - his words, not mine.  I thought back to the late 90s and realized that certain things he said and did would prove him to be correct.  I've never been good at telling when a man is interested, I tend to be naive at times. He left to go back to the west coast (two hours west of me) and we promised to keep in touch.  


When it comes to dating, I have a strict "three strikes and you're out" kind of deal.  Well, after promising to come to see me one weekend and didn't (strike one) and flaked out of another weekend (strike two), he apparently felt really bad and sent me something to "smooth things over".


He sent me a video.  A video of him in tighty-whities, dancing around his room and proclaiming that he liked me and that he feels bad about everything he's done.  When I met him, I guess he had been working out super hard so he was really proud of his body.  I've never had something like that happen to me so obviously I saved the video.  He eventually planned a trip to see me and I kind of forgave him for flaking out two times (forgive, but don't forget!).  


Through the weeks of talking, I found out that he had been still living with his baby momma (although they were "broken up") but absolutely hated her.  He made arrangements to come see me one weekend and stay in a really upscale hotel.  During the weekend, he thought it would be funny to get into his old uni-suit (rowing uniform).  I'll admit it, it was pretty funny to see him squeeze into his old high school clothes.  He insisted that he keep the uni-suit at my place so he would have to come back and see me again.  After the weekend, we continued to talk and everything seemed fine.


Until one night.


He sent me a blackberry message saying "I really need to talk to you.." and I responded "okay, what's up?".  If you're not familiar with bbm, once you send a message you can see when the recipient read the message.  He read it within minutes and never responded.  Never actually means until this day.  He just disappeared.  My thoughts are that he decided to get back with his baby momma and just didn't have the spine to tell me.


I contemplated putting his video on youtube and forwarding it to all of our mutual friends.  In the end, I didn't feel right about showing the video to the entire world via youtube.  However, you better believe I showed my coworkers.  


Moral of the story: Don't make videos of yourself almost nekkid and give them to someone in which you're not really interested.  Lucky for him I'm not a super bitch.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Letting go

After someone lets go in a relationship, why are some of us entangled in the thought of refusing to let go? What's the primal urge in that? Why do some of us fight for something that's already lost? Any comments would be appreciated :)


As would new followers! :)

I met "The twin" on myspace - before myspace got creepy. Or was it ever not creepy? But I digress. He was absolutely gorgeous. He was exactly what I was looking for - typical guy but with a punk/alternative edge.

He suggested we meet at a local bar to get to know each other. He was a few years older than me, had a tattoo on the inside of his arm (hot!), and he had an identical twin who was extremely close to him. The conversation was amazing and he seemed to actually care what I had to say. When we finally left he walked me to my car and gave me a kiss goodnight. Didn't ask me to go home with him, which was refreshing.

At this point, I put him in the "dateable" category and hoped to see him again. He called a few days later and took me to a movie and then back to his place. It was pretty late and I had been drinking a little, so I decided to spend the night at his place. When we woke up, he was acting kind of weird and was in sort of a hurry to get me out of the house because he had "errands" to do. I thought it was strange but I just shrugged it off.

As I'm walking to my car, a girl pulls up to his driveway and gets out. At that moment, it clicked. I had been the other woman unknowingly. I drove away as quickly as possible and deleted his number. Well, a few days pass and a chick messages me on myspace and asks if I was at the twin's house a few days ago. After I told her I was, she told me that they had been dating for 10 months and were supposed to be serious. She said that she confronted him and he said that I was a friend that stayed in the guest bedroom because I had too much to drink. I told her that I wasn't aware of a guest bedroom and that it's probably a good idea to drop him. Girls have to stick together, right?

Well, after she stopped talking to him he started trying to talk to me again. He said she was young, crazy, and that their relationship wasn't serious. I wanted to believe him, but then I remembered what a cheating douche he was. I bowed out of the situation and told her that I was sorry for causing any grief.

The last I heard she tried to get back together with him, couldn't accept what happened with me, and then printed our entire conversation and left it on his table one day. I've seen him (or maybe it was his twin) a few times at local bars. I need to leave this city.

Sharing is caring?

Like most people, I was apprehensive to join the online dating trend. I felt like I was attractive enough to not need to resort to that venue. When I was in college it was super easy to meet people, so I figured I should have no problem meeting people out in the "real world". However, having a career really only limited my social settings to bars where quality people were lacking. My best friend at the time had joined match.com a year earlier and continuously begged me to join. I finally gave in after several doomed attempts using the "old fashioned" way.

Since we were be
st friends on the same site, we frequently shared screen names of the dudes we were planning to date. This insured we would not talk to the same guys and we wouldn't talk to guys that turned out to be losers (according to each other).

Well, apparently I forgot to ask her about a date I had scheduled a few days away. I mentioned his screen name in passing and she froze and bluntly said I can't go out with him. According to his profile, he was great on paper and his pictures didn't hurt my eyes so I was a bit surprised. I asked why not and apparently he had shown up with us downtown one night. I had been a little tipsy when he met her and I whispered to her that he was ugly and that she could do better.

I'm pretty picky when it comes to my dates and I don't like to waste my time. If I said he wasn't attractive after a few drinks it wasn't worth my time, just being honest. So I immediately called him up and explained that since he had gone on a date with my best friend, the date with us was off.

He went bat sh*t crazy. At first he couldn't remember her. Then he said it was only one date. I pulled the "I can't date my friends' dates" card but he didn't want to hear that. After about 20 mins of arguing about it (I should have hung up, I know) and begging me to give him a chance, he hangs up on me. NOTE: He's never met me. Who argues like that with someone they've never met? Not five minutes pass and he sends my friend an email on match.com saying how dare she interfere with his business, etc. I blocked him and haven't heard from him since.

I'm no longer friends with her but I'll give her props for saving me a horrible night.

Mr. Moneybanks

Before meeting Moneybanks, I've never really met anyone that flaunts the amount of money they make every chance they can get. It might be the most unattractive trait I've ever seen.

I was sitting in an airport for hours due to a delayed flight (pretty standard for me) and decided to sit at one of the bars/restaurants and do some work on my laptop. Due to my outgoing nature and friendly personality, many people like to sit down next to me and talk to me. This is usually fine as I'm friendly and like to meet new people. Well, an older guy we'll call moneybanks sits down right next to me. Moneybanks is 37, never married, no kids and lives with a roommate on the coast. I know what you're thinking, red flag! HUGE red flag even. Or is that just me?

Anyways, he goes on to say that he's meeting a "model friend" in Long Island for a weekend getaway in the Hamptons. He was apparently paying to fly her up there and he is so excited, blah blah blah. At this point he's told me how much he makes quite a few times *rolls eyes*. He continues to drone on about how attractive she is and how he can't wait to see her. While he talks, I'm trying to do the polite "I'm working on my laptop, leave me alone" stance but he doesn't get it. Sometime during my attempt to ignore him, he asks me my age. I tell him and then he starts to ask more questions about me and gets closer.

I'm definitely not interested in him at this point but he's so ridiculous I couldn't resist. He went on to tell me he owns several boats and makes tons of money off of selling various things on ebay. As soon as I'm about to leave for the bathroom, my friend arrives (finally!) and sits next to him. I introduce them and leave, thinking that she'll either join in on the fun or tell him to go play in traffic. What I didn't realize is that she's taking the fun route a little too extreme. She gave him my number. I noticed he had a big smile on his face when I got back but I thought nothing of it. He paid our tabs with $100 (didn't see that coming) and left.

The next day I got the following message from him:

"Ah well I'm in a luxory (yes, that's his spelling) bathrobe sitting on a lounger over the water on my private huge ass rooftop terrace overlooking the water, you could party with 50 people on this thing. My date unfortunately got wasted at the wine tasting and is quite under the weather.. I need to choose my travel partner companions more choosily (again, his word) me thinks. So FYI there will be an opening for the position of Moneybanks' next future ex girlfriend if you care to submit an application, my fringe benefit package is to die for!!!"

I really can't make this stuff up. Nor will I forgive my friend.

The last message I received from him was via voicemail. I haven't responded to his texts or calls. The voicemail goes like this:

"Hey, I'm super interested in you and would love to take you out on a date. I could come to you or you can come out to me. It'll be worth your while!"

Eh, if I had a quarter for every time I heard that ... ;)

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

The West-side Connection

Most of my stories and experiences will be bad and you'll get quite the kick out of them (or so I'm told). However, this experience is different - it's usually something that only happens in chick flicks. And so it begins:

[Background Info: At the time, I was dating someone for about 2 years. He was inconsiderate, cheap, and extremely immature. Needless to say, I was quite unhappy]

The company I currently work for usually sends me out of state quite a few times throughout the year. For this particular trip, I was on my way to Stockton, CA. For whatever reason, I was put on the earliest possible flight. Since I had a boyfriend back home and it was super early, you better believe I was still dressed in my PJs with no makeup on. I boarded the plane and while I was waiting I noticed a cute guy around my age sit down in a seat across the aisle from me. For a moment I cursed my decision to be comfy but then I reminded myself that he was a stranger on a plane and I DID have a boyfriend.

The plane landed in Denver and the connection flight wasn't for two hours so I made my way to one of the airport bars. I was only seated for a few minutes when Mr. "I'm sitting right across from you on the plane" took a seat right next to me. Now, I've never been one to get nervous when meeting new people, but something about him stirred up a few butterflies in my stomach. We exchanged names and I found out that he was going to Seattle (where he lives) and was only in my city for work for a few days. He offered to buy me drinks and we exchange a few jokes about how both of our drinks were getting expensed anyways (office humor, bare with me). I mentioned that I may be taking a trip to Seattle in the future for business, so we exchanged information. Who doesn't like a native to show you around?

I ended up at my gate and to my dismay, it was delayed for 30 extra minutes. I had a seat next to the wall and busted out my ipod. Just as soon as the earbuds went in, Mr. Seattle was standing in front of me with a coffee. Apparently, he had seen that my flight had been delayed (as was his) so he wanted to surprise me. Here come those butterflies again. I thanked him, hugged him, and finally got on the plane.

I ended up in California for a week in what can only be described as cow land. There wasn't anything to do but cow tip, apparently. Each day I was greeted with a "good morning" text from Mr. Seattle and we'd end up talking every day after work. During those talks, it came out that he had noticed me on the plane and that he thought I was cute. He also saw me checking the status of my flight and was relieved that he found me at the bar in Denver.

Almost as soon as I arrived in my city, I broke up with my current boyfriend and continued to talk with Mr. Seattle. He'd email me at work and talk with me at night. A friend called me the Cheshire cat because I had a permanent smile on my face. It was like we had known each other for years. I'm pretty impulsive and had some money saved up so I decided to fly to Seattle to see him. The moment I showed up he gave me the biggest kiss I had gotten in a while. Welcome back, butterflies!

During my stay, he took me to a Mariners game (3rd row from the 1st base line), took me to Pike's Market (with the flying fish), the first Starbucks, a drive-in movie, and a romantic dinner on top of the space needle. My trip felt way too short and I hated to leave him. To this day I have a few songs that I listened to on repeat on the plane there that will forever remind me of him.

Our relationship lasted for about 5 months, which included me taking another trip to visit him (I love to travel). The distance and time zone difference began to take it's toll on the relationship and eventually I had to break things off. Last contact I had with him, I learned that he was engaged with a baby on the way.

;;