Friday, May 7, 2010

Adventures in Dating - Part 1

Whew! It's been awhile! I feel like I say that every time I post on here - but hopefully I'll be more consistent now. That being said - as guessed by the title of this post - I've been working on my personal life. I've now been home for a year and while my adventures in dating started a few months ago, it was suggested to me by my best friend I should blog about the crazy stories I seem to have from each of my experiences.....so for the first few I'll be backtracking a bit because, like I said, this all started a few months ago. But needless to say - it's an ongoing process and I suppose when I find the person I want to be with - it'll stop:-) Without further adieu.....

I should start by saying I don't plan on changing names. It'll make things too difficult for me to remember - besides - it's not like any of these guys are gonna find my blog.

Adventure #1
February is usually a crappy month for me. Not just because Valentine's Day happens to fall then but there are a lot of bad memories that come back up during that month. So this year I decided to change that. I joined a free dating website. I know I know. Free? Must be all bozo's. Honestly - some were - like the ones that send you an Instant Message asking me what I was wearing or what I wanted to do with them right now. [[sidenote to those guys: No I will most certainly not dignify those stupid questions and inappropriate questions with a response. You're not cute. Your pictures are not flattering, which is a conversation by itself (why wouldn't you put cute pictures up?), and you think way too highly of yourself. Stop harassing cute women. The End.]] Some were pretty cute though and I did send a few messages saying hi or simple things like, "seems like we'd be a good match". That site works the same way Eharmony works. They match you up based on questions you've answered and tell you, based on percentages, how much you'd likely be a good mate, friend, or enemy. I thought it was kind of cool and different so I gave it a chance. Plus - free is always good. I don't have a jobby job right now. Free is GREAT!

So I started talking to a few guys. Some pretty cute. Others just alright. I actually got a little overwhelmed. I was talking to five guys at once: Jason. Shane. Justin. Ed. Rich. (I know - what's with the J names?) I should also mention - shortly after I signed up on the site, a guy I was interested in at school asked me out - Ryan. He was the front runner out of all of them. More on him later. For Adventure #1 we're going to talk about Jason.

Jason
Jason emailed me. Our "likeness" percentage wasn't that high on the scale but he seemed nice and he took the initiative on contacting me so I thought that was nice. Jason was/is a State Trooper. Immediately I wasn't totally comfortable with that mainly because cops don't always get a good rep as far as reliable partners and dating companions. One of my best friends from childhood is a cop and he's kind of a dog. However, I decided to give Jason the benefit of the doubt. We exchanged a few emails and started chatting on the phone. I should've known when we were having hour+ long conversations that it was not going to work out. I'm not much of a phone talker (unless you're a friend that I haven't talked to in a while or I love you). I'd rather talk to someone face to face. So we decided to meet up for lunch.

Date #1:
There were a few things that should've tipped me off from the beginning here. Aside from the phone conversations, Jason asked me to come to his place. Am I the only one that sees something wrong with this? Maybe I'm asking too much but if you take the initiative, don't you think you should maybe meet me close to my house instead of making me drive to you? (thinking back on that, I don't think it's that much of a surprise mainly because he's a cop and cop's are all about authority - it's his terf - he has control) So I agree to meet him at his place and we go to lunch. Lunch was good and we had a good conversation. Found out some things I really liked about him. I figured it was alright. But I just didn't feel a spark. I'm a big believer in that spark. If it's not there, I don't really believe it'll develop. Physical chemistry is really important to me. So after lunch we go back to his place and start watching some college basketball - in fact, it was the last part of the OSU/UofM Big Ten Tournament game when UofM won on a buzzer beater. Pretty awesome...but I digress. I left about an hour or so after because he had to go to work and as I'm standing at his door, I started to give him a hug but instead he thought I was going in for a kiss. Ugh. So I was like - ok maybe his redeeming quality is he's a good kisser. Um. Yeah - I felt like I was pecking a chicken. Not good for him.

So I go home and that was that. Or so I thought. In between this first date and the next a few things were going on. We did set up a time to have a second date but I had to cancel on him due to too much school work and I wasn't feeling it. Reluctantly I set up another date and ended up canceling that one too. I felt bad but sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Things that happened in between our first and second dates (also our last one):
I went out on a few other dates with people.
I met someone I really liked.
I went to Florida for a vacation.
I had a lot of school work.
I was working a lot.
He and I were exchanging texts and phone conversations.

That last one is important because of the few things that happened in these conversations. One conversation entailed him telling me (this was shortly after I canceled on him the second time) that he's never been THIS patient for someone. Another conversation we had - he invited me to EASTER DINNER with his family. YES. A holiday dinner with family and we had been on ONE date. Shortly thereafter there was another instance where he made a comment to me that I was too busy. I never hid the fact that I was busy. The criticism wasn't flattering for him. Needless to say, the small window of opportunity he had to turn it around was all taken away in our second date.

Date #2
After I got back from Florida - we made plans to go see Clash of the Titans. Now a lot of my friends made the comment - it's your second date and you're going to see a movie, where you can't talk - and I said - yes, exactly. Awful I know but you know what - he kind of deserved it after some of the things he had said.

So we go to the movie...which I loved....and afterwards he asks if I want to grab something to eat. So I think about it and in my head this was my thought process: if I stay and eat with him he's going to think I like him more than I do because I'm choosing to spend more time with him but also it's a free meal. (awful I know). I decide to go to dinner with him. So we start chatting some more and I find out a few things. Ironically (which you'll find out why) I'm going to use a baseball metaphor here.

We sit down to eat and start talking more about each other. I find out he HATES baseball. STRIKE ONE.

I find out he is a Liverpool fan. STRIKE TWO.

And although we talk about other things, these are just the first two that are actually pretty important to me.

After the meal we start walking through the parking lot and we stop in the middle. Not near my car but in the dead center of the lot - where there are tons of people walking by. I go to give him a hug and he goes to kiss me. I let him. Again. Bad. And I'm like. Ok well call me. Now, normally this would be strike three and essentially it was because I'm a big proponent of a guy walking me to my car. I mean come on! Is chivalry dead?! But no, STRIKE THREE happened the next day.

So during the dinner conversation we talked about wanting pets and he had mentioned he was hoping to rescue a dog. Sure enough, the next day at work he rescued a dog he found under THE ENGLE OVERPASS. [[sidenote: While this doesn't mean a whole lot to people who don't know - one of my childhood friends was subjected to domestic abuse by her husband - their last name was ENGLE. She took her life and it has been a sad situation to deal with since. But I have a lot of disdain toward his family because of what he did to her.]] This was STRIKE THREE. He named the dog Engle. yeah.

After that, I stopped responding to his texts. He eventually got the message because I haven't heard from him since. The combination of the criticism of being too busy and being too focused on school along with not liking baseball and the fact that he didn't walk me to my car were enough to strike him out. I suppose I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

And that was just the FIRST of many more to come.

Hopefully you look forward to reading more:-)

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