The Twilight Zone

And so the saga of our Teeny Tiny Superguy (AKA Asian Grocery Guy) continues. I figured we were done due to the odd departure tactics and strange anti-date ambivalence. One of my friends asked me if I was bothered by that fact. I really had to think about that, but no…. I’m not. I really have no strong feelings about the entire experience one way or the other. I got to go to the movies and out to dinner, so it wasn’t all bad. I don’t have a burning need to repeat the experience but neither was I repulsed by it. I am truly ambivalent about the entire thing.

Which, of course, means he emailed today. His communication is just as ambivalent as I am feeling though. He wrote to tell me something about the movie and ask me a question about it. Then wished me a happy weekend and didn’t even sign off. (He ends emails much like he ends social interactions, it seems.) Unsure of what to do, I answered his question without a greeting or signoff (to match him) and sent it off. More effort seems entirely unnecessary. But less seems rude.

We have clearly entered the (ambivalent) Twight Zone!

Quiz time!

Time to lighten up a bit around here. For this, you may blame Mindy.

The Date with Asian Grocery Guy

Every experienced online dater and One Date Wonder should have come to terms with one universal truth. Never get excited about a first date. Do not build expectations in either a positive or negative direction. A true One Date Wonder remains comfortably numb about each and every initial encounter to avoid any dashing of hopes and dreams, and ensure only pleasantly positive surprises. Lucky for me, I have learned my lessons well.

The next truth about an experienced One Date Wonder is that we begin to develop an almost uncanny feeling for what might go wrong. For example, mere hours before meeting my Asian Grocery Guy last night I said to a friend of mine “He didn’t tell me how tall he is. I bet he’s a midget.” Dear readers, would this be written if he were a tall gentlemen? No, of course not. He was wee.

Now admittedly, I have a thing for the tall men. But at 5′4″, it is not difficult for a man to be taller than me. I prefer the difference to be significant, but I am a girly girl like that. Pretty much taller than me at all will do. I’m not overly fond of heels anyway. This man might have been an inch taller than me. But he might have been an inch shorter. He was so busy doing the short man swagger through the mall that I really couldn’t tell. It was that distracting. Dude had something to prove and he was trying to prove it by making his coat tails flap about in his wake. Perhaps this was meant to make him seem of greater stature. Perhaps he just likes flapping coat tails. Who knows? The overall result was like some sort of demented tiny super hero. The “Teeny Tiny Superguy” theme was stuck in my head all night.

The truth is, I am somewhat reformed. I was going to overlook the short thing. Even though it caused me a bit of alarm, I was going to try to do it. But there was another problem all together. I’m not sure if it was a date, or I was his platonic movie buddy. He responded to an ad looking for a relationship. I was clear about that. And I did make him ask me out, pick a night, and choose the activity. I helped with meeting place and time, and picked one of his movie choices. All very date-like so far.

But in execution, it became befuddling. We went out to dinner and a movie. At dinner, we chatted and laughed and ate. And then the check came. I went for my purse while he went for his wallet. He did not stop me. We went dutch. That would be the first point of ambivalence. We also bought our own movie tickets. At least by then, I was ready for it. Fast forward to the movie. He chose not to lower the arm rest between us so there was no real divider there. But he also didn’t really lean or touch at all during the movie. Once or twice he grazed me as he gestured, but there was no meaningful contact. Still, the parting is the real indicator, right?

Right. So we left the theater and his swagger accelerated to unholy proportions. He practically raced out of the shopping mall. When we got to the parking lot, I waved my arm to the right and told him I was over there. He waved to the left and said he was over there. He never even stopped his mad swaggering or slowed for a second. Just called over his shoulder that he’d email me and bye! I got to my car completely perplexed. In fact, I still am.

Asian Grocery Guy

Yes folks, it’s time for more adventures in CraigsList dating. Today we will be discussing the man who probably wrote the single best email I have ever received based on an online personal. It was well written with punctuation and capital letters which almost immediately makes it better than 75% of the drivel I get. But it also made me laugh. Out loud. And the fastest way to my heart is through my funny bone. I answered immediately, and so it began.

After a day or two of emailing, this guy went for the gold and asked me out. And forever earned his nickname (Asian Grocery Guy, that is) by inviting me to the asian grocery store on a Tuesday with the intent to carry mangoes. It is by far the most memorable proposition I’ve ever received. Unfortunately, due to the fact I was working and had a limited window to play with, we didn’t make it. We did have a very nice phone conversation though. But after that Asian Grocery Guy started to fade. We had one other failed attempt to hook up and all communication stopped. It was sad.

Usually, after two failed hookups and a communication stoppage, I would walk off. But there was the matter of the highly intelligent and amusing emails and the most inventive date ever. So I broke my rule, but did it with panache! I just sent a quick checkup type message that would easily allow him to bow out if he was trying to without having to go out of his way to save face. I may have also mentioned that hopefully the sudden silence was not brought on by my refusal to haul mangoes. Well, he wrote back. There was some fruity banter, and then very quickly he suggested a date. And he called me to confirm last night. (A very nice touch.) So tonight, the Asian grocery Guy and I are doing the dinner and a movie thing.

There is one more thing you need to know about this particular man. He is a massage therapist. I implore you not to let me become that episode of Seinfeld and drive him away. Seriously. Talk me off the ledge folks. (An intelligent, funny, massage therapist. Please let him not be a troll in person!)

The Last Last Last Word…?

At this point it’s like a trainwreck. You know you can’t look away, right? Pity the poor girl he is talking to now. If she exists.

Blind Dating

Well this brings new meaning to the term “blind date”. My newest eHarmony match is almost completely blind. I don’t even know what to do with that information. Am I a total cow because I feel like it makes a difference? (Probably so.)

I already had some reservations about the match and now I’m completely paralyzed over it. Gentle readers, what would you do if your blind date was…. well…. exactly that?

The Last Last Word… I Hope

Well, A is at it again. I’m wondering if he’s ever successfully pissed a woman off into going out with him. With each email he sends, I can see more and more why he is single. Dig that grave a little deeper, why don’t ya?

Guess you gave up on me One Date Wonder. I am truly disappointed. You never even gave me a chance…:(

To all daters everywhere: Do not ever submit to this idiotic behavior! Seriously, I want to point something out.While this man is rather pathetic, the string of emails shows an alarming trend. First he checks in on me obsessively. Then he tries to turn it around on me by making me the problem when I tell him I don’t care for that behavior. Then he apologizes profusely. Then he tries to make me feel bad about myself again.

If this has not raised the red flag of manipulation in your minds, then you need to sharpen your spidey sense. Do not date people like this. Only madness lies down that path. And in the more extreme cases, possibly something worse.

O! M! G!

A wrote back. I have no words. All I can do is post his. Bear in mind while reading this that we emailed for 9 days and exchanged headshots. We never spoke on the phone, and we’ve never met.

Respectfully,

A

The Last Word

First let me come clean. I am a chick who likes to have the last word. It used to be that I had to have it and would prolong disagreements pointlessly in search of the last word. I am not that bad anymore, but I still like to have the final say. I swear to you internet dating will break me of this. The last word is only a way to prolong negative interactions. Let me give you an example.

So there was this guy on CraigsList. Let’s call him A. A started off with a nice response to my ad. He wrote intelligent responses. He seemed rather normal. He didn’t send a picture right away, so I was suspicious, but it was okay. We were chatting, and that was fine. Then one day, I guess I didnt answer an email fast enough. Or maybe he was feeling sensitive. Maybe he has separation anxiety or something, who knows? He sent me a message and I didn’t reply right away. This happens as I have a life and stuff. Three hours later, he sends a followup message questioning if I had received his last email and if I was still interested.

You know I almost instantly stopped speaking to him, right? But I decided to be a reformed One Date Wonder, and tell him why I was about to drop him like a hot potato. I wrote back and explained that I am a busy woman with a job, and a life, and things to do. Not all answers would be speedy. And if he needed that level of contact with someone that we would be a bad fit. A backed down immediately. Said he understood all of that and he had meant to be respectful blahblahblahcakes. He apologized. And, against my better judgment, I brushed the incident off and we continued to talk.

Then a time came when he didn’t write to me for four days. Honestly, I hardly noticed. When he eventually did write it was to say he had been ill and not on the computer and then to continue our email exchange. I hadn’t really missed the exchange, to be honest. But I kind of figured I should write back anyway. Still, I needed time to think about what I wanted to say to him next.

Then it happened. Not even 24 hours after that email he sent another asking if I has received it and was I still interested. As if my reaction to that email the last time wasn’t clear enough or something. Or as if he had not just been silent for four days. Who knows? I didn’t care about his silence so why was I being required to answer for mine on his schedule? But….. okay. I took a deep breath and decided to answer to tell him this truly wasn’t going to work out. I explained again that I felt it was a bad fit. I also pointed out that when he was silent for four days I never said a word, nor did I mind at all. And that I felt it was rather unrealistic for him to be okay with that but to question me after less than 24 hours of non-communication. I told him I was sure he was a very nice person but that this just wasn’t meant to be. And I wished him luck.

What did I get for my efforts? I’ll tell you what I got. I got a reminder as to why we usually hit delete and never respond when we’re finished with someone. I got a missive explaining how while I was attractive and smart, I was obviously too judgmental for him. You know, since I had chewed him out twice now. And he didn’t think it fair of me to judge him like that so clearly I am not the one for him.

Ladies and gentlemen, I managed to hit delete on that ridiculous drivel without firing out the last word. I let him have it. If it spares his fragile ego a bit, he is welcome to it. And one more thing (because this is my blog and I am entitled to the last word here)… I wasn’t judging him before and took great pains to make that clear. But after that stupid final note that he had to send to assuage his fragile tiny ego? Yep, you guessed it. I’m judging now. Way to go.

The Un-Date

The Friend told me at the end of last year about this one movie he wanted to see. Now, while I have a memory like the holier kinds of swiss cheese, stupid details like this stick to me like glue. The movie opened this month. In fact, the movie opened last night. The only non-smooshy movie that I know opening on the smooshiest holiday of the year. I told him I thought it would be fun for us to buck the gooey holiday and go to the unromantic movie on the night it opened. On Valentine’s Day.

And so we did. We made our plans, for just the two of us. No big group for once, just me and him. He picked me up… which was his idea. We went out to eat ahead of time and totally lost track of time just chatting and enjoying each other’s company. When the check came I snatched it up as I owed him a dinner anyway. We actually had a little tussle over that, which I had not anticipated. He wanted to pick up the tab. I insisted I would. I won.

So we made our exit and got over to the movie theater. And wouldn’t you know, he was still remembering that check I’d just picked up? I still do not understand why. He picked up the bill the last time we were out alone and claimed it was because he had no cash and needed to put it on a card. “You get it next time.” he told me. So this was next time, and I picked it up. Apparently I missed the part where he didn’t mean it? Anyway, so I’m not paying attention and he’s operating the ticket machine. You all can see where this is going. He turns around with his ticket and hands me mine. He had “gotten me back” for dinner.

We had fun in the movie as we always do. He is just the right amount of silent with sarcastic commentary for me. The perfect movie watching combo for maximum enjoyment. (This is more important than one might think. But that is for another post.)  As always, there was playful arm touching, leaning, and all kinds of other signals that I would read as serious signs from anyone else but just confuse me when it comes to The Friend.

After the movie we went and grabbed dessert. Cue more sitting and chatting. This time conversation turns to relationships. we talk about the things we miss about being with someone, we talk about the injustice of women hitting their sexual peak well after men have recovered from theirs (also for another post, bu suffice it to say….. ARGH!), we talked about sex. Then, as if nothing had happened, we strolled out to the car and he took me home. One chaste hug later and the evening was over.

Now I swear to you, I have not skewed what happened here. Yes, his touch makes things inside me jump. No, he has never given me any outright indication that he wants more than friends. But please please please, tell me you wouldn’t wonder if you’d lived through that same evening! He picked me up, attempted to pay for everything, engaged in casual touching, talked about relationships, dreams, and sex. Come on… tell me I’m not just really wishful and there is something to what I’m seeing.

Or tell me I’m nuts. That could be too.