Swing and a Miss

I think too many people have been longing for my misadventures in dateland and have been praying to some higher power to bring that series back. Congratulations, people. The power of positive thinking has granted you a bounty.

Let me back up to remind everyone of the first in this chapter... the one that inspired poetic verse at first back in April, but ultimately ended with him sending me poetry just 3 weeks after it began... poetry that had been given to him by another woman... and had a love note penned by him to yet a different woman on it... along with another hand-written request from him to me asking that I send it back to him when I was done reading it.

Huh, you say? Okay, that was nothing... sure he was juggling quite a few women, but still... nothing by comparison to what has followed.

The next one that came along was someone whom I'd known from this wonderful place for nearly 2 years now. We'd never met in person, though we live in the same town... our paths never crossed. But he had subscribed to my blogs in 2004 and had been reading them since then. We'd also had lengthy email correspondences where we'd discuss personal stories and relationship issues at great length. And when it came time for me to fly to L.A. for my February trip, he generously offered up his own Skymiles for me to fly there for free.

When he and I found ourselves both single at the same moment in time at last, we decided to meet. I can't tell you all the details of that brief romance, because I'm too much of a lady to openly tell you what happened in certain areas... all I can tell you is that it lasted all of 4 weeks for a total of 3 dates, whereupon he disappeared out of the clear blue not for the first time... but for THREE times.

The first time, it was for just 2 days, shortly after our first date. Mr. Houdini resurfaced fairly quickly and had a good excuse. The second time, he disappeared after our third (and ultimately last) date, this time for 3 days and again with another story... something about helping a friend move for a few days. He confirmed with me the plans we'd previously made for going to a BBQ party, then promptly took off again for some sort of job somewhere else... called the next day to ask again about the time on the party for the following day... then disappeared entirely again.

That last disappearance took a whole week before I heard from him again... he never called to apologize about missing the party, and by about the third day, I deleted him entirely from my profile and from my life. Two people can play the disappearing act.

He called a week after I'd last heard from him, but I left it to go to my voicemail, since I wasn't in the right spirit to listen to yet MORE excuses. He left no message, but he still checks in on my profile from time to time, from what I can tell. He can't read this entry, however, as this it's set to my "preferred list" only.

So if you're reading this right now, friends, consider yourself part of the "in crowd" ... aren't you lucky? At least one of us is, because luck certainly isn't on my side. Let me tell you about the next story... another drop in the bucket and mere pittence in comparison to the other doozies...

I went on another date a week ago... someone I'd met on an online dating site. Yes, I know I'd sworn them off more than a year ago, but there I was, bored and surfing the Nerve.com personals again. He seemed okay, if maybe a bit nerdy, but I like nerds. Generally. He claimed that he looked like Bruce Springsteen... and he had a picture, but it seemed like maybe it was just a bad photo, if he indeed really did look like the Boss.

When he walked up, I wondered what the hell I'd just walked into... he had the posture and build of Mr. Burns from THE SIMPSONS and the only way he could be mistaken for Bruce is if Conan did one of those "If They Mated" things between Springsteen and Woody Allen... and he had been given Allen's voice sans the Jewish accent.

He was also completely clueless. We went to see an environmental documentary... not a romantic comedy or horror movie even... and yet he grabbed my hand and held it tight for most of the film. I was getting a cramp and feeling like an animal caught in a bear trap, wondering if I might have to gnaw off my own limb. Finally he moved a little bit and sure enough, my hand snapped back to my chest just to break free... an almost involuntary muscle spasm of sorts. Unfortuntately for me, that was not the end of the discomfort level, as he kept his hand firmly on my knee until the end of the film.

Guys, I have to ask you... do you think it's okay to be so bold on a first date? I guess if they're few and far between, you figure you've got to go for it in the hopes that it will work... but if a girl isn't giving you any signs that she's flirting or interested, why do you still do it? Why? Why why why? He tried to hold my hand again later after the movie and I evaded that one, too, by crossing my arms and keeping them tightly across me as I walked.

A little later (this wasn't a long date by any means), we went to get some coffee and he stepped behind me while we were in line, leaned into my ear and whispered, "Wanna get this to go? We could take it back to your place and drink it on your deck or something." I almost jumped out of my skin and stammered to say, "Uh, no, we can't do that. My deck doesn't have any chairs and is a safetly hazard... just about to collapse. I don't even have a deck. Really. So let's drink it right here."

Once the place closed up around 11-ish, he walked me to my vehicle where I got my butt inside as quickly as possible. He held the door open and asked, "Can I get in a kiss?" At least he asked. I told him he could kiss me on the cheek, then I drove off. Quickly.

I'm really bad at those socially awkward moments... what to say and how to say it and when. I think of great things later in private as I replay the events, but at that moment in time, I'm totally at a loss. Final case in point, this past Friday night...

I was on date number 2 or 3 with this fourth and final man, also someone I'd met here on Myspace. Actually, we went to high school together, back when I briefly lived in Alpharetta for the last half of my Junior year. I don't recall meeting him back then, but we had a friend in common and I felt a little at ease that at least we had a shared past.

We'd gone out together 2 weeks earlier and seemed like we hit it off really well, but then I didn't hear from him much until this past week. I knew he was a Myspace girl collector, because in the 40 friends he has here, only 2 are guys... the rest all seem to have far too many photos involving their cleavage, leave him way too many glittery comments, and constantly ask him to call them.

But on the plus side, he lives right here by me, just a few miles away, and he has a daughter who is my daughter's age. We went to Lake Lanier this week for the kids to get together and the girls really hit it off. So with all of our kids gone away for the weekend, I asked him if he'd like to join me for another night out... a friend's film screening and maybe something to drink afterwards... he agreed and suggested dinner too, and we were off.

As far as some guys go, he at least paid for almost everything and did so the other 2 times we went out as well, even though I tried to pay my own way much of the time. It's his almost total disinterest that is the perplexing part of our "dates"... if you can call them that. On our first date, he only showed any interest in me after he'd slammed about a dozen shots and mixed drinks. Before that, nothing as far as I could tell. And again, while the kids swam at the beach, no interest whatsoever.

When the film's final credits were rolling on Friday night, he leaned over and asked if we could go because he wanted to be somewhere before midnight. So I obliged and we scooted out of there, despite my wanting to find out where the after party was going to gather.

We went to East Atlanta and he didn't want to sit outside, despite the nice night... he wanted to sit at the bar instead. I soon found out why.

After his first drink, he was chatting up the young 20-something bartender about her tattoos and getting her name. By his 3rd drink, he had gotten her phone number and myspace info. And by his last drink of the night, he was on his cell phone drunk-dialing other female friends of his... all in front of me as if I weren't there. By the time we were leaving, he was way beyond drunk, and as we walked through the parking lot, he hooted out "Woo!" several times for all to hear... the drunk mating call, as it were.

By the time I got him back to his house (yes, I drove... I have at least some common sense... not much, but some), he realized that he'd forgotten his house key and was locked out. I spent the next hour helping him break into his house. Once inside, he was dogsitting for his brother's Jack Russell Terrier, who needed to be caught so she could be caged for the night. I did that for him, being the dog expert that I am... and him being the drunk that he was.

After all of that patience and understanding on my part, he simply walked me to the door, pretty much pushed me out and said, "Thanks for the help. So goodnight." And he closed the door.. not in some gentlemanly way, mind you. I think he was probably too drunk to make a move on me... likely headed to the bathroom for a good long puke, by the looks of his swaying to and fro.

I think I'm too nice. I wish I could be a bigger bitch sometimes. I sure can pick 'em, though, can't I? I also think I'm burned out after 4 bad pitches in a row like that, because my humor seems to have left almost entirely. I've spent my whole Sunday at home having a "naked day" ... no point in clothes, really. I'm not going anywhere.

What a life.

As an added note, I was having a chat earlier this past week with my son's Tae Kwan Do master, telling him about the problems that Malachi has at home with misbehaving and acting out disrespectfully.

The master responded with, "It's none of my business, but I haven't seen Malachi's father here before, and it's my experience that boys act like that at home 9 times out of 10 because their father isn't actively in their life." I told him the story of how we've been divorced for going on 7 years now and his father only sees him every other weekend and has moved up to North Carolina, making the visits even further between.

The master then said, "I don't understand. You say it's been almost 7 years and you haven't remarried? You are still young and attractive, why haven't you just found another man?"

Thanks for rubbing it in, Master Kim.

I laughed long and loud over that... maybe a little too long for the very sober martial arts master. I briefly explained the "whys" and "what fors" of being a single woman over 30 in today's day and age, and how adding 3 children to that just makes interested men even more scarce... then I told him of what's left out there to pick from. He nodded and just added, "That's a character flaw in American men."

Character flaw. Ha! That's putting it mildly.

The Return of the Screw

My love life seems to be filled with random encounters. And sometimes it's filled with Random encounters. Case in point:

After my divorce 6.5 years ago, I was in absolutely no hurry to get out in the world and date again. As a matter of fact, due to the crazy, turbulent time that was my last year of marriage, I hadn't even had sex since December 1998... the divorce was final in January 2000.

Everyone... friends, family, even my therapist... was eager to see me get back on that horse... the therapist even referred to it as getting in some "batting practice" or something to that matter.

"I just got rid of a dick!" I exclaimed. "Why would I be in any hurry to take another?"

She prattled on about needing to regain confidence and some other hoo-ha, but I tuned her out... instead, I sank with queasiness into a pit of despair, thinking, "What's wrong with celibacy?"

Many moons went by... about 5, I guess... when I was suddenly confronted with a series of experiences that threw me back into the "let's-get-physical" plane... forcing me to find out rather suddenly why no woman is an island, because there'll always be some guy to molest her and drive her from it.

The first incident was in passing, yet still jarring. As I was walking into a popular lesbian metaphysical bookstore in a hipster part of town (no, I don't swing *that* way, I'm straight... but I'm not narrow), and I was just pulling the door open, I heard a screeching of tires and a loud, rumbling muffler. And almost immediately after that, I hear in a very loud, very thick drawl: "Hey baby! You want summa this?"

I look over my shoulder to witness a shirtless, overall-wearing 'neck pointing at his crotch and directing this question at me. I think I visibly shuddered. Then I turned to enter through the door that I was still holding open, only to be face to face with a pack of four very butch looking women, who had a mixed look of surprise and amusement on their faces.

"Ladies," I said, as I sheepishly lowered my head in shame and slid past them into the store.

A day or two later, one of my professors... a friend, or so I thought... asked me out to a comedy club one night and then later back to his place. I was too naive to know better, so I went... thinking his offer to watch a dvd was genuine. It wasn't, and after an hour or so of him pawing at me and me pulling into a tighter and tighter ball, I finally sprung out of my skin, found my legs and fled in sheer terror... with him nipping at my heels all the way to my car, where he pinned me inside and planted a kiss (and a grope) on me, while I recoiled in horror and some paralysis. Definitely not the best way to jump-start one's dating life, certainly.

Then in retelling these two events on the phone the following day, I was interrupted with the response, "I hate to break it to you, but guys are always going to see a pretty eyes and a nice set of jugs."

"Wow. Thanks, Dad," I replied in resignation to my father. Yes, my father.

After those incidents, I decided to tell another professor friend about my long-standing affections for him (not for his grabby cohort/pal/former roomie), hoping maybe for a rescue at least, or for returned feelings at most. Instead, he fled from me almost as fast as I'd beaten a path away from the other man... and I hadn't even gotten a grope out of the incident, as this was all in email form.

Story of my life.

But that combination of events made me loosen my standards a bit and was the rocky beginning to a path that (hanging my head in shame as I type this) spelled a life sentence in online personals. You may think "life sentence" is hyperbole, but I've known felons who get out on good behavior quicker than I've made it out of this conviction. Worse yet, I'm a repeat offender... returning time and time again to the scene of the crime... as I've done just recently, as a matter of fact.

Oh sure, my foray into online dating began innocently enough... all filled with hope and positivity in the early days of internet personals. A mere 9 months later, however, I was as sucked dry and as jaded as they came, openly asking this question to the online universe after yet a different first date managed lure me to his home to "watch a movie" and then managed to pin me down, rip off my shirt, and nearly raped me, before I escaped:




Luckily, I got away with my sense of humor in tact, thanks to my "scary voice" that apparently works as well on date rapists as it does on ferocious attack dogs. That picture also got me "personal of the day" after I posted it on Salon.com back in 2001. But I'm getting too far ahead of myself. Back to the "simpler" beginning...

In June of 2000, six months after my divorce and six years ago from the present, I wrote my first online personals ad. Within hours, I had responses flooding me... and within a week or so, I had dates lined up. I can't remember all of the men's names that I went on dates with in those early days, but there were several... none of which made it past date one or two perhaps... all of which were guys who simply "went for it" by planting a kiss on me without asking first and left me hiding from them without so much as an explanation as to why I'd disappeared.

After about 2 months of this "seek and hide" pattern of mine, I finally decided that maybe that therapist had been right... maybe I did need some "batting practice" at last. At the very least, it would take the edge off of my skittishness and maybe allow me to finally let go a little of that squeamishness I'd had since my ex-husband's affair.

In what I thought was a very logic-filled way, I decided in much the same way as I had for my "first time" back in high school that I would finally "give it up" to whatever random guy came along next... so long as he seemed nice and was fairly cute.

Ask and the Universe grants.

Lo and behold, the very next guy to write to me, just days after I had made this pact with myself, was indeed fairly cute and seemed to be a nice guy. But the biggest thing worth noting (get your minds out of the gutter, people!) was his name: Random. Yes, Random. He wasn't just some random guy... he was some Random guy... having legally changed his name from Roland to Random about 4 years previous.

So of course, I had to sleep with him. I mean... if you place an order and it arrives, you should pay up, right? I wouldn't want to owe some debt to the Universe, having it rear its ugly head over and over like that creepy paperboy in Better Off Dead... though it would seem I'm still paying for something, I'm just not sure what.

I dated Random for about 6 weeks... again, that's pretty much my pattern and has been since high school... 6-8 weeks tops, then I disappear. Or rather, it's more like I can't keep pretending beyond that. He was cute and nice, sure, but he was also dumb as a post, God bless him. I couldn't ignore it anymore when, during one of our few conversations, he admitted to me that he wanted a big family... he wanted to remarry and have 4 children of his own with the next wife.

"But you've already been married twice before," I said.

"Yes, so?" he replied.

"And you had 2 kids with each woman, who you never see and can barely afford to pay support for now."

"That will change."

"Are you saying you want 4 more children?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with that?"

"Um, because you already have 4 you can't afford! Isn't that enough reason?"

"But I want to have a big family under my own roof."

"But you already have a big family!"

"But they're not all under my roof."

"How does having 4 more help the other 4 you already can't afford?"

"They'll benefit by having 4 more siblings to love, that's how."

I couldn't compete with that kind of "logic" and so I went silent. I believe that was the last time I saw the man... well, okay, we slept together one last time, sure... then it was the last time I saw him. I just disappeared. He continued to think we were still going out, I guess, because about 6 weeks later I received a phone call from him asking if it was okay with me if he started dating another young girl he'd just met in the mall.

I laughed. Hard. And then I told him he had my blessing.

I started thinking about this 2 weekends ago when I (A) re-upped on one of those online dating sites again, and then (B) went out right after that to the movies. That night I saw the mediocre chick-flick The Breakup. It was while watching Vince Vaughn and Vincent D'Onofrio argue as brothers when I started thinking, "When was the last time I saw them together?" It was then that I realized it had been during my first Random date... the night I "gave it up" after 7 years of marriage and 20 months of celibacy.

See, it turns out that 6 years ago, Vaughn and D'Onofrio were also co-stars in the mediocre J-Lo flick The Cell, and after the screening, the equally mediocre random-date asked me the mediocre random movie-type question, "So what'd you think?"

I, in my uppity film school glory, told him of the flaws and futility of such an unmemorable film and concluded that "Six months from now, neither of us will even recall this movie." Random disagreed and said he thought it was one of the best films he'd ever seen... just because he liked it, no reasons beyond that... and that he'd remember it for years and years and added, "I'm sure I'll even buy it when it comes out on dvd."

Although the details of that night have since become a wash of mere images to me, as have the details of that movie, what does stand out is the moment when I stood there looking at this Random guy and I came to the conclusion, "As long as he doesn't talk, I think I can still do this."

And, as you all now know, I did.

The Truth About Cars and Oil

This weekend I got to see two new movies: Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and Pixar's Cars. I recommend both of them highly, though I'm a little bothered by the combo.

See, after watching An Inconvenient Truth, my fuel consumption awareness is heightened even keener than it usually is. To follow it the next day with a movie that not only is all about America's love of automobile racing and big, gas-guzzling cars in general, it's seems to be confused itself with what message it wants to present.

As usual, John Lasseter is amazingly good at tugging on the heartstrings of our fondness for days gone by... hearkening back to a time when Route 66 was a great road... the reason to be on vacation, not just a means to the destination. He did throw in a "hippie" VW bus (played by George Carlin) who sold some sort of ambigous organic fuel, but otherwise, tanks and pumps and oil drums were omni-present through the movie. I couldn't help but feel cold after watching this flick in which steel, oil, and tar are the major focus points.

Still, it's Pixar and that alone makes it a well-oiled machine. Go see it, but turn off your environmental protectionist side first.

Now Gore's film, on the other hand, had me all fired up afterwards. I was glad to see from his suggestions at the end that I am already doing a few of the things he recommends (turning off electrical appliances, switching to fluorescent bulbs, recycling, driving less, etc), but there's so much more that I, you, and everyone need to do. If you see one film, put that one at the top of your list. And make sure you visit the website so you can see a few of the suggestions yourself.

I'm not going to preach to anyone too much. I've already made up my mind long ago what needs to be done, but if you'd like to insert your 2 cents, feel free.

My official M.I.L.F. status

I went grocery shopping several hours ago.

Now those who know me and have peeked inside my fridge will attest to the fact that if I've shopped, that in and of itself is news. Today's example is not that I simply went grocery shopping, but what happened at checkout.

I was done with the cashier and turning to the bagboy as he finished piling stuff into my cart inappropriately and without noticing he was putting heavy stuff on top of, say, eggs. You know, usual bagboy shit. But this one wasn't retarded like a few of the others... unless, of course, you call testosterone poisoning a form of retardation.

You see, he was staring squarely at my chest.

I am in dire need of doing laundry as usual (an act that also is cause for news in my house) and as a result, I'd reached the "rarely worn" section of my t-shirt stack. I was today wearing my "I heart NERDS" shirt, as seen in this picture of me below.




"So, you like nerds, huh?" His voice cracked like Bobby Brady's as he asked that, finally making eye contact with me, briefly.

"Huh?" as I came out of my fog, expecting only the usual, "Can I help you out to your car?"

"Nerds. Your shirt says 'I heart nerds'."

"Oh, yeah. Yes, I do, as a matter of fact."

"Cool." Awkward pause. "Can I help you out to your car?"

"No thanks, I've got it."

"Oh, okay." Another awkward pause as he slowly is about to put the 30 pound pack of bottled Deer Park water on top of all my other stuff, which required me to have to guide him to the LOWER part of the cart. He giggled and continued finally...

"So, um... I am one. A nerd, I mean... I play Dungeons and Dragons every weekend. Really." Followed by a wink.

"Well then," I smiled, "that definitely qualifies you."

As I pushed the cart away, my daughter who is only a few years younger than him asks me, "Why did he wink at you?"

"Because he's a boy and boys are retarded sometimes," I explained.

"Oh yeah, I already knew that!" Honora giggled. "I've got two brothers."

She's way ahead of me at her age. Definitely.