Going Rogue

The dating blog has been silent for a while now - but oh, have we been busy!  While Nostrand has found herself a REAL man through a mutual friend (and I approve!), I have also found myself straying from the confines of online dating.

The idea of online dating has always been a strange concept to me.  We spend our entire childhood learning to be an individual - discovering our interests, strengths, weaknesses, and ultimately determining which direction we'll point our sails when we're ceremoniously shoved out of the nest after graduation.  With that being said, it seems logical to make a list of one's qualifications and desires in order to determine the perfect mate.  Once we've figured out our own interests, it's just a matter of finding someone else that's on the same page… and half of the battle is taken care of when everyone at the party is there for the same reason, right?

If you haven't picked up on my subtle sarcasm, you should know that I have an issue with this.  Yes, there are a lot of "fish in the sea," but narrowing it down to a dating site makes it an awfully small pool.  Secondly, I don't think I am qualified to decide what I want and need in a partner - at least not in a checklist.  Go back through your college psych notes to that old Johari Window diagram - being on a dating site is like secluding yourself to one single window.  I know a lot about myself - I know what I like, and who I enjoy being around.  But who - and what - am I missing by judging only on my own preferences?  If that's all I have to go on, what type of person will I end up being with - and what type of person will I end up becoming?

This is the real question:  Why do we date?  Is it a fear of being alone?  A desire for companionship?  An animalistic need for a physical relationship?  I've dated for all of the above reasons, and I have found myself hopelessly empty and longing for more at the end of each one.  Something compelled me at the age of fifteen to decide that I needed to find a boyfriend.  Well, "something," being hormones, peer pressure and my small-town view of society's expectations.  So I picked a guy and tried my hardest to make him have feelings for me.  And with a little bit of practice on a few more test subjects, I got pretty good at it.

The unfortunate part about this talent is that the results are consistent.  I've been the "heartbreaker" enough times to realize that perhaps my judgement is off - and perhaps my approach has been all wrong.  But maybe those years of "practice" have been just that - breaking past those comfort zone barriers has brought me to where I am now, with the Disney princess realization:  I want more.  With just half of the time and energy I poured into those relationships, who knows what I could be doing right now?  Maybe I could have been motivated to get my graduate degree, or join the peace corps, or become an astronaut.  I'm not one to question what "could have been" - so I will take it as a present-tense lesson.  There is still time.  I am still hopeful that I'll find a love that will meet up with my expectations someday, and I realize now that he isn't going to be a picture on a profile.  In fact, he may not look anything like the perfect, manly lumberjack I have in mind right now.

From now on, I'm going rogue.  Screw the expectations that a single girl should be going on dates.  When I'm compelled to ask a guy out, I'll do it.  But from now on, I will not be compelled by a checklist.  That's just downright boring.

Not asking for much...

Some ladies long for their true romance

Others will go for a guy who can dance

A dude with a dog is sure to want kids

And every girl wants what her mother forbids

But I'm just a girl whose needs are nano

Why can't I find a man with a piano?

thanks to nostrand for finding this gem!

Red Flag City

I was not looking forward to this date.

I started talking to a guy from my current dating website, and we set a tentative date for Sunday night.  His profile seemed okay, and his pictures were a little blurry, but not terrible - why not?  The only red flag I had seen so far was his aversion to capitalizing letters at the beginning of sentences.  Not a big deal, right?

So, we started texting that morning to schedule a time to get together.  The conversation was pretty normal, aside from the fact that he was texting me from an oyster-eating contest.  I jokingly told him that if he survived the contest, I'd love to meet up with him, and his response, a.k.a. Red Flag #2 was:

"hahaha ya I hope I do too ;) will down a couple shots after just in case and txt you around 5 or 6 if I'm still upright."

I relayed this to Nostrand, and we puzzled for a while over how taking shots after eating oysters could possibly help matters.  I then had to make a decision: either he was trying to be funny, or he was planning on being drunk when we met up that night.  Things were starting to go downhill.

At 6:45, he let me know that he was finished with the contest and feeling good, and asked if I was still available.  I told him yes, but it would take me about 30-40 min. to get to the bar we were meeting at in the East Village.  In response to this tidbit of valuable information and my question of "What time do you want to meet up?" his answer was:

"sure, I'm in wburg now heading to union"

I stared at my phone in confusion for a minute before realizing, shit!  He's on his way there right now!  I was wearing sweatpants and my hair was a mess.  I managed to put myself together in a presentable package, and headed toward the train, sorting through my brain-files for a valid excuse for being late on a first date without sounding totally lame.

I got off the subway and found the bar, but the door was locked.  I texted him, letting him know I was outside, and this time, he called me.  He was at his apartment in Gramercy.  At this point, it was 8:30 on a Sunday night.  We laughed about the miscommunication, and I made up some bullshit excuse about how I'd had to drop off some books with a friend in the neighborhood, so it was no big deal… I realized it had been entirely my mistake for not clearing things up right away instead of jumping to conclusions, but my assumptions were totally valid.  We had planned on meeting for a drink and then catching a 9:00 show at a comedy club.  Nothing would have led me to believe that we would be meeting later.

In the end, it was a small, laughable miscommunication.  I stopped for a slice of pizza while I waited, and when he walked in, my metaphorical jaw hit the floor.  This man was completely gorgeous.  Tall.  Lean.  Well-dressed.  Amazing bone structure.  His pictures had done him absolutely no justice.  I found myself so entirely distracted that I couldn't concentrate on calculating a tip for my beer and pizza, or on understanding the words he was saying.  All I could see were his eyes, and his lips, and the dimples that appeared on his cheeks when he smiled.  (Is it emasculating to say that a man is beautiful because of his dimples?  I don't really care.)

We walked a few blocks to a wine bar he had found on Yelp and were seated at a small table, elbow-to-elbow with the couples on either side of us, which was cozy and slightly romantic.  He handed me the wine list, and said "Now, this is the true test for a first date - you get to choose the wine."  I started to panic when I realized the wine list was entirely in French.  I was honest with him and said I didn't have the slightest clue what to choose, and asked him what he liked.  This turned into a twenty minute "conversation" about how he had been to twelve countries in the past four months for work.  I had no idea what he did for a living, but I knew I couldn't ask, because he had explained his job while I'd been drooling over his dimples at the previous restaurant.  We ordered a bottle of wine and some appetizers, and he went on to several other sophisticated topics - his extensive knowledge of wine, his "stardom" as a child who grew up attending a music conservatory and traveling to Greece to perform as a solo boy soprano, his travels across Europe and pictures from the top of some huge mountain.  I like to think of myself as fairly educated for being twenty-five, but the combination of the wine and his eyes turned my brain to mush.  I found myself telling a stupid story about a box of wine in my fridge that was simply labeled "white wine."  I drew a blank when he asked if I had heard of any operas or classical music happenings going on in the city.  Classical music is my job.  My career.  My life.  And I was unintentionally playing the dumb blonde.

All of these things set aside, at the end of the night, I felt good.  I was boozed up and happy, walking to the train with a gorgeous man, joking about dating websites and miscommunications.  He then divulged to me that he still had to work that night (at this point I had figured out that he did some type of web-online-tech-ish but more complicated job), and that he'd been planning on asking for a rain check, but he was glad that we'd ended up going out.  We hugged and said goodnight, and when I glanced back to the street where he was hailing a taxi, I could see he was smiling.  (Oh!  Those dimples.)  I floated on a gorgeous man-high back to Brooklyn, and settled into my bed dreaming of our beautiful dimpled babies.

In the morning, as I told a friend at work of my date with the handsome man, it all started to dawn on me.  The Red Flags started to pop up - he was totally self-centered.  He was horrible at communicating, at least via the written word.  He was arrogant.  He really didn't get my sense of humor, and I couldn't recall him having much of one.  And the winner of the Red Flag Award:  I couldn't remember a single thing I had told him about myself.  At one point in the night, he had asked if I liked my job, but as I elaborated a bit, we were interrupted by our waiter, and we had never come back to the subject.  I'm not the type of girl to just let someone else take over in a conversation, but it had somehow slipped past me this time.

So, in the end, I realized that under that gorgeous facade, the date had been a bust.  Not all was lost - I did gain some valuable take-aways:

• It's sometimes good to pick out the flaws in a first date before the date has happened.  You'll either be pleasantly surprised, or not-so-disappointed.
• Keep the conversation in check.  
• Beautiful men are likely to be full of themselves or gay.  Either way, they're nice to look at.

I'd probably go on another date with him, out of curiosity…

Eat my heart out

There are good girls and bad girls in the NYC dating scene. You be the judge:

We have, oh, let's say... "Dana" go on a date with Guy A. The date goes well; there's good interaction, chemistry, communication, the works. As the evening draws to a close, Guy A falls back on good ol' chivalry and offers to pay the check - or at least mentions that she can "just chip in a bit". Dana, who I shall not yet reveal as good or bad, sits back and smiles at her success and allows him to pay. Score. Another night of free drinks, no obligations to call him again, no strings attached. Sweet single life.

Guy A meanders home, somewhat realizing he's spending a bit too much this week on first dates with random girls, and better cut back. He talks to Guy B the next day at work, emphasizing that dating is making him broke. Guy B agrees, and anticipates a similar frustration with his own date coming up.

Guy B goes on a first date with "Rachel" that night. A nice time. They split a bottle of wine while seated in a romantic and cozy little Brooklyn spot, sharing good conversation. Guy B is hungry; Rachel says, "I already ate dinner, but get what you'd like." Guy B orders a cheese plate. To be polite only, Rachel takes a sliver. Perhaps less than a sliver. Guy B, as a guy should and is completely entitled to, inhales the rest of the platter because - hey let's be serious - guys need to eat.

But when the check comes around, Guy B thinks to himself, "damn - I am NOT offering to pay this whole bill." Rachel, of course wanting to help pay her share of the wine (but not his food), winds up putting down exactly half of the bill because Guy B never fell back on that aforementioned chivalry that Guy A displayed.

Am I dwelling on a minor detail? Perhaps. By now, you may have figured out which girl I see as good (Rachel) and bad (Dana). Unfortunately, Rachel gets the short end of the stick because girls like Dana plant seeds of doubt in the minds of men. Guys now think that most girls will use and abuse them.

The paying part doesn't even matter here. In truth, Rachel merely wants to HEAR the simple words, "I've got it." Then, of course, she'll chip in. Maybe next time she should eat more cheese.

Second Guess

It was the perfect date.  After two and a half hours at a quiet, low-key pub, he and I had connected on every entry level of our background, interests, and intellect.  Finally!  A guy that didn't feel like he had to quote Walt Whitman or Shakespeare to impress me!  He had not only heard of my favorite bluegrass band, but knew the name of the lead singer and mandolin-player.  He had ridden his bike to the bar, but yet didn't chug his drink in a minute out of thirst, as most men would.  We had talked for hours, and when I excused myself to the restroom, he had paid the check.  (Note: men in NY generally only pay for their own drinks.)  We weren't making out by the end of the night, but that hadn't been my intention.

We left the bar, and he offered to walk me in the direction of my bus.  We reflected a bit on the date, laughed and joked around, but when we reached the busiest corner, and his intended stopping point, he said:

"You know, this was a lot of fun, but in terms of dating, I'm looking for something pretty specific."

I laughed, somewhat out of disbelief.  What specifically are you looking for?  We hugged (… intentionally did not use the term "embraced" out of spite for this situation) and he turned and left.  I crossed the street and walked through the fog of rejection.  What had gone wrong?  And how had I not seen it coming??  The Queen of Red Flag-Spotting had been fooled.

I spent the next two hours second-guessing myself, doubting my ability to understand a basic human interaction.  Was it because I'd decided to wear the blue heels instead of the tan?  Was it my shirt, or my hair?  Did I have an annoying habit that he couldn't stand?  Did I drink too much?  Was I slouching?  Did I talk about myself too much, or not ask enough questions?  What could have possibly gone wrong??

After sitting on a park bench venting my frustrations to my older sis, we came to the conclusion that, aside from the fact that men are dicks, sometimes these rejections are a good thing.  It's better to have a man be up-front and honest about his feelings, no matter how vague or seemingly irrational, than to waste precious time waiting for him to call.

Thank God he wasn't that attractive.