Same Shit - Different Year

I used to be one of those people that would eat up the "new year, new me" and "this is going to be my year" bullshit. But after about year 30, resolutions last shorter and shorter, and long term goals turn in to daily wins including successfully getting out of bed without tripping over anything or managing to wear matching socks. 

At the start of this new year, even the first 10 days in, if it was any foreshadowing of the upcoming year for me, I sooner than later may be seeking out convents to join. 

I started off the year by setting up a ridiculous amount of dates (like 6 in two weeks) with the hopes of at least finding one with 2nd date potential. I have a tendency of this vicious circle of overachieving, feeling defeated, quitting for a few weeks, and repeat. I had set up a match.com date with a guy that lived fairly close to me and we agreed to meet at a local pizza joint, so I had hoped that I would be starting the year off on a positive note with someone who lived within my "shower spider killing concept" 

You see, I have several female friends that I pretty much confide everything to, considering we see each other almost every day. They are constantly joking with me because my ideal guy would live up the street if it were up to me. I find places like Robinson, Monroeville and Cranberry to be the equalivallant of a long distance relationship, because it is a different zone according to the pat bus system.  I love debating with men that live in those areas that tell me they can make it downtown in 25/30 min. I always congratulate them on 1. Breaking speed limits and managing to not lose their license and 2. Remind them to add 15 min on to their travel time, because I live that far away from "downtown" in an awkward area that is not convient to get to. Normally I win and if that doesn't work I always use the example of the shower spider:

What happens if I find a terrifying spider in my bath tub that has crawled up the drain?  There is a small 30 minute window that I can lock myself in my bedroom terrified, before I go in to horror movie mode. I need that hero that lives within that 30 min radius that can come kill it, before I consider moving.  That my friends, is my definition of a knight and shining armor.    

Now I'm sure you are thinking, "What do you do now with you don't have a hero?" To which the answer is simple - typically I will still lock myself in a safe part of the house hoping it will disappear, and if it doesn't, I awkwardly try to drown it and send it back down the drain- but the mental anguish of worrying that by killing one of its own, that others will follow and conspire to inflict revenge like pissed off villagers with torches- I do not want to be responsible for allowing my overactive imagination to get the best of me...

So with that being said, I had found someone living in my own zip code? Instant brownie points. So as I geared up for whatever 2015 throws at me, I headed to the date....

When I arrived it was fairly normal of a start. He looked just like his pictures so I had not felt as if I had been fooled. He had told me in an email that he had been on vacation all week and had pretty much done nothing but watched college bowl games. Not really my idea of a vacation but whatever to each their own. During our date, there happened to be a bowl game on, to which he asked the waitress if she could change the station to it, which again -not a big deal. Trying to rip a man away from sports is the equivillant of asking them to stop breathing so I get it, however on a first date I feel there can be a special exception. 

Literally the entire time I was there - the only time he took his eyes off the tv to talk to me was during commercial breaks. He was even more interested in shit-texting his brother every other minute than engaging in any kind of "getting to know you conversation" that involved him looking at me. About midway though the date, I felt like I was on a date with myself, to which I realized that I wanted to be sitting at home watching tv alone, instead of sitting in this pizza place with someone who is distracted with college bowl game - that mind you was a 30 point blow out and this point, so I made the executive decision to fake a hangover. I started getting "sicker and sicker" however I didn't have to do much psychial  acting considering I could of stabbed myself with a fork and got carted off by the paramedics and he wouldn't of took his eyes off the goddamn TV screen to notice me missing from the table. So finally I said that I needed to go home and lie down or I was going to throw up all over the table.  

He had asked me if I would mind giving him a ride home, to which I agreed because it was right down the street on my way home too. Amazingly, I had his full attention the 2 min drive home, however by that time it was too late for him - there wasn't going to be a second date. He then asked me if I wanted to come inside and 1. Listen to jazz records, 2. Drink a hot tea and "talk" and my favorite 3. Watch more college football. I declined and headed home feeling slightly defeated, but not ready to give up on dating all together.   

Apparently he thought the date went way better than it did because he asked me to hang out that next night and the night after, both events involved going to his place to "get to know each other and - you guessed it: watch football. Clearly this guy had no clue: Why the hell would I want to Partake in the same activity that you ignored me for the first time?  After I told him no 2 times he hit me with the "are you even interested in me?" Question. I'm sure this will shock a lot of people because I am perceived as being a very outspoken borderline bitch - however unless someone gets extremely inappropriate with me, I try to let down people I am not In to as politely as possible.  I tried explaining to him how I thought it was a total turn off that he pretty much ignored me the entire time for football - a blowout game too. He then then did what any rejected man would do and compare me to "all girls", said some pretty lightly offensive things, apologized and left me alone. Strike one

Rub Me in all the Wrong Ways

I had been getting bored with the ok Cupid and Pof circuit and wanted to try something different - so I decided to give Tinder a fair chance.  I had always done terrible on Tinder  not even in a gross message kind of way, more like a no message kind of way.   I knew people that got multiple dates from it, I typically wasn't as lucky. So naturally when the opportunity presented itself that I had found somebody on there that wanted to meet, I went into it open-mindedly. Being that Tinder is notoriously known for being a hook up app I made very clear right up front that that was not my intention, to which he was ok with and we seemed to be looking for the same things. Looking back now he did say some offbeat things that normally would strike me as socially awkward and not weird but I try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt especially when it's hard to know what peoples demeanors are when it comes to chatting not on the phone. 

Things started getting shaky when we tried to coordinate a place to meet at. As a 32-year-old female I might sound a little bit old school however I feel that I'm in a first date scenario the guy should either 1. Find a location that is close to the female so that she does not have to travel far. Or 2. Find a location that is halfway so that both parties have an equal distance to travel home upon a terrible date. I personally do not think that is too much to ask. So naturally when he suggested a location that was fairly close to him I declined and said let's try to meet somewhere halfway. He then gave me the name of another location outside of the city to which I thought was very close again to where he lived. He told me no and that I was thinking of a different area of Pittsburgh so I said okay and we decided to meet at a restaurant there. As I was driving to the restaurant and my directions told me to get off at the exit to which was in fact the city he lived in, I was pissed.  I hadn't even met this guy yet and he had already lied to me, naturally I was slightly jaded. 

As I made my way inside the restaurant he was standing at the hostess stand waiting for me. We sat down and ate our food and engaged in very normal conversation. I was slightly nervous it being a Tinder date and all because you never know what to expect. So I was very pleasantly surprised when the conversation maintained normal and respectable and I'd come to the conclusion that he was just quirky when he messaged. He excused himself to go to the restroom as I sat and finish my dinner. I still really wasn't sure if I was feeling him exactly, he really wasn't my type, but I was still willing to get to know him better. Little did I know this was the point of the date where the train would derail, catch on fire and start a forest fire similar to those of the ones in California. 

As he returned back from the bathroom he sat down directly next to me in the booth. Basing off of what little I knew about him I thought that he was doing it just to be slightly cute and corny funny, and figured that he would return to his side of the table after a minute or two...but he didn't. At first I laughed uncomfortably, but when I realized he was actually not going anywhere, it became a personal space issue for me. At this point I was stuck- if I backed myself towards the wall he would've had me pinned in the booth, but at least if I sat close enough to the edge I could always kind of shove him out if things got a bit uncomfortable. It's one thing to get up close and personal with somebody if you feel that the date is going that route but I don't feel that I set out any type of signal to elude that I wanted him to come sit next to me.  For me it got awkward at that point, but any chance of a second date ended when the next thing I know he begins to rub my leg under the table. He starts to rub and then tells me what strong leg muscles I have. In my mind all I can start thinking about is taking the fork that was left on the table, jamming it into his leg and see how he likes being touched.  I really tried not to come off as a stone cold bitch, but to me that is a "bad touch". It's one thing to rub the leg of someone that you have known for a while and have been previously intimate with, but to rub a girls leg on the first date when it's been established that there will be no hooking up- that's just inapprops. I decided that In order to diffuse the situation calmly I would nonchalantly grab his hand, remove it from my leg and place it on top of the table where it rightfully belonged. 

Unfortunately he had a secondary plan. When I went to grab his hand to remove from my knee, he then grabbed my hand and tried to hold it...under the table.  I couldn't tell if I had teleported back in to 4th grade, if this poor guy genuinely does not know proper first date protocol, or if he knew exactly what he was doing and thought I would be ok with it, either way I was officially freaked out. To make matters worse, when he grabbed my hand under the table he then looked at me and said "Oh come on, you can just hold my hand under the table nobody has to know."  I wanted to run but I couldn't because he was still sitting in the booth next to me. At this point I had to talk my way out of it. That was the only way I was going to get out of this situation safely. Not that he was any kind of threat mind you, but there's really no coming back from a "bad touch."  After completely bullshitting my way through an explanation that these are things that you don't do on a first date but on a second or more date, he returned to his side of the table. My presence at that restaurant was very short-lived after that.   Strike two

It'a Hot in Hurrrr

I had met this guy on OkCupid we hit it off instantly. Our first few messages back-and-forth were very fun, and we engaged in smart ass banter which is my favorite. Nothing is more attractive to me then a guy that can go toe to toe with me and my smart mouth, so naturally I was intrigued. A lot of times during the "getting to know you process" a conversation turns less into fun and more and more like an interrogation and you start to feel obligated to respond in lieu of getting excited. With him and I the conversation just flowed.  I have been excited for dates before but as the time grew closer for us to me I started getting really excited. If he was anything in person like he was on the phone, I felt like this guy had more potential than a lot of the others I had met. The only downside was that he lived 45 minutes away from downtown, close to where I grew up. I didn't want to get my hopes up too much, but he was willing to meet me more than halfway so I was willing to give it a shot, until literally our location changed three times between the day before and the day of and we kept getting further and further away from the city and closer and closer to his backyard. Again I found myself in a situation where I was irritated before I even left the house. 

When he showed up he was exactly what I expected. He was very good looking, you could tell that he took good care of himself, The only downer was that he smoked and I could smell it on him like a bloodhound. I promised myself that I would never become an ex-smoker that would frown upon people that smoke - however I've become a hypocrite and understand now what every guy I dated before went through.  Unless you are a smoker yourself- It's pretty gross. 

He chose a location that had been known for bringing in a lot of musical acts, but also had a restaurant too. The first hurdle that we experienced was when we sat down the band was playing very loudly so it was hard for us to hear each other. Not really a good place to have a first date but I didn't hold that against him. Within minutes of sitting down I had instantly noticed that he had kept wiping his forehead. I, naturally I'm always cold so for me to break out a sweat it's usually during physical activity or im getting ready to puke.  For him, however he was just sitting there wiping his forehead....a lot. 

Being fairly dark in there I didn't notice how bad he was sweating until a beam of light happened to hit his face and it looked like he had turned on his own personal waterfall. Sweat was visibly pouring from his face and his shirt was drenched to the point where it looked like he had gotten caught in a rainstorm. 

I kinda felt bad. I truly had hoped that it wasn't because he was nervous or that I was making him nervous, but he assured me that he had just got done working out and that was why.  I think he forgot that I'm pretty familiar with health and wellness, because I have never seen a product that would cause anyone to continue to sweat in such a way, especially that long after a workout. Before we even ordered our food, he excused himself and went to the bathroom to "freshen up". A few minutes later he came back and assured me that he felt better. 3 glasses of water and 2 attempts to move somewhere that we could actually hear ourselves talk. 

The entire time I was trying to distract myself from 1. The epic pit stains that were literally hypnotizing and 2. The constant motion of him wiping of his forehead with his forearm.  I tried to engage in banter-but made no comments about the sweating hoping it wouldn't detail the date. I managed to distract myself and we ended up having a very nice conversation and really opened up about our pasts/commonalities and joked around a bit. 

Literally after he got done eating the last bite of his meal - he excused himself from his seat and went outside to smoke a cig. At this point I knew he was pretty hooked considering I was in the same boat over 2 years ago. I was most happy that maybe by him going outside he would "cool" down, considering it was 25 degrees outside. When I looked at him outside, I swear I saw steam rising from him, but then again It could have easily been 1. The smoke of his cig or 2. The fire pit he was standing next to. Either way - it appeared that he was truly cooling off. 

When he returned inside he reeked of cigarette smoke. It was bad.  I tried not to say anything - again because I try not to be an hypocrite, and eventually the smell went away and I had hoped that by him going outside his body temp would return to normal and he would stop sweating. That was the case....for about 10 min. He then again began to continuously wipe his brow and I had eliminated all attempts to even come up with an explanation. As the date ended, even with a drenched shirt and all, he politely walked me to my car and watched me get lost attempting to get out of the confusing parking lot of his location. 

Remembering that I had a 45 min drive ahead of me, getting angry again, I had more than enough time to reflect on what had just occurred. 

I was willing to go out with him again, considering he didn't cross any "bad touch" lines, or ignored me for a televised sporting event. I was even willing to look past his smoking and profuse sweating, however I never heard from him after that. With that being only a week and a half in to the new year and strike three - I decided it was time to take a break from dating... 

So like a 2 year old throwing a temper tantrum - I deactivated all things online dating with the exception of my match.com profile because I am already locked in to a 6 month subscription. I wanted to deactivate my Facebook too, because lately I have been getting random friend requests from people I don't know, only to have them hit on me later. Unfortunately though, if I were not addicted to games like Family Guy: quest for stuff and candy crush - Facebook would be irrelevant to me, but since those games are linked to it, I'm kinda stuck. And also too- if it weren't for Facebook no one would know about this blog, so I'm slightly dammed if I do dammed if I don't. 

Sadly I do terrible on match.com so needless to say checking it once every couple of days doesn't really fall in to the "aggressive" category.  Now that I'm not online dating my days have been filled with work-working out-TV and sleep, and I gotta tell ya, not only have I lost a couple of lbs, but I've never been this rested in almost 2 years...

Keeping it real

-Shelby