2 dates, 1 day, so different...

I'm back to my old tricks again... lots of dates, lots of names flying around...  yesterday I had a lunch date and a dinner date.  And both went well.

Both are at least 10 years older than me.  Both are divorced. One has two kids in college.

Let's talk about that one first - he shall hereinafter be referred to as Soccer Dad.  We met online - OKCupid is my site of choice these days.  A few very funny email exchanges, and we found ourselves at a lunch spot walking distance my front door.  And his front door.  Since over lunch we realized he lives 6 doors down from me.  And, by the way, he consults for a colleague of mine.  She called while we were at lunch. It's a dang small world.  So he may be 10 years or so older than me, but he'll finish a half marathon a half hour before me.  And he plays on four different soccer teams.  So what if his kids are in their twenties?  

We batted around some topics, but were both guarded over lunch.  Why does it take a drink to make conversation go more smoothly?  I was nervously chatty.  Soccer Dad was dry, dry, dry.  In a good way. Conversation moved at an uneven pace, and yet at the same time I wanted to talk to him more.  I can't figure that one out.

Where is Soccer Dad now?  Using his frequent flier miles to accompany a friend to a trip to Hawaii.  Rough life.

Soccer Dad treated me to lunch, we walked back to our places, then he posed the "so now what?" question as we stood outside.  I understand this to be the equivalent of "I enjoyed lunch enough to want to see you again.  But rather than be direct... I'll put it on you!"  We're going to find some batting cages or putt-putt, so we can see what happens when our competitive side comes out. 

Then a few errands later, I find myself getting picked up by the Latin Lover at my house.  He called to tell me he was on his way. He opened the door for me to get in the car.  He took me out for a cocktail before dinner.  We talked about sailing and his life running charters until he straightened up and came to the U.S. for college.  We went over to dinner.  I laughed at him because he forgot his glasses and couldn't read the menu.  I found out how old he his, how he likes to critique food, what he wants his next career to be, why he got married and divorced, what he thinks of his father's girlfriend, what he enjoys for an after-dinner drink and many other surprising things.  He took my hand as we left the restaurant and went for a walk.  He freely discussed what we would do next time we went out... He kissed me at the end of the date, on my front doorstep, and left. 

(He did let me split the dinner bill, and I know it's disingenuous when I offer expecting him to refuse and then judge him when he accepts. But judge I do.)

Latin Lover was confident and casual.  Worldly but learning and interested.  I'm intrigued. Our next date may be a day trip to the neighboring wine country.

There's a few more dates coming up... and I haven't stopped thinking about my trip to A-town, and the Super Hero is in touch lately planning his next trip out here.  When will I have time to think about finding my new job?  I might just be a boy-crazy teenager for a living.

but I'm lover not a dancer

Last night I went to a big swing dance party -- and aside from being the least coordinated women in the entire room (of those willing to get out on the dance floor anyway), there weren't many men to meet.  Actually, I really like it that way.  I like to DANCE, and the best dancers are not necessarily the guys I would be attracted to and want to date.  Though I must admit, I thought Mr. Nice Guy would be there (he RSVPed on Facebook).  He wasn't.  Ah well.

After a few good turns on the dance floor, a nice conversation with Blue Balls (he was there, oh yeah...), and the realization that I really just wanted to get home, I grabbed my coat, put on my scarf, and stopped by the host stand to see if they validated parking.

So I'm waiting at the host stand, with my parking ticket held out, and some dorko-suav-ay sidles on up to me and tries to strike up some small talk.  I asked him how he liked the dancing, and he replies... "oh, I'm more a lover than a dancer." 

This guy could play Steve Jobs younger, dorkier brother on TV.  

I did not laugh in his face.  I did not falter, I just smiled and found some way to change the subject.  Then I tried to find some kind of escape, and failing miserably (I was still trying to get my parking validated) -- when I'm-A-Lover-Not-A-Dancer foisted his card in my face.  

Oh dear.  He's probably a wonderfully nice guy.  And dork.  And such.  Do I call?

(love) song... or... why can't I sing this at karaoke?

I left A-town, to drive up in my big fancy rental car to visit the family - and I (thinking without much coffee in my system) put on the Ingrid Michaelson song "Mountain and the Sea."  Have you heard it? 

"You call me a mountain and I call you the sea.  I'll stand tall and certain and watch you swallow me. You can move me if you want to...  You can move a mountain...  You can move everything..."

That doesn't seem like much of a love song, but my trip to A-town put something... someone... in front of me and the depth of my emotion for and attraction to him was sort of surprising.  I've mentioned him in this blog.  He knows who he is.  He might even read this.  And he should know there is this (love) song coming his way. 

(love) because...  well, I certainly love him.  But when I say that, I don't mean romantic-walk-me-down-the-aisle-together-forever Love.  I mean the you-know-me-backwards-and-forwards-laugh-at-our-flaws-could-hang-out-with-you-forever-talk-about-anything-my-friend (love).  We could have gone a lifetime with that kind of (love) and never crossed the boundary.  That is, until we kissed.  

Now I wonder what happens when you throw a twinge of damn-I-like-kissing-you to nearly fifteen years of friendship. 

Ah, risk.  I have no fear of risk, no fear finding out what this (love) leads to.  But there are two people in this equation.  He may be quite right that there is no long term potential here, or maybe he's just writing it off because it is easier than (in his mind) putting the friendship on the line.  I know the friendship will always be there.  (love) doesn't get thrown by the wayside when you take that kind of chance.  The chance we would take would either bring us something really amazing, or become an amusing tale in the lexicon of what makes our (love) so great.

It's out there now.  In the meantime, he'll do a little housecleaning (literally) in case I'm back in A-town next month.  I'll keep on dating (oh, OKCupid you amuse me).  Then we'll go back to friends who wonder, and don't kiss. I suppose.

"But until then, oh my darling friend, I will hold...  Yes, I will hold on to you."

I will not hit "delete profile" until I've had ONE date

I did it.  I went online. And I bucked convention - I skipped jdate and went straight to OKCupid.  Caution to the wind.  Seriously.

For those of you married folk who are living vicariously, OKCupid has these tests you take... like purity tests, personality tests, what kind of geek are you tests, and all kinds of weird user-submitted tests.  And it's FREE.  Before I even completed my profile, I had my first "wink" -- and before I finished it, I had my first email.  "You're gorgeous.  What's your name? Do you have a racial preference?"  Sez he.   He has no profile, just a picture taken in the mirror in some military uniform that has so many medals on it that it he would have to be twice his age to have earned them.

I am still dinking around online.  Fifteen minutes later, he instant messages me.  "Why didn't you answer me?"  It's a brief conversation, during which I learn that he is IMing through his phone, which is sooo much easier than the computer, except that's why he hasn't filled out his profile.  Did you make sense of that?  Me either.  

Another one emailed, but he gets high occasionally and that ain't me.  He wrote back "you smoke."  which led me to find a very important error on my profile.  Under smoking (as in cigarettes), I had marked "trying to quit" -- OOPS!!  He couldn't spell on his own profile, but he found an error on mine. 

While reviewing my matches, I found one I wouldn't even look at. His profile name "2cheap4match" -- as if putting yourself on OKCupid isn't a sufficient declaration.  And why exactly would he brag about this?  It just struck fear in me that I would, in fact, find men who were cheap versus the men who paid the matchmaker big $$$.  You would think there is something to my rationale here, but maybe applying logic to use of dating "help" is a lost cause.

I did find two seemingly ordinary, interesting men.  Jewish even.  I emailed them, bland, one-liner emails that clearly showed I actually read their profiles.  One I asked to play Scrabble since he likes board games (among other thigns).  The other I asked about the carved Halloween pumpkin in his photo.  

Believe it or not, I did use much of the profile I put in the other day.  But shortened to a "10 things you need to know about me."  And took out the stuff Joe College told me was overkill.

And I promise, despite the flotsam now filling up my inbox from guys I never want to meet, I will not delete the profile until I've gone out on a date with a least one guy from OKCupid.

The irony of my timing in going online, is that my Latin Lover called today and the Matchmaker coughed up a potential new match (after I left her a message to ask her if she was going out of business).  

I might have forgotten to mention the Latin Lover. Last Saturday I went to a bar with my friend M -- she's a lovely women, svelte figure, Israeli looks, which strikes a sharp contrast to my fair complexion, straight strawberry-blonde hair and curves.  It's fun to go out with her.  And for whatever reason, at this one bar, we caught a lot of attention.  The Latin Lover is actually a distinguished man in his forties, with an interesting career involving the environment.  I'm about to head off to my hometown for ten days, but we'll be heading out on a date when I return.  

When it rains it pours. 

playing the decoy?

Since most of my non-work time is spent doing relatively solitary things (like swimming, biking, running... or sitting on my butt writing blog entries from my couch), I figure I should occasionally put myself in situations where I might meet new people.  Preferably single and my age.

This is why, on the eve of a half marathon, I accepted a last-minute invitation to head out to the 'burbs for a Brazilian feast courtesy of the man-formerly-known-as-Twervert and his incredible girlfriend that I adore. 

The invitation said 5, so of course I arrived at a leisurely 5:20.  And was the first one there.  

Eventually, other guests arrive - among them a nice man who was probably in his late 40's or so.  While I'm chatting with him, another women enters the turf and makes her move.  Whatever this man has to say, she provides the perfect flirt response - it's studied, it's practiced, it's surprisingly effective.  I quickly decide that I'm not in the mood for competition (I'm saving it for the race course in the morning), when Twervert pulls me aside.  He wants to tell me something about this man.

Twervert needs me to get said eligible bachelor away from the crazy lady...  distract the gentleman... because Twervert is fixing this man up with someone else at the party.  

That someone else is, of course, not me.   The true beneficiary of the fix-up was helping in the kitchen and not yet ready for the intro.  And while this beneficiary/hostess was really interesting and nice, I thought... "What am I, chopped liver??"

I have to say - this is a first.  I've been fixed up.  I've been invited to parties with lots of single men at which I did (or didn't) have a chance.  But I've never been asked to play the decoy so that one of those single men could be introduced to someone else. 

The evening ended early for me - I left by 7:30, long before people had even sipped enough of that social lubricant we call alcohol to start making new friends in glibly swapping phone numbers.  But who knows, maybe the Twervert will sniff some smelling salts and think about me next time.  It could happen.

househunting on a first date

I have an aunt who thinks I should really be her daughter, and it frustrates her to no end that I'm still single.  Occasionally, she thinks this means she should try to fix it.  This same aunt is the type who "summers" in a wonderful place every year, and hangs around with interesting intellectuals and people who care about the environment and spend a lot of time hiking and enjoying nature.  I hope I get to do that when I grow up.

Every few years, I spend a few days visiting her at this place I call the Fountain of Youth.  This last time I went on a bike ride with a man 40 years older than me, and could barely keep up.  I love these people, I want to be them if I ever grow up.

And as much as my aunt loves me, the folks there love her even more and decided to join in on the efforts to find me a husband.  A nice Jewish man.  This same year I was in town for the bike ride, I was also around for High Holy day services.  The couple with whom we sat has a son.  My age-ish.  In my neck of the woods-ish.  Shidduch, reform Jewish style.

This lovely gentleman, the House-Hunter, promptly called to ask me out upon my return from the Fountain of Youth.  And as we try to arrange a date, he mentions he is house hunting.  I start to share stories of my two successful attempts at house hunting and somehow we end up agreeing to spend our first date going to open houses.

At first blush, this might seem a little... um... wrong.  And somehow, it seemed so right.  You want to know a lot about a person?  Find out what they say they need in a home.  Is he interested in a family?  Not if he is focusing on one bedrooms.  House-Hunter was clearly focused on a family friendly house.  What if he's that guy in SATC with the mobile for his baby's crib - if only he could find the wife!  

As it turns out, it was kind of fun!  House-Hunter was geeky-funny-witty, a little bit of self-deprecating Woody Allan stuff going on, but overall he rated well for the second date.

And he did call, and he did ask me out again.

To go to more open houses.

The third date he took me to see a play about Golda Meir.  And then asked me out again.  To go to open houses with him.  Again. 

I turned him down... both the house-hunting and the house-hunter.  Maybe part of it was the house-hunting - once was cute, but three times wasn't.  Maybe it was the collection of small glass objets d'art at his place that I found a little too quirky for a guy.  Or maybe it was that his geekiness belied a meekness that I couldn't see past.  Or maybe it just wasn't there.  

My aunt was sad.  She really wanted to bring the families together.  

And I was actually a little disappointed in myself for not being crazy about him.    He was going to let me re-do that kitchen in our dream house exactly like I wanted! 

the best ex

Joe College was in town again...  the 3rd time this year, and it's been a blast having him around.  Don't get any ideas - Joe College and I aren't getting back together.  We don't even dance around the exsex line.  We just hang out, like buddies, and have conversations like this:

Joe College: "You know what I really want?  A girl who likes to hang out all the time and occasionally get laid."
Me: "Well, what I really want is a guy who likes to get laid all the time and occasionally hang out." 
Joe College: "And there you have it."
At which we both laugh, and remind ourselves why we enjoy being exes.

Joe College claimed a couple of summers ago that I was probably the pinnacle of his dating career... I certainly rank, by a long shot, as the most sane woman he's ever dated.

I recently (sadly) realized that Joe College may be the man who rates the highest on the evolutionary scale of all the men I've ever date.  My brother would have to weigh in on that.  My brother is the one who created the evolutionary scale.  I'm not sure anyone has ever reached upright status yet.  But that's another story, another day.

Joe College earned his name easily enough - my dad dubbed him after a brief visit to my hometown (for a football game, not so much about meeting my folks). His most memorable accomplishment that trip was teaching my friend's husband to open beer bottles with his wedding band.  My friend may never forgive me.

Joe College and I met when we got fixed up by uber-sexy Jewish/taken Drummer Boy and my friend back when I lived in the midwest (the same friend that I met through Pockets, oddly enough).  My friend and Drummer Boy simply plotted to bring together two nice Jewish people. Even though I was a mature, let's-settle-down-31-year-old and he a 27-going-on-15-year-old, we found enough in common over Bloody Mary's and brunch with Drummer Boy and his shixa girlfriend to justify another date.  And then another, and then another... and pretty soon it was 10 months down the road, we'd had some fun dinners, he'd introduced me to Big 10 football, we took a crazy New Year's Eve trip to Vegas, and a final trip to Hawaii.

We both cried when we broke up... there was no horrible fight, no prompting event, just the realization that we were wonderful people who didn't belong together.  Drummer Boy had to take the post-break-up call from Joe College, and our other mutual guy friend took my call.  Turns out Drummer Boy got the short end of the stick on that one from what I hear.  

Joe College just is Joe College, and I hope he always is.  He likes telling dirty jokes, drinking too much beer, listening to Howard Stern, checking out hot girls and hanging out with the guys.   But I've got a little secret... if you are paying attention, that's just the first 5% of Joe College.  He's deeply intellectual, thoughtful, introspective, aware of others' feelings, and all the stuff that I would promise not to divulge at a bar when he's hitting on a girl but would anyway.  He has a sense of style that we wears with a subdued manner that seems, at first, totally out of kilter with his Joe College image. 

[cue Beavis] Dude, I called him sub-dude.  heh heh.  heh heh..

So now what, Joe College?  Well, when we dated I was his Sugar Mama.  I made a decent bit more than him and sometimes took the lead on doing the expensive stuff (he was willing to share a hotel room with the other couple in Hawaii... for example... aw, hell to the naw!).  These days, he makes about three times what I do, so I get to make him play Sugar Daddy and take me out for fancy dinners when he is in town. 

Now he's a 33-going-on-27-year-old.  And I will continue tease him incessantly that I'm going to get him back into my bed so I can use him for the 12 minutes he'd last.  And ask him for dating advice.