girlfriends...

In the world of trying to meet men, sometimes you meet princes and sometimes frogs.  And sometimes you meet other princesses.  And that is a wonderful thing.

Tomorrow, I get to hang out with one of my best girlfriends, J-Red.  We've been friends for over 10 years now - and this is the story of how we met.

Back in the late 90's, speed-dating was still a thing that people whispered about, wondered about and read New York Time's articles about.  I had just moved to a new city, and wanted to throw myself out into the scene.  So I found my local Jewish speed-dating event, in a part of the city I didn't know well, showed up to the Jewish Community Center at the appropriate time and found a handful of people standing in the darkened JCC wandering where the hell the event was.

You see, the event organizer from the JCC had neglected to give us the location of the event, and we had all assumed it was at the JCC. 

Five people stood around, shrugged their shoulders, looked at the ground and prepared to head out, defeated.  Two people whipped out their cell phones, started making calls and got to business.  Those two people - J-Red and I - gave each other the acknowledging nod, coordinated a game plan, conferred, then went out to the neighborhood in search of the event.  And found it.

By the time we arrived at the local coffee shop hosting the event, I knew I'd made a new friend.  I wasn't even worried about asking her for her phone number. 

The organizers tried to give us a hard time, as they'd achieved the desired equilibrium of men & women, and we would disrupt that.  J-Red and I were not worried about equilibrium, and made that clear.  We couldn't have presented a more united front to the girl at the registration desk if we'd planned it -- she didn't stand a chance against us!  You want us to come back?  You want us to give you good word of mouth?  You'll let us in. 

Somehow, during the breaks of the evening and conferring over David #9, we swapped phone numbers and promised to keep in touch. Magically, we did.  The last ten years of friendship with J-Red brought LOTS of adventures (including a de-pantsing episode one Christmas Eve that forever convinced a man we were an evil, evil duo), and ultimately a wonderful husband and 2 gorgeous children to J-Red.  I wouldn't trade my friendship J-Red for any of the guys I met that night.  I'll remind her of that over our mani/pedi excursion tomorrow.

Is this how I want to make friends?

Today I got an invitation to grab a drink with a really interesting woman I haven't yet met in person - she works in environmental policy, has master's degree, is on the outdoorsy side, works out her angst by taking up indoor rock climbing, loves hanging out with her teenage niece, and from what I can tell is one of the most loyal, forthright women in my neck of the woods.  Add to that we have some mutual professional connections and work around the corner from each other.

I was thinking I also might invite this other cool woman I haven't yet met in person - she returned to school in her late 30's to get a degree in science, and last time she got sick of her job she packed it up and traveled all around Southeast Asia for 6 months.  She wrote a pretty cool blog all about it.

Both these women are very attractive, accomplished, educated...  ya know, the kinda ladies I would hang out with.  Except, I'm not sure this is how I want to make new friends.

You might wonder how they came into my email acquaintance: they both emailed me because they were also sleeping with/dating the guy I thought I was sleeping with/dating exclusively

Red is not what you are thinking (the color of his hair, and the color I see when I think of him).  He comes across as a geeky science nerd, a somewhat introverted high school teacher.  I don't think he's a "player" in the traditional sense.  Rather, he's pathological and insecure.  Travelpro is going to approach for how to have so much baggage appear so minimal.  I did learn the very important lesson: never date a man who has no local friends, and if he doesn't introduce you to any friends in the first month or so -- run like hell.

Here's what I can figure out: there was not a single point in the time I was dating Red that I was the only one.  It's not that I didn't give Red the out.  He nearly dumped me twice and I hardly begged him for forgiveness.

Here were the last two arguments I had with Red (and yes, I really said this stuff... but the dialogue is a bit truncated):

3 weeks before break-up

• Red: "I think you like me more than I like you."
• Me: "I'll let you know when that's a problem for me."
• Red: "But you like me more than I like you."
• Me: "Are you done?  If so, that's fine... "
• Red: "No, I'm not done, I really like you."

2 weeks before break-up

• Red: "I think you want to spend more time with me than I want to spend with you."
  
• Me: "Are you done?  Because this is bullshit and I don't have time for it."
• Red: "I need time for myself."
• Me: "Have you ever asked for any that I haven't given you?  And by the way, the reason I always encourage you to do your weekly trivia night without me is because I need my time."
• Red: "Oh."
• Me: "So are you done with this relationship?"
• Red: "No, I want to be with you."
  

Then Red and I went on a fabulous camping trip... and he dumped me right after we got back.  

• Red: "I didn't fall in love with you, and I should have by now."
• Me: "I think you were in love with me, you just don't know what love is.  So how long have you been dating someone else?"
• Red" "There isn't anyone else."
  

To his credit, he really should have fallen in love with me by then.  That he ended it before I fell any further (and yes, I was quite deluded and taken) was to his lying, cheating credit.

So now I have made the virtual acquaintance of these two women. 

The former emailed me after I'd been dating Red for a few of months.  She'd spotted us out one fine Sunday, and dumped him later that day.  When she realized I was still dating him a month later, she knew he hadn't told me.  Through the magic of Facebook, she found me and sent me a long note.

The latter knew about me early on, but took a short while to see through Red's lies and realized that I actually didn't know about her.  She emailed me once she realized he was lying - I initially shied away from communication.

But last week, Red's profile showed up on jdate as a "featured profile" for me on the one time in the last year I've bothered to log in and see if there are any new faces for me (there aren't).  So I finally replied to "the latter" in case she was still dating him -- this was too much.  And I thanked her for reaching out... it sparked a pleasant bit of exchange.

Then I decided to apologize to the former, for unwittingly hurting her. I had never responded to her emails of nearly 6 months ago.  She was so grateful that I had acknowledged her and apologized - she told me it helped make her 2010 start better just to have heard from me.


OK, we have something in common -- and I know that they are the kind of women who look out for others.  What would drinks with them be like?  So, when did you first know he was a lying, cheating jerk?  Have you stayed really bitter about men ever since?  Maybe I can find another geeky science teacher for you who loves to cook.  Shall we learn knitting together, or maybe hit a single's bar?  I'll have to think a bit longer if this is how a new couple of friendships start.