The Saturday Night Date

Let's get some answers to the basic questions out of the way...

Yes, he showed up wearing flannel.

No, he did not shave.

No, he is not in an open relationship.

I did not specifically ask if he programs computers, but I suspect the answer is no.

No, he did not ask for anal sex- yet.

Yes, he has a criminal record.

And no, my 59th first date was fun, but not good enough to end the two and a half year saga.

Also, as he revealed in the first five minutes of conversation, he has a child!  Baby mama and I share the same first name.

Criminal records, children, beards, and flannel are far from turn-ons but aren't on my list of dealbreakers either.  So why is it that I had a good time-one of the best times I've had on a date in Seattle- but don't see a relationship blossoming?

It is the Seattleishness, the awkward, nervous, lack of self-confidence that permeates my dates in this city.  It is the fact that when I invited him up to my apartment, he anxiously sat on my couch for fifteen minutes talking to me and touching my leg before I became exasperated and said "Am I going to have to kiss you first or can you do it?!?"  It is that he kept apologizing- for swearing in conversation, for not sending a followup text message soon enough, for not knowing a good bar to go to.  I've never been in city where men said "I'm sorry" so often for things of such little consequence.  It's impossible to adequately explain male Seattle culture in words, but residents here know what I'm referring to.  There is a skittishness, a hesitancy to take action that makes me lose interest quickly.  I am a planner and a dreamer, a person who tries to live every moment in life with a purpose.  With the exception of the man I was seeing a year ago, I haven't found that quality in my dates.

Will I see him again?  Probably.  I still had fun, and I will give it another shot.  But my instinct tells me that it won't last, that I will lose interest and move on to find what I'm looking for. 

I will end up going on a 60th first date.
 

It's Happening!

My date with Photographer tomorrow night has a special significance to me.  For the first time, I will be going on a first date on a Saturday night.  My weekend nights are precious, and I never schedule a date on them unless I am reasonably convinced I will enjoy myself.  A shitty Tuesday evening is forgivable; a waste of a Saturday evening is tragic.

Will my high hopes be dashed when he shows up twenty minutes late wearing flannel?  Can I overcome the beard?  Is he in an open relationship and looking for a girlfriend who he sleeps with when he's bored of his wife?  Does he program computers on the side?  Is he going to ask for anal sex the first time we hook up?  Does he, like most men I end up dating, have a criminal record?  Will my 59th first date be good enough to end this two and a half year saga?

I'm excited to find out!


 

You Had Me At "Photographer"

That night at Lo-Fi was remarkable for a second reason: I met a man.  In person.  Holy fuck, it can happen.

He was standing by the wall of the club and my friend asked me what I thought.  "I think he'd be cuter if he didn't have a beard," were my exact words.  That was all she needed to hear.  She declared herself my wingwoman and opened with the most asinine pickup line I have ever heard...  "So, do you like 90s music?"  At a 90s dance party.  Whatever works, I suppose.

He immediately bought in.  "I LOVE 90s music!"  No shit.  We all paid $10 to be inside a club blasting Ace of Base, so that was a given.  In an effort to change to a less awkward topic, I asked him what he did for a living.

"I'm a photographer." 

The universe froze in time.  I didn't care about the beard anymore, I wanted to run away with him and lie under the stars and talk about life and love and our greatest fears.  Instinctively, I knew, that if we went on an actual date, I would have fun.  Photography lends itself to a world view that is similar to the perspective of someone who blogs about dating.  There is a predisposition to analyze moments, to participate in life's drama while remaining oddly detached.  It's the same reason that I love working in healthcare.  I mentally noted, then tried to push out of my mind, that my favorite Brooklyn one-night-stand was a photographer too.  I did not find it entirely coincidental.

When the topic of travel came up, he told me that his first trip outside the country was to Nigeria.  For the first time in wayyyyyy too long, I was intrigued.  The general picture of a man I would be interested in fit perfectly, and I wanted to get to know him better.  He was fun (90s night!), creative, adventurous...  All he needed to fit my type was a criminal record.

At the end of the night, as my friends and I were heading out, he asked me if I remembered his name.  "B___," I said.  "Right!"  He perked up a little.  "Well, R____, would you want to get a drink some time?"

YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES

is what I thought as I did a happy dance inside my head.

I tried to play it cool, as though this happened all the time.  "Yeah, that would be fun."  We exchanged numbers.

The waiting game is on.  Two days have passed without hearing from him, and we're heading into Christmas which makes a followup text less likely.  But if he's good at dating, which I hope he is, he knows to make a woman sweat it out.

My New Dating Statistic

Last night at Lo-Fi, while getting my groove on to 90s hip hop, I ran into a man I went out with on a single date, which brings me to a total of ELEVEN random run-ins in Seattle with men I dated.

I have also been on eleven second dates, meaning...

If we go out on a first date, we are equally as likely to run into each other randomly as we are to go on a second date. 

We are also three times as likely to randomly run into each other than go on a third date.

 

The Regrets Post

Heading into 2014, I have regrets.

I regret that when I told the man I was dating last winter to send me a text message if he didn't want to keep seeing me, I didn't specify NOT to send a breakup text message on the second day of a week long trip to Maui. That really blew.

I furthermore regret that I blogged about details of our sex life while we were dating, although I don't regret it enough to not put the post back up in a future entry. That will probably happen soon.

I regret all of the times I had sex on a second date.

In fact, I regret many of my second dates.

I regret sleeping with the man in New York who lived on the Upper West Side. The night before I'd had a really wonderful evening with a different man, and having sex with a banker who I didn't connect with only 24 hours after spending the night with a cinematographer in Brooklyn made me feel lonely and cheap.

I regret that I only seem to meet men off the internet when I am on vacation in New York.

I regret beards and flannel, obviously.

I regret that I don't have the straightforwardness to end bad dates within 20-30 minutes by politely saying I'm not interested and that I instead spend 60-90 minutes on dates with men who think I'm having a great time.

I regret that last year, when a man who spent the night went through all of my prescription medications while I was asleep, I didn't tell him that was totally inappropriate and a violation of my privacy.

I regret paying $100 for a match.com membership. Do I get a refund if the biggest "success" I had off their website was second-date sex with a man who I never talked to again?

I regret Microsoft and Amazon.

I regret polyamory because it's really weird.

I regret one of the two fourth dates that I have been on since my last relationship. The fourth date that I don't regret is with the man who broke up with me via text message while I was in Hawaii.  A functional relationship was not meant to be, but a fourth date absolutely was. 

More OkCupid

My date tonight was wearing a blue and red sailor jacket and asked me for a prescription for Adderall.

Back to the Birthday Boy

Let's go back to "E___", the man who I met at a party a few weeks ago who was chivalrous enough to walk me to the door after fucking me but not enough to get my contact information.

A couple weeks passed, and the sex was still on my mind. It was good! So good, in fact, that I became depressed about the thought of returning to mediocre sex with some man who I had minimal interest in. I have had a decent amount of partners in the last two years, and only a few of the men stand out in my mind. He was one of them.

I rationalized that he would have gotten my number had he wanted to see me again, but then I remembered that this is Seattle. Men don't ask for phone numbers here! They sit at their computers, reading through dating profiles with their plastic rimmed glasses and send out messages like "Hey, I listen to NPR too. Let me know if you want to grab a microbrew and discuss which local farm has the best organic kale."

So on the off chance that he had been interested in seeing me but didn't have the basic social skills to ask for my phone number, I got his number from our  mutual friend, swallowed my pride, and sent him the following text ten days after I'd last seen him:

"Hey, this is R____. Want to hook up?"

The reply was immediate. "I would. I'm out of town until Saturday. I'll text when I'm back."

He contacted me at midnight that Saturday, and I headed over to his apartment. When I arrived he offered me a drink, and we tried to have a conversation.

"How was your week?"

"Good, I got promoted at work," he responded.

"Oh that's cool, what's your new job?"

"Basically I manage a larger server for the data processing of the PDF bitmap file that links to the interface of web user bandwith."

Okay, I may have paraphrased a little, but the point still stands. I stared blankly. "What's a server?"

"Wow," he said. "We have nothing in common... Want to hook up?"

I absolutely did.

Moral of the story? Here it is, absolute proof that men in Seattle have a serious problem asking for phone numbers.

What is with these men?!?!?

I went on a date with a really great guy this weekend.  He was clearly a kind person, had left a cushy job at Microsoft to work on political activist projects in Seattle to try and make his own difference in the world.  He was vegetarian.  He was outdoorsy.  He, like me, feels out of place with the new growth of wealth in the Seattle area.  He longed for a more diverse community and shared my excitement about the recent election of a socialist to Seattle city council.  He was unbearded and unflanneled.  So many pluses!

But, per usual, I wasn't interested, so when he asked me out again I sent him a kind message assuring him that I had a good time but just didn't feel a romantic connection.

Then for the second time in a month, I received a rejection of my rejection:

"I don't usually do this but I think you should consider a second date ... We have a lot of conversational & intellectual chemistry. If you're lucky, you might learn to snowboard ;) We might also become friends. That's my 2 cents."

What the fuck?!?!?  I said no!  No!  No!  No more bad dates!  No more sitting through awkward dinners where I have no chemistry with the person across from me and keep thinking about how I'd rather be rewriting my senior thesis from undergrad!  I don't want to date you!  MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!

......................................................................................................................................................................

In other news, I have new dealbreakers:  Alcoholism and Borderline Personality Disorder.