Did It

I felt particularly awful about having to send an "I'm not interested" text message because he was so nice.  I'd gone out with him twice, and he'd done nothing but be kind and unassuming.  There have been men who argued with me when I said I didn't want to see them again, and I knew he wouldn't be one of them.  He was going to be surprised and a little sad, but he would be courteous.

 

For several hours before the text went out, I ran potential versions past my friends.  "At the end of the day," they pointed out, "you guys had a good time together and he got laid, so I wouldn't worry about it that much." Excellent point, yet I still worried.  It had been only two dates but he'd made it clear that he liked me, and I hate being the cause of someone else's hurt. 

 

"Hey W_____, I wanted to follow up with you because I feel like my interests are aligning elsewhere, and the last thing I would want to do is lead you on.  I had a really fun time, and I wanted you to know."  I kept it intentionally simple; I didn’t want to patronize.
 

Over two hours passed before I heard back, and I knew he put thought into his choice of words because his previous responses had been immediate.

"I was disappointed to receive your last message.  You are great company.  I hope you find the person you're looking for."
 

It was the most gracious response to a breakup text I've gotten from a man, and I was sad because he was great company too.  But I want something else, and it would have been cruel to lead him on.

"That was a hard message for me to send because I think you're great company as well. I'm not looking for anything serious, but if you want to hang out and you're okay with casual, let me know."

I was drinking with friends when I sent the second text, and they all yelled at me.  "NO! Now you're leading this guy on and he's going to keep developing feelings for you!  The kinder thing would be to cut him off and not see him again."

I disagree.  I laid my cards on the table, and he is a rationale 35 year old adult.  If there is one thing I've learned in four years, it's that two people can stave off loneliness and enjoy each other's company without getting too attached, as long as intentions are clear.
 

Also, I'm kick-ass at casual sex- like, really, really good at it for having double X chromosomes.  It's an acquired skill.
 

"Yes, I would like to see you again.  I'm not looking for anything serious, and I'm okay with casual," he responded.

Everyone gets laid.  Everyone gets held.  Everyone wins.  Right?

 

 

:-(

Let's return to the issue at hand, which is that I had sex with a man who I'm just not that into.  This is recurring theme in my dating life that I earnestly tried to correct over the last few months, but I'M LONELY.  I am coming up on four years of not being in a relationship and while some encounters have had more meaning than others, I am partially sustained by the late-night caresses and soft conversations with men who I'm "meh" about.

I made my peace with casual sex awhile ago, but I prefer it to go both ways.  Gender stereotypes suggest that men are the jackass fuck machines, yet this hasn't (generally) been my experience.  Most of the men I sleep with seem to want more, and I hate having to tell them where I stand.  I don't feel guilty about the sex; I feel guilty about leading people on.

If you were to ask me how to communicate lack of interest to a man you'd slept with, I would advise that honesty is the best policy and to do it in a text message.   So with that in mind, I have been coming up with possible excuses to text the last man I slept with that will cause no more than minimal hurt.  They all start with "Hey W____, I wanted to let you know I had a really nice time the other night..."

... I recently have been having some medical issues and need to concentrate on my health for the moment.
... I actually just found out I was pregnant (not yours- don't worry!) and it's not a good time for me to be dating.
... I've been seeing this other guy for a few months and we just decided to make it exclusive.
... My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer last week and my family is my priority right now.

So... the honesty part is really, really hard.  But writing "Hey W____, I wanted to let you know I had a really nice time the other night.  I feel like dating-wise my interests are elsewhere, but I wish you the best" makes me feel like a horrible person.

Particularly when, within twelve hours of leaving my apartment in the morning, this man texted "Although I was tired today, I was in an exceptionally good mood thanks to you."

Ugh.

Welcome!

It appears that I have some new readers!  Thanks for stopping by, Wellesley sisters.  Let me explain myself.

My name is R____, and I'm a born-and-raised Seattleite.  I try and do good things to help the world, like save lives in my career at a community health center, buy food from farmers markets, and avoid clothes made in sweatshops.  Like many of my Pacific Northwest brethren I am politically liberal, outdoorsy, and a vegetarian.  I am also Jewish and 32 years old. I date men and one day, I hope to date the same man for more than a month, marry him, and create some little people that we can raise together.

I spent my twenties bouncing around the world, getting a couple degrees and learning languages before moving back to Seattle at age 29, hoping to find love in the Emerald City and make it my home.  I thought that if I put some effort into dating I'd find a boyfriend in about six months- maybe twelve.  It has now been over three years.

There have been 73 first dates so far- most off the internet- although I'm outgoing and meet men in person as well.  I call my blog The Fourth Date because if I make it to four dates with the same man, that is a BIG DEAL.

I have a type:  Men who have been arrested.

I have a definite NOT type:  Men who work in tech...  I have a flip phone.

Dating likes:  Compassion, fun, men who can relate to people from different backgrounds, good sex, humility, corduroys, high energy levels, alcohol drinkers.

Dating dislikes:  Beards, flannel, plaid, arrogance, polyamory, bad sex, anal sex, Amazon, Microsoft, racist/classist comments, boring men.

I try my best to be an honest and ethical dater because I know we all have feelings on the line.  Sometimes I still fuck up. 

My friends say my disastrous love life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

I disagree. 

 

We Built This City On Rock and Roll

Things that should never happen on a second date:

1)  I should not, two hours beforehand, be trying to come up with ideas of conversation topics.

2)  Potential ideas of conversation topics should not be "What drugs have you done?", "When's the last time you drank so much you blacked out?", or "Since you're from Wisconsin, do you want the Seahawks or the Packers to win?"

3)  No man should show up in the exact same plaid shirt that he wore on our first date.

4)  I should not be drunk-texting- from the bathroom at the bar- three men who I dated in the last year along with my best friend M for the sole purpose of telling them that my date wore the same plaid shirt twice in a row.

The fact that I drunk-texted multiple men I've slept with while on a date with a different man appropriately sums up my interest. He is kind, smart, Jewish (!!!!), and clearly interested in me, but as the date continued and I got drunker, I knew I was heading into dangerous territory.  I was having a great time with a man who I was quite apathetic about, which meant I would almost certainly have sex and break my resolution to only sleep with men I like.  We were headed out to dance, and the night was perfectly set up for me to make a decision I'd regret.

Until 1 am, we boogied down to mashups at the last Bootie night ever for Chop Suey- the latest Seattle institution to fold under.  We Built This City came on the sound system, he kissed me, and I kissed him back.  His hands moved from my shoulders to my breasts, abdomen, and hips, and I realized that making out on the dance floor was just delaying the inevitable.  I took his hand and led us to our jackets we'd tossed on the floor, signaling it was time to leave.

At my apartment, I futilely tried to keep us in make-out mode with clothes on by suggesting we go up to my roof.  It was an effective strategy for ten minutes but then we got cold, went inside, and had sex.  Resolution broken.  It lasted 3.5 months. (The resolution, that is.  The sex lasted about ten minutes).

The first thought in my head when I woke up this morning and saw him next to me was "You're still here?!?!?" 

Of course, I kept that to myself, but the second thought, I said out loud:

"I have a headache."

I was turned away from him in bed, so he spooned me and kissed the back of my neck.  "Not me.  I feel great!"

Totally.  Me too.

 

Probably Not Love, Definitely A Good Time

It had been seven weeks since my last date, and I was admittedly excited to get back in the game.  I was determined, in a way that eclipsed every prior determination, to have a good time with a man.  Three months without any physical intimacy in the darkest, loneliest days of the year weighed upon me and I wanted love- or as close as I could get to it- if only for a night.

This man, I knew intuitively, would be able to deliver on a not-shitty evening.  His profile said he drank alcohol often and did drugs occasionally, which is exactly what I would say in my profile if I didn't have a job that could potentially fire me for it.  He was a 35 year old working in the kitchen of a grocery store, from which I extrapolated that he was humble and not a pompous dick; minimum wage doesn't exactly win you bragging rights.

So I was a little surprised when he suggested we meet at Canon, a whiskey bar that has ranked on the "world's best bars" list and has prices to match.  Three craft cocktails in I realized this man has his priorities.  Enjoying life is clearly one of them, while finances are not.  I would never have to run out of his apartment after sex saying I didn't want an engagement ring because he couldn't afford to buy me one anyways.

"Let me get this," he reached for the check that probably amounted to an entire day's pay.

"No, let's split it," I suggested.  The feminist inside me cringes when men pay.  Often they argue, but he didn't.  "Okay, thanks."

He was quiet but not dull.  I felt like he had something to offer, I just had to pull it out of him.  He dropped out of college but was clearly intelligent, had a reserved, introspective demeanor, and was the type of man who was comfortable with solitude.  He train-hopped, riding in freight cars for days by himself.  He hitchhiked to Kodiak, Alaska.  He, like many of the men on dates before him, had been arrested (trespassing).

I told him how I too value my independence and how I spent Christmas on a solo bar-crawl doing crossword puzzles, stopping at every open liquor establishment from Georgetown through SODO to Chinatown.  "I'm Jewish," I offered as an explanation to justify my alcoholic tendencies over the holidays.

"Yeah, me too."

WHOA...  The date took a very, very unexpected turn for me.  He had not disclosed his religious affiliation online and to be fair (and stereotypical), there are not a lot of Milwaukee-born college dropouts working dead-end minimum wage jobs who are part of The Tribe.  But the moment he said it, the heritage was obvious: we both had huge mops of dark, curly hair.

It was 9:30 on a Thursday, and we were drunk.  The evening would have ended prematurely at that point, so we meandered to Café Pettiroso, drank again, and then found our way to Havana for Soul Night.  We danced to Higher and Higher, and I felt his toned arms and shoulders through his plaid shirt while he put his hands around my waist.  It was the first physical contact I'd had with a man in three months, and it felt amazing.

I let him walk me home, and we hugged (but did not kiss) outside my apartment building.  The next day, sober, I reassessed the situation.

There is no doubt in my mind that I had fun that evening and that it easily ranks in the upper 10% of times I've had with men, but was it good enough?  He was no Crazy Chinatown Man, no Engineer with the Houseboat, no Brooklyn Cinematographer.  I had the familiar feeling of apathy, that I would see him again if he contacted me but I wouldn't care if he didn't.  Historically, this gray zone is a bad position to be in for men who want to date me; no man who has started in lukewarm territory has ever escaped.  My friends who are in relationships tell me to give more chances to the ones I'm iffy on.  I always do, but every time it follows the same pattern:  We go on a few more dates. We have sex.  I have to say I'm not interested.  He is upset...  I may talk tough, but I don't like hurting people.

So here I am, committed to a second date with this man who appropriately followed up within 48 hours and asked to see me again.  Will my friends' advice prove my intuition wrong?





 

Crazy Chinatown Man's Legacy

But first!  My most recent OkCupid message:

"Shalom.  Is the flip phone a Jewish thing or are you just cool? Do you speak Ladino tambien? Would you like to go for a run or a hike?"

Nope!

***********************************************************************************

I had to delete Crazy Chinatown Man's number from my phone this week because, three months since I last saw him, I was still sending him drunk text messages.  If I hadn't already proven to him what a disaster I was when I told him I didn't want an engagement ring and ran out of his apartment ON OUR FOURTH DATE, I sure proved it with random, unsolicited text messages- all sent after 12 am- over the next few months.  I doubt he considered, when he went out with me a total of six times, that he would end up with a life-long drunk text buddy who lives in another state.  I had liked him, but I couldn't hold him responsible for filling this void of oppressive loneliness I seem to be stuck in.  "Sorry sorry sorry sorry," I wanted to apologize over and over, which would have only added to his likely perception of my insanity.  The best course of action was to edit my contacts list.  I removed, at the same time, Brooklyn Cinematographer, striking from my phone two of the men who I've felt anything more than apathy towards in the last few years.    Done and done.

He peace'd out to Oregon but left me with the incredible gift of knowledge of what I believe to be the best bar in all of Seattle- The Dynasty Room in Chinatown.  In what other bar in Seattle can you, on a Saturday night, get four people wasted for $100 and have the entire space to sing karaoke with your friends?  The answer is NONE.  Many thanks to Crazy Chinatown Man, (who incidentally is very, very White), for forever altering my preferred location for alcohol consumption in this city.

I may not have a relationship with a man, but I plan on having a long and loving relationship with that bar.
 

New Year, New Dates

It has been over six weeks since my last date, largely due to a growing intuition of OkCupid red flags that I've accumulated over the last three years.

I move on immediately at the first hint of an open relationship or professional involvement with the tech industry, but the other red flags probably aren't what you would expect.  They are descriptions like "recent Seattle transplant," pictures of men in front of Machu Picchu or posing with Africans, references to Burning Man, or when a man fills in the "I'm really good at ________" section with the words "most things I put my mind to."  With a few notable exceptions, my dates have been shockingly arrogant.

Most of the profiles blend together by this point, using similar verbiage designed to make them stand out but in reality highlighting the homogeneity of my dating pool.  The Midwest or East Coast transplant with a college degree who loves live music, rock climbs, has visited between 5-10 countries, participates in flamethrowing, and brews his own beer is my quintessential date.

So when I came across the profile of the man who will be my 73rd first date, he stood out by his averageness.  His entire self summary was as follows:

I'm old fashioned. I like black and white film photography, slow travel(wooden sailboats, freight trains), reading, cycling, urban exploring, taking time off of work to leave town."  It had refreshingly little information about his life.

Under Education it said "Dropped out of university."  Under Drinks it said "Often."  Under Drugs it said "Sometimes."  He had a single picture- a selfie- in a white wifebeater with slightly disheveled curly hair.  In our short message exchange he noted that he worked in the kitchen of a major grocery store chain.

We made plans to hang out next week, and I have a single hope for the evening:

JUST DON'T FUCKING SUCK

Please.