Craiglist Missed Connections

Because really, what do I have to lose?

My neighborhood has some of the best coffee shops in the world within a half mile radius, but on this particular day, I needed a break from Capitol Hill.  I didn't care about the ingenuity of my latte art.  I wanted to be free from MacBooks and Google Glass and facial hair. 

Drove two miles south, and I might as well have been in a different city.  Bam!  Beacon Hill delivered.  Two minutes at the windowsill of a coffee shop and a hot, Black, dreadlocked man walked in, wearing a mix of notflannel and notplaid.

"What asinine pickup line can I come up with?", I thought.  Three years of hitting on men in Seattle has given me the confidence to know that the introductory line doesn't matter.  Just start talking about anything.  ANYTHING.  If there's interest, I will get a response.

I walked over to his general vicinity, chose a nearby magazine, and said syllables out loud.  I have no idea what the magic words were, but in the subsequent minutes I found out he was an inner city kindergarten teacher, and I fell in love.  He asked me what my name was and gave me his.  Everything was going great, but I couldn't close the deal.  I got nervous, as we do, and I left the coffee shop with no numbers exchanged- even though I think we both wanted to.

So I turned to the Missed Connections section on Craigslist and posted, from which I have gotten a single response:  "You could have taken him a cookie with your number on the napkin."

Noted.

Fingers crossed!!!!

 

Gaydar's Off

71 and 72 shook it up and wore plaid.  Seattle men- always keeping me on my toes with fashion!  I had high hopes for both, as it seemed that we had a lot in common.  71 was a mountain biker and hiker, relocated from Vermont to live near giant mountains and work in sustainable energy.  72 was a public policy grad student, spent two years in Ethiopia on a Peace Corps stint, and was a vegetarian.  How could these dates end in anything but fireworks and naming the babies we'd have together?

I don't know, but they did; all parties involved were quite bored.  I left the 72nd thinking of my last boyfriend- Number Zero- the man before the count started.  He never went to college and his international experience was limited to his military service in Iraq.  After we broke up I stalked him on OkCupid for a bit and noted that we were a low 56% match percentage.  Yet we'd met in real, non-internet life and fell madly in love with each other.  Point being?  Everything can align on paper, but you never know when and how the magic will strike.

After the failure of my 72nd first date since that boyfriend, I didn't feel like I could go home alone.  I drove aimlessly from Greenlake through Wallingford, crossed the University Bridge and decided to pull over in Eastlake for no good reason other than there was a parking spot in front of Serafina.  Wine.  I needed wine.

I sat at the bar next to a chatty gay man, and when I told him I just finished my 72nd first date he said "I'm so sorry hun!  Let me buy you a drink and we'll talk it over."  I poured my heart out to him over the next hour, and we bemoaned the loneliness and desperation.  "See, this is already better than your date," he reassured me.  "Life's looking up."

I completely agreed, and we switched conversation topics to our careers.  He was a jack-of-all-trades and at one point was a cook in a sorority house.  "My girlfriend didn't like that much, though, so I left."

Girlfriend?!?!?  Whoa.  Holy shit, had I fucked up.  We continued the conversation and he became more explicit about his intentions.  I realized that he wasn't a gay man being friendly.  He was a straight man hitting on me.

Earlier in the evening, he'd given me his business card.  "Well, you have my number.  I'll let you decide what to do with it... Or you could give me yours."

A man confident enough to hit on me at a bar and get my contact information is what I have wanted in Seattle for the last three years!  Unfortunately, I was completely uninterested.  Even more unfortunately, I had been giving off an interested vibe for the previous sixty minutes.  I tried to backtrack, but it was too late.

"I was hoping you'd hit on me," NOT gay man texted after I left.

"Were you hitting on me?", I responded.

"Would it work?", he countered.

I contemplated my commitment to honesty with dating, how I work hard to be clear about my intentions and expect the same from men.  In my mind, I reviewed how I believe everyone deserves closure and a sincere answer back, no matter the context.  And then I did the most passive, Seattle thing that I swore I'd never do.

I didn't respond.

Born Again Virgin

At Planned Parenthood a few months ago, getting tested yet again, the medical assistant made a seemingly innocent comment while looking through my chart:

"Oh, I can see you've been in here a lot."

I laughed, then an internal panic set in.  Does that make me really responsible?  Or does that make me the opposite?  In the last twelve months I had sex with seven different men, none of whom was a boyfriend.  In fact, there were only two men who I had any interest in making a boyfriend.  That's a lot of potential exposures to diseases and pregnancy and uncomfortable conversations that run along the lines of "So I know I slept with you, but I'm just not that interested..."  Some of the men took it well.  Others were upset.  No matter how casual we intend to be about sex, it complicates things.

Which brings me to my new resolution, heading into my 71st and 72nd first dates that are on the books for this week:

I am only going to sleep with men who I like.

Novel idea, right?  I first thought of it after I had sober sex with Crazy Chinatown Man.  That sex had intention, for him and for me.  We knew it was coming and had discussed it briefly beforehand as legally consenting adults without alcohol in our systems.  Four dates in we were far from a relationship, but the sex felt a little relationship-y.  I liked him.  He liked me.  There was a purpose...  I can't go back to fucking men for the sake of fucking- nor do I want to.

Which means, my blog may get less interesting.  It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Criminal Records

Today we're going to talk about suspected criminals/men I go out with. 

"I don't know a single person who's been arrested!", stated a friend.  "How do you find these guys?"

I have no clue.  I don't have any friends or family who have been in jail.  The closest I've ever come to a criminal record is when a police officer pulled me over for driving too slow in the left lane of the highway.  That was over ten years ago, and I got off with a warning.  I can't blame it on internet dating because a lot of the men I met offline.  Not sure what it is about me, but I love the lawbreakers.

So here are the reasons men I've been with have gotten into legal trouble, along with the excuses about why they broke the law:

1) Motor vehicle hit-and-run   ("I just barely tapped the guy")

2) Driving with expired tabs and outstanding tickets  (He was Black.)

3) Threatening an ex-girlfriend  (He tried to be funny and sent her a package with an axe inside and a note saying "Let's bury the hatchet."  She got a restraining order against him).

4) Breaking into an ex-girlfriend's apartment and ransacking her home ("I was off my meds.  If I just take my meds I'm fine.")

5) Holding up a "Free Tibet" sign in the middle of Tiananmen Square during the Beijing Olympics
(No excuse given and really, none needed)

6)  Breaking and entering a public pool in the middle of the night  ("We were 21, in college, and hammered.  They had an Olympic high dive.")

7)  DUI.  (No excuse.  He feels horrible about it and is relieved he didn't hurt anyone.)

8)  Vandalism  (He's a PhD candidate with a special interest in anarchist philosophy)

Will add to the list as they come along.




 

What Happens When I Try to Meet Men Offline

My friend and I sat at a booth in Sun Liquor Distillery last night, drinking cocktails and catching up on our love (or lack thereof) lives, when she noticed a man sitting by himself at the bar.

"Oh my God, I think that guy keeps showing up in my OkCupid matches!  Want to see?"

We took at look at the profile in question.  Not only was it the same man, but he was wearing the exact same shirt and hat as in his pictures.  Leave it to an eligible Seattle bachelor to have a single presentable outfit.

He also, as OkCupid noted, was online at that moment.  We glanced over and saw him on his cell phone, clearly scrolling through potential matches.

The weirdness of the situation was too much for me to handle.  We were two single women staring at a single man- all of us on the same internet dating website- yet not talking to each other at a bar.  Is this what dating has come to?  We sit alone and drink alcohol, searching for love online while being oblivious to the people around us?

Two drinks in and I knew I had to say hello.  Maybe we'd like each other!  Maybe he'd like my friend!  I am on a mission to encourage the Seattle organic dating process, and this was too obvious of an opportunity to ignore.

"Hey, you're on OkCupid, right?", I jumped right in.  He was surprised and said "maybe."

"You keep showing up in my friend's matches so I wanted to come over and say hi."

"Oh, well tell your friend it's perfectly legal to send a message.  She doesn't have to wait for me to contact her."

Alternatively, I thought later, you could walk 15 feet to your left and say hello to my friend IN PERSON.  Or you could thank your lucky stars that a woman just approached you in a bar, realize that perhaps she is interested, and flirt back.  Or you could not be interested in either of the women but still drop your phone for five minutes and meet some new people because you're sitting at a bar by yourself and really, what else are you doing with your life?

Or you could be totally awkward, not make eye contact, and mumble something about the weirdness of internet dating.  Yeah, do that.


 

Pacific Inn Pub

Once again, the best thing about my date was the bar we went to.  It was a solid dive in Fremont that I would highly recommend.  The menu says they have Sunday breakfast for $6.75!!!  I always try and get something positive out of my dates, and the bar was it.

#70 showed up in- you guessed it- flannel!  I already was disinterested, then he opened his mouth.

"So you work at a community health center?  That must be so hardcore!"

I stared him down, knowing exactly what he meant but being so pissed off that I wanted to put him on the spot.

"What do you mean by 'hardcore'?"

He dug himself deeper.  "I mean, don't get me wrong, I think the work you do is amazing!  It's just, you must see a lot of mental illness and stuff.  I mean, I think mental illness is a huge issue that needs to be addressed.  It's something I care a lot about on a personal level- I mean, not PERSONAL, but it's something I'm passionate about.  There's a huge need for mental health care, which is causing so many of the healthcare disparities..."

Just shut the fuck up.  I checked out immediately and spent the next two hours of my life wondering how I am ever going to connect with a man in this city, the American bastion of liberalism, where everyone claims to be progressive but thinks anyone who makes less than $30,000 is exotic.  Ironically, I went out with this man specifically because he mentioned "social justice" in his profile.  I really couldn't care any less about a man's theories on poverty and service on boards of non-profits.  Can he talk with a person from a different background without feeling like he's dangerous and edgy?  That's what I want to know.

I finished my beer and he ordered another, turning a 60 minute date into 120.  I need to start being bitchier, I thought, or stop wearing makeup to these things.  He walked me to my car and said "Thanks for the great conversation!"  I wanted to cry.

71 is inevitable, looming on the horizon like a rainy, Seattle winter.

Again, What's Important

I caught my brother and his fiancé up to speed on my dating life over lunch last week and emphasized, "Can you please not tell our parents about this?"

"There is NO WAY I would tell Mom and Dad," my brother said, "mostly because I don't want to have to deal with all the questions they would ask."

So let me explain again, because I have new readers, how Crazy Chinatown Man made it through my dating filter after admitting to being on an antipsychotic during our first date THAT HE DOESN'T REMEMBER and then binge-drinking and drugging his way through our next six, 15 months later. 

There is a method to the madness.  I AM looking for something serious, and a man needs to have a few key values for that to happen.

1)  Community.  And by community, I don't mean White thirty-somethings who live in Seattle and get together for vegan, gluten-free potlucks.  I have always been attracted to men who navigate cultural and socioeconomic differences with ease.  Can he speak another language?  Does he have friends from different backgrounds?  If I were to take him to my workplace, would he notice that most of my coworkers are women of color who had their first child before graduating high school, or would he notice that most of my coworkers are intelligent, passionate, kind, and fucking rockstars?

2)  Social justice.  There is nothing that makes me want to exit a date more than when I tell a man what I do for a living and his response is, "Wow, that's really admirable."  Caring and advocating for the most vulnerable people in our society should be normal, and if he thinks that is something that deserves extra respect or admiration, we will never connect.

3)  Fun.  This is, clearly, a recurring theme in my blog.  But life is stressful, yo!  Last week, I had to walk into a room and tell a 12 year old boy and his father that the mass on the child's shoulder is bone cancer and, P.S., he doesn't have health insurance and needs some.  The three of us cried in the room together and then I sobbed alone at my desk for a good ten minutes more before needing to move on to another patient.  That night I went home, got stoned, drank 2 glasses of wine, and popped some Xanax.  Life can be so sad!  People lose jobs, lose parents, get sick, have accidents...  I need a partner who can have a good time and weather those moments with me.

There are some things that are notably absent from my dating criteria: 

Education level, salary, career, religion, ability to be monogamous, past marital status, parental status.  Criminal records.  Drug use.  While I spend every summer weekend in the mountains, outdoorsy isn't part of my criteria.  Neither is travel experience, although I have lived abroad several times.  It's not that I don't pay attention to these or that they don't matter, but they don't make or break my ability to love someone, and none are dealbreakers.

Crazy Chinatown Man made the cut, as did three men who I fell in love with over the years and a few others along the way.  Know anyone else, Seattle?  I'm headed out on my 70th first date next week, might as well make it 71.