Tinder

Alright, Life, I call bullshit, because while I am arguably a basket case when it comes to relationships with the opposite sex, my friend "A", who lives in Chicago, is not.  She is a successful, 32 year old inner-city public school teacher who not only has her shit together but is intelligent, fun, and smokin' hot.  There is no reason- NO REASON- for this woman to be single (as judged impartially by myself), and yet she has not had a serious relationship in over ten years.

We discussed our perpetually unfulfilling love lives over drinks in Lincoln Park last night, and "A," who has long been resistant to internet dating, revealed that several weeks ago she signed up for Tinder.  Tinder is something I would love to try if it were not for my stubbornness to accept new technology into my life.  The key necessity for Tinder is a smartphone, and in 2014, I am still flipping my phone open.

"A" set her Tinder age limits from 26-35 and promptly started communication with a man at the younger end of the demographic.  She was out one night when he texted her to ask what she was up to.

"Oh, just at a bar with friends."

"Well, how would you like it if I went down on you for one hour and then bought you a martini?"

"A" didn't think she would like that at all.  In fact, her first thought was that no woman would like it if a man went down on her for an hour.  Did this 26 year old have any knowledge of female sexual response?  Women would like it if men performed oral sex for 5-10 minutes and then proceeded to intercourse.  Sixty minutes of tongue lashing sounded like ten minutes of enjoyment followed by fifty minutes of staring at the ceiling while making a grocery list.

Her second thought was "a martini"?  What kind of woman did he think she is?  She much prefers Bud Light or a glass of house red.  Anyways, if he was going to buy her a martini, it would probably have to be before the excruciatingly boring hour of cunnilingus and not after.  Even his timing was off.






 

#63

He was great and just the reintroduction to internet dating I was looking for.  We met up at Greenlake, walked around the loop, and had a good enough time to agree to Round Two and get coffee.

I specifically went out with him because his profile on OkCupid mentioned social justice, which has been a major point of disconnection between me and my dates.  I don't think I need my partner to save the world, but he has to have more than a cursory knowledge of what life is like outside the middle to upper class demographic.  This man was a public high school teacher and passionate about education.  He clearly loved his job and gave a damn about giving youth opportunities and guidance.  He was also athletic, articulate, thoughtful, and definitely attractive.

The only problem was, I wasn't attracted to him.  I spent a lot of the date trying to piece out why the right chemistry wasn't there, and I somewhat regretted meeting him for an alcohol-less afternoon walk.  Had there been booze, we might have been touching each other and thinking of the next steps to take, but my iced green tea was doing nothing for building a romance.

The date lasted about two hours.  We walked together toward my car, and he said he would like to see me again.  "I'll be in touch," he assured me, as he gave me a hug.

We had a ton in common and I would have given it another shot had he called, but he didn't.  I've never been shy when it comes to indicating my interest, and I considered sending him a text message asking him out again. "But why?", I countered to myself.  Had he been interested he would have followed up.  The reality was, we both enjoyed ourselves, but the spark was missing.

On a positive note-  for all you single females, there is a totally decent, fun, hot teacher on the market in Seattle.  Go get him!

 

OkCupid Gems

Back to OkCupid, the dark abyss of tech, nerddom, and polyamory with an imaginary light at the end of the tunnel.  Although I have no success with internet dating I keep doing it, time and again, because somehow, after three years of searching, I still have hope.

I have gotten about thirty messages since I reactivated my account a week ago, and I haven't responded to a single one.  They range from the lonely and verbose:

"Hi,

What were you up to this weekend? I am having a really nice weekend. This morning I went on a run around Queen Anne. I am trying to work up to running the Seattle Marathon next year. I still have a long way to go, but I think I can do it. Nice days like today provide a reminder of how scenic Seattle is when the view isn’t obscured by the mist. The view while running on the top of Queen Anne was really spectacular. I then met up with a friend to see The Unknown Known, the new Errol Morris documentary interviewing Donald Rumsfeld. His use of language is something like a rainy day in Seattle, except it isn’t covering up something pretty. We went to the Sundance Cinemas, where they now serve beer and real food. I am going to have to remember to go there more often."

To the desperately boring: 

"Hey there, how are you doing today?"

To the obnoxious and creepy: 

"It's kind of weird
I just need some honest advice

Truthfully how much does size really matter?"

 

The men have screen names like TallCleverKinky, nerdoutchampion, aboveaveragejoe, greatguy6375, and dudeosaurus. 

 

One man has, as his opening line in his profile, "Yes, yes, I admit it. I watch porn. Get over it."

 

He goes on to say he is a "bestial lover" and that he has been "known to make people laugh until they have to pee."  He also reports, in his self-summary, that he likes sex, which is helpful to know because that's unusual for a man.

 

His IQ is 186.  He had weight loss surgery.  He once talked a woman into an orgasm.  He thinks rainbows are pretty but he doesn't like ponies.  Okay he lied, he does like ponies.  And he loves "the flabbergasted expression on the faces of geniuses when they realize that I'm simply out of their league intellectually"

 

We are, according to the OKC algorithm that filters my romantic prospects, an 83% match.

The Third Man I Went On At Least Four Dates With, and How It Ended

It wasn't the fact that he has been unemployed for nearly a year, that he drinks and smokes pot daily, or that he still has emotional baggage left over from a failed engagement. It wasn't the beard or sweatshirts. It wasn't his lack of a criminal record. The moment that I realized we were not going to progress to full relationship status, we weren't even together. I was at work.

My patient was dying. I had seen her a week before for bipolar disorder, and she was going downhill. I frantically adjusted her medications the best I could and did a referral to psychiatry, knowing full well that a psych referral for my patient population takes three months- an eternity for the acutely mentally ill. I was worried, and she was too. We made a safety contract, and she agreed to come back to see me in one week.

That day, with the little energy she had, she found a way to make it to her appointment on time. She had cut her wrists the day before but in survival mode, thinking of her children, she put on her nightgown and drove the hour it took to get to our clinic from her rural, medically underserved town. She was not wearing underwear, hadn't showered in several days, and whispered to me, "I'm so sick. I need help."


"Do you have any pills or weapons with you right now?"

"No."

The questions that I have to ask.

I called 911 and when the paramedics arrived she was sobbing in the fetal position, clenching my hand, apologizing for crying into my dress, and worrying out loud that this is how her children would forever remember her. She agreed to go to the hospital, and they took her away.

That, effectively, ended my hopes of a relationship with my neighbor. The man I fall in love with will need to understand, on a personal level, poverty and hopelessness in the community I am so passionate about working with. While this man is kind and liberal and an all-around good person, that connection wasn't there.

But one thing that was going great between us was the sex!  MmmMmm.   Physical chemistry was spot on, and the sweet, post-coital tenderness was there too. We had our best conversations in bed, and I felt an intimacy that fulfilled me emotionally. I was hesitant to let that go, but I also didn't want to lead him on.

It weighed on me, how to tell him that it wasn't going anywhere, that my feelings were stuck in "I like you a lot" and not progressing. Would I hurt him, or did he feel the same way?

I hadn't seen him for a few days, and when he came up to my apartment we started making out. I was hesitant, he could tell, and although I insisted I was fine he appropriately read my body language and knew otherwise.

"What's going on?", he asked.

I sighed. "It's not that I don't want to have sex. I WANT to have sex, that's not the problem. The problem is, that's all we do..."

He sighed back. "Alright, we need to talk about this. You're a great girl, but-"

I cut him off. I didn't want him to finish his sentence because it didn't need to be said. There was no reason for each of us to explain our lack of significant feelings for the other, to add insult to the injury of our dating defeat. It just didn't work out. We were on the same page.

"Okay, I'm just gonna come out and say it," he said. " Friends with benefits? The sex is really good."

Even more on the same page.

Seven weeks, the average length of time I can holding together a romance with a man I'm dating in Seattle. Par for the course.

Stay Tuned

There will be a 63rd first date.  OKC reactivated.  Details to come.

Whoops!

Guess who found my blog.

As it turns out, when you're dating someone who has a basic knowledge of how the internet works and you tell him that you blog about dating in Seattle, he figures out a way to track it down.  And then- as though to make up for all of male humanity- he reassures you that anal sex is not one of his marriage deal-breakers.  I'm so glad that needed to be cleared up in the first month.

So here I am, monogamously dating the same man for about six weeks, who now has this website address.  What to say, what to say...

 

"Youth, and I Really Love Her Kid"

Whammy #2:

The Ex is engaged.  My third love and final heartbreak has committed to spend his life with the woman he preferred to be with because she was younger than me and had a child of his ethnic background.  The memory of him comparing me to her and explaining what she had over me, "youth, and I really love her kid," recurs every time I feel proud of an accomplishment.  Am I less likely to find love because of the successes I've earned?  I'd like to say I moved on, but it's three years later and here I am, occasionally stalking his Facebook profile.

My reaction was completely different from a few days before, when I found out Julio was engaged.  I didn't cry, wasn't angry, had no moments of bittersweet tenderness, and didn't even care that much.  I saw his recent engagement photos and my first thought was that I didn't find him attractive.  My second thought was that his small head and giant, toothy grin make him look stupid.  My third thought was that I never want engagement photos.  Waste of money!

Three years, still holding at 62 first dates.