Disengagement

At one point in time, I decided to institute a policy that I would always respond to emails personally (not with the auto-rejection), because I appreciate receiving responses to the emails I send (albeit infrequently – I really prefer for guys to initiate, but that is a WHOLE OTHER issue…).

This is a good idea in theory.  The problem with it in reality is that… men send stupid emails.

Probably 60% of the time, men send an email like one of the following:

“HI! “

“I like your pictures!!!”

“How are you?!”

“hey”

“you’re pretty”

I am generally unimpressed by such emails.  But also find an appropriate response difficult.      Even trickier are the emails that are merely commenting on something in my profile… what does that even mean??

BUT THEN.  I realized the solution: respond to the email in kind – greetings get greetings in return, questions get answered, compliments get thank yous.  But until the man, well, MANS UP and asks me out… I do not tell him whether or not I’m interested.  Once he asks, I tell him yes or no, and if it’s no, try to do it as politely as I can and give a reason (sometimes as generic as “not a good fit”, though I try to be more specific when I don’t think it will be terribly offensive).

This tactic more or less works – the goal is, essentially, to subtly push a man toward a definitive date proposition without engaging in endless back and forth emails.  I do not want an entire life story before I even meet the guy.  I don’t want to spend hours penning pithy responses.  I just want a damn date, and men on online dating sites, for the most part, seem to have forgotten how to initiate one.

(Protip: giving me your phone number so I can text you or asking me “when are we gonna hang?” are NOT the same as asking me on a date.  Dates involve a plan.  And a day/time.  Try “I would like to meet you.  How about drinks at [favorite bar] on [day of the week] at [time]?”.  It’s not rocket science.)

ANYWAY.  To the point.

Typically, this strategy is effective from my standpoint.  But TWICE in recent months the end-result has totally baffled me.

Two men – both of whom were more-or-less “good on paper” but whose general attitude in both profile and email annoyed the CRAP out of me – sent me several chit-chatty emails before vaguely asking me out.  I kept my responses to the chit-chat short and to the point, with no reciprocal questions, and then when they asked me out, I politely declined, stating that I didn’t think we’d be a good fit (because “you annoy the crap out of me and we haven’t even met yet” doesn’t really seem like a nice way to go…).

Both of these men then responded, “You’re right.  Good luck.”

Which leaves me puzzled.  Is that a sarcastic you’re right?  As in “you’re clearly a bitch so OF COURSE we’re not a good match”?  Is that an “oh, gosh golly, you’re right, I was so silly to not see that”?  Is it sad and dejected, filled with self-loathing and low self-esteem?  Good luck finding a guy to meet your crazy standards, you nit-picky bitch?

I spent some time puzzling over this, and had a little internal debate about whether or not to email these men to clarify.  And ultimately, I arrived at this conclusion: I don’t really care.  It doesn’t matter.  DISENGAGE.

Best online dating decision to date.

And that’s exactly how it happened.

The Geek Out

It has occurred to me that this particular story may look worse on me than the guy.  But hey, that’s why I have a “self-deprecation” category, right?

I make it pretty evident in my profile that I am, to put it bluntly, kind of a nerd (or maybe a geek?  Who knows?).  That I like things like books and going to school and Harry Potter.  I fess up to liking cheesy tween books and TV shows and movies.  I have no shame.  I figure it’s better to just put it all out there.  No surprises.

Which is why I always find it entertaining when a guy clearly is disturbed by my level of geekiness.  I recognize that I can look pulled-together and generally un-geeky, and I can hold my own in conversations about “cooler” topics (what does that even mean as an adult?), but the geekiness is going to be there.  Not gonna lie.

So there was this guy.  We went out on a coffee date, and we genuinely had a great time – talking, laughing, lots of seeing eye-to-eye on some more major issues, and he had even been uber-understanding about me being late to the date due to work issues.

When he called to followup, we had a lovely hour long phone conversation, and then he asked me out on a second date.  At first he suggested coming over to my place to watch a TV show I had on DVD, but I nixed that as an idea because, um, second date does not happen at my house.  No matter how good the first date.

Instead, he offered to meet me at the movie theater.  He remembered that I liked Harry Potter, and that I had mentioned wanting to see the one that had just come out at that time again, because some of the changes between the book and the movie had been so significant that I felt I needed to see it again now that the shock-effect was gone.  So he suggested we go to see that, since he had also been wanting to see it – he hadn’t read the books, but he had seen all the other movies and enjoyed them.

Sounded like a great plan to me, so I told him I would meet him there.  And so I did, and we chatted a bit before the movie, and had a nice time watching the movie, and then sat in the theater for awhile afterward to chat.

And he asked me, directly, what I thought about the movie the second time around.  So I told him, mentioning some of the big changes that had been made.  At which point he asked me how I could remember details like that.

I explained that I had read all of the books several times over, and discussed them a lot with friends, so it was easier to remember the details.

This is when it happened.  This is when I witnessed him visibly checking out of the date.

He blinked a couple times, then said incredulously, “You’ve read the books more than once?”

I already knew at this point that it was a lost cause, that for whatever reason, this particular bit of information tipped him over the edge of thinking my geekiness was quirky and cute to thinking that it was a deal-breaker, so I thought I’d have a little fun.

“I have read them more than once.  Lots of people have.  These books are kind of a big deal – you know they had midnight release parties in bookstores for each book?”

He blinked again and shook his head “no”.  I could see the shock on his face, and at the same time thought to myself, “He watches these movies, and lives in, you know, a world with TV and newspapers, and doesn’t realize what a big deal the books are?”

I told him a little more about the extent of the Potter-verse – bands and podcasts and entire books devoted to analysis of the series – then decided that was enough.  He was thoroughly geeked out.

I threw out one more effort – I had 2 tickets to a baseball game with some married friends of mine that had been previously rained out – so I texted him to see if he wanted to join us.  He declined, saying he had other plans already, and I never heard from him again.

And this, friends, is the way you get rid of a man by the sheer power of your geekiness… even if they should already have figured out just how geeky you are.  And invited your geeky self to a geeky date.  And then asked you questions focusing on the subject of your geekiness.

It is, apparently, still just too much geeky for the cool kids.

Which is cool with me.

(and that’s exactly how it happened)

The Joy of Reporting

Remember that time I told y’all about the attempts to win me over by insulting me?  Well, this is a specific story about one such time – namely, the time I learned to immediately eliminate the men who even considered such approach.

This is yet another story that starts by me on a work schedule in which I was working a lot of nights, and was in the midst of Christmas-party season, such that my schedule essentially looked like this: work-eat-sleep-party-sleep-work-eat-sleep-party.  Which I mean entirely literally.

So it took me 72 hours to get around to responding to his email – an email which, to clarify, told me he would be checking his schedule to see what days he had free for dinnner – NOT which asked me out on a date.

So 72 hours following a not-invitation-for-a-date-email, I sign on to my current dating service of choice to answer the email… and am greeted by this:

The good news is, I paid for 6 months of this sort of thing. The better news is, I’m bound to qualify for the free six month extension, for I will surely fail to find whatever I’m supposed to find according to the guarantee – so that means 12 months of this sort of thing.

If only there were triple the number of enticing lures. I don’t presently feel adequately ripped off. There’s always hope, of course. Perhaps by the end of December, I will feel as though I’ve been robbed at knifepoint rather than simply suckered in by fantastic anecdotes.

Take it easy.

What?  I mean, really, WHAT?

Which is pretty much what I emailed him.  Which then resulted in a contrite response, and so… I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.  And go out with him.

Oh, self.

The best part is, that wasn’t the only self-imposed-rule-breaking I did.  In addition to his terrible, bitter emails, he also had a suspicous array of photos – all of his face only, shot from weird angles.

Well.  After all the contrition, we decided to meet for dinner at P.F. Chang’s.  I like P.F. Chang’s, so I figured this couldn’t be all bad.  Which was… true… I guess.

Now, I should preface this next part by saying that at this time in my life, I was not at my healthiest weight ever.  So I did not have a lot of license to be critical of someone’s weight.  On the other hand, I had developed certain feelings about truth in photos (and also profiles) and also am a very active person who would like a partner who is able to keep up.

So when I walked into the restaurant and met my date, who had described his body type as “a few extra pounds”, and discovered that he was, by best description, morbidly obese… I was not particularly happy.

But, being self-aware of my own ability to be critical, I tried to hold my final opinion until the end of the date.

We had a pleasant enough time, with enough common interests to keep the conversation going.  I discovered he was in divinity school, which made me a little more disgusted by his initial angry emails, but once again… doing my best to hold my opinion and have a little grace.

Nevertheless, by the end of the date, I couldn’t quite shake the nastiness of that first email, nor could I shake the discomfort that this man was struggling just to get out of the booth and walk to the door.  Clearly, this was not the man for me.

He makes no mention of a second-date, so I go on my merry way and don’t really worry about contacting him at any point in the future.  At least it was dinner…

Well.

Eleven days following the date, on New Year’s, I get this email:

I don’t really know what disposition I should have in this message, so I will keep it generic-if-perturbed and say with no enthusiasm: “Happy New Year”.

*peer*

Uh… okay.  So I ignored that.  Pass!

Except not.  Because 9 days after that, I got one of the most over-the-top, spiteful, bitter emails I have ever received, which included this gem of a line:

This attitude of yours may be begging to convince that anonymous fellow that you have an unjustifiably high opinion of yourself. Surely you would not enjoy knowing that there was a person belabored by the notion that you weren’t worthwhile?

It also went that extra mile of telling me I wasn’t a Christian because I didn’t respond to his ridiculous initial post-date email.

So I responded.  Because I am foolish like that.  And essentially said that not only did I not think we were compatible, but I wasn’t sure why he thought belittling me like that would make me more interested in dating him.

Then he, of course, responded again, once again accusing me of being a terrible, inconsiderate, heathen of a human being, with this delightful line included:

Look at this reply you have sent: not an ounce of personal responsibility (heaven forbid regret) to be found. You’re acting like I’m the one who’s acted rudely and inconsiderately. I needn’t go to any trouble to belittle you, you’ve done all the work for me.

To add to the joy of the email, he provided me with the time it took him to write it in parentheses at the very end, attempting to prove how little effort I had avoided in not writing back to him.

At which point, after writing several pithy comeback emails, I decided that it was not really worth my time (though a good writing exercise), and then I reported his ass.  With quotes from his emails.  Citing concern for verbal abuse.  Which felt AWESOME.

And that’s exactly how it happened.

(P.S. – and let’s all remember that this man is a PASTOR.  Yee-ha!)

It’s a small, small world…

This is a story not so much about terrible dates as much as it is about the ridiculousness that is my dating life sometimes.

First of all, remember the guy I chatted up while standing in line for the concert that was the scene of the Special Agent Fiasco?  Yes?  Good.  Keep him in mind.

Now I will give you another little piece of background.

eHarmony, traditionally, likes to match me with men I would never dream of dating in a million years.  Significantly shorter than me, say bizarrely cheesy things in their profile, 20 years older than me… I don’t know.  It’s worked for other people, but after 6 years of living in the same general region of the coutnry, I think it’s been scraping the bottom of the barrel for me.

At any rate, as a result, I tend to get excited when they send me a match that ACTUALLY looks promising.  So when I received the profile of a tall, cute, easily Google-able musician, I really wanted to, you know, meet him.

Tricky thing was: said cute musician no longer had an eHarmony subscription, but invited women to contact him via Facebook.  Uh… okay.

So I did.  And we went out for coffee, which he prefaced by saying, “No expectations!”.  Again… uh… okay.  (Though I do know that crazy women who believe they can identify their soul mate via eHarmony profile exist, so… ok, I’ll give him that one).

Anyway.  Coffee.  Lovely time.  Lovely man.  Who sent me a lovely Facebook message post-date.  And then fell off the face of the earth.  As they so often do.  Whatever.

UNTIL.

Both he AND the concert-line-guy resurfaced.  AT MY CHURCH.  To concert-line-guy’s credit, we 1) never went on a date and 2) he actually already went to that church before I chatted him up (though he did not currently live in my city, so he must have moved since the concert).  But I KNOW that Coffee Date Man did not previously attend my church, because I talked to him about my church and how much I love it.  Heh.

(for reference, my city has approximately 1 billion churches… okay, not that many, but a lot.  A LOT OF CHURCHES.)

Now, neither man has indicated in any way that they recognize me.  Which is fine, albeit kind of ridiculous.  Because, really?  I need reminders of my incredible ability to never move past initial dates/meetings with any man every time I go to church?  Amazing.

And that’s exactly how it happened.

Legalities

I almost feel bad writing about this one, because this is actually a guy I liked.  Hopefully, if he ever sees this and recognizes his story, he will appreciate that it had to be told, because really, it fell easily into the “you have got to be kidding me” category.

ANYWAY.  There was a time in my life when I knew I was going to be moving from one city to another, but not for several months.  One night in a fit of boredom, I decided it was time to switch my online dating profiles to my new city, figuring it would be better to be long distance in the beginning than to have to switch to long distance (always the optimist, assuming I was going to have a relationship to worry about, ha!).

As it turned out, the new city was far more kind to me than my old city, and I quickly struck up a conversation with a nice gentleman… we progressed from intermittent emails to everyday emails to marathon gmail chat sessions fairly quickly, and I wasn’t as concerned with there being no date invitation because we were living a few hours apart, thus making a quick coffee date not-so-convenient.

Except that eventually, 3-4 weeks had passed, and there was STILL no mention of a date.  At all.

Finally during one of our chats he suggested that he show me around my new city sometime, at which point I rather sarcastically commented, “Oh, you mean you actually want to see me?”.

There was a pause in the conversation while he absorbed this comment, and then I got to hear the whole story.

You see… he had a restricted drivers license.  Not from a DUI, but from refusing a breathalyzer test because he was worried that the drink he had had with dinner prior to being pulled over would make his breathalyzer positive, and as he was in the midst of job-hunting, he did not want that on his record.

So he took the restricted drivers license instead.

The restricted drivers license that lasted for an ENTIRE YEAR.  A year of which, at that point in time, he had only completed 4 months.

Which meant that for pretty much the entire time we would be long distance (again with the optimism), he would not be able to drive to visit me.  I would always have to visit him.  And while visiting him, I would always have to be the driver.

Well.

I decided I would at least go and meet him, since our interaction was so promising, and deal with all the complications later, should that be necessary.  Plus, I did actually want to get to know my future city a little before moving there, so it wasn’t all a wash regardless, and I had a friend to stay with.

So I went.  And it was fine – fun, even, and probably had potential.  Except that, for 8 months, I would be the only one able to trek back and forth to actually see each other.  And I have done long distance, and that sounded like even less fun than normal.  I mean, seriously… who finds the one long distance guy who is legally obligated to NOT come visit you?  Me.  That would be me.

Not to mention, it quickly became clear that there was an imbalance of interest: namely, that he already missed me, and that I realized seeing my friends in my old city as often as possible for the remainder of my time there was more important than seeing him.

So I told him that, and we parted ways amicably, and last I saw on Facebook (before I unfriended him in a flurry of paring down my friend list), he had a lovely girlfriend.  So good on him.

And that’s exactly how it happened.

The Overshare

Hello, old friends.  It’s been awhile.  Maybe one day I will tell you all a story about “the while”, but… today, I have a different story!  A special treat, if I do say so myself.

Remember how I have all those rules about who I am and am not willing to go on a first date with?  Well.  This is yet another story about How I Generally Should Not Break Those Rules.

Rule broken: college-educated.  (As it turned out, this was only tangentially related to why this date is worthy of this blog, but that is neither here not there.  The point is… rule-broken, lesson… well, not quite learned, but taken into serious advisement.)

He was cute.  And looked quite, uh, ripped, in his photos.  And otherwise sounded like a decent gentleman.  So I agreed to meet for coffee.

Now, I still had enough hesitation on this one that I got to the tried-and-true Starbucks a few minutes early and bought myself coffee.  If I remember correctly (I do), this was the week in which I had THREE dates.  THREE.  Almost unheard of.  Some of my friends started referring to my “harem”.  (I can assure you that all 3 dates were one-hitters – and only one came anywhere close to being a wonder, a story which I will share at a later time).

At any rate, this was the first of the three dates.  And the first date after the date that broke my girlfriends’ hearts.  So I was not going in with the highest of expectations.  But I probably should have lowered them even further…

So, I’m settled down at a table with a view of the door, and he walks in.  My first impression is that he is actually cuter in person, and appears to be as tall as stated.  Score!

Then he starts walking toward the table, and I notice that he is limping.  A fairly significant limp.  I think, “I bet that’s got a story of some sort” and mentally note that if he seems the open type, I will ask him about it.  I like stories.

THEN he sits down across from me, and I immediately notice that he has a scar across his throat.  I had a cousin with a tracheostomy as a child, and I immediately guess that it’s a tracheostomy scar.  I make another mental note, because this potential story is getting better and better.

So we start talking, and it’s typical first-date chatter, nothing remarkable.  Except that I notice, as we are talking, that he is sort of… oversharing.  Not in a terribly ostentatious way, just… telling me more than is really necessary on a first date.  Like… financial stuff… stuff about his car and how well off he is.  Just on the other side of “comfortable level of intimacy for a first date”.

Finally, since he’s already oversharing, I decide to ask him about the limp and the scar.  And woo-boy, was there ever a story.

As it turns out, he suffered a massive head injury during college in a construction accident, lost his memory, and spent 2 years rehabilitating his ability to walk, talk, etc.  No joke.  And did, in fact, have a tracheostomy for a time.

That’s a good story.

He didn’t finish college due to the accident, and from what I gathered, was essentially living off of some kind of settlement money.  But was working in fitness and certainly seemed fully functional.

I know what you’re thinking: This doesn’t seem so bad!  What an impressive guy!  What is so wrong with this?!

Oh, friends.

So, this man’s particular head injury was located in the front part of his brain, which – for those of you who have never taken a psychology class which force feeds you the story of Phineas Gage – essentially controls your inhibition.  No frontal lobe, no inhibition.

Heh.

Overall, there wasn’t really anything overtly terrible about the date, but as I mentioned previously, there was just… a tad too much sharing.

So, we’re walking out, and he’s walking me to my car, and asks me for a second date.  I – thinking that this guy is, if nothing else, pretty interesting and nice to look at – agree to the second date.

Then we get to my car.

I have spent some time in India, and support a charity in India.  At that time, said charity’s bumper sticker was on my car.  He asked about the bumper sticker, I explained.

He then said, “Indians?  As in the country?  As in India?”

I confirmed what appeared to be his worst fears.

An assumption proven true when he then said (I cannot make this stuff up, folks), “You care about them?  Those people with the dots on their forehead?”.

The thing about frontal lobe injuries – they make you lose your filter, but they do not make you, well… racist?  Xenophobic?  Some combination?

As you might suspect… there was no second date.

And that’s exactly how it happened.

The Backpedal

This post isn’t so much about an actual date as it is… an emailing approach utilized by men.

At first, I thought it was just one stupid man thinking he was being clever.  But now that it has happened 3 or 4 times, I feel compelled to share it with you all.  Because it is that ridiculous.

Step 1: insult your target.

Seriously.  This is how it starts.  With an insult.  With me, it’s usually something along the lines of, “Wow, you just think you’re so special, don’t you?”.  This, I presume, is because my online profiles tend to be rather… explicit… about what I’m looking for.  It’s my prerogative.  Most men seem to either ignore this and email even when they’re clearly NOT what I’m looking for, or they think they ARE what I’m looking for and point that out when they email.

Not these men, though.  These men seize on the opportunity to call me a wide variety of lovely names, including but not limited to, “conceited”, “self-absorbed”, “arrogant”, and the creme-de-la-creme, questioning my claim to be a Christian.  All based on an online profile which the majority of men seem to find inoffensive, or at best, charming.

Well.  Just you wait.

Step 2: I email them something along the lines of, “Sorry you feel that way, but was it really necessary to be quite so mean?”

My feelings aren’t ever really hurt by these emails.  Usually I find them entertaining, but most of the time they just make me really angry, because – really?  I mean, some of these emails are fairly lengthy.  These men make an EFFORT to say mean things.  It’s a little ridiculous.  Especially when it goes into insulting my actual character.  So, me being me and unable to really keep my mouth shut most of the time, I email them back.

Here is where it starts to get interesting.  Or at least… really bizarre.

Step 3:  The man confesses he didn’t really mean any of those things, he was just trying to get my attention, and hooray!  He succeeded!  He thinks I’m lovely and intriguing and required a special approach!

I’m sorry…. what?  You were… what?  Who is your mother?

Step 4:  I send the above sentiments back in an email.

Making it very clear that I am SO NOT INTERESTED.

Step 5: The backpedal.

This is where the groveling happens.  The overdone complimenting, the building-up-of-positive-characteristics-of-oneself, the treatises on what a great match we would be.  I will now provide you with an example quote:

I admit, I think you’re far better looking than I and I’m sure in many ways, more intelligent. I don’t have a problem letting a lady be happy and feel she is #1.

I mean, really?  AFTER you spent an entire email insulting me, this is what you say?

Then it goes on:

I’m sorry if my outburst is/was negative but please take my perspective insofaras that they are only speculations. Coffee still stands if your perceptions of me aren’t psycho and if you can prove to me that yes, you are just a person looking for love built on Christ because in the end, thats all I have to offer.

That’s right.  STILL asking me out for coffee.  But I have to PROVE something to him?  HA!

Step 6: I send a “you have to be kidding, no way in hell” email.

I mean, seriously.  Just… no.  NO MEANS NO.  Go away!

Step 7: often times a repeat of step 5.

This can spiral into an endless loop, depending on the level of desperation of the guy.  Step 5, step 6, rinse, repeat.  When that happens, I often end up at…

Step 8: COMMUNICATION BLOCK.

A handy little device on most online dating websites.  When no apparently isn’t clear enough, use it!

Optional: reporting the offender to the website.  I have done this twice – once post-date when the offender became verbally abusive after I told him “No, thank you” (more on that one at a later date), and once for a backpedaler who concluded his last email with “I know who you are.”  They don’t tell you what they end up doing, but I sincerely hope that it occasionally involves law enforcement.

Oh, and let’s not forget a variation on the backpedaling theme:  starting the insults in a second email, before I have responded to the first email, when you think I haven’t responded in a timely fashion.  Once this happened 5 minutes after the first email was sent.  Not even exaggerating.

And that’s exactly how it happened.