So You Think You Can Date?!

Last night, I was clicking through my Daily Matches when I came across quite the opening line (note that it includes the excessive asterisks):

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Don't bother reading any further if you don't like dancing or won't dance.
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This obviously intrigued me.  I kept reading.  Here are some highlights:

• I recently joined an intense international ballrom and latin dance school, a shaolin monk kung fu school, and started jazz and contemporary dance classes!
• I'm training seriously to try out for So You Think You Can Dance! I'd love to meet someone passionate enough to train and compete with me; Want to be my dance partner?
• I'm known to be laid back, yet ambitious, spontaneous, yet efficient, and either optimistic or realistic - never pessimistic.
• My hair used to be blue (consistently for 6.5 years).
• The Meyers Briggs personality test has me pegged as an ENTJ(Leader.) The j is the weakest letter, so ENTP(visionary) is reasonably accurate as well. What type are you?
• I secretly want to be a globe trotting Iron Chef fire dancer shaolin monk SYTYCD champion raver rockstar from the future...

I honestly hope that he finds someone to swing with.

As for me, I'm exhausted from just reading his profile... Also, people still go to raves?!?!

The Fake-Out Artist

I am currently embittered and salty, and if you speak to me this week about how in LOOOOOOVE you are, you should count yourself lucky if you leave our conversation without a bitch slap.

Why am I justified in my temporarily bitchy ways?  I am suffering from the burn of a fake out. 

What's a fake out?  If you're a woman (and perhaps a dude... I can't speak from that experience) who online dates, you probably know the fake out.  Here's the general schema of a fake out:

You are contacted by a gentleman friend who seems to have a lot of the qualities you'd like in a mate.  He seems attentive and ideal.  You exchange numerous e-mails and then maybe some and/or a lot of texts.  He asks you out and takes you to a nice place for dinner, which he pays for.  The conversation goes really well, and you genuinely enjoy yourself.  Plus, he seems to have a great time, too.  Sure, he may have talked about himself a little too much, but that's OK since you liked what you heard.  In particularly toxic fake outs, he walks you home.  There may even be some making out before the faking out.

And then...

He drops off the face of the earth.

It may not happen immediately.  He may text you here and there, but with pointless, self-involved statements for which it is impossible to think of responses (e.g., "My bike ride was awesome.  46 miles!!!!!" "I missed the earthquake.  I always miss cool events like that.  Mother nature hates me.") and MUCH less often than he did before your date.  He may make vague plans to hang out again but never actually follows through.  He may "warn" you of an upcoming trip, wedding, etc., that will delay your eventual second date.

Ultimately, however, he is full of crap.

This weekend, when I was just starting to realize that I was getting shafted, I was lucky enough to hang out with a few good girl friends, one of whom thought she was in the same exact situation.  Things MAY have worked out for her, but this apparently happens all the damn time.  It is EXHAUSTING.  I'd much rather go out with a loser who uses a Groupon than a fake-out artist.  At least I don't get my hopes up for a date from hell.

But c'est la vie.  One cannot go about life assuming the worst in people.  And I predict an improvement in my mood given that Halloween is just around the corner.  You cannot be sad while dressed as a sea creature.  It's like a law of science or something.

Tim TMI

Recently I exchanged numbers with a gentleman friend who seemed to have a lot of potential.  Tall?  Check.  Gainfully employed?  Check.  Interesting and well-written profile?  Check.  We exchanged e-mails and then numbers, and I assumed that I was well on my way to a successful, or at least interesting, first date.

Until he called me...

First off, I should mention that phone calls make me a little nervous.  I would almost rather meet someone in person before we talk on the phone.  I find phone calls to be more awkward and forced.  If I meet a dude in person, at least I can read his reactions.  However, I have friends who swear by a phone chat before the first date, and now I know why.

My suitor, we'll call him"Tim TMI," texted me to ask if he could call me on a recent Friday night.  Since I am THE coolest girl in school, I was home, just perusing the internets, so I said sure.  I figured it would be easy enough:  Shoot the shit for a few minutes, wait for him to ask me out on a date, and then quickly find an excuse to jump off the phone.  I WISH it had been that simple.

Our first chat lasted less than a minute.  He called me and then quickly said that he had to call me right back as he was getting a call from his parents.  "Fair enough," I thought.  I could understand that.

I should have never picked up the second call.

In the next 10-minute conversation, which occurred shortly after the first, he told me the following details of his life:

• He lives at home with his parents in Quincy.
• His parents are both ill (sciatica for his mom; prostate cancer for his dad).
• His parents are upside down in their mortgage.
• His mother is "nosey."
• He wants to be married in a year or two with kids.

All this was related in 10 MINUTES... during our FIRST REAL CONVERSATION... in the thickest Boston accent that I've ever heard, so I had to ask him to repeat everything.

Oh... and I'm pretty sure that he didn't ask me a single question about myself.

I'd guess that if I was to accept another call, I would learn his bank PIN, his social security number, and the year he lost his virginity.

Luckily, I will not be accepting that next call.