My Baby Takes the Morning Train... No really!! He does... I see him on it!

I am an idiot.  I'm not sure if this blog has made that apparent to date, but I am.  I am a total moron when it comes to members of the opposite sex and this whole "online dating" thing.  And before you go thinking that I'm being too hard on myself, listen up:

A few months ago, I came across a dude with potential, and we exchanged some e-mails.  In those e-mails, I learned that my suitor worked in Government Center (a downtown neighborhood of Boston).  "Weird, me too," I thought.  He then wrote that he worked for a nonprofit that helps students with their loans.

At that moment, I made a big mistake by not deleting his messages and hiding his profile. 

You see, when he said that, I knew exactly where he worked... a large nonprofit that I knew very well... seeing as it is LOCATED IN MY OFFICE BUILDING.  This nonprofit takes up quite a few floors in my building.  In fact, I hate this nonprofit.  Not because of its mission, which seems to be quite commendable.  My hatred is purely based on its employees.  They slow down the elevators in the morning by stopping at literally every floor before mine.  Plus, while I'm slogging into work in "business casual," they get to dress in "casual casual" wear, which for some essentially equates to pajamas and/or club wear.  Even their food seems to smell more pungent and unappetizing than others' when I board the elevators at lunch.

And he worked there.

And yet I still decided to go out with him for a drink, making me a total moron.

Before our meet up, I never shared my belief that we worked in the same building, though, fearing that I would come off as a crazy stalker.  So we had our date, which was mediocre at best.  I can only really remember three things about it:

• He came into the bar a little late and immediately excused himself to go to the bathroom as he was sweating profusely, a fact he shared aloud.
• He guzzled down two drinks by the time that I had finished my first.
• He claimed after about 45 minutes that he had dinner reservations with a friend from out of town.

It was no surprise to me that I never heard from him again, as there were NO sparks.

All of this would be totally fine, except that a few weeks later, I saw him on my walk into work.  In a manner likely on par with James Bond's suave moves, I avoided him like the plague, once again fearing that I would come off as a total stalker.  Except, then I saw him again a few days later on the train and once again the next week.  Apparently, our commutes are the same, and I run into him at least once a week.  We even had to share an elevator once.  We have never spoken to each other; we both pretend as if the other is a stranger, but he definitely knows who I am.  It's like a daily dose of awkward.

And this, my friends, is how I know I'm a moron.  I saw this coming, and yet I barrelled towards it, looking for love in, quite literally, the wrong place.

That said, it has been slightly beneficial for me, as I get to see just how poorly he dresses on a daily basis... Sneakers with cargo shorts... BLECK!

Take us out, Sheena!

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.

Dating Tip #3

When I get a message from a dating site alerting me that a dude is intrested, there are a few things I check before I move forward with giving this would-be suitor a chance. 

First and foremost, I check out his height.  Some women do this because they are vain and tall-men stealers (you know who you are), but this is a matter of necessity for yours truely.

Second, I assess if he seems slightly attractive.  I believe that I have a wide range.  I give people a chance.

Finally, and closely related to my second criterion, I scope out his pictures.  How do I judge his pictures beyond an analysis of attractiveness?  I check to see if he has any pictures that he has taken of himself in the mirror with his camera phone and/or in front of his computer with a web cam.

If he does, he's deleted.

Which brings us to:

Tip #3:  Do not post camera phone/web cam self-portraits.

Similarly:

• Do not look away into the distance instead of into the camera (this isn't MySpace 7 years ago).
• Do NOT post a headless ab shot.  I'll assume two things: (1) it's not you and/or (2) you're a horrible tool.
• Do not take pictures of yourself in the bathroom at work.  I have seen this a number of times.
• Do not take pictures in YOUR bathroom at home.  I don't need to know that you have a pink loofah at this stage in the relationship.

Why?  Those types of pictures lead me to assume that you have no normal pictures, which in turn impels me to gather that you have no life and no friends.  You SHOULD have pictures of yourself in some capacity.  Throw up that pic of you and Nana at her 90th birthday.  Post that shot of you and your brother at his bachelor party (but not the one with you and the stripper!!).  Upload a picture that paints you in a good light...

As opposed to the poor overhead lighting of your company's men's bathroom or the bluish hue of your computer screen.

National Epidemic?

Apparently, I'm not the only one out there receiving hilarious e-mails from winners over the internets.

I gotta say though some of those pale in comparison to the poetry that I receive.

Guest Post: Tim EMT ("Emergency: Manic Texter")

A friend who's also in the online-dating trenches sent me these text messages recently. Apparently, she had been e-mailing back and forth with Tim, and they even exchanged numbers. But, the situation cooled off for her, so she decided to give it the slow fade. And then shit got weird...

I'm happy to announce that since my friend was "willing to work with" Tim, they are now engaged (in restraining order legal proceedings).

My Next Site?

The people featured in this video are only slightly more odd than some of the guys that I have experienced in real-life online dating.

OCDkcupid.com - watch more funny videos

Dating Tip #2

The digital age is pretty screwed up. Sometimes when I'm bored or embracing my hipster/hippie side, I start to overanalyze just how creepy it is that we all overexpose ourselves online.

Online dating is especially odd. Unlike Facebook, other online daters who see my profile are meant to be complete strangers. In fact, when I realize that someone I know has happened upon my dating profile, I am utterly embarrassed. I'd prefer STRANGERS to peruse the details that I share about my life and my most flattering pictures. And if one of those total strangers contacts me, after a few e-mails, I'm sharing my hometown, my neighborhood in the city, and my profession, all with someone who could really be ANYONE: a small child, an old man, a total creeper.

Yea... it's weird.

Sure, putting yourself out there is always going be a little scary. And you have to be smart about the whole thing. Creepers are usually pretty good at giving off a "vibe," and just like in real-life dating, you gotta trust your instincts about people.

But a word of advice to the dudes out there...

Dating Tip #2: Don't be a total (obvious) stalker!!

If you're gonna stalk my ass, at least do it on the DL. Don't let me know that you're stalking me!! That's a great way to have me running for the hills.

For example, a while back, I started e-mailing back and forth with a guy who I wasn't too jazzed about, but I decided to give him a chance. His e-mails were rather interview-like, to the extent that he would list out multiple questions for me to answer. Literal numbered lists. After reading one of his e-mails, I closed down my computer and decided to write back when/if I had more time/energy.

Hours later, I had this message:

well looking forward to hearing back :)

I should interject and let you know that OKCupid will sometimes let you know when someone's viewed your profile. So this guy saw I was online, saw that I read his message/looked at his profile, and then wrote me a message when I didn't respond right away.

DUDE. CHILL! Did he think that sending me that message was going to make me want to e-mail him back? If anything, it put the nail into the coffin. A few days later I got another message:

Should I assume you've lost interest? haha

HAHA YES!

Dino-Might?

Prepare to be shocked and amazed...

Sometimes when I'm online dating, I encounter individuals who may be sane. Even stranger, they seem normal and kind of cute, and their profiles make me chuckle. They don't list Nickelback as their favorite band, and their pictures actually feature other people, which makes me assume that they may have friends. My hopes start to rise. I think "Wait... has this not all been in vain?! Might I actually have met a gent that I would actually like to DATE through ONLINE DATING." This is usually... if not always... a mistake on my part.

Case in point: Dino. I call him Dino, as he has admitted to playing with dinosaur toys before. He even sent me a picture once over text of a T-Rex figurine, which I promptly sent to a few friends with a big ol' "WTF is this guy sending me pictures of toys for?!"

But to give him some credit, he is an elementary school science teacher, so I wrote it off as kind of cute (oh hope... how you blind us).

Dino seemed like an OK guy from Match. We exchanged e-mails and then numbers, and he'd text me all the time. Like daily... Like multiple times a day. So yes, I came to believe that we'd be going out on a real date in no time...

Except weeks later, we had never met up. Still lots of texts, but no date. Finally, I broke down and asked him out myself. I know this is a lame move on my part, but I'm a "cut to the chase" kind of girl, for better or for worse.

Then what?

NOTHING! Crickets. Nada.

Until...

I got drunk a few weeks later and decided to text him.

Woops!

BUT... He answered, and the cycle started back up again. We texted, I got annoyed at the pointless texting, I asked him out, he went silent.

My only excuse is boredom, and the fact that he seemed like a nice guy (boy really). However, when I ruined my phone while kayaking, I decided that it was for the best. I didn't want to bother with a guy who was scared to meet me in person. A dead phone with a lost number was a great way to cut my losses and leave the table.

Until...

I checked my e-mail last night and saw that he found me on OKCupid?! We instant messaged each other, and he invited me to the Aquarium today??? I had to work, as most functioning adults do, so it was a no go. We ended our chat with him inviting me to "drunk text" him anytime...

That was just about the time that I realized that our acquaintance was extinct.