Sticks

Ahhhh, Christmas. A magical time of feasting, merriment, and gift-giving! That is, unless you are from my parents' household, in which case, everyone gets one gift and a stocking. Last year, my mom gave my nephew this as his gift:

That's right. A shoebox full of sticks. My mother isn't senile or anything. She tries to get people things they'll like, and in her grandson's case, he was teething and all he wanted to do was chew sticks. Ergo: box full of sticks. (My sister-in-law loved this gift, btw)

Some people are just natural gift-givers and they always know the perfect thing. In my family, we are not like that. We've just never been big on the presents. I'm sure part of that was because my folks spent all their money putting 4 kids through 12 years each of prep schools and there wasn't a lot left for gifts. But the other part is because we don't like the commercialism of Christmas... we'd rather buy someone a gift in July if it strikes us as being something they'll like. Normal people would then put the gift in the closet and wait for December to roll around, but not us.

You see, we are also TERRIBLE secret keepers.

Elle, the day after Thanksgiving: I GOT YOUR CHRISTMAS PRESENT! YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE IT; I'M SO EXCITED!

Lucy: AHHHGH! What is it!?!?

Elle: I can't tell you!!

Lucy: You're my sister! You have to tell me!!!

Elle: Okay!! I had a necklace custom-made for you! It's a silver pendant that says, "Every day, I write my life" and it has a typewriter charm attached to it!

Lucy: OMG, I LOVE IT!!!!

Elle: I can't believe you made me tell you that. You're the worst sister in the world. I hate you.

That is pretty much how every holiday involving gifts goes. And yet, for some reason, we continue to bow to the cultural pressure to buy gifts for each other. And when we do somehow manage to keep the gifts a secret, it's only because they are terrible gifts.

Behold, the solitary gift from my parents this year:

That's right, feast your eyes on this sexy lingerie featuring positions to sleep in with your cat. I almost cried when I opened this. (And not from joy) What makes this gift truly horrifying is the fact that my mom did not give it to me with any sense of irony. My sister had to actually explain why giving a single woman in her 30's a nightshirt full of cats was indelicate. All I could think about was how my co-worker, Hot Andrew, was going to react when I told him about this. Hot Andrew and I met on a dating app many years ago and by sheer dumb luck got hired at the same school, thereby ensuring our eventual friendship. He sees me this way:

...despite the fact that I have only one cat. Andrew always makes fun of how much I love my cat. Every time he asks about Mocha, he says, "It always starts with one, E. Before you know it, you'll have dozens."

It sort of begs the question, if Andrew -- now married and firmly entrenched in the friend zone -- and my parents all see me as Crazy Cat Lady... is that who I'm becoming?? It makes me wonder what the characteristics of a CCL are. This is what I came up with:

* frazzled hair
* frumpy clothes covered in fur
* stays at home with cat instead of going out on dates
* uptight
* feeds cat out of china dishes
* neurotic
* old maid

Now to attack the list point by point.

* Frazzled hair -- Well, sometimes... But I blame that mostly on the fact that I persuaded Jessica to give me a perm this summer. It did not go as planned. Cat lady.
* Frumpy clothes covered in fur -- no. I make a valiant attempt to be fur-free. Not cat lady.
* Stays home with cat instead of going out on dates -- While I do technically still go on dates, I would rather stay at home with my cat. I go on dates because Stratski makes me. But also because it's hard to kill hope.  Not cat lady.
* Uptight -- Ummmmm, yes. I have often been urged to "let my hair down" and drink lots of wine. Cat lady.
* Feeds cat out of china dishes -- Yes. But only because I had these readily available and it seemed wasteful to buy new dishes. Cat lady.
* Neurotic - I mean, do I leave events early to rush home and feed my cat? Yes. But that's because they are boring events. (Damn.) Cat lady.
* Old maid -- Am I an Old Maid? Hmmmm. Stratski recently urged me to put myself "out there" more and show men that I'm interested. I tried this, and do you know what  I was told? "Sorry. I haven't had good luck with older women."

OLDER WOMEN!?!?!?!?!

I'm going to go put on my cat nightgown.

Canoodle.

Sometimes it's very hard having a blog because you want to post funny shit that makes people laugh, but then when it really comes down to it, your life doesn't follow the rules and things happen that are discouraging instead of funny.

I used to think I was lucky.

I've found like a million 4-leaf clovers in my life. My friend Stella used to always make fun of me because anytime we had a fire drill at school and had to take all the kids outside, I could be found staring judiciously at the ground hunting for some good luck.

That's how she got her job in Clayton... She had an interview scheduled, but you basically have to be a Nobel Prize winner to work there. So I combed the area outside her prospective school for 4-leaf clovers (found 2) and then combed our school grounds for them right before her interview (found 1). And there you go. Now she's happy as an (overworked) clam in Clayton.

So you'd think that I could manufacture some stardust for myself, and I really did used to think that I could. I mean, consider: my freshman year at Wheaton, a friend knew I didn't have the money to pay my tuition so her dad offered to cover my 2nd semester. That's a lot of money. Then, my senior year of college, I met this great guy at a Fazoli's and he was like, "Hey, my wife and I have heard a lot about you. We'd like to help you pay off your college loans." They didn't even ask how much money I owed. Just paid it off.

Quite a lot of things in my life seem to have gone that way. But not relationally. No, siree.

In my 20's, people used to be like, "Oh, the pastor you were going to marry decided he didn't love you anymore? That's okay! You're still young, you have plenty of time!"

Now they don't say that. They're like, "Oh, the pastor you thought you were going to marry decided marriage wasn't really for him? That's okay! You look really young for your age, things could still turn around!" (Note: stop dating pastors.) (Double Note: investigate Botox.) (Triple Note: find new friends.)

But it's like, a lot of the people I meet are either socially awkward and I just want to take them under my wing (but not kiss them), or they're really derogatory about their parents/exes/etc. and make me wonder how they'd talk about ME if things didn't work out, or they're 28 and the parents of my students. Or they ARE my students, and that's worse. (Note: teach grad school, not middle school)

And that brings us to this:

...which is pretty much how I've come to view online dating. I think maybe I just completely lucked out with Nick. You already know that I recently got catfished. But then, I don't know, I thought things were starting to turn around.

Gigi and I met people at the same time. They seemed really great. That's where the similarities ended. Because you see, for the last 3 days, I've had to listen through my very thin ceiling as Gigi and Derick laugh and talk and canoodle, and I have to watch them walk around holding hands and being all perfect together. And do you know what they have to watch? Me getting played.

Just kidding. They'd have to actually interact with me to watch that, and they're too busy staring deeply into each other's eyes. So I have to get played with only my insane hairstylist J giving me crap advice that is tantamount to stalking.

Let me tell ya a little something. If someone has an entire house with only like 3 sticks of furniture in it and every other week he goes radio-silent, like nary a text message to even tell you he is alive or thinking of you, that is a great indicator that he is actually married or has a girlfriend and that that home is his bachelor residence where he goes to see, as my students like to say, his side-chick. It seems to be getting more and more common to just outright lie about who you are online.

          
A friend of mine experienced this phenomenon. She met this great guy on OK Cupid. They dated for several months. Then, one day, she went over to his apartment and he'd fallen asleep on his couch, not expecting her to arrive quite so early. To her shock and horror, he was wearing a wedding ring. It turned out that that apartment was where he brought girlfriends, while his full-size house was where he lived with his wife.

My friend was horrified, but the guy refused to be cowed. "My wife is totally okay with me dating. I just knew that you would be uncomfortable with the situation, that's why I didn't tell you I was married."

That's actually my second friend that happened to.

I never thought I'd be someone's side-chick. I feel terribly stupid, and I just don't think I'm cut out for dating in the 21st century. I'm the type of person who believes people when they tell me they like me. And who believes people if they tell me they can't wait to see me but they're busy and out of cell range for long periods of time. I'm apparently the type of person wearing a giant sign that says, "I'm dumb. Treat me badly!"

But at least I look young, right?

CATFISH

In my last post, I mourned the loss of Gigi's sanity, as she was busy bombarding eHarmony with emails and phone calls about how she had been "catfished" by an older woman named Ruth. This came about because when we tried to follow up with her erstwhile date, the caller ID said "Ruth Campbell."

That was all the proof that Gigi needed.

I tried to explain to her, from my vast years of dating wisdom, that just because a guy's phone is registered under another name does not mean that a 64-year-old woman from Texas is playing mind games with you. Perhaps Ruth was Jake's grandmother and his phone was linked to her. Perhaps his phone number last belonged to someone named Ruth Campbell and it hadn't been switched over yet. Anything was possible.

Gigi insisted. NO! Anything was NOT possible! She called eharmony and demanded that they not only remove "Jake's" account from their website, but that they also investigate Ruth Campbell and find her the real guy posing in the picture.

I finally gave up on her somewhere around the time she started making lists of common "life emergencies" that catfishers use to avoid actually meeting their victims in person (car accident; family illness; house fire). While Gigi continued her internet research, I went on with my own life.

Stratski felt that I should give Cal from California another go. After I had refused to go out with him when he kept me hanging all week, he apologized profusely and begged for a second chance. I acquiesced on the condition that he would alert me as to the day, time, and place all in advance. He decided basso, 6 p.m., Monday night.

Monday night arrived and Stratski coached me via phone as I pulled into the parking lot: "Don't hold it against Cal. He could be a really good guy, he just got off to a bad start."

I waited. Cal didn't show. At 6:15, he called to say he'd been in a car accident.

"It's very minor," he said. "Unfortunately, I can't leave until the police report is finished. Of course, I don't expect you to wait for me."

"It's all right," I said. "I have papers to grade. I'll just grade them here until you are finished with the police and we can have dinner."

2 hours later, he texted me. "It turns out my car DOES have major damage. I'm stranded on the side of the road. Want to come get me, haha?"

Gigi was beside herself. YOU ARE BEING CATFISHED!!!! she yelled. By this point, she had even found catfishing websites and software, the better to conduct her research.

The next day, Cal sent 6 follow up messages, alternately apologizing for standing me up and reiterating that it wasn't his fault. He begged me for (another) last chance. I had serious reservations at this point, thanks to G. So I decided the best way to see whether or not he was a real person was to Google him.

"What is your last name?" I asked.

Cal vanished.

Or, to be more accurate, he vanished for 3 or 4 weeks. Then he reappeared and begged for another chance again.

"Here's the deal," I texted him. "I don't think you're the guy in your pictures. I'll make you a deal. Write today's date on a Post-It note and snap a selfie holding that up for me. I'll believe you're who you claim to be when I get that."

Cal thanked me profusely and agreed that this was an excellent idea.

Then he didn't do it. After 24 hours passed without the selfie, I sent him a final email on the dating website: "Do NOT contact me again."

"Hey now," he immediately IM'd me. "That's not fair! I was just getting ready to take a selfie to send you!"

BLOCK.

He then tried texting me (not the selfie, mind you) begging for another chance. BLOCK.

It turns out Gigi's not just cynical; I'm naive. At the end of her research, Gigi discovered "Jake's" number listed and commented on by 23 other women who had been similarly wooed and then left hanging as, for one reason or another, he (or she????) couldn't meet them in person and vanished.

It's tough being a woman in the internet age.