Two Beers.

I went on Revenge Dates this weekend. The first one was TERRIBLE. It was at 5 o'clock at a coffee house. The guy was a writer, which might explain why he refused to make consistent eye contact with me. Also, when I asked him why he'd grown up here, gone to college here, and settled down here without ever having seen the world, his response was:

"I've never wanted to travel. I'm happy here. I don't want to leave or go anywhere, I've just never had that desire."

And I was all, "I see. So are you still friends with all your old high school buddies?"

He said, "No, not really. Only like Matt Williams and Shawn Tucker and Jace Overby and Ty Willard, oh and Danielle Foster. Plus, my whole volleyball team..."

To which I say, "BUH-bye!!!!" 

Just kidding, I stuck it out for the whole date, which mostly consisted of him describing the many literary talents of Stephen King. Since I'm determined to gain at least one thing from all dates, I decided to use all my newfound Stephen King knowledge to recommend further reading to one of my students.

But then I got home at like 6:30 and I was kind of bummed. So I decided, "SCREW IT!! GARRETT DUMPED ME AND HE'S OUT HAVING FUN, SO I'M GOING TO HAVE FUN TOO!!!!"

Ergo, I went on Date #2, which truly amazed both Stratski and Tricia, my Dating Advisors. They didn't think I had it in me to go on 2 dates in one night. I showed them!!!!!

Date #2 took place at Oktoberfest, which I felt was a fantastic place for a date. Also Date #2 was not with a weirdo who refused to look at me. 

However, there was one fatal flaw, and that was the alcohol. A Moment of Backstory...

The year was 1999 and I went to a competitive college that charged a fortune. I had to sign a contract that said I wouldn't drink any alcohol for 4 years. I ended up leaving that college and transferring to a much cheaper university, where I volunteered for a youth organization that also insisted I didn't drink for 4 years. Then I continued volunteering for the organization even after university when I left college-town and got a job in the "Real World."

I tell you this backstory so that you will understand my predicament when I tell you that I didn't drink any alcohol until I was about 24, and I have almost ZERO alcohol tolerance. And this is despite steady training in the ways of wine and beer in the subsequent years since.

So here is how Date #2 went:

6:30 -- look through 3 pages of emails from online paramours while eating Chinese food. Oh, hello, attractive man!!! Why, yes, I would like to go out with you!! 

6:32 -- realize attractive man is actually Evander Holyfield and that the email I'm looking at is really from the pasty small man in the crook of Holyfield's arm, naturally. No, I would not like to go out with you, you look like the Unabomber. Also, you can't spell wordz.

6:35 -- get email from potentially Interesting Person. Decide not to sit at home and be sad. YES! Will go to Oktoberfest. Besides, like profile that mentions:

And I am all, "Yes! I, too, am not interested in hookups! And he TOTALLY stole that last line from me!!" (not even kidding, he admitted it).

7:00 -- Interesting Person says he will be my date to Oktoberfest but can only have 2 beers so he can drive home. I say that is perfect because I can only have 2 beers, period. I will be walking home but 2 is my known limit. I text him how to pronounce my name because it is my Pet Peeve when people say it wrong.

7:20 -- meet Interesting Person. Get first beer. IP tells me, "thank you for Name Pronounciation Guide, however, I'm a Long Island Italian boy and know how to pronounce it because it is my aunt's name."

7:21 -- am immediately excited! KNEW this person did not look like he was from here. Like him instantly. Ask where his family is from. He says Rome; very exciting, as mine is from Rome and Naples.

7:35 -- continue drinking beer. Overshare about family.

7:48 -- continue drinking beer. Tell him to guess my teaching salary. Beer might be taking its toll?

8:16 -- Interesting Person asks if I'm ready for a 2nd beer. I do not realize that German beers are darker and therefore more potent. I think I am still fine to drink 2 beers, as I have Chinese food base. I say yes.

8:39 -- Interesting Person asks if I'm religious. I launch into a lengthy dissertation on religion.

8:51 -- Interesting Person explains he is in charge of Lambert. I want to know if he means the airport or the home of throwed rolls? 

9:03 -- I notice the first protestor, but in my 2-beer-drunken state, I think, "Oh, isn't that precious? What a nice young man protesting and stirring up awareness all by himself!!" not realizing that there is a mass of people behind him.

9:16 -- announce to Interesting Person that it is Teacher Bedtime. Really, I could stay out later, but he would probably offer me more beers and I am already 2-beer drunk! I must excuse myself before I do something even more inappropriate than I already have!

9:23 -- Interesting Person hugs me goodnight and I fall over. Skip home, accompanied by protestors.

9:30 -- Receive frantic texts from friends, asking if okay.

Next morning...

8:00 -- Text Stratski: am HUMILIATED by 2-beer conduct.

Fortunately, he thinks I'm hilarious and we're going out again...

Online.

I went out with my friend Tricia the other day.  She’s single, great job, nice apartment; likes the Cubs, but then, everyone has at least one fault. Tricia lived here for awhile, took a job elsewhere for a few years, and recently moved back. 

“Have you tried online dating recently, Elle?” she asked one evening as we walked in the park.

I glared at her meaningfully. Had I not been catfished by nearly every human man within a 50 mile radius? At least, that’s what it felt like.

“I’m telling you. It’s different now. There are more people out there or something. You should give it another try! I went on a great date the other night with a very normal guy.”

I consider it a sad state of affairs when we measure success by the words “He was a very normal guy.”

In case you haven’t read this blog or the one before it, here is a brief recap of some of my most memorable online dating experiences:

·      * the guy who let his 9-year-old wander around in the mall while he met me for coffee

·     *  The guy who waited until our date to tell me he was a pastor WHEN I HAD ALREADY BEEN DUMPED BY TWO PASTORS AND STOPPED GOING TO CHURCH

·     *  The guy who made a date, cancelled it while I was on my way, begged for a second date, and then cancelled it when I was sitting in the parking lot of the restaurant

·    *  The guy who cried into his beer and told me he was bi-polar on our first date

·      * The guy who ended up being the guy that gave a friend an STD – and then I got hired in his building and we had to work together for the next 6 years

·     *  The guy who so completely lacked a personality that I later met him at a party and introduced myself, asking his name in return, because he had made so little an impression -- he was super pissed

·    *  The guy who lived far away, emailed me a ton, went out with me once or twice, and then kept texting me without wanting another date… FOR TEN YEARS.

* *  The guy who showed up for a January date at theZoo without a coat and made me lend him my earmuffs and buy him hot chocolate

·      * The guy I forgot ever going out with, who then married my friend. This seems to be a theme.

·      * The guy who asked me to meet him at 7 on a Friday night, then ordered nothing and watched me eat while telling me about the amateur horror movies he films in his backyard

·     *  The guy who was clearly mentally handicapped and had had someone else write his dating profile for him (and yes, I stayed for the whole date)

·      * The guy who kept standing me up inexplicably

           

            And that’s all the shit you deal with before factoring in the current state of affairs in online dating.

Yeah.  For you Marrieds out there, let me tell you, it is not a pretty picture in Single World if you’re a woman. Men are mean. If you don’t respond back to them, they call you a pretentious bitch. Or some send you first messages that say, “I’d love to bend you over backwards.” Or some just immediately, like upon learning your name, invite you over to their house like you’re a two-bit strumpet.

            I put a lot of time and thought into crafting a witty online dating profile, but it turns out only a handful of guys actually read the words, and those are the guys who end up ghosting after a few months.

            So what’s a gal to do? I’ll tell you. Get rid of all the words in my dating profile. ALL. THE. WORDS. Put only pictures. Not pics of me looking hot, mind you. Pictures that show disturbing things to weed out the riffraff.

For example: tampons, a feminist poster, a Hilary baseball cap, some Black Lives Matter graphics to weed out the racist bigots

Maybe that will get rid of the messages I get like this:

I went out with my brother Saturday. God, I love that guy. He said that he, too, used to play the field and tell women he wanted to keep things open and casual...when he was 25 and a raging narcissist. It's easier that way. Then when someone calls you on your shit and you feel guilty, you can write her off and move on to the next girl on your roster who makes you feel good about yourself. But it's not crazy to suppose, at this stage in life, that someone would actually choose to just date me after a couple months.

So, you know, I'll post my best disasters here until that happens :-)

Sisterz and Sh!t

This is my sister. She's the cool one. She likes to tell this story about how, when we were younger, I told her that I had a secret I would tell her when she turned 16. When she finally got to be 16, she excitedly asked me what the secret was.

"Oh that," I said. "It turns out I was wrong. I was going to tell you that you were destined to be The Most Beautiful Sister. But it turns out it's Lily."

She was pissed. But our sister Lily was really pretty as a kid, and I am terrible at lying. And either way, it still put me in last place, so #perspective, Lucy!!!

Over the summer, I went to Maine with Lucy because it was something we had always wanted to do and I am trying to be more adventurous and free-spirited like her. While there, I texted my friends to ask them if I could get my nose pierced, or if my teaching environment was too conservative for that.

They said I couldn't pull it off, so I texted them a picture of Lucy. She looks kind of like me, so I figured it would help them envision me with a nose-piercing if they saw her with one.

They were all, "No, we get it. Lucy looks great with her nose pierced. You're not Lucy. You're too Ann Taylor to pull that off."

That was depressing, as I have not shopped at Ann Taylor since I left grad school and had to buy a suit for interviews!!!

Despite our extreme differences and the fact that she can pull off a piercing where I cannot, Lucy and I have one key similarity: we suck at relationships.

Now, you might not notice this because Lucy's relationships last mostly from 1-5 years, while mine are shorter.

What they have in common, though, is that both of us genuinely like who we are as people -- until we start dating someone. Then we hate who we become. Why? Because we get needy. We go from being these fiercely independent women who travel the world, build wells in Africa, volunteer with ex-convicts, work with abused kids to... icky people who need someone else's approval.

Our mom grew up in foster care and that probably had a lot to do with her neediness. When we were kids, she would call our dad about 15 times a day, just to ensure he was still there and to find out his every move. I had a roommate who used to do that with her boyfriends, too, and it disturbed me. That's how Lucy's neediness now exemplifies itself, relationally-speaking.

Mine is the opposite. I watched all that phone-calling and was so determined not to be that person that I end up over-correcting. Instead, I initiate NO phone calls, NO texts, nothing. I'm so damn determined not to hem someone in that I just wait. And wait. And wait. And if whoever I'm dating actually has a life and doesn't have time to text me every day, I get really sad. And then eventually I get resentful. And by the time they do text me, even though I'm really happy to hear from them, I come across as bitchy.

Lucy has made "relationship rules" for herself: she is only allowed to call her boyfriend 2 times in a row. She has figured out that that's her limit before she goes ballistic and starts erupting. If he does not pick up the phone and she has tried calling 2 times already, that means that he is really busy and he genuinely cannot answer.

Another one of her tricks that she learned for herself is to delete her own texts right after she's sent them. That way she doesn't see when her boyfriend has "read" them and she can't get needy about why he hasn't responded yet.

I realize that my sister and I sound pathetic in this blog post. I DO realize that. But Lucy says, "Everyone has their issues. Literally, every single person. The question is finding someone who is willing to grow through your issues with you."

That's what I'm looking for. Someone who recognizes that I'm kind of a train wreck, but that he's kind of his own train wreck. And maybe we can be wrecks together and learn things. In counseling they teach you that the only way to grow relationally is to have relationships. It doesn't matter how many African wells you build or dollars you raise for charity or marathons you run... those things grow you as a person, but they don't grow you relationally. That only happens when you allow yourself to be in relationships.

To end this post, a quasi-quote from Table 19: There's no one else I'd rather forgive than you. There's no one I'd rather be forgiven by than you.

I think that's what we're all looking for. Someone we feel safe screwing up with because we know their forgiveness is complete and they'll help us grow through our shit.

If there's one thing I've learned as a gardener, it's that shit helps things grow.