First Date High

You know that crazy high you get when you have a great first date? When your mind swims with visions of you and your clearly-soon-to-be-new-boyfriend going on trips and holding hands while strolling about? When you’re so drunk with the promise this new relationship holds that you tell all your girlfriends about it, gushing about all the reasons you like him?

I feel that way right now, minus the gushing. I simply am not a gusher. I’m sure the crash is coming, but in the meantime, let’s all bask in the glow of that rarity that is the great first date.

It took about a week of emailing with The Architect to get the meet up in person, and it’s a good thing, too, since despite having only been chatting for a relatively short time I was starting to cross over into that dangerous place where I really like a guy on paper (or internet paper, anyway) and start panicking that the in-person interaction simply won’t match up.

It did, though. The Architect was normal cute and above-normal smart. We have lots of things in common. Like he drunk paints and I drunk clean. And we both like the driving range more than the actual golf course. And, very important, we both like PBR.

He seemed laid back, which is probably a good counterpoint for me, but passionate and opinionated at the same time. We were mutually impressed by the other’s careers. He’s grows strawberries on his deck and had the latest scoop on the NFL lock out. He’s a gentleman and I didn’t feel smothered letting him be one.

If anything he was more engaging than I’d found him in our very conversational emails. So much so that I resorted to slapping my hands over my mouth to stop myself from constantly interrupting him. He said it was adorable, but I’m guessing he wouldn’t have if he realized it was also keeping me from leaning over and kissing him right there at the bar.

It was like the longer we sat there the more attractive he became, and not because I had several beers over the course of our 3 hrs plus date, because I also had snacks during that time. There was just something about him.

He’s already suggested that we get together again and I (embarrassingly) can’t wait to see him. I hope he comes through, ‘cause I’m gonna need another hit of this stuff soon.

Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Google

After receiving an email back from The Architect I decided to Google his screen name, since it looked a lot like his real name. Turns out it was, and there were a few links associated directly to him that returned. Not too many, though, just enough confirm his identity/job and pique my interest a bit more.

First, one of those websites that pulls information from other websites and then pretends you have a profile on their site came back with the small town in Michigan that my very good friend is from. The Architect had mentioned that he was from that state, and I was conveniently having drinks with that gal later that very day. I shot off a quick email to see if she knew him.

Second, the following question asked 6 months ago on one of those “how to get a job” websites: Is there any employers that will accept people with a felony conviction? Ignoring the obvious grammar error, I was momentarily concerned. I wasn’t able to pull back any information about the poster of the question, but a quick check of his LinkedIn profile assured me that six months ago The Architect was gainfully employed. Hopefully that clears that up.

The most intriguing thing that came up was that he appears to be kind of an artist. Off his LinkedIn profile he had a personal website, which linked to a Facebook album, with all these paintings and drawings that he had done. Maybe there was even a sculpture in there. I just glanced through them, though, too much investigation and I’ll appear like a stalker.

Not bad for 15 minutes, eh? I love the Internets.

I Love a Good ‘Stache.

After last week’s moment of weakness surrounding Summer Boy I realized I had been right. The only way to move past someone – or the lack of someone – is to find someone new. And better. Better for me, anyway. So I bit the bullet and re-instated my old online dating profile. The free one, of course, while I begrudgingly realize that I need the internets to find available men, I am certainly not on board with throwing any more of my hard earned cash at those sites.

Turns out it wasn’t so bad, there were some good finds out on good ‘ole OK Cupid! And some old friends, like the Karaoke King, who viewed my profile shortly after it re-posted. I decided not to return the viewing.

I did, however, send a few (two) emails to particularly good postings in an effort to be an active dater. I almost never send initial communications, despite being a (relatively) good writer, I find that I consistently fall short on the introductory email. Or at least that’s how it seems, since I have a very poor return percentage on initiating contact.

I’m trying to do something different than I have before, though, so I came up with a new strategy and decided to keep the emails short. A sentence or two complimenting something specific I had enjoyed about their profile and then an invitation to chat further should they be interested.

They went out to two gents, who drew me in with these details:

• The Architect, whose pictures include done of him with an awesome fake mustache. I heart mustaches.
• The Church Musician, whose profile included that he makes pie. I too, am a successful pie-maker.

So far I’ve received back and email from The Architect as well as some other random whose profile I hadn’t yet viewed. One out of two! That ain’t bad.

You Can Run but You Can't Hide

From your feelings, that is. You can avoid them for awhile, sure, by distracting yourself with anything you can find – boys, work, boys, running, boys – but eventually they’ll catch up with you and you’ll have to deal with them.

I am a master at avoiding my feelings; sometimes I hide them from myself so cleverly I literally am not aware that I’ve done it. They usually smack me down with excessive force well after the incident that caused them and then I’m stuck wading through them trying to figure out where they came from and why I ignored them in the first place. Ironically I often work through them while running.

I miss Summer Boy. There, I said it. I also said it in a text message I drunkenly drafted while out recently. I didn’t send it, thank god, but only because I’d deleted him out of my contacts after the first text I had sent him (which was a normal, albeit random, Saturday night text).

I have to say I thought I had already dealt with my feelings on this one. In fact, I’d been pretty impressed with how I hadn’t been missing him, how I hadn’t reached out when he left Chicago, how I really hadn’t felt any need to reach out to him since.

So what gives? I can’t tell if I miss him, specifically, or if I just miss having a go-to guy, but I do know that something has to be done about the weird, achy feeling I’ve started having on my insides.

I feel like I should go meet someone new, that as soon as I do I’ll stop feeling sentimental about Summer Boy, but I can’t help but drag my feet.

Because I hate dating. There, I said that, too. I hate it, and I don’t want to do it anymore and I don’t think I should have to. I was optimistic, I was hopeful! I went on many, many dates with all sorts of guys and I have nothing to show for it.

Come to think of it, despite a brief period around the start of the year I don’t think I ever really got back into first dates after I went on break last summer. My break of course, coincided with Summer Boy’s entrée into my life, which was unexpected and fun and easy.

So I guess that explains that. I miss Summer Boy because I hate dating. Therapy session over.

Best of Both Worlds

In the end I made my decision based purely on my love of German festivals. I had to rearrange my entire day, and hit all my pre-bachelorette events in my bachelorette outfit, but it was worth it for the 90 minutes or so I spent with friends, a large stein of bier (okay, two steins), some sort of tasty German sausage-jerky and a pretzel.

Turns out it I had been thinking about it all wrong. As soon as I thought it about it based on what I wanted to do, I didn’t even care whether The Great Blind Date was there. Or Marathon Guy. Or even The Bowler. If I ran into them I’d run into them (looking fabulous, as it happened).

I didn’t see any of them, though. It was a German Fest miracle!

Of course I’d like to think it wouldn’t have mattered if I had. I’m perfectly capable of being cordial with all manner of exes, but it’s nice when you don’t have to be. When you can just enjoy yourself without feeling like at any moment you might need to duck behind the sausages.

I got to have my bier and drink it too! Cheers to that.

Moment of Truth

Ugh, already? Before I knew it the first opportunity to not let being rejected by The Great Blind Date get in the way of shared social events has popped up on my calendar. Ironically it’s for the spring version of the festival we originally met at (see many, many posts on German Fest shenanigans).

Normally I’d be attending this particular fest, whether with this crew or another, but I have a conflict in the form of a bachelorette party. And normally I’d be happy to add some pre-drinking to a bachelorette event, but this one starts mid-afternoon so I’d basically be extending my expected drinking window to a full 12 hours.

If my first reservation was all day drinking, then my second was the possibility that The Great Blind Date would be there. Prior to recent events I’m pretty sure I had a tendency to ignore him, likely because I had our friend in my sub-conscious telling me we’d make a great couple, but I couldn’t ignore him now. I’d have to be social, despite the teeny bit of wounded pride I’m still carrying. It’s just a bit… too… soon.

Not that I haven’t found ways to make myself feel better about it. Oh shit. Marathon Guy’s probably going to be there, too. This could have some benefit in that I would already be traipsing around with a replacement, but then I’d probably have to meet his friends, and I definitely don’t want to do that if I’m just going to flake on him (likely). Now it just seems a bit… too…. much.

First awkward run-in first. I scanned the “Awaiting Reply” on the FB invite, and – yay! – The Great Blind Date wasn’t on it. But then I checked the “Attending” and of course he is.

Now if I decide to go I’ll think that he’ll think I’m going because he’ll be there. And if I decide not to go I’ll think everyone will be thinking that it’s because he’ll be there and RSVP’d first (I know this is probably an exaggeration of the amount of thought anyone but me is giving this event. I’m okay with that.)

It’ll have to be a game day decision. Stay tuned, dear readers.

I am Really Going to Miss This

I think you know what comes next, dear readers. Despite being thwarted by Yahoo the next time I had a few cocktails in me I couldn’t resist finding Marathon Guy’s phone number and sending him a text message. What? Like I was going to let a little thing like deleting every single email stop me?

You can improve technology all you want, but there’s always a paper trail. And by paper I mean online pdf versions of my cell phone bills which fortunately started with my new carrier *just* before I stopped talking to Marathon Guy last fall.

I tell you one thing that I’m going to miss if I ever find myself find myself in a monogamous relationship - randomly text messaging old flames and having it turn into unexpected meet ups. In this case, meet ups that come with shoulder rubs.

You can’t beat it! Especially when he showed up here, after suggesting said rub free all on his own! I had truly texted him about the hot dog stand - which apparently is very loud and all the neighbors are up in arms about it – although I know better than to say I didn't think there was a possible, albeit outside, chance that it might lead to more.

But I let him drive the meet up all on his own. It appears all it takes to invite such suggestions is one well placed text message. Sometimes I love being single.

Did You Know You Can Restore Your Gmail Contacts?

I didn’t! But learning this makes it even better that I use my Gmail for personal emails – almost never for maybe new boyfriend communications – and my Yahoo for my non-associated-to-me-in-anyway emails. I’d be surprised if Yahoo had a way to recover contacts, not that I’m going to find out for sure, and that is a good thing in the land of dating.

I’m a gal who needs to cut ties in order to move on, and to do that I need to erase all ways to get in touch with my ex-interests. Otherwise I’ll get mopey about being single, have one too many glasses of wine, and then reopen the lines of communication. This will usually result in weeks of wasted back and forth with someone who’s on the ex list for a reason.

Sometimes I’m not mopey and drunk, though, sometimes I believe my intentions are purely innocent (which they’re not, of course, how could they be?). Like just last week I heard on the news that this building that has been fighting to open will be opening as a Maxwell Street (classic Chicago polish place). Apparently the neighborhood is all up in arms and thinks they will be flooded by noise and hoodlums if they start selling hot dogs and Italian sausage sandwiches 24-hours a day. As soon as I saw it I wanted to tell Marathon Guy.

You see last fall when we were attempting to date again we walked past that building, which looked like a big white washed rectangle, and tried to figure out what it was supposed to be. It didn’t look like it would have much room for a kitchen, but I think maybe Marathon Guy thought it could have had a future life as some sort of hot dog stand.

As far as I know he was planning to move out of that neighborhood anyway, but I couldn’t help but want to tell him he’d been right! Not as a way to re-open communication, I swear, just to be able to share the updated information with the only person I could have.

But I couldn’t, because I’d purged him, purged him good. Every email in every folder – even search didn’t return him. He’d never transitioned to my real email, so I had no way to recover him. And that is probably for the best, for a lot of reasons, despite having spent about 15 minutes trying to see if I could still find him. Thanks, Yahoo, for keeping me in line.