Show, Don't Tell

Writers hear the adage "show, don't tell" all the time. Especially if you're a writer in LA. Men on dating websites would have better luck if they applied that to their own profiles. Many guys, it would seem, do not spend more than five minutes writing their online dating profile. I'm not sure why that is, but maybe it's that many men just look at photos and never read a woman's profile. This is a missed opportunity though, because most women look at a guy's photos AND read his profile. 

I *never* respond to a guy who claims to have a sense of humor, yet doesn't make any attempt to show me he's funny in his profile. In essence, this guy is telling me either, 'I have a sense of humor, but I'm not going to take the time right now to make you laugh, because it's more important that I bore you with the rest of my intentionally vague and/or cliche-riddled profile,' or 'I have a sense of humor, because I will laugh at your jokes. I won't be able to make you laugh, but I will guffaw indiscriminatingly at anything that comes out of your mouth.' Neither one is particularly appealing. If the dude is funny, the humor should reveal itself in his profile. 

When I see a guy wearing Ed Hardy clothes, I try to stealthily take a picture with my phone in the hopes of one day creating a coffee table book entitled, "Douchebags of America." 

This is the kind of creative, funny line in a dating profile that makes me instantly fall head over heels in love with a complete stranger who isn't even my type. Because I thought that one line was hilarious, I was prompted to send this guy this message:

Hi. I just had to tell you how much I love your nascent coffee table book, "Douchebags of America." I look forward to spilling food and coffee on it when it inhabits my coffee table someday. You have inspired me to pursue my own coffee table book. It will feature phone pics of some of the colorful people I encounter at the mall or other mall-like places, such as the woman--excessively burdened by fashion--who was pushing a stroller, not with a baby, but with her chihuahua in it. I will call the book, "This is the Ridiculous Place I Live."

I also love the contradiction of the guy who claims to lead a full exciting life of activity, yet *all* ten of his photos show him relaxing on his and other people's couches. I seem to be catnip to a certain type of doughy, sedentary guy in his 50s who spends all his free time surfing. Not the ocean--just his couch and tv. Lucky me. As I've become more astute in reading between the lines of a dating profile, I can avoid guys like that who *tell* me one thing, but *show* me another. Subtext, as it is in real life, is often the most revealing part of online dating communication. Ignore it at your dating peril.

Blindly Hunting for a Man Truffle

It's days like today when I can't help seeing the similarities between dating and writing a blog. Sometimes, like now, the writing doesn't come naturally, just as an easy personal connection doesn't always happen on the first date. This is when I have to commit myself to sitting down and doing the difficult work of slogging it out, sentence by sentence, without the benefit of inspiration or a funny anecdote. Or make myself go on a second date with a guy with whom I haven't established an instant rapport in order to get to know him better. Even though both take much more time, I am sometimes unexpectedly rewarded, like a blind pig rooting around the countryside and discovering a truffle.

Whenever I go on a mediocre first date, I am sometimes left with the depressing feeling that the odds are so against me meeting someone special now at this point in my life. And even if I do, our personal circumstances (distance, life obligations, careers, etc.) will not allow a relationship between us to flourish. This is when I try to remind myself of the summer romance that almost didn't happen because I was ready to throw in the towel way too soon.

The summer when I was 20 and working in Florida, I met a nice guy when I went to a movie with a group of friends. Three weeks later he called me up and asked me out. We went to Bachelor Party, a movie with Tom Hanks before he was *the* Tom Hanks. But I adored him. Not my perfectly nice, bland date, but the wild charismatic character played by Tom Hanks. I adored a made-up character in a ridiculous movie. And I couldn't help thinking how poorly "Florida" my date fared by my unfair comparison of the two.

When Florida dropped me off at my place, he politely asked me if I might be interested in going to the beach sometime. I said sure, but only because I just wanted to be done with this lackluster first date. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to go out with him again. He was good looking, but I didn't feel a special spark for him. When Florida called me a few days later to ask me to go to the beach with him for the day, I said yes, even though I wasn't very excited about it. I could have just as easily said no, but at that moment, when I was facing the prospect of yet another weekend with no scheduled fun, I was in the mood to say yes.

Since we spent the day together--first in the car on the 90-minute ride to the beach, then at the beach for the afternoon, then afterward at dinner, then in the car ride home--we spent a lot of time talking and laughing. He relaxed around me and was able to be himself. And that's how I got to know Florida and fell for him. Hard. And it was gratifyingly mutual. And exhilarating. And surprising. After that second date, we were inseparable for the rest of my time there before I went back to college. It was a perfect summer romance that might never have happened if I had given up searching for a man-truffle after a mediocre first date.

Raising the Bar

Right before my divorce became official last year, I met a guy while swing dancing who seemed to have the most uncanny timing. Just as my friend was telling me we needed to get our courage up and go ask guys to dance, this guy approached us, interrupted my pal mid-sentence and asked me to dance. Perfect! If only life could always deliver with such impeccable timing.

After saving me from the minor indignity of having to hustle to fill my own dance card, I was ebullient with "Perfect Timing." We bantered back and forth while we danced for a couple of songs, then he asked me for my phone number. It was the kind of "meet cute" scene you would see in a Jennifer Aniston movie. And there, dear readers, is your foreshadowing. Has Jennifer Aniston ever been in a movie that *doesn't* tease you with its promise, but then turns out to be the same craptastic, soul-sucking movie on which she has built her career?

Perfect Timing was the first guy I went out with after my marriage broke up. Intimidatingly smart, he was a 51-year-old former sitcom writer currently employed as a website consultant. At first things seemed fun and very promising. He was that combination of intelligent and funny that I find devastating, my romantic kryptonite. But after the first few dates, Perfect Timing either lost interest in romancing me or he got lazy. We didn't go out a lot. We stayed in at my place. We spent a lot of time talking and laughing. Usually in bed. Sometimes I would make him dinner. Sometimes we would go out for dinner, but only as an impromptu event prompted by *his* appetite. And we never went swing dancing.

While I liked having regular sex with a guy who could make me think and laugh, I didn't like the way he closed himself off from me emotionally. Sometimes it felt like he had decided from the beginning that there was no way he was going to let himself get emotionally involved with me because I didn't fit his criteria of qualities in a girlfriend. It reminded me of a professor I had in college who seemed to decide within the first week of your first class with him whether you were an A, B or C student. And no matter how much effort you put into your term papers or class participation, he still gave you the grade he had given you in his head during that first week in his first class.

I wondered if he was in love with his best friend -- a beautiful woman from India who had a Ph.D in physics. I don't have a Ph.D in anything, let alone physics. Maybe that's why it felt like he had pegged me as a "C"-- someone fun to hang out with in bed, but not someone worth romancing, not a girlfriend. I felt taken for granted. When I could no longer tolerate it and told him I didn't want to continue to see him because I wanted a boyfriend, not a regular hookup, he acted surprised by my characterization of our relationship. But because I am a Ph.D-less idiot who still goes to Jennifer Aniston movies even though they're always bad, I agreed to go out with him again a couple of weeks later. I guess I missed him in a perverse Stockholm syndrome way.

This time around though, I stopped looking for the flaws in myself that would explain why our relationship sucked and started noticing his. One night he told me about a problem he had observed in many of his previous relationships with women. He felt he had just stuck around "hoping for a few emotional crumbs" from them. Of course, he seemed oblivious to the fact that in order to get more than just "a few emotional crumbs," you have to give more than just crumbs.

On what turned out to be our last date, I noticed and was annoyed by how conversationally "stingy" he was while we were having dinner at a restaurant I had chosen, not one of his. Even though I tried hard to make him laugh and think, he wasn't in the mood to be entertained by me. When we ended up back at my place in bed (as always), I was shocked when he offhandedly asked me where I had grown up, and not the name of my small hometown, but the state. I was struck by the casual way he asked this very basic personal question, as if he were asking for a detail too small and insignificant to remember--something like where had my mother grown up or where had my brother gone to college. A guy I had been seeing almost every week for six months couldn't be bothered to remember the state where I had been born and raised. WTF?! And that's the humiliating straw that broke the camel's back and made me decide I would never go out with him again.

It was also the humiliating experience that made me significantly raise the bar of what I expect in a boyfriend. It made me decide that it's not nearly enough to ask for a guy who is funny, smart and superficially nice to me. I want to date the kind of smart, funny, nice guy who *also* thinks I am worth the effort and emotional risk of romance. And by the end of the first date, he'd better f*cking know the state where I grew up. I would rather hold out for a feast than settle for crumbs again. I hope I don't starve. 

Sublimation, Frosty Pink Style

It's the oddest thing. I find myself singing along to the corniest of Christmas songs on the radio. And when I say corny, I'm talking Burl Ives corny. Last year and the year before that, when I was in the dark throes of divorce, I would turn off the radio in eye-rolling disgust whenever Christmas music came on. The very public hoopla surrounding the holidays just annoyed the crap out of me, perhaps because I couldn't stand to be reminded of the Christmases during the unhappy years of my marriage, when I felt compelled to go through the motions as if I were a person content with her life. Now I leave the radio on, singing along at the top of my lungs to everything, except for Ke$ha. I will always turn off the radio in disgust when I hear Ke$ha.

Even odder is my desire to take my daughter to see a well known drive-thru holiday light show that is notorious for causing nightly hour-long traffic jams on a major freeway. To put this in the proper perspective, I am going against my very visceral instinct to avoid traffic by any means possible, to drive directly into a traffic jam just to see some f*cking Christmas lights. What the hell?!

I suspect having someone new and promising in my life is the major reason for this surprising turnaround in my holiday mood, for this antidote to my "allergy" to the public rituals of an American Christmas. Sublimating my energy from this budding romance into my own positive "Up With People" anticipation of the holidays is, frankly, frightening to me. But at the same time, I don't give a shit, because I like feeling optimistic about the holidays again, even in a corny "Up With People" sort of way.

My Heart Goes on the Wow for You

As I've mentioned before, I have a Los Angeles friend who receives two corny love poems every day from a guy in Sri Lanka whom she has never met, nor to whom she even responds much. When she told me about her Sri Lankan poet, I was amused by the pointless absurdity of it and a little jealous that I didn't have a lovesick foreigner of my own (Daily Devotion). A month or so ago, I posted on my online dating profile a throwaway line about wanting my own poet from Sri Lanka writing me odes to our impossible love. Ask, and ye shall receive. Kinda. Sorta.

"I am thinks you are most attractive and my heart goes on the Wow for you," wrote a guy who turns out to be an American writer with impeccable English, living just a few miles from me in my part of LA. He was the first of several American guys who sent me messages parodying a lovesick Sri Lankan bachelor. Despite how funny "Wow" was, as well as being "geographically desirable," as our correspondence continued, I was creeped out by his frequently repeated desire to give me a foot massage. In fact, I think Wow would have insisted on rubbing my feet at Starbucks, had I let it proceed to a first date. 

Another Sri Lankan faker sent me this poem: 

I'm sending you this poem from Sri Lanka

Though we're not in the same room, I took a shot of binaca

It gets lonely under the stars in the Lanka named Sri

I wonder to myself, where can Sri... uh, she be?

Then I saw you

And I said to myself, "Woo hoo!"

I must write you a poem

From here in my home

Every morning and every night

I will write

To say how absolutely lovely you are to my eyes

And aside from that last statement, everything else is lies

I thanked him for the poem and told him I was blown away by a guy who rhymed binaca with Sri Lanka. "Binaca" is also an American writer (sitcoms) who lives within a few miles of me. He told me one of my pictures reminded him of Ann-Margaret, and I'm old enough to be wildly flattered by that comparison. All good stuff. But I soon became turned off by Binaca's verbal "grabby-handedness." Several times he suggestively invited me to come over to his house to watch Viva Las Vegas, that Elvis movie with Ann-Margaret. As a first date. Who the f*ck goes to a stranger's house on a first date? I told him a couple times I wasn't looking for a hook-up, but he must have thought my resolve was no match for his witty quips because he kept trying to seduce me with the funny. If he were a convicted murderer, he's the type who would convince his straight-arrow lady lawyer to marry him, and their unbelievable story would be made into an original Lifetime movie. Not me though. I'm skeptical to the core. 

No matter. I now have a real Sri Lankan penpal, a guy who alas is not a poet. In fact, he's admittedly "not much of a reader." Under most circumstances, a guy who is "not much of a reader" would be a deal-breaker for me. But as I scrolled through his photos, I decided that being poetic--or even, really, literate--didn't matter, particularly when I gazed upon the photo of him in nothing but a swimsuit with a waterfall cascading behind him. The one that looks like the cover of an International Male catalogue. 

"Sri Lanka" is a 31-year-old hottie who plays cricket professionally in the U.K. in the summer, but spends the rest of the time as an accounts assistant in his native Sri Lanka. I am 17 years older than him and we live 9,361 miles apart. Sure, that'll work out. Why would he even bother writing to me? What is he looking for? Nudie photos? A green card? Research for his own blog about finding true love in Sri Lanka? We'll see. For now, my heart goes on the Wow for Sri Lanka, his waterfall photo and pointless absurdity in general.

He Ruined It For Me

Would it be whorish of me to go on another date with Heavy Metal just to get his chili recipe? It would, I know, but his gourmet turkey chili with kale has ruined all other chili for me. It was a cold, rainy day today, perfect weather for making my own turkey chili, which is pretty standard stuff, but I have always loved it. Until now. Damn it.

I could just ask him for the recipe, but I don't want to give him the idea that I'm interested in him and am using the recipe as a pretext for contacting him. I have a list of all of the 1,000 ingredients on a roll of paper similar to one of those five-foot-long royal proclamations unscrolled for a public reading. I may be able to figure out how to assemble the ingredients myself. What's funny to me is that, even though Heavy Metal annoyed the shit out of me on our last date (Five Dates in Five Days), I probably *would* ask him for the recipe and risk giving him the false impression that I like him, if I didn't have something starting up with someone else I really like. I guess that means I would be a whore for chili, if not for the moderating influence of another man. Usually adding another guy to the mix is the *cause* of whorish behavior, not the elimination of it.

Five Dates in Five Days

Five dates in five days with three different guys seemed like a good idea at the time. You know, the same way all-you-can-eat sushi for one flat price seems like an unbelievably fantastic idea--that is, until you actually do it and end up stuffing yourself to the point of nausea. I guess my endless appetite for sushi and men is not really endless and certainly not fed by quantity. Although *now* it seems obvious what a bad idea it is to schedule five dates over five days in a row, last week when they just kind of serendipitously lined up one after the other on my calendar, I felt like a lucky dating genius.

Dating is a numbers game, and going on lots of dates is more likely to lead you to that one special someone faster. Or so goes the dating gospel repeated endlessly as divine truth by "dating experts." The problem is, it's mentally and emotionally exhausting. At least for me. And it skews my perspective on dates in unexpected ways.

Even though it was draining and I will never do this again, it wasn't, by any means, a bust. Date 1 was a first date at Starbucks with a guy who was very easy to talk to from the moment I got there, although I left the date after two hours not knowing if he "like" liked me (as my 12-year-old describes it), or if he just liked talking to me as a friend. "Easy To Talk To" texted me later that night and told me I was "super attractive" and asked me out again, which I took as evidence that he indeed "like" liked me.

On Date 2, I gave Heavy Metal (Call Me... Maybe) a second chance and we had a nice conversation on a rainy day while having lunch and coffee together. He asked me more questions about my life and we made each other laugh with funny stories about parenting.

I finally met Penpal, the 47-year-old guy from New York I've been emailing for what seems like months (Online Dating Time), for Date 3. Penpal was in LA to find an apartment and for business. We went to one of my favorite restaurants for dinner and then for coffee afterwards. Although he was not what I expected, I wasn't disappointed. He gave me a lot of shit about politics, which I found kind of bold for a first date. But I can usually hold my own in the shit-giving department, and I gave it right back to him, without provoking in him or me inappropriate public outbursts liberally punctuated by f-bombs or uncontrollable weeping. I was glad to have finally met him, but I don't really know what to make of him. He is quite a character.

Date 4 turned out to be the highlight of my five-date marathon. I had a second date with "Easy To Talk To," who was even easier to talk to on the second go-around. We did the dinner-and-movie thing, and we really clicked. He's the super attractive one, as well as intelligent, charming, and affectionate, and I feel super lucky he seems to "like" like me. In fact, it sort of feels like I've hoodwinked him into dating me. Why? Because I'm neurotic when I start dating someone who kind of throws me off balance. I feel as if I got a deal and it's only a matter of time before he'll realize he got the short end of the stick.

After a great date the night before, I was in no mood to have Date 5 with anyone other than Easy To Talk To, which was sort of unfair to Heavy Metal. But we had made plans, and according to those "dating experts," one should follow through on early dates because one never knows where each early date will go.

The plan was for Heavy Metal to come to my place to make his gourmet chili and watch the first couple episodes of Game of Thrones, his favorite tv show. Since he was busy throwing a birthday party for his daughter *and* escorting a 95-year-old WWII veteran during the Veterans Day parade, I volunteered to shop for all the ingredients for the chili. And that's why I spent a large chunk of my Sunday afternoon going from store to store to round up the ingredients in his recipe--all 1,000 of them. Russian novels are shorter in length than his gourmet chili recipe.

The farmers market didn't have all of the seven types of peppers he requested, so I ended up going to six different stores to try to find them all. And at one point during the afternoon, my tire went flat, just as I was exiting the freeway. So that set me back at least 45 minutes as I waited for AAA to come change my tire. It was the scavenger hunt from Hell, and I was weary. The last thing I wanted to do was have a date.

When I offered him a glass of wine, he derisively chuckled at the little Ikea glasses I used. I apologetically explained that since I don't drink wine a lot, I hadn't gotten around to buying wine glasses yet and I had just gotten used to using these little juice glasses or my Champagne flutes. Well, that didn't go over well with Heavy Metal, who turns out to be a bit of a wine snob. (I prefer beer, so suck on that.) I was surprised by how rude he was, apparently feeling no need to hide his disdain. If the roles were reversed and I were the wine snob, I would have either gently teased him about the glasses or I would have graciously brushed off his apology as not necessary.

This, as it turned out, was the first of several snotty bitch-ass 'tudes he gave me during the evening. The next one came when the biggest pot I owned was not as big as his own personal chili pot. Judging by all the ingredients, he must have a giant 50-gallon vat over a firepit in his backyard. I do not, and I don't think it's weird that I don't, but judging by that annoying derisive chuckle, he does.

And finally, my favorite 'tude of the evening was when I showed him the TJ's brand of organic chicken broth that I had substituted for the specific brand of organic chicken broth that he wanted because "it has no celery in it." He is allergic to celery. (WTF?! Who's allergic to celery? It's like being allergic to water.) When I showed him that it contained no celery, he looked at me as if I were a dumb bitch, and said icily, "But it's made on machines that process dairy, nuts, and wheat."

"Oh, you're allergic to dairy, nuts and wheat too? I didn't know," I replied, realizing I was going to have to make yet another trip to the damn store before this evening was through.

We sat in stony silence watching the first two episodes of Game of Thrones and eating 1,000-ingredient chili, which, I have to admit, were both awesome. But I stewed about what an ass I thought he had been and couldn't wait for him to leave. I wish I would have kicked him out halfway through the date, but as I've mentioned before, I am pathologically polite in a way that borders on mental illness. It's something I have to work on. Is there therapy for that?

Call Me... Maybe

One of the best things about living in Los Angeles is the wide variety of interesting people who live here. I maintain this is so, despite compelling evidence to the contrary, which includes Lindsay Lohan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the Kardashians. LA attracts some of the most creative people in the world, which helps explain why it's not all that unusual that I recently went swing dancing on a first date with a former heavy metal frontman.  

With his long-haired rocker days far behind him, "Heavy Metal" is a short, bald 50-year-old guy with a charming obsession for everything from the 1940s. Besides his crazy former life as a rocker when he was in his twenties, I like the fact that he is now a devoted father, who has single-handedly raised his two kids for the past seven years. I appreciate his love of cooking, as well as his self-proclaimed enthusiasm for "jumping into the fire" when faced with a new challenge, as swing dancing was for this complete novice. Even though he couldn't swing dance, Heavy Metal looked the part in his vintage 1940s jacket, pants and shoes. 

We had a lot of time to chat while attempting to dance together or sitting on the sidelines, and I asked him many questions about his life. That's what I like to do on a first date--gather information in a conversational way. Although Heavy Metal did ask me some questions, unlike the previous bad first date I had (Another Lesson Learned the Hard Way), it felt as if he didn't ask *enough* questions about me. It seemed like there were several big opportunities for him to answer my question for him, then turn around and ask the same question of me. But evidently, Heavy Metal was not interested in where I grew up or what brought me to California in the first place. Am I being unrealistic to think that a guy on a first date might want to find out a little bit more about me? Or are physical attraction and the chance to tell "his story" to a willing listener the only things that matter to men on a first date? Is it really all about the visual for men? Or just for some men? And by "some men," I mean just the ones who ask me out.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by his apparent emphasis on the visual, since he admitted that it was love at first sight for him when he initially saw the woman he would subsequently marry and later divorce. Of the three people I know personally who knew instantly that they would marry their "love at first sight" partner, all three are men. I don't know any women who've actually married someone with whom they fell in love at first sight. Well, at least any sober women. Women take longer to decide whether we like a guy. We need more information. I guess this explains why I will probably go out again with Heavy Metal, despite my ambivalence about him.

To be continued...or not. I'm not really sure how I feel.

Another Lesson Learned the Hard Way

I make it a rule to never go to older male doctors. I learned long ago that most older male doctors, particularly docs who are 10 to 20 years older, lack the ability and/or willingness to listen to patients, or at least to me. I always choose female doctors, because I've found it much more likely to get a doctor who will listen. And over the years, I've seen this same inability or unwillingness to listen in some older male coworkers, who take my work-related questions as an opportunity to subject me to long, unwelcome monologues of whatever wisdom they think I presumably lack, delivered as always with benign condescension. I don't know why I didn't apply this same rule to online dating, which is why I got stuck on a four-hour first date with one of those kind of men this past weekend.

A couple weeks ago, I agreed to a first date with a guy 10 years older than me, the father of two teenage kids. Even though he is older than I prefer, I liked the no-bullshit attitude in his profile, his love of camping and the outdoors, and the fact that he grew up in Montana. And he had been learning how to two-step and swing dance this past year. Promising. So, without much emailing back and forth, I agreed to see standup comedy with "Montana" a couple weekends later, the first night we were both available for a date.

We met at a bar for a drink before the show, and the first thing Montana opened with was a five-minute monologue on how his maternal ancestors kept trying and failing at homesteading, which pushed them from the midwest to the plains states and finally to the west. Trust me, it wasn't as exciting and sexy as I just made it sound. Then he moved on to his career as a scientist at JPL and a well known defense contractor, followed by a lengthy explanation of why he was getting an MBA on the side. I tried to interject with questions and comments, but found it really difficult to get a word in edgewise. He just kept on going and going, so after 30 minutes of conversational rebuffs, I gave up trying and just thought, 'F*ckit. I'm stuck in a boring lecture. Maybe he'll take questions at the end.'

He talked about his kids and his impending divorce, which hasn't happened yet, although they've been separated for many years of their 20-year marriage. Even though he knows from my dating profile that I have a kid and I'm divorced, he didn't ask me any questions about my situation. Even when we had something in common, he wasn't interested enough to ask me about it.  Somehow he rambled on to the topic of petroleum economics, which is something I know a little about, since I once worked for an oil and gas consulting firm. Every time I tried to add something relevant to his lecture on the current state of gas prices, he would stop for a few seconds and stare at me in the same uncomprehending way my dog does when I talk to her. The whole evening was a chance for him to display his admittedly considerable knowledge. Awesome. I just love to sit mutely and not share my own opinions. WTF?!

Two-and-a-half hours into the date, he finally asked ME a question -- the first of the night -- just as we were about to be seated for the show. And it wasn't even the standard "What do you do for a living?" question, which is usually number one or number two on a first date. "What do you write about?" he asked. I wish I had had the audacity to say I write a bitchy blog about comically bad first dates like this one, but I didn't. I'm much too polite, a character flaw I blame on my smalltown midwestern upbringing.

The standup comedy was nothing great, although I did have some fun when the host asked the audience if anyone was celebrating a birthday or anniversary. I raised my hand and pointed to Montana and said, "He is. He just had his 20th wedding anniversary a couple days ago." The host looked confused, so I elaborated, "But not me. I'm not married. We're on a first date." To Montana's credit, he laughed and seemed delighted by my comments.

Maybe this, along with my damned politeness, is why Montana asked me out again in a way that assumed I would be totally onboard with it. I nearly spat out my coffee when he texted me to ask what I did for a living -- three days after our Titanic of a first date. I would like to think the question finally popped into his mind after he was talking about me to a coworker and when the coworker asked him about my job, it suddenly dawned on him that he didn't know, even after spending four hours with me on a first date.

To sum up: avoid older male doctors, don't start a date off with a boring narrative about your failed homesteading ancestors, and always buy online-dating bail insurance (insist on the standard first date at Starbucks, so you can politely bail after an hour of misery).

Online Dating Time

"Getting divorced is like stepping out of a time machine. But it's a really shitty time machine. It's the kind of time machine that takes the real amount of time to take you to the future." -- Louis C.K.

If marriage is experienced in real time (and unhappy marriage in excruciatingly slow time), then online dating is experienced at a much greater velocity than real time. A week in online dating can feel like a month or two in real time, especially during the time before you actually meet up in person.

A while ago, I was contacted via the dating website by an "age appropriate" guy in NY who is moving back to LA at the end of the year. Since then we've been writing back and forth like two hopelessly single characters kept apart by cruel circumstance in a Jane Austen novel. No texting. No phone calls. No Skyping or Facetiming. Just good old fashioned words, the comfort of the familiar to an analog girl adrift in a digital world.

It seems like I've known Age Appropriate for months, but I haven't even met him in the flesh yet. In fact, we've only been writing to each other for a mere *three weeks*. It's all very You've Got Mail, minus the Nora Ephron dialogue and the Upper West Side travelogue.

I'm not sure how it will all play out with my unexpected new penpal. I'm beginning to wonder if we'll even meet, a thought which may merely reflect my impatience with delayed gratification and not really mean anything at all. However, as a writer I have to guard against "talking an idea to death." Instead of pursuing an inspiring idea by writing about it, sometimes a writer will pursue the idea by telling everyone about it, and then lose interest in it without ever writing a single word. I wonder if that same thing happens in online dating if there is a lot of email before a first date. Maybe we're emailing to death the possibility of dating before we even go out.

We'll see. In the meantime, I'm rediscovering my long dormant love of writing an engaging letter. Instead of being able to rely on a sexy dress or a smile, I take the time to write something thoughtful or funny. On the other hand, it's a lot of f*cking work, this epistolary seduction. So I'm hoping he just moves here already and we get the first date over with.

See? I told you I was bad with delayed gratification.

Daily Devotion

During the early days of my first semester of college, I would wake up to a new set of music lyrics scribbled on my white message board attached to my dorm room door. (Yes, I'm *that* f*#king old. I went to college before cell phones and email). A boy who lived in my dorm would wait until I was asleep, then leave his carefully chosen poetic lyrics from a well known song as a little gift for me to open every morning. It was sweet and surprisingly touching to a smartass girl prone to cynicism. This went on for a couple of weeks until we both found what we were looking for -- love. Him, with another girl. Me, with excessive quantities of beer.

A thousand years later, I still find it touching -- that little gesture of daily devotion. So, you can imagine my reaction when my friend, who is also in the mix of online dating, told me she has a lovesick lothario in Sri Lanka who sends her cheesy love poems twice a day -- every morning and every evening. So jealous! Where's *my* lovesick foreigner sending me mawkish poetry in broken English?!

It's that daily devotion demonstrated in small ways that really resonates with me. (I just eat that shit up.) It makes me feel that I'm remembered, that I matter to someone. Even if that someone is a goofball in Sri Lanka.

Sometimes I Just Can't Look Away

Maybe it was the Leo Sayer fro that made me click on the online dating profile of this 47-year-old guy who lives near me. Or was it the suggestively open leather jacket with no shirt underneath? Most likely it was the light saber he is brandishing, or what at first glance appeared to be a light saber. Even after scrutinizing his photo blown up to the largest size on my computer screen, I still don't know what the hell he's holding.

If I *had* to guess his occupation, I would go with magician. But I have no idea, based on his profile that is mostly littered with sexual innuendo that makes me cringe, not smile. Yet I am compelled to read every word of his creepy train wreck of a profile. I just can't look away. It's like watching Intervention or those tv shows about hoarders.

Good thing, or else I would have missed the very last sentence of his profile -- the coup de grace:

First date: some place original for the scratch and sniff encounter.

Ick.

I wonder what original place Magician would suggest for that scratch-and-sniff encounter. How about a nursing home to see him perform his magic show? That's original. Or maybe the dance studio where he practices his light-saber dance routine? Call me cynical, but I'm guessing it's his van with the bed in the back.

Just My Type

About a month ago, a guy with a wildly funny online profile checked out my rather boring profile. His profile showed off his keen intelligence and irreverent sense of humor, which together, as I've mentioned before, is catnip to me. A yoga fanatic with a couple of tattoos on his arms, he is a playwright and an artisan coffee roaster who looks like he's in his late-50s -- an aging hipster. The kind of guy one would see cavorting in his native habitat on Abbot Kinney in Venice.

Every day I checked Aging Hipster's profile with the same obsessiveness as a 13-year-old girl with a Justin Bieber crush, hoping he would contact me. His hilarious profile prompted me to finally put in some time and effort to beef up my own phoned-in profile. Yet my "charm" seemed to elude him, despite my desperate pleas to the Universe to make him take notice of me.

Then last week out of the blue, Aging Hipster revisited my profile and gave me the cheesy 4- or 5-star rating that seems to mean he likes my photos or my entire profile. Excited and intimidated at the same time, I decided to send him a private message if I could come up with something funny. Finally, I came up with this:

You are hilarious. If you're an asshole too, you're JUST my type -- at least based on some of the guys I've dated. 

Aside from master sushi chef and ruggedly handsome burly fireman, artisan coffee roaster might just be the perfect vocation for my next boyfriend.

He responded right away and told me I was hilarious. After a few funny messages back and forth, we quickly made plans to meet up for coffee four days later on Saturday afternoon. He even picked one of my very favorite coffee places in LA, located near me.

After making plans with Aging Hipster, the other first date I had made for that week really lost its appeal for me. Although I did go through with it anyway and had a pleasant time, it was as if I were stuck in a waiting room somewhere and casually browsing through a Pottery Barn catalog. That kind of pleasant. But with margaritas.

Finally, Saturday arrived and I woke up to this terse message from Aging Hipster:

I have to cancel. I'm sorry.

What the hell?! The one guy I've been dying to meet for over a month cancels on me without explanation. Maybe he really *is* just my type. I guess I should be careful of what I wish for -- even sarcastically.

All Dressed Up and No One to Flirt With

Even though I'm newly single, I still have lots of married friends, including the two who threw a big bash this weekend to celebrate turning 50. Since the theme of the party was 1962 (the year they were born), I showed up in a black dress right out of Mad Men. When do you get the chance to dress up for a party anymore?

Since married people tend to have friends who are also married, the party seemed to be filled with married and attached couples. And me. All dressed up and no one to flirt with. If I were more like Joan on Mad Men, I would have quietly flirted with the married men. But I'm not. I'm Peggy. So I just flirted with the only single men there -- the two adorable bartenders in their 20s. Naturally, since nothing could come of it, I was witty and enchanting -- a slightly boozy raconteuse.

How come I can't be like that when I'm talking to a guy who is not inappropriate for me? Where is this elusive charm when it counts? When I do meet a guy I could date for reals, why do I seem to shut down and take on the personality of Kristen Stewart, the Twilight actress who has all the vivacious energy of a girl in a coma. (Have you seen her on talk shows? Is she a narcoleptic? Trying to be charitable here.)

Even though I was tempted to linger at the bar and continue to flirt with the cute-but-off-limits bartenders, I knew I had to leave or risk being branded with the dreaded C-word. No, not *that* C-word. The other one. The one that rhymes with lugar.

So I joined the group of women dancing together in a large circle in front of the band that played 60s songs all night. It was fun. Dancing always is. One of the women I danced with looked familiar to me, but I couldn't figure out how I knew her. It bugged me, like when you have a piece of food stuck in your teeth and you can't get rid of it and it just distracts you from being present in the moment. (Maybe she's friends with one of the parents from my daughter's elementary school? Maybe I met her at another party? Is she a parent at my daughter's new school?) I finally gave up thinking about it, and went back to mindlessly dancing the twist and avoiding a surprise fall into the pool.

I woke up the next day and realized how I knew the mystery dancing woman. She's an actress on tv. (Of course!) She was the blonde chick on -- get this -- Cougar Town. WTF is the Universe trying to tell me? And why won't I listen?

No Wonder

In a moment of nerd-chick passion, I recently texted this to a guy I've been dating who reads Heidegger for kicks:

    "Thinking of you in a decidedly non-avuncular way."

Hot, huh? I sure know how to turn on the sexy. 
F*#k! No wonder I'm doomed to be single.

Where the Single People Are

After having spent most of my adult life married, I am now in the middle of learning how to be single again. Right after my split, I pretty easily rediscovered how to live alone (which happens when my daughter spends time with her father). After facing a few weekends with absolutely nothing to do, I learned to make plans ahead of the weekend like any single person with a full, active life. Now I'm learning where the single people are.

Tonight after kickboxing, I stopped by a Trader Joe's in a younger, more single part of town. Filled with sweaty men buying dinner after working out, this "Swingles Trader Joe's" is the exact opposite of my regular Trader Joe's, which I will refer to as the "Bitter Old People Trader Joe's."

Since I go to Bitter Old People Trader Joe's about every other day, I am all too familiar with the type of people who shop there. They are the bitter retired couples who wage their daily wars of attrition while grocery shopping. The question of whether to buy peaches or not becomes an opportunity to express the longtime contempt each has for the other. "We're not getting peaches. They're no good," she complains. "I don't care. I want peaches," he fires back. Their skirmishes of mutual contempt continue throughout their entire depressing visit.

So, imagine my surprise when I walked into Swingles Trader Joe's tonight. The atmosphere was entirely different -- like a singles cruise that sells groceries. Men flirted with me in the produce section and the dairy aisle and during checkout. It felt like everyone was single and looking. It was kind of disconcerting, since it was so unexpected. And, Dude with the Amish facial hair: you were charming, but no, I can't overlook the Rumspringa growing on your chin.
 
Still, I'm not sure I'm going to be going back regularly. Parking is a bitch at Swingles Trader Joe's, but only a minor inconvenience at Bitter Old People Trader Joe's. As someone who lives her life trying to avoid turning left, ease of parking just might trump fun Love Boat atmosphere.

Perfectly Good Reasons To Turn Down an Online Invitation for a Coffee Date

1) He describes himself as "someone with pizazz who enjoys jazz."

2) Taxidermy is one of his hobbies.

3) He thinks "it would be cool to have a stalker."

4) He uses "your" when he should use "you're." Repeatedly.

5) His age randomly changes back and forth from 26 to 35.

6) Tuesdays With Morrie is his favorite book.

7)  He lists "the 6 things I could never live without" as:
air, food, water, sleep, shelter.
(Apparently, he can live without arithmetic and imagination though.)

8) He mentions "being in the company of beautiful women" at least twice in response to how he spends his free time. And nothing else.

9) His favorite tv shows are 60 Minutes and Murder, She Wrote.

10) To the question 'The first things people usually notice about me,' he answers, "I know everything, I never lie and I'm always right."

11) The 27-year-old guy who looks a lot like Topher Grace (but skinnier and more pale) and seems to think his dating profile is an Inside the Actor's Studio questionnaire, answering that famous last question thusly: If heaven exists, what would I like to hear God say when I arrive at the pearly gates?
"God will appear to me in the form of Ving Rhames. He will open his arms and say 'my nigga.' "

Making My Smart-Assery Work For Me, Instead of Just Pissing Off People

I was recently contacted through the dating website by a guy whose profile seemed to reveal a business man who spends most of his time running his various small companies and little time having fun. He clearly wants a Barbie doll for "fine dining" and "international travel," not a real woman, and certainly not a foul-mouthed, occasionally ornery woman with strong opinions.  

Business Man: Hello, do you like educated successful men? If so, please read. Lol. BTW, love your smile.

Me: Hi, You sound like a great guy, but I just don't think you're my type. I'm really looking for a guy who was fired from a carwash.

Business Man: Well on this site it should be easy to find lazy, unemployed guys. Hell, I find women all the time like that here.

Great. Just the kind of ringing endorsement of online dating I want to hear right now.  

How Come...?

My middle-school-aged daughter recently confessed to me that she has this unique problem that no one else has, or has ever had, and because of that, I would never understand her endless frustration stemming from it. She then complained, "Mom, how come only the boys I *don't* like have crushes on me, and the cute boys I *do* like are never interested in me?!"

I laughed and laughed. And when I was finished laughing five minutes later, I tried to say something, but I thought about what she had said and I started laughing uncontrollably again. When I finally composed myself enough to be able to form words, I told her that that's a universal problem for EVERY single woman all over the world (and a problem, I suspect, for most single guys too). I explained to her that finding the right special someone can be a long and painful process, fraught with disappointment and heartbreak, but that it is all part of the human condition.

Admittedly, not my greatest response as a mother. And then we went out to get frozen yogurt to revel in that part of the human condition.

Thank God I Used to Give a Shit About Politics

Perhaps I should have raised an eyebrow when he told me in a private message through the dating website that he and his closest circle of friends belonged to a Mensa group. (But I *like* smart guys, I told myself.)

Perhaps I should have red-flagged his comment about coming clean about the extra weight he had put on in the last year, but was juice-fasting to take off again. (But I've been overweight before, so I've been there.)

Perhaps I should have been wary of his comment that he is not the hiking/camping/outdoorsy type. (But his profile is hilarious, so I can go camping and hiking with my friends.)

This is how I found myself on a first date with a large, pear-shaped man with a gentle, avuncular presence, and pants hiked up almost to his armpits. "Mensa" and I had written progressively longer private messages back and forth over the course of a week. He was funny and smart, an irresistible combination that can charm the pants right off me. Thus, feeling as if we knew each other a little bit already, we dispensed with the typical first date at a coffee place, and decided to have dinner and then check out a rockabilly band afterward.

The first 15 minutes of our date was quite strained, as we struggled to find the easy, natural rhythm of conversation that we had had in our written exchanges. Turning to politics out of desperation, Mensa, who moderates a political blog for said circle of friends, began to talk about the Presidential election. Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! Thank god I used to give a shit about politics, or else I wouldn't have had a thing to say to him.

Even though I've taken 2012 off from giving a shit about politics, I had 29 years worth of political knowledge (well, mostly outrage) that I was able to tap into to spark a passionate hour-long discussion about American politics. About 45 minutes into it, Mensa paused, gave me a long wistful look, and gushed, "Wow. You know a lot about politics. I only know one other woman who knows that much about politics and likes to talk about it."

F*CK! I was just trying to get through this "date" with minimal awkwardness, not make the guy go ga-ga over me.  It is at this point in the conversation, when I frantically start looking back at all the things I should NOT have said to him.

When I used the word "verisimilitude" in conversation, I might as well have been nibbling on Mensa's earlobe. When I brought up M3 and why has the government suspiciously stopped publishing those figures, I might as well have been telling him to undress me. And when I explained the reason why Howard Dean is persona non grata in the Obama administration (short answer: Rahm Emanuel hates his guts), I might as well have been giving Mensa a topless lap dance.

Fortunately, it was time to go see that rockabilly band across the street, so my unknowing "flirtatious sweet nothings" about M3, the Federal Reserve, and Rahm came to an abrupt, but natural, halt. The rockabilly band was really great, and Mensa and I talked about other things (our mothers, my divorce). And I can honestly say I had a good time, despite my initial panic. At the end of the evening, I told Mensa he was a great guy, just not my type of great guy. And I watched him slowly shuffle his way back to his car, feeling just a little bit shitty for having physical attraction count so heavily as a deal-breaker for me.

What I've Learned So Far About Online Dating

1. Don't post your picture before you write a really kick-ass profile to go along with it. If you do it the ass-backwards way, you will only be contacted by guys looking for arm candy, a place to stay, or a mother for their four children under the age of 10.

2. Don't make assumptions about a guy based only on his profile. Meet him in person at Starbucks to confirm your hunch that he's nuts.

3. Don't wear your brand new push-up bra on a coffee date before you've taken it out in public to see how it behaves around other people. If you don't test drive it first, there will be a WWE-style wrestling match going on all evening inside your new bra.

Guys in Their 20s

Is there any place on earth where physical beauty is more commodified than Los Angeles? I don't think so. Physical beauty is as ubiquitous and interchangeable in LA as corn or pork bellies on the commodities exchange. You don't click with this hottie? Next!

So, I was pretty astonished when guys in their 20s started contacting me on the dating website. And not just guys with nothing going on, except their weekly trips to the local comic book store. Many of them are hot. You might think I would be flattered, but you'd be wrong. My first reaction was, 'What the hell is wrong with these guys?!'

You see, I've been honest in my profile about my age and the fact that I'm raising a kid. I'm 48 and I plainly state that I am looking to date guys between 35 and 54. I really don't get why a hot guy in his 20s would want to date someone MUCH older. If their motivation is *just* sex, they have plenty of opportunities to hook up with someone in their 20s or 30s, who is just as hot as they are. And wouldn't it be excruciatingly awkward to date someone at such a dramatically different stage in life?

Hence, I've been grilling these guys to find out why they would want to date someone so much older. It's kind of fun putting them on the spot, to see how they tap dance around the question. The typical answers I've received are that older women are more mature, more interesting, more confident, smarter, and know what they want. Whatever. My guess is that it's the novelty of sex with someone much older.

For me, the temptation of dating a guy in his 20s lies not just in the presumably awesome sex, but also in the opportunity to torture my friends by frequently using the phrase, "I have taken a young lover," pronounced "lovah" and said in a dramatic British accent. As if I were a 48-year-old duchess stuck in a lonely marriage to a wealthy frail old man.

Some Days It's All You've Got

Earlier today while I was pumping gas, a young guy in a beat-up car pulled up to the pump behind me and asked if I could spare a couple bucks for gas. When I politely declined, he told me, "Damn! You got it going on, Girl! Your man is a lucky one."

I smiled at him and thought to myself, 'I'm really rocking these bermuda shorts from Costco. A guy who hit me up for gas money thinks my imaginary boyfriend is lucky.'

So, I've got that going for me.

If I Can't Find Anyone Online I'd Like to Date, At Least I'll Always Have Subtext

There is A LOT of subtext in online dating profiles. A common type of subtext occurs when a guy wants to say something about himself that he knows he shouldn't just say flat out, but must "artfully" drop hints alluding to it. For example, a guy who wants you to know he's financially well off might refer to his houses or his plane or his fancy-pants cars, instead of just saying, "I'm loaded, Girls! Who wants to be my arm candy this week?"

This kind of subtext gets funnier the more crudely obvious it is. But some of the most delightful subtext is the kind I can't really decipher. What the hell is he trying to tell me?!

One of the most baffling profiles I've seen features a serious dude in a cowboy hat striking a Marlboro Man pose next to the large propeller of (presumably) his plane. Hilarious. Here's what he wrote in his profile that simply mystifies me:

"I'll ignore your beauty. I won't play by your rules. I will keep you guessing. When we are together I will not take you to the arid desert of logic where thoughts are finished and conclusions drawn."

WTF?  It's as if he's longing for the unhappy part of an unhappy marriage. No wonder no one's contacted him this week.

I think I might need to though -- just to ask him the size of his propeller.

WWJB?

The dating website I've been trying on for size looks at how you answered all the personality questions and comes up with a short phrase that describes you in a nutshell (e.g. "more adventurous," "more desiring of sex," "less pantsed," etc.). Naturally, the shirtless buff dude (who is holding his pec and making a smooch face) is described by the short phrase "more spiritual."

What would Jesus bench? I'm just praying he contacts me.

Crisis! I-Rarely-Wear-Pants Changed His Opening Line

Evidently, "I rarely wear pants" is not a good come-hither opening line in an online dating profile. Yesterday Mr. I-Rarely-Wear-Pants changed his opening line to "In general, I'd rather be outside than inside, with a few conditions. I rarely wear long pants." BORING.

I could not let this travesty go without a little protest from me. (You're welcome.) So I sent him this plea:

Dear Rarely Pantsed,

You had me at "I rarely wear pants." Why did you change the best opening line of a dating profile ever? I hope this doesn't mean you wear jeggings all the time. I prefer to think you are not merely a semantics trickster, but are a true rebel fighting society's unreasonable oppression against the pantsless lifestyle.

Sincerely,

I_Never_Wear_Mini_Skirts

How to Say "F*ck You, Jackass" Without Using Those Exact Words to a Complete Stranger on a Dating Website

47-year-old Architect from Marina del Rey: You are fabulous and lovely!

Me: Thank you!

Architect: Do you have any other pictures you can send me? I'm trying to get a better sense of you.

Me: I'm not sure what you mean.

Architect:  What's your body type?

Pissed-Off Me:   Um... I come from rural Scandinavian peasant stock, where the women tend to be short and stocky -- built to pull a plow in case the plow horse gets sick or dies.

Does that answer your question?

A Scene from the Exciting World of Online Dating!

(or Why I Will Die Alone -- a pathetic old woman finding small comfort in her beloved dogs and her massive four-decades-acquired collection of Ryan Reynolds memorabilia)

Me: "So, not only are you an oenophile, but you like fine dining too. What an unusual combination."

Him:  "What's a (sic) oenophile?" asked the guy who mentioned wine five times in his online profile.

Me: "A wine snob," said the Word Snob, snobbily.

Dipping My Toe

This week was the first time I dipped my toe into online dating. Out of the entire pool of single LA men, the website's best match for me -- at 92% -- is a goofball in a cowboy hat whose first line in his profile is, "I rarely wear pants."                            

Only four days online and I've already found my next ex-husband.

Question

This morning I stood in the back of a long line at Starbucks next to a hot guy who chatted me up. Question: How long can I suck in my gut before I should worry about passing out from the exertion?