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.