The Day the Universe Mocked Me (most recently, because it happens on a regular basis)

I knew less than two minutes into my Saturday morning kickboxing/tae kwon do class that not drinking more than a few sips of coffee before was a bad decision. Not just bad. Titanically bad. As bad as someone rubbing bacon fat all over themselves before hiking in grizzly bear country. The kind of epically bad decision that makes people scratch their heads and go 'What the...?! How does *that* happen?'

I can't really function without a full cup of Joe in the morning. If I don't bathe my synapses in coffee, my brain continues to doze in its semi-comatose state, while the rest of me is not firing on all cylinders. I'm all cattywampus, struggling to focus and stay in the present. This, of course, is the exact moment when the Universe will choose to mock me with something from my recent past I'd rather conveniently forget. The Universe can be a merciless bitch, barely tolerable with lots of coffee, and simply insufferable without.

I had trouble executing routine basic drills I've been doing since I started kickboxing six years ago. Then the class focused on a difficult kick that requires excellent flexibility if you want to really look good doing it. There's not enough coffee at all the Starbucks in Seattle that could get me to do that kick well. And on a day I hadn't had more than a eyedropper of coffee, there was no way I was going to be able to do a decent kick.  So naturally this is the moment I notice him, not more than four feet away from me. He's a bystander, waiting for class to be over so he can take his kid home, and a guy I went out with once.

It was a perfectly nice first date. There was nothing of the ridiculous that often makes an appearance at many of my first dates. It was easy to talk with him because we had a lot in common, and culturally he felt familiar--part of the NPR tribe. He seemed like someone with whom I could have developed a friendship, and perhaps a relationship. A few days later, he texted me saying he hoped we could go out again after I got back from a short trip. And I would have gone out with him again, except that about the same time, I ended up going on a first date with a guy I liked better -- the guy who is now my boyfriend. Instead of texting "Perfectly Nice" that, except for bad timing, I *would* have gone out with him again, I didn't text him at all. I didn't know how to make 'I had a nice time with you, but I don't want to go out with you again, because I had a better time with someone else' sound like less of a rejection, and more of an explanation along the lines of 'Oops! You're a nice guy -- it's just bad timing.'

So, there I am, bumbling through a series of difficult kicks without the benefit of being caffeinated, when I start panicking that Perfectly Nice might recognize me. I am in full-on Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief mode. My first thoughts are all denial:

No, that's not him. He doesn't even live in this part of town. And I'm not wearing any makeup, so if it is him, he won't recognize me anyway.

Then, when I can't deny that it's definitely him, I turn to anger:

Why did I have to go out with so many guys? Didn't I realize I was bound to run into one of them some day? Why am I so picky? I am a whore! A first-date whore! See what happens when you're too lazy to get up and make coffee for yourself?! 

Then right on cue comes the pitiful bargaining:

Universe, I will NEVER ignore a text or go out into the world uncaffeinated again, if you just spare me from locking eyes with him. Please, let me get through this without an awkward interaction with him, and I pledge I will be a BETTER PERSON from now on!

When the bargaining becomes too pitiful and annoying, I move on to depression:

There's nothing I can do. I'm just stuck in this uncomfortable place until I've done 500 of these damn kicks that I will never be able to do properly, much less with elegance. I don't care. Nothing matters anymore. 

And finally, blessed acceptance:

It is what it is. I am not a bad person. I don't have to say 'yes' all the time. Feeling awkward is part of the human condition. I need coffee to function. Soon I'll be in the comforting embrace of my beloved coffee again.

Searching for that Perfect Calvin Klein Dress in my Size

What the...? You scared the shit out of me! What are you doing here? Can't you see this blog has been abandoned?!

Well, not just yet. Hello Faithful Readers. I'm back from my unplanned, well needed hiatus. Try as I might, I could not quit you. I think I still have embarrassing things to share with you. That's a well that will *never* run dry -- the well of romantic humiliations and missteps. Please continue to slake your thirst. My cup runneth over.

A few weeks before Halloween, my daughter and I went thrift-storing for costumes. While I was pawing through the racks looking for a dress suitable for a 1970s Cher costume, I was struck by the thought that thrift-store shopping might be the *perfect* way to explain online dating. Now, I realize that every other blog post I write seems to contain a new disparaging comparison to online dating. But those comparisons to Dante's Inferno and cable tv (among others) really only apply to the negative aspects of online dating, whereas a comparison to thrift-store shopping fits the *overall* experience of online dating, not just the *worst* aspects of it.

At a very fundamental level, thrift stores and dating websites are places people go to acquire other people's rejects. When confronted with the idea of shopping at a thrift store, people sometimes think, 'No way am I doing that. I'm not the kind of person who shops at a place like that.' But a friend who scored something nice at a thrift store for a dollar might lure you into giving it a try. Likewise that friend who scored someone nice online.

In thrift stores and on dating websites, the garish and outlandish often catch your eye first. Thrift stores are an excellent source for wild colorful costumes, in the same way that dating websites are a wellspring of crazy characters who make it easy to write blog posts about the horrors of online dating. But the real trick is finding something that integrates seamlessly into your regular wardrobe, your daily life.

Dating websites and thrift stores have a similar tradeoff between cash versus time. It doesn't cost much to put up a dating profile (often they're free), but it's as time consuming to go through every message you receive and view every profile of those who've contacted you as it is to patiently go through the thrift-store racks piece by piece. You have to have the patience of Job to look through rack after rack of other people's rejected clothes -- clothes that are too worn or outdated or stained or plain just don't appeal. Sometimes you lose faith that there is anything of interest for you and you just walk out discouraged and empty handed. But every once in a while, the Universe blows you a hot kiss, and you discover that perfect mint condition Calvin Klein dress in your size! You think, 'How is it possible that something so nice ends up here?' Yet it does -- a brilliant gem hidden among all the quietly boring or garishly hideous clothes occupying the racks.

Patiently Learning My Lesson

I started a new job this week. After several years of working temp jobs, I have finally broken out of that temp-job cycle and have landed a permanent one. Halle-fricking-lujah! Finally. I am not a patient person. Oh sure, I can wait patiently in line at Costco behind 50 people with carts overflowing with 100-pound bags of pretzels and other necessities of life, because, well, it's Costco! But when it comes to some of the major categories of my life (job, career, love), I have the patience of a spoiled four-year-old at her own birthday party being forced to wait until the very end to open her presents.

Since my divorce, life's biggest lesson for me has been patience. Even though I really wanted a permanent job, I had to wait a long time for one. My temp jobs helped me brush up my job skills, and I slowly gained enough experience to become marketable again as an employee in the full-time permanent pool. Eventually I got what I wanted, but ding-dang, it took much, much longer than I was prepared to wait.

And life continues its lesson, since I've been learning patience in my love life too. For the past two months, I've been dating a great guy I met online. We see each other about once a week. Even though I would like to see him more often, one date a week is really all our busy schedules will allow.

I like to think of myself as a quick study. (Who doesn't?) But even if that were true, there is no shortcut for learning patience. Cultivating patience is like listening to a long story told by a beloved aunt with a terrible stutter. It takes as excruciatingly long as it takes.

Happy For the Reminder

I am sitting on a bench facing the marina on a beautiful day in Los Angeles. I am struggling to write something witty or insightful about love for this blog, killing time before I pick up my daughter from a nearby birthday party. Less than ten feet from me is a married couple bickering about everything in front of friends into whom they accidentally bumped. He says the fish he caught on their recent trip was 30 inches long. She objects and claims it was only 25 inches. It continues on unabated by the presence of their friends, who seem trapped by an unfortunate circumstance forced upon them by Fate, the black-humored prankster of the Universe. He says something, she disagrees on the nobody-gives-a-f*ck details. They choose to pollute an otherwise serene place with their annoying, slightly hostile vibes rather than breathe in the glorious scene, grateful to be alive. I am once again happy for the reminder of how hard it can be to be married.

A big boat drifts by with a man in a formal tux and a woman in a white wedding dress, presumably sailing off to fulfill their marital destiny. "DON'T DO IT!" yells Mr. Bicker in a half-hearted way, as if he knows he's powerless to warn a man off tying the knot when that man is in the grip of love's sweet pull. The friends react with nervous laughter, embarrassed by the wider implication of Mr. Bicker's half-joking last-minute advice to the groom. Mrs. Bicker half-heartedly hits her loud-mouth galoot of a husband on the shoulder and commands him to "STOP IT! HE CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Then he reaches over and kisses her and they get on their bikes and ride away. I wonder to myself if I'll ever meet someone who will put up with me enough to kiss me even when I'm *that* annoying. Then I'm happy for the reminder that marriage works in mysterious ways.

A Love Letter to First Dates

When you're a woman using an online dating website, you get *a lot* of messages from guys. All of my single female friends confirm that's been their experience. For a single woman, it seems like having interest from a lot of guys would be a dating panacea, but that's not the case at all. Most of the men are too something: too old, too young, too married, too uninteresting, too encumbered by life's messy circumstances, too geographically undesirable, etc. It's an embarrassment of faux riches -- emphasis on embarrassment -- all that male interest. Think of it like this: Online dating is like having cable tv. You get 500 channels, but only three are interesting enough to actually watch.

July was the month of the long-distance suitor. And when I say 'long-distance,' I don't mean guys who live 30 miles away in another part of LA. I mean long-ass-distance, like Arizona, Italy, and Denmark. I don't understand why a man would waste his time writing me a long thoughtfully composed message expressing his interest in me when there's almost no chance it could evolve into something local and real. Winning the lottery seems more likely. Of course, they may be looking for *only* an epistolary romance that plays out over the course of many emails. That may be all their messy life circumstances will allow. 

An epistolary romance might work for some people, but I'm not one of them. Although I adore highly verbal men and appreciate a well written letter, I want the angsty, butterflies-in-the-stomach experience of a real first date. I want the smile and the direct eye contact. I want the awkward pauses in the conversation because you're too gobsmacked by each other to be able to think in words. I want the spontaneous jokes that erupt organically during the evening. I want the not-knowing whether he's going to kiss me at the end of the date. I want the unexpected euphoria that comes when you realize you feel a real connection. Even with all of my many awful first dates, I'd gamble on a first date over a love letter any day.

Fighting with Slightly Dim Strangers

There is a joke in my dating profile that many men don't seem to understand. I have included one of the biggest online dating cliches ever written -- Living life to the fullest!!!!!!! -- which is funny by itself because of its insistent, obvious exaggeration. (Really? The fullest?! How can you be living life to the fullest if you're single, yet you want to be part of a couple? And so much so, that you're willing to subject yourself to the freak show of online dating?!) But the real punchline follows that cliche as a parenthetical, illuminating statement:

I am LIVING LIFE TO THE FULLEST!!!!!!!

(That'll show my jackass ex-husband what an amazing woman I am!!!!!). 

The joke isn't me calling my ex-husband a jackass. The joke is iterating the subtext that I think prompts such overly emphatic statements of living the fullest life. The second line mocks the first one. But it only really works if one recognizes that 'Living life to the fullest!!!!' is the stalest of cliches. And most guys who contact me don't. I usually won't waste my time with the guys who include a comment about what a jackass my ex-husband must be (or what a jackass their ex is), so the joke serves as a filter for my kind of sense of humor. But sometimes I'm trying to figure out if the guy is in on the joke, as I did recently with a local 47-year-old British ex-pat photographer who claims to be transitioning into writing.

British Guy: your husband was a douche...  

Me: Quit flirting.

British Guy: he was an a hole!

Me: Now it's not just flirting -- you're taking off your shirt. Stop it.

British Guy: What do i have to say to get YOUR shirt off?

Me: Well, not *that*.

British Guy: I'm getting that you don't speak English very well. Or that you can't string more than a couple of words together at a time. Maybe you didn't do so well at school. Not sure what's going on, but it's a little weird. Are you a man?

Me: Yes, me is dumb. Me flunky-flunks village skool in old country of youthtimes of mine personage. The face cheeks of me are fired color red, sting like bulgaria village dunce shame.

I should have just walked away without comment. I know. I shouldn't have engaged in what is the online dating equivalent of that chest-poking right before an incomprehensibly stupid bar fight breaks out. But sometimes slightly dim online jackasses need to be chest-poked with their own idiocy. And I'm, more often than not, happy to do it.

Mr. Hard-Sell

I didn't mean to incite his interest every time I checked for new messages on the dating website. I was merely being lazy, always using the link that opened to *his* profile page, instead of creating a new link to the general home page or my own profile. He initially contacted me a few months ago, not long after I lost my good sense and went back to online dating. His first message to me was kind of over the top with a paragraph of generic compliments in Italian, as well as marveling at our 99% match compatibility. I checked out his page and decided I wasn't interested. He spent much of his lengthy profile talking about his vocation as a lecturer and his many new media projects, which I found exhausting. I could only assume meeting him in person would be even more so. And I didn't like his profile picture either, which featured him at a podium mid-lecture poking the air with all the authority and conviction of a cult leader.

Almost every time I got online to check my messages, he would visit my profile or send me a message cajoling me to agree to a date or at least a phone call. I was turned off by his hard-sell used-car-salesman approach. Instead of 'What do I have to do to get you into this car today?', Mr. Hard-Sell sent me messages like this:

Hard-Sell:  Noticed you stopped by my profile. Wondering what I need to do... to get you to respond to my note. Any suggestions? (Be careful... this is a trick question).

I only responded once with a brief message saying that what I needed was time, since I was very busy at the moment. But because I kept using the link to his profile to open up the dating website in my phone, he must have thought I kept obsessively checking out his profile, as if I found the question of whether I should go out with him or not as complex a question as "What is the human condition?"

Hard-Sell: Maybe we can touch base this weekend. If you want, leave me your number and a good time to chat. And I'll give you a call. 

I did not reply, assuming that he'd just get weary of continuing this one-sided email convo with a no-name mute.

Hard-Sell: Hey... it's a holiday weekend. Good time to go to the beach. Why don't we rendezvous in Santa Monica? Sometime this afternoon or tomorrow. Tell me what you think. Ciao bella.

No reply from me, yet I still continued to use the link to his profile page as a sort of default home page for the dating website.

Hard-Sell: Hey... you're still here. I'm still here. Don't you think we should get on the phone... and see if there's a spark? Pretty easy to do. <his phone number> Or send me your number and a good time to chat. 

Now he was just annoying me. I continued to give him the silent treatment.

Hard-Sell: I see you poking around. I know you're interested. I don't know what's holding you back. Quell your curiosity. Send me a note. I promise not to bite (well, maybe just a little). Sogni d'oro bella.

Nope, still not interested. I'm just lazy. When I finally pushed his patience to the limit, I received a very terse note with not even one word of Italian in it.

Hard-Sell: Talk to me. <Plus his name and phone number>.

I suspect his final email to me will consist of just one glorious, fitting word: Bitch.

Must You Persist With That Annoying Hopefulness? (Part 3)

In my last two blog posts, I explored the first six circles of online-dating Hell. This time I will examine the last three circles of internet-dating Hell. As in Dante's Inferno, the last three circles contain the worst of Hell's bounty. Naturally--because I'm lucky that way--I've had a lot of interaction with bottom-circle-dwellers. In fact, I'm sort of a magnet for these three types, who seek out gullible dupes like me willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

The Seventh Circle of internet-dating Hell is comprised of those who are going through the motions of online dating for purely ego-driven reasons. These are the guys who will ply you with a persistent charm offensive until you agree to meet for that first date, then bail on you with a cryptic "I'm sorry" the day of. The ego-driven guy is just looking for the validation that he can get any woman of his choosing to agree to go out with him. I suspect Aging Hipster was the first ego-driven guy who did this to me, but sadly not the last. Only last month, I got spanked again by another guy who behaved as though an ego boost is the only thing he really wants from online dating.

The most recent ego-driven guy had been online chatting with me on and off over the course of five weeks. He asked lots of questions about me, while revealing very little about himself. He asked me out a couple of times, but I was always busy. He claimed he was a comedy writer, but he didn't squander a lot of his comedy-writing skills on me. I was on the fence about meeting him, because he's nine years older and his alleged career success is frankly intimidating to me. If it happened, fine. But I wasn't agonizing over any lost opportunities to meet him. Eventually, we settled on an evening that worked for both of us. On the morning of our date, "Ego Boost" bowed out with a brief "I'm really, really sorry, but I have to cancel tonight." Could something legitimate have come up to interfere with our planned first date? Of course. Maybe his basement flooded or he got gout or things worked out with someone else he'd been pursuing online. But it just didn't feel as if his cancellation was due to an outside circumstance. It's the no-attempt-at-an-explanation cancellation and no follow-up that makes me think it was just another older guy trying to jump start his ego.

The Eighth Circle of internet-dating Hell is reserved for the Fraudulent, which includes an overflowing subset just for liars, who are legion on dating websites. Among the worst of the fraudulent are the married men who pretend to be single and lead double lives. Think Scott Peterson, who was convicted of killing his pregnant young wife when he decided he enjoyed dating more than being married. But many of the fraudulent are just small-time liars, with no agenda other than making themselves more attractive as a potential first date. The small-time liar prevaricates about his age, his occupation, or his height, just to be less likely to be dismissed before a first date happens.

One of the more benign encounters I've had with a liar involved a guy who responded to my sarcastic dating profile with a hilarious email that ended by asking me to call him "Nutsey." I eagerly obliged, and we started a dueling-banjos sort of back-and-forth with funny emails. Even though Nutsey is 58, three years older than my preferred age range of 45 to 55, I was intrigued by his comedy-writing background and that he's currently writing a book about economics. He asked me out, and I agreed to meet him for a drink and karaoke at a restaurant located about halfway between our places. A few hours before our date, Nutsey texted me to check in and see if we were still on.

Nutsey: I need to come clean about something. 

Me: Oh, I don't like the sound of that.

Nutsey: I'm not really 58. I just celebrated my 64th birthday a few weeks ago. You are free to cancel with no hard feelings of course.

Me: Nutsey!!!!!!! Are you *trying* to get into my blog?!

Nutsey: No, just your pants. ;)

Me: Ha! Don't you get into trouble when you claim to be younger than you really are?

Nutsey: Not really. Women usually say they're younger than their real age, and it turns out to be a wash.

I reluctantly bowed out, telling him I wasn't comfortable dating someone who's at a different stage of life than me. Sometimes I regret not meeting Nutsey in person. He was very funny. But I think I saved myself the likely anguish of dating someone who fundamentally isn't right for me.

The Ninth Circle of internet-dating Hell contains the very worst kind of online dater. In Inferno, Dante designated the Treacherous as the sinners of the Ninth Circle of Hell, condemned to live out eternity frozen in a lake as cold as their hearts. The Treacherous dater at his core lacks empathy. Because he has no real intuitive ability to empathize with you, his needs *always* supersede yours. In fact, the most hardcore Treacherous dater lacks the ability to even recognize that you have needs that are different than his. These are the sociopaths who will use you as a tool to get what they want. You are merely a means to their end. A classic example is the charming sociopath who sweeps a woman off her feet, marries her, and wipes out her bank account before skipping town. That hasn't happened to me (yet), but I don't rule it out as a possibility in the same way that I don't rule out death by killer bees or quicksand. I can't blithely assume it would never happen to me.

A more common sociopath is the narcissist who needs constant praise and adoration from you. He is an emotional vampire who will suck the life out of you and discard you when you no longer adequately serve that purpose. The narcissist is especially treacherous because he's charming and charismatic in the beginning while he's luring you into his heartless lair. Nothing will cure a narcissist, so get out as soon as you recognize your honey bunny is one. Being romantically involved with a guy who lacks empathy or is merely empathy-challenged is the dating equivalent of being the frog in the pot of water on the stove. You will not realize the damage to your psyche until you're suffering from third-degree burns.

Seriously, Abandon All Hope (Part 2)

If you've never had the first-hand experience of using online dating to search for love, you might be rolling your eyes, thinking 'Here she goes again with much ado about nothing -- going on about a few bad first dates. Suck it up, Frosty.' Anyone who's a veteran of internet dating knows I'm not exaggerating the emotional whiplash of this wild ride. Looking for a romantic partner who will be much more than a booty call is an exhausting process when you do it online. Part of the exhaustion comes from trying to recognize the inhabitants of the Nine Circles of internet dating Hell before you make the mistake of going out with them.

In last week's blog, I looked at the first three circles: Limbo, Lust, and Gluttony. This week I examine the middle three circles. We left off at the Fourth Circle of Hell, which, in Dante's Inferno, is filled with the Greedy, including both the avaricious and the wastefully prodigal. But I would use a different word to describe those who dwell in the Fourth Circle of internet dating Hell: the Entitled -- those who believe they are deserving of, or entitled to, certain special privileges because of who they are. You can see it in the highly successful guy who has the attitude that any woman should feel grateful to date him because of his success. Or the entitled hot woman who believes anyone she dates should feel lucky because of her "rare" stunning physical beauty. (Hey, I live in LA, where stunning physical beauty is as common as Starbucks locations.) They're often high maintenance and have an attitude that their needs always come first -- or worse, that their needs are the only ones that matter. 

The Fifth Circle of internet dating Hell is reserved for those consumed by anger. This ring is typified by the Angry Guy, who is disillusioned by intimate romantic relationships in general because he's never adequately processed his angry feelings about previous relationships that went wrong. (His female counterpart is Angry Girl, who can't stop bashing her ex to everyone within earshot.) Angry Guy is resentful not only of his former wives and girlfriends, but of the *entire* female gender. He's the guy who writes disparagingly of women on his dating profile. "I'm just looking for some fun with an attractive, fit, SANE woman until she decides to go loco on me," wrote a guy I not-at-all-sarcastically call "He Seems Nice." Angry Guy often speaks in broad sweeping negative generalizations about women. Yeah, sign me up for some of that shit. 

Heretics -- the ones who go against commonly accepted doctrine -- comprise the Sixth Circle of internet dating Hell. Within the context of online dating, a commonly accepted doctrine is the idea that everyone is looking for that one special partner with whom to spend the rest of one's life. Ha! Tell that to the swingers and the polyamorous, who reject the conventional idea that everyone has one soulmate with whom we naturally, magically pair up. Reading one's online dating messages is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.

Stay tuned...

Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

"ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE," should be legally required in 72-point type on the home page of every internet dating website. It's that famous quote from Dante's Inferno, the foreboding inscription on the gates of Hell as Virgil leads Dante into the depths of despair. But the funny thing is, it also applies equally well to internet dating. At the risk of sounding histrionic and decidedly non-midwestern, online dating websites are a contemporary version of Hell. If that seems like hyperbole, let me double-down by saying that if Dante were writing Inferno today, he would be describing the people who populate the nine circles of Internet Dating Hell.

The First Circle is Limbo, a collection of men (and women) who are stuck in a transitional state that makes them neither completely available nor completely unavailable. These are the married men with no intention of ending their marriage, and who, for various reasons, are dating on the side, often with their spouse's tacit or openly acknowledged approval. It could be the men who stay in an unhappy marriage for the sake of their children or a family-run business, but have sexual and/or emotional needs that are not being met by their wife. Rodeo Clown, the Montana businessman/rancher looking for an out-of-town cowgirl he can pay to be his once-a-month girlfriend, is one of these lost souls in Limbo.

But it's not just attached men in complicated, ambiguous relationships in this First Circle. The emotionally unavailable guy is here in droves, stuck in this limbo despite many attractive opportunities to escape. He *claims* to be looking for the love of his life with whom he can finally settle down after all these years, but she never ultimately materializes because he's simply too uncomfortable in a truly intimate committed relationship. He's that lifelong middle-aged bachelor who has never been married or had a live-in girlfriend.

The Second Circle of Internet Dating Hell is filled with all the men consumed by Lust -- which at first seems like 100% of them. The distinction is between those men who, despite their better judgment, *act* on their lust, and those men who do not let the shiny-metal distraction of lust unduly influence their dating decisions. These are the guys who have no emotional interest in you; their interest is purely physical. You're not their "relationship type," just their physical type. These are the guys who are prone to choosing a trophy wife in their first, second or third marriages, instead of an "appropriate" woman who is similar in age, smarts, and physical appearance. In LA, there seems to be an excessive amount of personal trainers biding their time in the Second Circle.

The sexual Gluttons inhabit the Third Circle of Internet Dating Hell. There are many guys in their 20s who loiter for a time in the Gluttony Circle, but many will eventually move on as they grow tired of the exhausting chase to nail new tail. But some never grow out of it, and continue to choose the short-lived pleasures of quantity over quality. To them, online dating is a cheap sexual buffet where they can stuff themselves with gigantic portions of crapass all-you-can-eat food. I am not amused when these Gluttons regard me as if I were a large tub of fettuccine alfredo at their own personal Souplantation.

Three rings down, six to go. To be continued...

Distracted by Boy Toys and a Rodeo Clown

It's been two months since I went back on the online dating website to shop for potential boyfriends. Surprisingly, I've been contacted by a few guys who messaged me the first time I was on this website. Aging Hipster sent me the world's *second* laziest message: the word "Hilarious" followed by his first name. The world's laziest message is "Hi," which I receive several times a day from mouth-breathing dullards trolling the website for *any* woman who might respond.

Remember Mensa, the pear-shaped man with the avuncular presence who has a thing for women who like to talk politics? Well, evidentally he doesn't remember me, because he sent me a long, funny message introducing himself. His profile is exactly the same brief, hilarious one that grabbed my attention almost two years ago. I didn't have the heart to respond to him. What would I say?! "Hi. We already went on a date. Don't you remember me?" It seemed kinder to ignore him than to reply and underscore the message, 'You're a nice guy, but I'm still not interested in dating you.'

I've had four guys in their early 20s who've specifically offered to be my "Boy Toy." WTH?! Boy Toys are strictly for famous women who've entered that dissolute decade that often comes during their 50s or 60s, when all they do is sit around in brightly colored caftans drinking strong cocktails by the pool. I don't own a caftan! I'm a regular middle-aged woman, not Cher. I don't play with toys. Or boys.

Then there is the 62-year-old conservative "businessman/rancher" from Montana who asked me if I "would be interested in a Sugar Dad type situation." Awww, sweet -- my first proposition. What could I possibly say, other than "Tell me more"? (Oh, don't judge me. I write a blog that trades on voyeurism, People.) He's looking for a girlfriend on the side he can "visit" every month when he comes to town. "Visit" is my polite euphemism for the word he really means. He elaborated that he likes to "visit" at least three times each night because he's "a Viagra Cowboy." I've been to enough rodeos to spot a Rodeo Clown right away. In so many words, I told him I never "visit" the Rodeo Clown. I only laugh at him.

Uncle Exhausted

He seemed old and tired, as if life exhausts him. And it probably does, since he's three-and-a-half years into a long drawn-out divorce he considers needless. I knew almost as soon as I walked into the restaurant overlooking the city that this was not going to work for me. He claims he's 58, eight years older than me by birth, but he seems 20 years older. It felt as if I were having a drink with an uncle who spends all his free time playing golf or drinking high balls at the country club bar.

He pulled out my chair for me. He stood up when I returned from the bathroom to our table. He helped me put on my sweater when it started to cool off on the veranda of this old, faded restaurant that is at least 25 years past its prime -- like a movie starlet who was once stunning, but is now "merely" beautiful for a woman in her 70s.

When the waitress came by to see if we wanted another round, "Uncle Exhausted" asked her to tell the bartender not to put any ice in his seven & seven. I switched from a glass of wine to lemonade. I was driving. 

He rolled his eyes constantly -- like a Middle School girl stuck at a wedding with her mortifying family. He rolled his eyes when he told me the mess his 10-year-old son makes when he stays with him every other weekend. He rolled his eyes when he told me about "the lecture" he received that day from a friend who thinks gluten is poison. He rolled his eyes when he talked about the self-important CEOs and captains of industry he used to encounter in his previous career as an investment banker. If I rolled my eyes as often as he did, I would give myself migraines.

I was surprised I had so misjudged him based on his dating profile. He spent part of his childhood growing up in several European countries, the son of well traveled teachers. And he likes to garden, spend time in the woods, and ski. But I kicked myself for ignoring the gigantic red flags I now see conspicuously waving in his dating profile. Tellingly, Uncle Exhausted used the word "stoked" to describe his love of skiing. Stoked -- a word at least 20 years out of date -- the "awesome" of the early 90s. He also cops to drinking instant coffee every morning -- the horror! Who drinks instant coffee, except my 79-year-old father when he's camping and astronauts? But the real warning I ignored was when he told me, "ABBA really gets a party going!" Um... not any parties *I* attend.

He gently complained to the waitress about how watered down his drink was, even though the second one came with no ice as he had ordered. I squirmed in my chair, embarrassed to be an unfortunate witness to this. He emanated a palpable sadness as he nursed his second cocktail and recounted his two failed marriages and his two careers. I wondered if he is an accidental alcoholic, self-medicating with booze and solitude. It was easy to feel compassion for him -- he's a nice guy. But I was stoked when the date was over, as if someone had interrupted the funeral dirge playing all evening to get the party going with Dancing Queen.

Solving the Rubik's Cube of Love

Trying to sort through all the dating possibilities on an online dating website feels something like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube. Based on limited self-selected information that could very well all be lies, I am trying to sort through all the guys who've contacted me to find the plausible ones with the most appealing combination of traits for me. The Rubik's-Cubing goes something like this: he is geographically undesirable, too tall, and sings in a barbershop quartet, but he makes me laugh, he loves camping, and he's fit -- both physically and intellectually. Solving this romantic Rubik's Cube would mean finding my next long-term relationship using this crude method. Is it a hopeless strategy given the fact that I've *never* solved a Rubik's Cube in my life?

A few days after I came up with the Rubik's Cube/online dating comparison, I was contacted by a guy who was amused by all the 80s references in my online profile. He wondered why I hadn't included the Rubik's Cube, which he told me he can solve in less than 10 seconds. His teenage son is a "Speed Cuber," a competitive Rubik's Cube player who can solve it in two seconds! He even sent me a couple of clips showing his son in competition. I found it all weirdly coincidental and weirdly fascinating.

Of course, sorting through all the qualities/facts about a guy is a highly imperfect algorithm, as I am reminded again and again. I can't speedcube my way to the right guy, because there's no guarantee I will like him in person. Alas, there's no shortcut to finding love, which is on its own damned schedule. Mine seems to be taking its own sweet time, like Prissy in Gone with the Wind when she's dawdling on the sidewalk back to Scarlett's house because she "don't know nothing 'bout birthin' babies."

The Inexplicable Goes to 11

I was very excited when he finally asked me out. We had been instant messaging through the dating website over the last several weeks, and I was dazzled by his wit. The first paragraph of his online profile is a symphony of sarcasm that hit every note of annoyance, pessimism, and reluctant resignation I have been feeling about online dating:

I am old, worn out, torn up with a bitter broken heart and I am a cheap skate. I have baggage, an ex who comes over unannounced in the middle of the night. My teenage daughter is pregnant with her second child, father unknown. My son is a meth addict and routinely breaks in to steal something from the house. I make a living smuggling people across the border. I love my job, never a dull moment as it really caters to my creative side.

He seemed to love my sense of humor too, and our jokes organically fed off each other. He is a year older than me and he loves to ski. I was ready to run off to Vegas with him, sight unseen, but I settled for dinner only a short car ride away. From the moment I woke up on the day of the big date, it felt like Christmas, Halloween, New Year's Eve in Times Square, and the 50-1 longshot you played just getting up to win by a nose, all rolled into one.

When I parked in the lot behind the restaurant, I texted him to say I had just arrived and that, "my profile pictures were 15 years old -- hope that's not a deal breaker!" His reply? "Oh good. Mine are even older."

I walked right past him as he leaned against the hood of his car while he checked his phone. He didn't really look like the hilarious guy I had animated in my head based on his texts and a few shot-at-a-distance photos of him. I went into the restaurant to find him, but came back out when I realized that car-hood-leaner was him. We hugged, but it felt awkward, since I was hugging a stranger. Little did I know, but that was only an appetizer of awkwardness. The whole seven-course meal was ahead of me.

He seemed *completely* not into me, as if he were disappointed with the reality. He didn't say anything about the way I looked, even though I was wearing a dress, and I looked good. I had made an effort. Even if I'm not your type, if I've put on a dress -- A F*CKING DRESS, PEOPLE! -- you'd better say something, even something innocuous like 'You look nice,' otherwise you're just a social clod. I got nothing.

He was distracted throughout dinner, often checking out the thin 20-year-old single mom in the tank top and mini skirt who repeatedly let her young toddler bang her head hard on the table they shared with a group of her 20-something friends. He was rarely present or focused on me, and he didn't say one funny thing all night. It was as if a different person showed up for our date! Perhaps he had a humorless twin brother who had bound and gagged the hilarious twin I had been texting, just so he could take his place.

I can usually find something to talk about with anyone, but I struggled. Finally, when I asked him what he had planned that weekend, he told me he was going to shop for a "yacht." His word. Not a boat. Not a sailboat. Not even a big-ass boat. A yacht. He was going to spend the weekend yacht shopping. I could not relate.

This is when my bad date went to 11. "Not Into Me" mentioned he had previously worked at a well known internet company, the same one where my ex-husband worked for a year or two. Not only did they work there at the same time in the same building, they both worked at the small publicly traded company that the large well known internet company had acquired! Not Into Me searched his phone for my ex-husband's name, and when he couldn't find it, he checked my ex's LinkedIn profile. The 54 people they both knew on LinkedIn wasn't the only thing they had in common though. I realized they both behaved the same way toward me during dinner -- with almost complete indifference. As if they wanted to be anywhere else at that moment. And certainly not with me.

The check couldn't and didn't come fast enough. When it did, I offered to split the bill as I always do on a first date. In all my first dates, I can't remember a guy taking me up on that offer. Until now. Naturally, the guy who was planning to spend his weekend yacht shopping is the one who wanted to split the bill. Whatever. It was a small price to pay to end the awkward misery.

Not Into Me had parked right in front of the restaurant, so he just said good night, hopped in his car, and drove away. He didn't offer to walk me to my car, which was parked in the lot in back. After a night of utter disinterest in me, I was not surprised, and relieved that I wouldn't have to endure even five more minutes of him. I practically skipped back to my car, happy to cross this dud off my list and hopeful that my next date wouldn't be the train wreck this one was.

Two days later, Not Into Me texted me and asked me out again. WTF?! Bet you didn't see that coming. Neither did I. I was stunned and confused. Then it was he who was stunned and confused when I turned him down, telling him I thought there was zero in-person chemistry between us. He said he was tired that night and that he really liked me. No matter. There is no way I will ever knowingly go out with a guy whose behavior towards me reminds me of my ex-husband's during the most unhappy part of our marriage.

Dating is hard. Dating strangers is even harder. Sometimes I wonder how anyone can discover that special someone through the distorting haze of expectation and imagination that clouds online dating websites. Then I go back online to take another hit off that distortion and let myself get carried away again.

Another Reason Why There's Already a Reserved Seat for Me in Hell

Recently a perfectly nice guy -- whose only fault seems to be that he lives 35 miles away and is therefore "geographically undesirable" -- sent me a brief message through the online dating website. When I checked out his profile, I noticed one of his photos showed him wearing a police uniform with the caption 'What I wear to work every day.' And he was built, so I decided to tease him a little bit.

ME: Just wondering if you're a cop or a male stripper pretending to be a cop? I have extreme reactions to both. One is very good; the other, not so much. 

MALE STRIPPER COP: Which one is good, and which one isn't?

ME: I would be amused, and slightly horrified, if you were a male stripper dressed as a cop. I think law enforcement officers are great. So, I guess this means goodbye. I just can't date a male stripper -- no matter how hot!

MALE STRIPPER COP: Lol. I'm not a male stripper. I'm a police officer. What makes you think I'm a stripper?

ME: Cops aren't built like you! Male strippers are though. Do you dance at a club or do you specialize in bachelorette parties and baby showers?

COP WHO LOOKS LIKE A MALE STRIPPER BUT CLAIMS HE ISN'T:  Baby showers? Lol. I'm not a stripper. But thanks.

ME: Oh, c'mon. You expect me to believe that?! You don't have an ounce of donut-flab on you! And that uniform is fake. I can see the velcro.

COP WHO LOOKS LIKE A MALE STRIPPER BUT CLAIMS HE ISN'T:  The uniform is legit. Seriously, I really am a police officer.

ME: Hahaha. You'll have to "arrest" me, Officer Hottie. Please! Please! I've been bad.

COP WHO LOOKS LIKE A MALE STRIPPER BUT CLAIMS HE ISN'T: I don't know what to tell you. I'm not a stripper. I just like to work out.  

ME: How do you get all that money home -- since it all comes in $1 bills? Do you stuff it all in a backpack or do you have to use something larger like a wheel barrow?

COP WHO LOOKS LIKE A MALE STRIPPER BUT CLAIMS HE ISN'T: Goodbye.

Kind of an Asshole

The second time around on an online dating website, I find that my bullshit-o-meter goes off all the time, like a metal detector at a NRA convention. I now know how some men use online dating websites like a giant drag net to dredge up anyone for a possible fling or date.

A typical example is a guy my age who sent me what on the surface is a lovely message.

HIM:  Beautiful, striking, sexy, sassy and I sense completely grounded in strength, soul, and intellect! I would love for us to explore our chemistry together and see where it leads us. Your thoughts?

I smelled bullshit as soon as I read it. My profile is more sarcastic than a mean girl on the defensive in a high school cafeteria. There is nothing in it that would suggest what he wrote. So I pressed him for evidence of this.

ME: Thank you! What an awesome compliment! Just curious about what exactly in my profile leads you to believe I'm "completely grounded in strength, soul, and intellect?" I'm not saying those things aren't true, I just don't see those things in my profile.

HIM: 100% vibe! Vibes speak volumes to me....very organic....very primal.

I checked out his profile, which turned out to be a long, very particular list of requirements he has about the women he likes to date. He posted almost nothing about himself. I bet he has this one golden message -- this one trick pony -- that he sends out to hundreds of women who catch his eye, each thinking he alone can see her soul and was so moved to write this special unique message just for her.

But I think this whole "vibe" business is his way of cutting to the chase, dispensing with all the pre-date emails that he considers a waste of his time. He's one of those ill mannered guys for whom the only real question about a potential date is, 'Do I find you f*ckable?'

HIM: What are your thoughts?

ME: I think your vibramator is a little off. I'm kind of an asshole.

The Circus is Back in Town

Back on it. After a 15-month hiatus, I have come back to online dating -- the sledgehammer of romance -- to find true love. Hope I don't get bludgeoned too much. Instead of posting a long earnest profile that tries so hard to reflect the real me, I wrote a brief, very sarcastic one and posted a couple cute photos. My opening lines skewer two common cliches found in many female dating profiles. And I make fun of the profile question, 'What are the six things you couldn't live without' by posting six things that no longer exist, such as new episodes of Dynasty. This time around, 80% of the guys who send me messages don't understand my sarcasm or my digs at dating-profile cliches, but the other 20% are hilarious guys who do. Score!

Turns out funny guys like sassy women with a sarcastic edge. But it's also what seems to attract super confident guys who just want to get laid. That guy will send me a short, funny, flirty message. If I respond, he'll soon escalate the flirtation with some questions about what I'm wearing or what I like in a man. He's as subtle as a Katy Perry song, and just as eye rolling.

If I keep replying to his messages, even in an intentionally vague way, the flirtation will quickly advance to propositions to sleep with him. When I explain that I'm not looking for a hookup, that in fact I'm *only* looking for an intimate relationship that builds slowly, he tries to flatter me into sleeping with him. But my vanity is immune to the flattery, because sex with someone you don't really know well is awkward and feels emotionally hollow. Sex without that intimate emotional connection built over time is the equivalent of grocery-store sushi. Why bother? It's so unsatisfying compared to the real sublime thing.

When I flatly turn him down with the explanation that I don't want to have sex with a stranger, no matter how hot or funny, he responds with slight disbelief, like a dog tilting his head when he hears an unusual sound. Then I really confuse him by saying, "You just invited me over for shitty sushi. Who would ever want to eat shitty sushi? I don't."

The circus is back in town. Enjoy it while it lasts. I know I will.

Yukking It Up

We walked in together and quickly grabbed the last available seats in the row of bleachers in the small performance space. He was good looking--in his 40s--with dark graying hair. 'Oh, this might be interesting,' I thought to myself. We didn't know each other, but we were both here for the same reason -- to prove our "good parent" bonafides by sitting through two hours of middle school dances just to see our kids on stage for five minutes of it. The bleacher seats were made for elementary school kids, so after ten minutes, we were all ready to unfold ourselves and stretch out. I'm short, and this was the first time in my life I've ever had an issue with leg space.

"Now I know what Lebron James feels like stuffed in the back of a Mini Cooper," I said to the "lucky" bleacher people within my proximity. I got a few laughs from that, then I thought of something better. Same joke, new variation. "I feel like I'm one of those clowns stuck in a clown car," I said to my new BFFs stuck in the bleachers with me. And that's when I heard it. WTH? I thought. It sounded like a cross between an out-of-breath high-pitched wheeze and a theremin, that eerie music in creepy old movies about ghosts. But not just a theremin -- a theremin that sounded slightly off, like an old music box that has gone out of tune after you've opened and played it ten thousand times. (Although really, how can you tell the difference between a theremin that is in tune and one that is not?)

I turned my head and stared at Handsome 40s next to me. He was laughing, not having the asthma attack I feared. I tried to pretend I hadn't heard that disconcerting, awful sound, as the next dance started. When the lights came up and the group of dancers were taking their bows, I cracked another joke, in part because I just couldn't let a good joke die inside me without it being uttered publicly. But I also wanted to find out what Handsome 40s's real laugh sounded like. I was disappointed to realize that the dying asthmatic theremin *was* his real laugh. I quit making jokes after that. But some of the dances had wonderful comic moments, and so I was treated to interludes of the dying asthmatic theremin all evening. 

I wondered if he had ever gotten laid with a "laugh" like that. (Sure, he was a parent, but his kid could have been adopted.) Though it may be as capricious as a Seinfeld episode, crossing a guy off your dateable list just because he doesn't have an acceptable laugh seems perfectly acceptable to me. A laugh is something that signifies momentary pure joy -- an unexpected small gift from the Universe -- so if you can't let loose with a big hearty guffaw when you are rewarded with something funny, I am suspicious of your ability to *ever* let loose and momentarily enjoy life. While some people use a handshake to quickly size up a person's character, I use laughter. 

A Friday Night of Wistfulness and Loud Shitty Music

I did not want to be there. It had been a crazy, exhausting week at work, and all I wanted to do was go home and crash on the couch next to my dog, who likes to watch the same tv shows I do. But I had made a promise, so there I was, waiting in a long line. Stuck. From the moment I walked in, I felt like an unwelcome interloper. The music was predictably awful, made worse by an insipidly glib dj. The room was jammed with *much* younger guys and girls who were adamant about only making eye contact with each other, not with anyone older. The girls were beautiful and tiny -- 30 years of "oh, just another bite" hadn't caught up with them yet -- and almost all were dressed in shiny short dresses and impossibly high heels. The jeans, black shirt, and boots I was wearing made me feel all fifty of my years and then some, as I watched the dance floor from the periphery. I may as well have been using a walker.

"I wish I were young again," said my middle-aged friend Sherry, wistful as we watched the exuberant much younger crowd dance to the loud shitty music. "I wish I had a beer right now," I answered with equal wistfulness in my voice. And we both hung out in the back of the room taking it all in, and shaking our middle-aged moneymakers to the beat of that loud shitty music.

This is how I spent my Friday night. Not out clubbing in some hopelessly misguided attempt to recapture the carefree joie de vivre of one's early 20s, but volunteering as a chaperone at my 13-year-old daughter's eighth grade formal dance. And not just chaperoning. I was helping serve dinner -- a veritable lunch lady -- so I was below the lowest of the low in the middle school pecking order. My status was on par with that of the janitor.

My daughter was annoyed at me for volunteering to be a chaperone. She was afraid she'd be judged for *my* usual embarrassing behavior -- my "excessive" friendliness with strangers and my inability to consistently refrain from using my pet names for her when we're in public. (Two years later, and I'm still in the doghouse for the infamous sixth grade "Hey, Squirt" incident.) But I was good. I only talked to her once during the dance, and for the most part, I kept my big embarrassing mouth shut. Every time I was tempted to compliment a girl on her lovely dress, I bit my tongue and repressed the urge, because I didn't want to ruin her night. No teenage girl is going to be flattered by the compliment on her dress that comes from a middle-aged lunch lady. She might, in fact, be reduced to tears. If anyone's going to cry at a middle school dance, it's going to be due to what some boy did or didn't do or say, not because the lunch lady gave you a thumbs-up on your dress.

I couldn't help but think back to my own middle school dances, much less formal affairs that took place in the gymnasium, with all the girls on one side of the cavernous room and all the boys on the other. From today's perspective, the middle school dances of my youth were more similar in spirit (and looks) to an Amish barn raising than my daughter's dance, which felt more like a non-alcoholic rave fueled by the giddy excitement of young teenagers drunk on the possibilities of life. It was infectious, and even I couldn't help getting caught up in the mood. Watching my daughter fully engaged in unselfconscious fun for three hours more than made up for a night of loud shitty music.

In the Room the Women Come and Go Talking to Online Gigilos

My friend, who is going through a divorce, recently tried online dating and had the usual reaction we all do at first: horror -- complete and utterly mesmerized horror. He would message me in reactive despair after taking brief peeks inside the online-dating big tent, a Pandora's box of human desire that lays bare an embarrassing mixture of clueless bravado, breathtaking superficiality, weary optimism, quiet revelation, and a deep yearning to connect that will break your heart.

This is the same friend who will quote lines from T.S. Eliot's Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock at times when life seems almost unbearable. Well, who would have thunk it? My Prufrockian friend is horrified by online dating. Hmmm... who put the chocolate in my peanut butter?

I suggested he should take down his profile and replace it with the online dating profile that J. Alfred Prufrock would have posted, had he been real and middle-aged now. Can you imagine the reaction he'll get to a profile explicitly filled with regret, thwarted desire, disillusionment, sexual frustration, and social isolation due to an inability to act? In a world that richly rewards self-confidence (warranted or not), is there a less likely candidate for cyber-dating success than J. Alfred? When you're a sensitive, thoughtful person devoted more to the life of the mind, instead of how hot you look in that photo, online dating seems as likely a place to find a soul mate as standing in line at the DMV. Posting J. Alfred Prufrock's dating profile is a snarky way to laugh at the huge limitations of internet dating.

I admit I may have been too hasty in dismissing the possibility of finding someone on a dating website. The problem might lie in using a gigantic dating website that really is the match-making equivalent of waiting in line at the DMV. Perhaps I need to find the dating website that is the equivalent of browsing in the literary section of an upscale bookstore. And if it's not out there, maybe I need to create it. I'll call it "Measuring out my Love Life with Coffee Spoons: a Dating Website for the J. Alfred Prufrocks of the World and Other Sensitive, Creative Types."

Burqa to the Left of Me, Barbie to the Right, Here I Am -- Stuck in the Middle Askew

When I first moved to Los Angeles, I lived in a high-rise apartment building near one of the big universities. After having lived in a house for the previous six years, it kind of felt like I was living in a dorm again -- thankfully a dorm mostly filled with responsible students who studied all the time, so noise was rarely an issue. My floor was an eclectic crazy quilt of ages and ethnicities, which, at the time I thought was unusual, but after having lived here in LA for more than a decade, I realize is the norm.

One of my neighbors was a 22-year-old Barbie Doll who only wore trendy neon-colored workout clothes two sizes too small or, when she felt like dressing up, a bikini top and cutoffs. She was aggressively blonde and always displaying the merchandise. If Dolly Parton had channeled her creative energy into exercise, instead of music, she would have looked like my neighbor Barbie Doll.

At the other end of the spectrum, there was the Muslim wife and mother of two young kids who always wore a floor-length black burqa with a small rectangular slit that only revealed her eyes. I never saw her in anything else, even while she was doing laundry or just taking her trash to the garbage chute. Burqa lived at one end of the hall, while Barbie Doll was at the other. And then there's Maude -- smack dab in the middle -- harshly judging both of them for the same thing: dressing as female caricatures in deference to men. I was having none of it -- this dressing-to-please-men nonsense.

I viewed Barbie Doll with disdain because I assumed she spent lots of time and energy in exchange for male approval for something as superficial as her looks. I judged Burqa for covering up her entire body, with the presumption that she was doing it to please her husband. It was a hot summer in LA, and here was Burqa dressed head to toe in a voluminous black robe made of polyester. It seemed like a ridiculous accommodation to her husband's presumed needs entirely at the expense of her own.

Truth was I was wearing my own particular version of a burqa: baggy unisex beige clothing from L.L. Bean that did a better job of camouflaging my body than a burqa. I was hiding in plain sight, and no one was interested in looking. When I think back to that time, even at 34, I felt invisible in that same way that many American women over 50 feel.

Back then I thought I was lucky to be married to an "enlightened" husband who didn’t care about my looks. I had deluded myself with the smug idea that we had a love based on things superior to the raw impetuousness of physical attraction. In the aftermath of my divorce, I realized just how much I had overestimated my ex’s esteem for me. Not only did he not care about what I looked like, it turned out he didn’t give a crap about my other “less superficial” qualities either.

So, now guess who's dressing in a way that (hopefully) gets her noticed. Not traffic-stopping noticed -- just a bit of a lingering glance noticed. Nothing dramatic. Nothing Italian. Despite wanting to think otherwise, I've come to believe that physical attraction is one of several important ingredients in the glue that keeps a good relationship together. If it weren't so important, wouldn't we *all* be dressing in unisex baggy L.L. Bean clothing in various shades of beige?

I Like Kale, Dammit!

Every once in a while I will receive a "check-in" text from guys relegated, by my choice or theirs, to the dating dustbin of my past. The check-in text seems to occur when the guy is single and not having any luck with the ladies, so he texts me -- and no doubt all his other former dates -- to try to figure out the extent of his current amorous options. It's essentially the "Hail Mary" pass of dating, a last-ditch desperate effort to score.

After I know it's not going to work out with a guy, I usually delete him from my phone, unless of course we're friends. Months later when I receive one of these check-in texts, I am usually confronted with an unfamiliar phone number and a vague message that offers no clue to the texter's identity. My most recent check-in text began with this nugget:

"Happened to see your number in my contacts list but couldn't match the name to a face..."

Flattering. I matched the level of charm put into this text with one that contained my first name and a "Who's this?"

Him: "Neil."

As luck would have it, I don't know any Neils, except for a guy I met online 18 months(!) ago. I remembered this Neil right away. He was the inappropriately young surgical resident who emailed and texted me for a month, then set up a tentative date, but flaked on me. Since I have zero interest in dating him, I decided to have some fun with him instead.

Me: "NEIL DIAMOND?!!! I've been waiting decades for your text. YES! YES! I would LOVE to sing You Don't Bring Me Flowers with you!!!!!!!!!"

Him: "Lol no. We might have met thru ok Cupid a while back."

Me: "Oh yeah. I was the HOT one on okc. Does that jog your memory?"

Him: "Lol. For some reason a couple of random associations such as glasses and writing come to mind. We must have met or I'm having deja vu."

Me: "Yes, I do wear glasses when I write."

Him: "Lol. K. So I'm not (completely) crazy."

Me: "If you say so. (I don't like to argue with crazies!) Are you still on okc?"

Him: "Yeah...Sporadically. You?"

Me: "Not for the past 13 months."

Him: "Where in LA are you?"

Me: "You mean RIGHT NOW? As I'm doing errands?!"

Him: "Lol. Yes. How else can we get a drink together?"

At this point, I'm driving between errands and not reading his texts. He must have second-guessed his get-a-drink suggestion to me and decided to back peddle when he didn't get an immediate response.

Him: "jk"

Me: "Don't worry about my location, Neil. If you want me to do a duet with you, I can be *anywhere* -- the Bowl, the Greek, the Palladium -- in less than an hour. I've only been waiting since 1980 to do this with you!!!!!!!!!!!"

Him: "Ha. You're funny. Are you free to meet up?"

Me: "Not tonight."

Him: "Will do a duet another evening then."

Me: "How old are you, Neil? I'm having age-related concerns."

Him: "I'm 30. How about you?"

Me: "I was afraid of that. You're just not young enough for me. Sorry. I'm looking for more of a Harold and Maude relationship."

Him: "Will be honest -- had to google that movie!"

Me: "I'm 50. I can't believe you've never seen Harold and Maude! It's a classic."

Then he sends me one of those bathroom selfies. He's in his surgical scrubs. And he's very cute. Damn it. He's as tempting as a cronut, but I've taken a vow against junk food like deep-fried pastry and too-young-for-me guys.

Him: "This is me. Was on call at hospital earlier today."

At this point, I'm thinking he sent me the selfie I didn't ask for because he was worried I didn't remember that he's a surgeon. And cute. Then I wonder why he took the selfie *earlier* in the day and decide he must have been sending it all afternoon to EVERYONE he's ever dated or even contemplated dating. Maybe he felt that things were now desperate for him. He was facing a weekend alone. He must have struck out with all of the women in his datable sphere, and now he was reaching back to a sarcastic old broad he met online 18 months ago and didn't even bother to meet.

Me: "I can't take a selfie right now because I have mustache cream on."

Him: "Lol, mustache cream from coffee? Even better!"

Me: "No. To get rid of the hair on my upper lip."

Him: "Gotcha."

I really *did* have mustache cream on my upper lip. I even took some selfies wearing the mustache cream, but I couldn't take a decent selfie that made me look cute enough. Even though I'm never going to meet this guy, I am so vain, I vetoed the idea of sending him a less-than-flattering photo of me in all my mustachio-creamed glory.

Me: "I can't believe you don't have a date on a Saturday night!"

Truly. Let's think about the implications of that. A young, attractive surgeon can't find a date on the biggest date night of the week in a town OVERFLOWING with beautiful, interesting, awesome women. WTF's up with that?!

Him: "I'm actually meeting a good friend from college who's in town for the night."

Me: "Have fun. Don't booze it up too much. You might be called in to do emergency lipo."

Him: "Haha. I don't do plastics, plus not on call overnight! (Thankfully) BTW, how about you? No hot Harold for a Saturday night?!"

Me: "I'm going to a party. I wouldn't be defoliating my upper lip if I were just staying in to watch Friends reruns tonight."

What I'm really saying is: Dude, read between the lines. That's pretty obvious subtext you didn't pick up.

Him: "Quite sassy. Good thing I'm not there."

I agree. That *is* a good thing. It's pretty easy to say no to junk food when it isn't right in front of you looking so irresistible. Until the temptation fades, I will keep repeating my mantra: I like kale. I like kale. I like kale, dammit! I just hope he doesn't ask me to a Neil Diamond concert, because I'm not sure Sassy McSassmouth could actually say no to that.

Dogged by a Special Type of Social Cluelessness

I must have looked pretty good yesterday, because I noticed guys checking me out at work. It wasn’t so obvious – not like the cartoonish head-turning double takes littered throughout a movie starring Pamela Anderson’s breasts. It was more subtle -- just a split-second up-and-down body scan that some men seem to do unconsciously. Under many circumstances, I wouldn’t mind being noticed by men in that way, but at work it feels inappropriate and prompts me to second guess what I’m wearing. (What possessed me to wear a push-up bra to work?) Besides, I can’t imagine going out with a coworker. Interoffice dating seems as well thought out as pogo-sticking on a trampoline while juggling live grenades. What could possibly go wrong with that?!

Being checked out at work now in 2014 isn’t nearly as bad as it was 25 years ago. Back then it was much more blatant, particularly with one type of workplace menace: the office Boob-Gazer. Back in the dark ages of the 80s and 90s, women at work were often subjected to the long “boob gaze” by a special type of socially clueless coworker. Yes, *that* guy. Remember him, ladies? There was usually one Boob-Gazer in every department, at least in my unlucky experience working in offices back then. The worst offender would actually gaze at my chest with an unblinking laser-like stare that defied human biology (we’re programmed to regularly blink, right?!). Sometimes Boob-Gazer would even talk to my boobs, with my mouth the uncomfortable third participant in an always awkward conversation that usually took place in the most public of hallways. It always annoyed and astounded me that Boob-Gazer was either oblivious to how icky he made all the women feel, or that he just didn’t give a shit.

The Boob-Gazer wasn’t confined to one narrow demographic though. In my experience, he could be old, young, married, single, or even female. Whenever I complained about Boob-Gazer to my friends or female coworkers, I would often be advised to aggressively stare at his crotch. But that required the type of public boldness that I -- the shy, demure, delicate flower that I am -- did not possess. (Hahahaha. That made me laugh too.) Actually, a retaliatory social faux pas delivered to eliminate future social faux pas made as much logical sense to me as using the death penalty to affirm the value of human life.

I often resorted to the “file folder” strategy to deflect Boob-Gazer’s unsettling gaze. Whenever I had to interact with Boob-Gazer, I would grab a file folder and hold it in front of my chest like a shield. This sort of worked, except, out of pervy habit, Boob-Gazer would often just stare at the file folder, *imagining* what my boobs were wearing that day.

My personal fantasy was to have human resources get involved by officially making Boob-Gazer wear a large white cone of shame around his neck – like the large white rigid cones that dogs have to wear after being neutered or spayed to keep them from licking their stitches. Not only would the white cone serve the practical purpose of keeping Boob-Gazer’s eyes up off my chest and on my face, it would also serve as a social-shaming device, a dunce cap for social dunces. I loved that my idea combined useful functionality and public shaming in one fitting solution. Perhaps I missed my calling as a cranky sass-mouthy tv show judge.

Frosty Pink Me, Now with New Flavor Crystals!

A Starbucks I used to frequent with occasional regularity has posted a big banner announcing its "Grand Re-Opening." I don't get the whole "Grand Re-Opening" thing, except when a place has made a dramatic night-and-day change, which this place hasn't. I always think "Grand Re-Opening" is just an artificial marketing ploy to get new people to check out the not-new. Those words -- Grand Re-Opening -- seem like a marketing euphemism for "Yoohoo! We're still here selling coffee like we do every day. Oh, and we have some new chairs that are just as uncomfortable as the old ones." When I saw the banner, I snorted at how maddeningly difficult it must be for the marketer tasked with making a Starbucks seem new and interesting when they're on every corner and across the street and down the road and at the airport and in the grocery store -- as ubiquitous as fake boobs and yoga studios in LA.

Going back to online dating feels like it would be my own personal (not very) Grand Re-Opening. Reactivating my old profile at the dating website would be the equivalent of posting a banner that reads "Yoohoo single men! I'm back. Same old me. Just single again. And a year older!" When I had an online dating account, I noticed that a guy would sometimes go offline and then reappear with the same exact profile a few months later. Presumably, the promising relationship that had prompted him to deactivate his online dating profile lasted a while, but ultimately didn't work out. Those guys who later resurfaced always seemed a little stale to me, as if their failed budding relationships implied that they were not guys worth keeping, and therefore they were guys not even worth trying.

If I were to go back to online dating, would I have to resort to phony-baloney marketing tricks -- me, now with new flavor crystals! -- to make me seem new and exciting and worth trying? My goal is not to sell me to the masses. I'm just trying to find that one guy for whom I'm the perfect local coffee shop in a vast wasteland of Starbucks.

Glaring at the Hamster Wheel

I do not relish the idea of getting back on the hamster wheel that is online dating. After a year of being one-half of a couple, I am single again. Standup comedian Julie Marmelstein describes it best when she says online dating is really just "shopping for people." No wonder I so often find it tediously sucktastic. I don't really enjoy shopping.

I like having beautiful clothes that look nice on me, so out of necessity, I go shopping. While I do like finding something that suits me, I think it's the inefficiency of shopping that I detest most. It always seems to take so much time and diligence to find something "perfect." Until you get lucky, shopping is a New Year's Day parade of big- and near-misses. 'That dress would look fantastic on me -- *if* I were 25 years old again.' Or 'That sweater would be so cute, if only the buttons weren't so big.' Or 'That skirt is so sexy, but I'm still not comfortable dressing like a skank.' Shopping is a test of patience and endurance, which are not two of my greatest strengths.

And so it is with online dating. As I page through profile after online profile, the refrain is similar. 'That guy would be *perfect* for me -- if I had met him in 1992.' Or 'I have so many things in common with him, but he's a smoker.' Or 'I like that he's outdoorsy, adores David Sedaris, and loves animals, but I just can't get past that giant face tattoo.'

A common solution for a person who doesn't have time to shop for clothes, is to use a personal shopper or hire a stylist. Maybe at some point I will need to hire a matchmaker. For now, I'm ok being single and letting dating serendipity work its magic. By which I mean, I'll be spending my nights watching a lot of tv at home alone. I'm just not ready to jump back on the hamster wheel yet, so I will just sit and glare at it instead.

Paris Can Wait

I've never been to Paris. That's not a complaint -- just a fact. Even though I love visiting new places and count myself lucky to have traveled to other European countries, I have not yet visited France. I could have orchestrated a trip to France when I was married, but I couldn't bear the thought of seeing Paris for the first time with someone with whom I was not wildly in love. The three of us -- my daughter, my then-husband, and I -- ended up going to Ireland instead. Given my lifelong love of horses, Ireland was a fitting "consolation" prize. What Paris is to love, Ireland is to the horse.

I've been "saving" Paris for a great love ever since. I have many reasons to think I would adore Paris, among them my interest in art history, the three years in high school I tortured my class with my midwestern-accented semi-coherent attempts to say simple phrases in French, and good God, I *do* so love to eat. I read once that if you smile at a stranger in Paris, the local Parisians will assume you are either an escaped lunatic from a mental ward or you're an American. That reaction delights me. I pray it's true.  

When Frenchy and I started dating, I thought there was a good chance I'd finally get to see Paris with him, but it wasn't meant to be. Frenchy and I have broken up. Paris can wait.

I'm still committed to visiting Paris one day with the love of my life. I can picture us walking along the Seine trying to find the exact place where Madeline fell in and Genevieve the dog saved her, or arguing about which street mime was better -- the one who was "caught in a wind tunnel" or the one "trapped in a box." I can even hear her chiding me, "Mom, you're embarrassing me. Stop smiling at everyone!"

Work, Work, Work

Work, work, work. That's all I can see for myself now and over the course of the next 20 years. Between raising the kid and hustling for and at work, I don't expect to have any time to breathe, much less relax and enjoy myself. That's what it feels like to essentially start over in middle age in an economy that can't get its shit together to provide gainful, appropriate employment to 40% of its most recent college grads, much less someone who made the economically foolish decision to leave the paid work force for years to raise a child. The weight of work presses on me, like a bird rebuilding its nest after a tornado. Even at the end of a very productive day, I can find it difficult to relax without feeling the guilt of squandering my free time in front of the tv instead of using it to acquire another marketable job skill. I *should* be learning Mandarin, but I am watching The Mindy Project instead. No wonder I inhabit this uncomfortable purgatory of alternating periods of unemployment and temp gigs, while Oprah inhabits all of America. *She* would have opened her Mandarin book instead of reaching for the remote.

A while ago I gave up my favorite hobby, putting it on the back burner until my life stabilizes and I can afford the time and money to indulge in hobbies again. People who've known me since I was a child are surprised to hear I've gone cold turkey on this hobby that figured so prominently in my identity for so long. But I'm nothing, if not practical. And it's not practical to throw away my limited time on something that will do nothing to secure my stable future. I don't like feeling so out of balance, but until my livelihood is relaunched in a sustainable, less volatile way, I really can't afford to indulge in hobbies. When I do finally find my way in the work world, the first hobby I will reinstate is breathing -- wonderful, guilt-free breathing.

Valentine's Day: The Judgmental Mother-in-Law of Holidays

I have a confession. Even though I write a blog about the quest for true love, I am not a big fan of Valentine's Day, even when I'm in a relationship. I once received a rice cooker on Valentine's Day, and I don't really even like rice. This was the way my longtime sweetheart chose to remember me on the biggest day of the year devoted to romance. We're still together -- my rice cooker and I. Rice-Cooker-Giver, however, is long gone. While the fact that Rice-Cooker-Giver gave me a perfectly unmeaningful kitchen appliance to make a food I don't especially like on Valentine's Day is not a direct cause of our breakup, it is a fitting metaphor for our relationship that never really quite worked.

Valentine's Day is the judgmental mother-in-law of holidays that has the power to make me feel unworthy, unappreciated, or worse, ordinary. If you're single, Valentine's Day can feel like the phantom limb of a partner who is either no longer there or one who has not yet surfaced in your life. If you're in a relationship, it is bothersome to experience the cultural pressure to reiterate your love with a forced, showy display of material affection. I enjoy doing something fun, but low-key, for Valentine's Day, which is why I can only recall two truly memorable ones.

In college, my friends and I staged a mock wedding and beer party one Valentine's Day. Dressed in a tux and a white pouffy wedding dress, my boyfriend and I played the groom and bride, but we wore bags over our heads to "conceal our identities." The fact that *all* of our other friends played characters in the mock wedding, so anyone could easily guess that College Boyfriend and I were the lucky mock couple, never punctured our delusion that we had kept our identities a secret from the rest of the campus. After the mock wedding ceremony, which took place in the college chapel, College Boyfriend and I walked down the long aisle and into the waiting get-away car driven by our accomplice/friend. She whisked us away to a local motel, where we decided to stage another mock event at the bar before heading back to campus to the party. College Friend and College Boyfriend went in to the bar and sat down at a cozy table for two. A few minutes later with the bag off my head, but still in my wedding dress, I stormed into the bar screaming, "WHERE IS HE?!!!!," then grabbed College Boyfriend by the lapels and dragged him out of there. I like to think we provided the unsuspecting patrons with a dramatic soap opera moment to what would have been just another ordinary Valentine's Day spent at a bar drinking and dancing to Jimmy Buffett songs.

The other memorable Valentine's Day occurred when I was five months pregnant. My then-sister-in-law was in town for a professional conference. The only night my then-husband and I could get together with her was for dinner on February 14th. Since my then-sister-in-law was also pregnant -- almost seven months along -- I can only imagine what people thought of the three of us: two big preggos and a seemingly cavalier lothario squiring them on each arm for an odd Valentine's Day dinner. We were a modern-day commemorative plate the Franklin Mint conveniently forgot to make. 

The Joy of Sexonomics

If you enjoy getting puzzled or leering looks from strangers in public places -- and frankly, who doesn't? -- just tote around the book Dollars and Sex as you go about your daily errands. I guess people think I'm reading a vocational guide to prostitution, judging by the pointed "That's... interesting" I got from a creepy older guy staring first at my book, then at my chest, while we were waiting for our coffee at Starbucks.

The full title of Dr. Marina Adshade's fascinating book, based on her blog, is Dollars and Sex: How Economics Influences Sex and Love. An economist and a divorcee trying to make rational sense of dating and mating behavior, the author teaches economics at the University of British Columbia. While *I* find economics sexy, I will concede that most people do not. To get her bored students to pay attention in class, she started illustrating the principles of economic theory with examples related to love and dating. Imagine how interesting the typical 18- or 19-year-old might find the concept of opportunity cost when it's explained using the standard example of a factory making widgets. Dullsville. But opportunity cost, when it's explained in the context of dating, is much more compelling, because most of them have weighed those very costs every time they ask someone out or turn someone down. Her approach was so successful, she now teaches an undergraduate course called "Economics of Sex and Love," a class as wildly popular as Ira Glass at a Seattle dinner party.

With an economist's bias that "almost every option, every decision, and every outcome in matters of sex and love is better understood by thinking within an economic framework," the author explores the topics of dating, cohabitation, marriage, divorce, monogamy, and birth control. Some of her findings seem intuitively logical (e.g. why do older unattractive guys like Donald Trump always have beautiful young wives? Well, duh...it's the age-old trade of youthful beauty for the big old wallet). But there are many insights that are counterintuitive, and those are the most interesting. In economic hard times, one might think divorces would increase due to the stress of keeping or losing a job. But in actuality, the divorce rate goes down when the economy is weak because people don't like to walk away from economic losses (e.g. selling a house when its market value has gone down), and will instead choose to ride it out until the economy improves.

While I did not have the luxury of learning economic theory taught through the titillating lense of sex, my interest in understanding the subject was jolted by my intense desire to prove a point to a jackass in my class one semester. One day early on in the course, Jackass made a comment, which I rebutted. My friend -- a man -- noticed that Jackass just bristled whenever I (or indeed any woman) spoke up in class, which he took as evidence of Jackass's reputed misogyny. Well, that's all it took. If you think I'm stupid, that's one thing. Depending on how I feel about myself that day, I might not disagree with you. But if you think I'm stupid just because I'm female, that's *quite* another. Jackass had no idea he was in a match race with a stubborn old mule like me.

From then on, my goal was to litigate any points Jackass made in class, which meant I had to know the material better than I knew my own name. In one memorable exchange, the professor talked about how government can pass laws to affect outcomes and the performance of the economy. Jackass -- who was the original Dwight Shrute 20 years before that character showed up on tv in The Office -- was so put out by this idea, he rambled on and on about how unfair and arbitrary it was to big business to have the rules change. His argument was that in order to "play the game," the rules governing sports were sacrosanct, and so should be the laws regulating business. I disagreed with him, arguing that rules change all the time, "helpfully" pointing out that even basketball had just adopted the three-point rule. Since Jackass also fancied himself a sports nut, it was particularly sweet to use an example from basketball -- *his* sport -- against him.

And so it went all semester, the battle of the sexes fought point by point on the court of microeconomic theory. Most days I walked away feeling like the Billie Jean King of Econ 102, while I suspect he walked away feeling not like Bobby Riggs, but more like H.L. Mencken -- his low opinion of women confirmed by the obstreperousness of my relentless mouth. All these years later, I wonder what he would think of me now. It pleases me to think he would *not* approve of this blog. Women shouldn't have opinions, you know.

Wobbling and Falling My Way Around the Rink

Over the holidays, I had the chance to go ice skating with my daughter and three of her younger cousins. My daughter knows how to skate, but her cousins were beginners. I wondered how long they would last on the ice, slipping and falling their way around the rink before they'd want to pack it in and do something else. To my happy surprise, they kept at it and skated for 90 minutes until the rink closed.

As a parent, there is almost nothing funnier than watching a kid trying to learn to skate. It's slapstick watching them tentatively wobble forward on shaky skates, then haplessly gyrating their arms to regain their balance right before the inevitable splat-fall on the ice. The adults burst into laughter every time one of the kids fell. Heartless, I know. But watching a brand-new skater fall over and over again is like watching the characters on Gilligan's Island repeatedly trying and failing to leave the desert island -- only funny. Later that night, we saw all the movie footage my father had shot and we laughed all over again.

My 6-year-old nephew probably fell about 1,000 times. But he always got up and continued on slowly around the rink, at first using the wooden walls to balance, then later winging it on his own. I skated with him sometimes, and every time he took a big fall, I helped him up and reminded him that he could take a break to warm up anytime he wanted. But he didn't want to stop. He loved ice skating so much -- even though he was bad at it and his jeans were soaked -- he picked himself up and kept going. If he was frustrated or angry at how difficult it was to learn to skate, I didn't see that. He didn't let those emotions get in the way of trying. It was remarkable, his determination.

Finding my way after divorce sometimes makes me feel like a young kid learning how to skate. You fall down a lot in the beginning. There's no way to avoid all the nasty spills and the embarrassment of repeatedly falling down. But you pick yourself up and slowly wobble-walk your way around the rink on cheap rental skates, balancing yourself on the wooden wall until you get a little better, a little braver. Eventually, it will lead to the exhilaration of being able to gracefully skate around the rink with only infrequent falls. The trick -- which really isn't a trick at all -- is to just keep getting up and trying.

In the Rearview Mirror of Life, It's Always Easy to Spot the Asshole

I spent the holidays with my daughter visiting family in Wisconsin. My brother and his family -- who live in Los Angeles like me -- were also visiting. We spent Christmas evening with my father, my sister, her boyfriend, and her adult sons -- the home where I grew up filled to capacity with a big talkative group eager to reconnect at a holiday, instead of a funeral or some other sad event.  

During this visit, I spent a lot of time with my sister-in-law preparing meals and helping organize the daily activities of four loud, but happy kids. I get to see my brother and his family a lot in LA, but rarely do our Wisconsin trips overlap as they did this year. My brother's wife -- a lovely, warm person who grew up in a foreign country with a relatively low divorce rate -- was friendly and gracious with everyone, even the troubled members of my extended family. Genuinely interested in each one, she made every one feel special and included, because she thinks of *my* family as part of *her* family, which is, of course, the way it should be when you get married. 

I was struck by the stark difference in attitude toward my family between my brother's wife and my ex. When I was married, I took no pleasure in going home for a visit accompanied by my ex, and would sometimes visit my family alone or just me and the kid. It was easier to go without him. He was such a judgmental asshole about my family, I would spend much of the trip with an annoying knot in my stomach from the constant mid-level anxiety surging through my body. 

With the clarity of hindsight, now I can see how my ex *never* embraced my family as a new, larger part of his family. He always seemed to think of my family as "not enough" -- not educated enough, not sophisticated enough, not socially graceful enough. Gallingly, he seemed to take the most troubled members of my family and unfairly compare them to the most successful and well adjusted members of his family, conveniently forgetting that he too has some f*cked-up ones.

Like a roommate in a snit who puts masking tape on the floor to divide a shared bedroom, my ex was always careful to draw a line between what he thought of as his and what he thought of as mine. It's hard to be part of a union, when one of you is always marking his territory. If that's what I wanted in marriage, I would have just gotten a dog. At least the dog would have been happy to see me every day.