moving on once more

The over achiever has fallen by the wayside. I have talked to him on IM once since our date and no mention was made of another, and since then nothing. I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to turn into anything serious, so I can’t claim to be upset, and hey, I got dinner out of the deal!

Next!

I’m currently corresponding via Yahoo with two more prospects – both are early 30’s, one is a former military guy from around here who has moved into a technology field (geeky!), and he is quite tall, yum, and the other is a transplanted European who I believe is some sort of executive. I do love accents. Both of them seem sincere, and both of them ‘winked’ at me first (really they sent an ‘icebreaker’ as yahoo calls it, it would make me happy if these sites would use similar terminology), which is always flattering. I’ve only exchanged e-mails with them so far, but I’ll keep you posted.

reasons I am a dork

• The coworker that I spotted on yahoo right when I signed up (and who was very compatible with me) is now someone I will probably be working closely with. He usually acts pretty shy around me, but I don’t know if this is normal for him or a result of the yahoo thing. I’m not even totally sure he knows about it, but I find it hard to imagine he doesn’t. It adds a certain spice to my day (if the spice is one that immediately causes feelings of embarrassment), I must say.
• I dropped my cell phone in the toilet.
• My roommate laughed at me. I walked into the living room the other night and asked her, “Want to hear something really cool?” She immediately assumed that the over achiever had called, more fool her. I was actually bursting with excitement over a new website I had found that allows me to reduce my netflix queue by quite a bit. (I had been wanting to see six feet under, and the british version of coupling, and a few highlander episodes, among other things.) It is alluc.org, basically people post links there to places you can find streaming video online – there is a lot more out there than I had imagined. Also there is less chance of the MPAA breathing down your neck if you take advantage than if you used something like a bittorrent client to get the same content, since you are just viewing the material, not downloading or sharing it. If you don’t really want to download that episode of scrubs to your hard drive, it is a great alternative.

• I really want one of these.
• I got to see a sneak preview of the new This American Life tv series at the local independent theater, and it made my week. You can watch the trailer here.
• Bunnee. Hee hee hee.

tips for online dating

I’ve only been doing this a little while, but I’ve already had a number of people ask me (in real life) about my experiences and if I have any advice to offer. I did a bit of research before I started (I research everything), and found that there is no shortage of advice out there. This article has some of the best advice I have seen anywhere, so I thought I would pass it along.

Some of my favorites:

Your ”About Me” essay is important, so take time to write something that ‘’shows” who you are. Gail Laguna, JDate’s spokeswoman, suggested that I get specific in my profile. My revised essay was much more detailed. I mentioned my favorite music, books and movies. And I’ve had an excellent response. I thought my new essay was too long, but I’ve noticed it’s given guys something to talk about. It’s made initial conversations less awkward.

My essay at first was very vague, but I changed it to show a lot my favorite activities, movies, books, etc. I’ve gotten a lot more messages from men I have things in common with since I have done this. For some reason they seem to be divorced guys in their 30’s, so I’m not sure what that says about me… but the fact remains that a number of intelligent funny guys have messaged me, and if I wasn’t picky about previous marriages it would be great.

Look at who’s viewed you. Someone may have looked at you and been interested but not taken the time to message. Or maybe they’re shy. A colleague at The Miami Herald met her boyfriend that way. She looked at who viewed her and then e-mailed him. They set up a time to talk and hit it off immediately. Now they’re talking about getting married.

I make it a point to look at who has viewed me and message them if I am interested. I know I have looked at profiles I liked and not messaged them for various silly reasons (maybe I was having a fit of shyness that day), so who’s to say they haven’t done the same? I’ve had a couple of guys respond to this, so it was worth the 2 seconds it took me to send an icebreaker.

Women, pick the men you’re interested in. Most of the guys you’re interested in don’t contact you. Slotnick says most of the good ones aren’t online long so it’s up to us to immediately contact people of interest. Internet dating is the most aggressive game around. If you want to meet the man of your dreams online, you have to get past the formalities.

This makes a lot of sense. The good ones are going to get snapped up fast, so if you see someone you like, do something about it!

I am a total geek

I am ~34% geek according to this test. I would have guessed more, but I think my lack of video gaming/roleplaying hurt me.

not boyfriend, boy friend

Lately I’ve been contemplating what exactly it is that makes people friends. For example: One of my best buddies of late is a guy who I work with that started working at my company at about the same time I did, so we’ve kind of been friendly since then. Other than our job we have little in common. He loves sports, talking about ‘hot’ women, running, obnoxious comedy movies, sports bars, and crime dramas (csi). He hates trying new food, his favorite dessert is vanilla ice cream, and he makes fun of me for talking about movies and the internet… and yet every time we hang out I have a blast. Why is this? I don’t get it.

It is also understood that our relationship is strictly platonic. I have had male friends before that were supposedly platonic but one or the other of us was not exactly upholding our end of the deal, which always made for interesting times. I am attracted to him, and I assume he is to me (I physically resemble his ex-fiance), but the thought of actually dating him really doesn’t compute. At all. If nothing else I think of him as a brother and treat him accordingly (which basically means be mean to him as often as possible).  What gives? Can you truly be friends with someone merely because you find then amusing, and will it last? Or will it eventually pall and you want to ditch them because they won’t talk about the latest Battlestar Galactica (I miss Starbuck already, *sniff, sniff*) with you and insist on going to annoying sports bars to watch the latest game?

Oh well, I’m sure he’ll find a girlfriend soon and I won’t have to worry about it anyway, we didn’t become good friends until his fiance dumped him and he was looking for people to hang out with. I would set him up with someone I know… but all my girlfriends are kinda geeky like me:)

the over achiever

The over achiever and I met for the first time earlier this week. We had talked on the phone several times and had several IM conversations, and the conversation in person was just as easy and fun as it had been all along. We talked about programming, the company I work for, our cats, our roommates, the Freemasons… we didn’t seem to run out of topics, and to his credit he let me talk all I wanted! I wasn’t bored at all. He is on the cute side of average, and there were a couple of moments where we smiled at each other and I felt a hint of a spark. I think. We both said at the end of the date that we would like to spend more time together.

The negatives: He was at least an inch shorter than his profile led me to believe, which makes us the same height. I am a tall woman so this doesn’t make him short, but I have to admit I have a weakness for the taller guys. I spend so much of my time feeling taller than other people (I’m only 5′9″-ish, but that puts me quite a bit above the average woman) that when a man makes me feel petite it gives him a huge advantage.

He also is extremely busy. All the time. We only had about an hour and a half for our date, which really didn’t seem long enough. He is in a Master’s program full time as well as working full time, which gives him about one free night a week. He also lives about 30 minutes away, which makes the time aspect even more difficult.

I also get a sense of casualness from him that is a little disconcerting. I would like to feel that a man is pursuing me and is really interested, not that he is casually contacting me whenever he gets bored and remembers I exist. I haven’t heard from since we went out, but since he has already established a pattern of inconsistency I’m not sure whether to think it’s because he’s busy, he isn’t interested, or he just forgot. I wouldn’t have minded a date for this weekend though.

A new guy sent me a yahoo icebreaker that is pretty cute, but his profile is a little vague. I sent him a flirty little note and asked for more info, so we’ll see! I’m certainly not going to wait for the over-achiever to remember I exist.

conclusion

I eventually used Myspace’s e-mail feature to tell myspace boy that I wasn’t interested in going out with him again. He had IM’ed me while I was on my lunch break at work to ask me out, but had logged off by the time I got back. I said I was sorry but I just didn’t feel like I would be able to see him as more than a friend. He replied eventually very courteously, so that was the end of that. I hate rejecting people almost as much as I hate getting rejected myself – but in this case my biggest regret was that I led him to believe at the time of the date that I would be interested in another when it really wasn’t true. I’m obviously somewhat rusty since this was only the second guy I’d gone out with since I broke up with the FF (former fiance), but hopefully time will improve my dating skills.

Question: what’s the best way to end a date if you know you aren’t interested? I’m leaning toward telling him to call me and then breaking the news later if he does call…

list: titles of some ads google feels are appropriate to my ongoing e-mail conversation with my best friend

• Offensive Funny T-Shirts
• Are You a Slacker Mom?
• Math who needs it
• Man Wearing Lingerie
• ColdSpark Mail Platform
• Men In School Skirts
• MDaemon Training Course

I am vaguely disturbed. Though, having no kids, I would be interested to know if I am a slacker mom by default.

And once again

I find myself at a coffee place with several nice looking men in my age range, but this time instead of all being gay they appear to all be here to play MMORPG’s. Now, I fully admit to being a geek, but I have never known anyone who was into the gaming culture that hardcore that didn’t become so addicted to it that it caused problems in other parts of their life (see: my ex-fiance and a lot of his friends), and I just don’t want to go there. I wish I weren’t so picky, but a girl has to have standards, right? Right?

Another mother issue

Show me a girl who doesn’t have problems with her mother and I’ll show you a girl who doesn’t have one.

The other day I met mom at a little downtown bistro near her work for lunch. I was a little irritated because I talked to her right before I left and we agreed on a time to meet, and then when I showed up she wasn’t there. I ended up calling her only to find out that she was running an errand which would take about 15 minutes. I understand that these things happen, but I wished she had called me before I showed up and walked to the bistro, if nothing else I could have stayed in my car and worked a little more on the Margaret Atwood novel I keep there for just these types of situations. Once we finally got to eat she got stressed about ordering because there was a line, picked something at random, and then spent the entire meal complaining that she didn’t like it. All little things, but they tend to set me on edge. She can get under my skin faster than anybody else on this planet (but God help the person who says anything bad about her in my hearing, that’s just how family is).

None of this compared to the bomb she dropped on me after lunch however. We walked back to my car, and she informed me that she had a crush on a man who lived in (large-ish southern city about 3 hours from mine), and she had reason to believe he might reciprocate, and began to list off a number of characteristics that made him sound very similar to my grandfather. Since we all know that girls are looking for the man who can measure up to their daddy (except me, I’d like to find the opposite, but I’m sure I’ll end up with a guy just like him in spite of myself), it sounded pretty serious to me. I asked her when I would get to meet this paragon who was due to become my stepfather, and she replied that she would have to wait until she was certain of his affections. Apparently, he is a few years younger than her, which puts him right smack into the appropriate range for yours truly!

I get ill just thinking about it. My life has truly turned into some sort of bad movie. Now we will end up fighting over the same man, never realizing that one of us has a different true love overlooked in plain sight somewhere. At the end of the movie we will have a lovely Christmas dinner together complete with crystal and candlelight, but it will be a rocky path getting to the point where the credits roll and the cheesy love song plays. GROSS!!!!!

If I have to be in a movie can I make it more like Serenity? Or Pride and Prejudice? You know, something cool and memorable, not the Family Stone or the one with Jennifer Aniston. Which one? Any of them.

Oh! I want to be Rose in Dr. Who! I will have marvelous adventures with a charming, mysterious, slightly dorky stranger, fall madly in love… maybe I’ll cut out the part where we get separated for all eternity, but other than that it’s fantastic!

And I would just like to take this moment to mention how happy having the wonderful Christopher Eccleston on Heroes has made me. For a while I was surviving on emo Milo Ventimiglia and his lovely bangs alone, but Chris makes me all kinds of warm and fuzzy.

Ok, I just totally cheered myself right out of my mother induced funk. I shall have to remember that for future reference. When feeling down, think about Dr. Who. I recommend it to everyone!