The Milk Has Gone Bad in Raleigh

Last week I sent some friends this link to a great article called The Milk Has Gone Bad, about the stupid dating moves guys pull that leave us women banging our heads against the wall. You know, we women all start off sane and rational but then, through extended periods of dating, we slowly become insane.. Allow me to deconstruct some of my own head smacking moments that make me wonder “What the fuck?? The species is doomed”. I have chosen 4 representative examples of general bad behavior in men from my own personal dating repertoire.. These are all interactions that are fairly recent or are people that I am still in contact with.. In the spirit of the original article, I have changed names to protect the innocent, the guilty and the utterly useless..

PART 1: Biff, King of the Lame Ass Excuses

First, there was Biff, this ultra preppy gentleman I met at RiRa’s that put on the full court press while clearly hammered one night.. Now, having been in his condition on at least one or two occasions myself, I took his declarations of interest in dating with a big horkin' spoonful of rock salt.. That and, "preps", not really my type.. But seeing as my type tends to suck, I figured, what the heck, we’ll be open to a new experience. Recognizing his own inebriated state for what it was, he got my number but then also gave me his and made me promise to call him the next day to remind him that he wanted to take me out to dinner.. About 6 times he made me promise to call because he knew he was too shnockered to remember.. I figured, again, what the heck and called the next day.. He said it was great to hear from me, yada, yada, yada, he was leaving to go out of town and could he call me Sunday night when he got back?? I said sure.. That was 2 months ago.. Now, make no mistake, I did not lose a moment’s sleep over this. I chalked it up to “idiot drunk guy” and moved on, forgetting he existed..

Fast forward to last weekend, out on the town with Dani.. Here comes Biff.. He came right up and said he was so sorry he hadn’t called, he had been really, really busy at work lately and had been dealing with some other "issues" (Fuck me, am I sick of hearing that word these days, but I digress, we'll get to that in Part 3) and wanted to know if he could take me to dinner this week.. I said “I’m going to have to go with no, sorry, but you can’t..”.. He was a bit confused as I delivered the news with a very friendly smile on my face, and tried to convince me to give him another chance and that he really did want to go out with me.. My reply: “Look, sweetie, you missed your window.. A man is only as good as his word and if you can't even be trusted to make a simple phone call, well frankly, there’s no point in trusting you at all.. Actions reveal a man’s true inner character, not words.. And the fact that the first words out of your mouth were excuses about how busy you are and some vague non-committal reference to "issues", a lovely albeit bullshit catch-all phrase for "I had better things to do than call you", well, that just shows that you also don’t accept responsibility for the way you act or your failure to act.. And let’s face it, you’re not Albert Schweitzer, you’re a sales rep, so it's not like you're out saving the world and curing cancer.. You were never really too busy to call, you just chose not to.. I'm 34 years old. This is not the first time this has ever happened to me, I know a blow-off when I see it.. But to cut to the chase, these are not qualities I seek in someone I get naked with”.. He stared mutely for about 15 seonds while he tried to comprehend just how badly I had assasinated his character (it was a pretty impressive little speech for 9:00pm on a Friday).. Once again he tried to back peddle and eventually got annoyed that I wouldn’t let him "make it up to me" b/c he didn’t call when he said he would.. He didn’t see what the big deal was.. He said “It’s not like we were dating.. I just don’t get it”.. To which I replied “No, sweetie, you don’t.. And you never will”..

Why He Was Wrong: Was I losing sleep waiting for this bozo to call? No, but it is just tacky and, in my opinion, denotes an utter lack of personal character, to say one thing and do another.. What are guys afraid of? An uncomfortable call? Just fess up and say : "I was drunk. I’m actually dating someone already. You seemed nice. Best of luck." However, if you do in fact blow a girl off and run into her in public, don’t make up lame ass excuses when you walk up. We’re generally much smarter than you are anyways... Again, fess up: " I was a shmuck, I didn’t call. I have no excuse except I was so drunk I didn’t remember you were this hot. Give me another chance and I’ll take you to dinner and I'll even show up with flowers". This actually worked on me once. Honesty. What a concept!

Next up: Francisco.. A year of 3AM phone calls and one 3 hour conversation about his pending "marriage"..

Have a good one, Gang..

Flypaper for Freaks

My best friend CB says I am "flypaper for freaks".. Our definition being that if there is a drunken, unstable, psychopathic, emotionally crippled fuckwit within a 5 mile radius, they will usually find me, like deranged moths to a flame.. This theory of hers has been proven time and time again.. This most recent event incedence has, once again, given me cause to pause in consideration of my desire to remain a single, heterosexual female.. Sometimes it just seems it might be a more prudent course of action to go all Catholic and become a nun, switch teams and become gay, "full on Liberache gay" or just admit defeat, lower my standards appropriately and start corresponding on Meet An Inmate.

Our story begins as I am out jogging at Lake Lynn, a nice scenic jaunt, not too far from my parent's house.. I've got the iPod feeding angry rock music directly into my gray matter, the weather is lovely and life is good.. As I make my first round, I notice a moderately cute boy on his bike pass me and smile.. Ego boost.. As I head further around the path, he comes around again and says hi... Interesting.. The third time we pass, he pulls over before we meet and waits for me.. By now, I'm feeling pretty damn good about myself..

Pride goeth before the fall, my children..

Now, I'm quite happy with my position on Team Single but I am forever willing to make new friends and if I happen to meet Prince Charming in the process, well, so be it..

Semi-Cute Biker Boy and I strike up a conversation about generic, non-committal things and spend about 4 minutes establishing rapport.. So far so good.. Then, as inevitably it does with every man I meet, the other shoe drops.. He proceeds to tell me he's had a really stressful week.. I express sympathy and ask what happened to make the week so stressful, assuming work pressures, maybe he was moving, you know, normal shit.. This was a highly erroneous assumption.. And asking about it was a mistake of biblical proportions..

Over the course of the next 15 minutes he proceeds to tell me the entire history of his recently ended relationship with his former fiancee, about all the fights, ugliness, bitterness and recriminations, infidelity, emotional abuse with the tale culminating in their most recent breakup, predominately centered around the fact that she got pregnant to try to trap him into marriage.. And than when he said he didn't want to get married but wanted to be a part of his child's life, she decided to terminate the pregnancy.. That the whole reason that he was out riding his bike that day was becase at that very moment, she was having an abortion to end the pregnancy..

Yeeeaaahhh.. I'm going to have to go with "over-share".. That this may have been more information than was necessary to reveal a whopping 19 minutes into our tenure as acquaintances.. Actually, it may have been more information than was necessary to reveal outside the sanctity of the confessional booth.. To quote Sliding Doors (a brilliant movie) "I have people I consider soul mates that don't confide this much in me.."..

I spent about 5 more minutes wrapping up the conversation as gracefully as possible (a daunting task for even the most genial of individuals) and said I hoped things worked out for the best for him.. He asked if we could possibly get together one night for a drink to discuss more pleasant topics.. Like what?? Genocide in Dufar? Rectal polyps?

To hasten my departure, I accepted his email address (his name @ your basic popmail.com) and said I would drop him a note so we could get together.. And promptly made a mental note to switch back to Shelly Lake for future jogging excursions.. I also prayed earnestly that God would be kind and our paths would never cross again.. Apparently, God is not on my side these days..

Fast forward to a last week at Alive After 5, our local Thursday night live music gathering..

AJ and I are out having a few frosty adult beverages and plotting our next locale change when she suddenly nudges me and sayd we are getting ready to have company.. I turn to see who it is..

Fuck.

Well, hello there Crazy Biker Boy.. He comes up, gives me a hug and says he was hoping to run into me again as he had never heard from me.. I quickly say I must have had the address wrong because the email "bounced" and I was sorry.. His reply was that he suspected that and had set up a special email account just for me, in case he ran into me again.. I braced myself and asked what it was.. He replied "pleaseemailme @ your basic popmail.com"..

I swear to God. AJ probably will need extensive dental work because her jaw just about broke when it hit the ground..

Being the get-along-girl that I am, I promised to write him and quickly wrapped up the conversation and got the holy hell out of there.. As my guy radar has been known to be massively flawed in the past, I double checked with AJ as to the creepiness factor of the whole exchange.. She was in complete agreement that on a scale of 1 to Insane, that was a "Jame Gumb".. As in "It's puts the lotion in the basket or it get's the hose"...

Ok, so maybe I'm being too harsh.. Maybe this was someone who had been through alot of emotional turmoil and just wanted to get to know someone and make a new friend... I can admit that I have at times cringed when I had to reveal to people that I am unemployed and divorced with 2 kids, all the while, worrying that they are immediately summarizing that into "welfare mom".. I empathize with him for going through a difficult time and am sure that he was really a nice guy.. However, the part of me that is Co-Captain for Team Single was totally freaked out by a guy who felt a need to tell me all about his last relationships and ex-fiancee's abortion less than 20 minutes after meeting me and then set up a special email with "pleaseemailme" as the account name.. No matter how you look at it, that's just 8 shades of fucked up..

Every night as I tuck myself in at night, after I pray for family and friends and world peace, I say a wee prayer for Seriously Insane Biker Boy in hopes that he finds closure from his troubled relationship and the peace, love and the happiness that we all deserve..

And that we never, ever cross paths again.. No, seriously, God, I mean it this time.. Please, no more...

Amen

SPF ??? The Numbers Game

And then he asked the infamous question "What's your number?".. Yeah, right, like anyone ever answers that question with any degree of honesty past the age of 18.. Actually, we lie no matter what age we are at.. There may be a perfect month when we're, say 23, when we've only had maybe 2 serious boyfriends, 2 sort of boyfriends, that one night stand at the Chi Phi Purple Jesus mixer and the sum total of our sexual partners is enough to give us age appropriate bedroom credibility but not so high as to cause jaws to drop.. Then the next week the serious boyfriend cheats on you, your self-esteem takes a nose dive and you somehow manage to triple your number inside of a month.. I guarantee you at least half the women who read this will identify with that phenomenon.. After that, there's no going back and you just never tell the truth again.. So what's my number? I'll tell you what I tell everyone.. That's between me and my God..

So I grabbed a number out of my ass that was actually on the low side of life and to my utter amazement he was still shocked.. Like that scene from Clerks... When I was leaving, I half expected him to yell "Try not to sleep with anyone on your way to the parking lot..".. We sort of got into it verbally, arguing about how men are viewed as studs and women are viewed as sluts and then I completely threw out a number to the point of being ridiculous just to jerk him around: "Ok, just say it's somewhere in the triple digits, like, say for example 168".. This even further appalled him, but amazingly, at the end of the evening, he STILL TRIED TO TAKE ME HOME.. I'm guessing his assumption was if I was at 168, what the hell, why wouldn't I make it 169??

Now, without revealing my number, I will say that I am obviously not a virgin but I do have a penchant for serial monogamy. However, being 33 years old and single during an age where sex by the 5th date is generally the norm, hell, that's probably a conservative estimate, unless Prince Charming gets his shit together and shows up real fuckin' soon, I'm assuming my number will only go up.. Kind of like the express elevator at the Chrysler Building.. In all honesty, most long term single women I know in their 30's have had a fair amount of sexual partners.. It's not because they are of loose moral virtue or indescriminate sexual taste but because it's just inevitable..

So what would most guys say if a girl said her number was 25? Is that high? Is it low? Does that indicate she's slept with the entire highschool basketball team? That she was married? Maybe that she slept with married men? Engaged? What real information does that number convey?

Calculating An Average SPF (Sexual Partner Factor)

Let's run a rough draft for the average single 35 year old woman's number.. Let me reiterate this is not the rundown of mine or any member of the Sisterhood, just an approximate calculation based on what we deem to be normal dating experience.

Definitions:

Serious Relationship - Monogomous Committed Dating aka "Boyfriend, Fiancee or Husband"
Dating Relationship - Monogomous, Non-Committed aka "This guy I went out with"
Non-Relationship Recurring Partner - No Dating, Sex More Than Once aka "Fuck Buddy"(altho, this can be someone you hang out with, no hope of a relationship but have had sex with on more than one occaision, aka "Repeat Offenders")
Non-Recurring Partner - No Dating, Sex One Time aka "One Night Stand" (Not entirely accurate.. This also includes those guys who never called again.. Technically we call those "Assholes"..)

Let's run through an example, shall we??

The last 2 years of High School and College (6 years) - Let's say 3 serious relationships, a drunken one night stand with a frat boy, whoops, I mean 1 non-recurring partner and 1 dating relationship.. Total - 5.. Not bad.. Less than one lover per year..

Post College 20's (8 years) - Let's go with 2 serious relationships, one lasting 1 years, one lasting 4 years.. Take a year off for grieving time.. During the remaining 2 years of single time, assume one non-relationship recurring partner, one non-recurring partner per year and 1 dating relationship every 6 months.. Total - 9 (Sum Total - 14)

Early to Mid -30's (5 years) - Assume 2 serious relationships of no more than a year each, and during the remaining 3 years assume 1 non-recurring partner per year, 1 non-relationship recurring partner per year, and 1 dating relationship per year. Total - 11 (Sum Total - 25)

How about that? We're looking at a 35 year old woman with a number of 25 over 19 years of sexual activity just through a normal course of dating and life experiences.. Can the number be lower? Absolutely.. If a woman was off the market for longer periods of time during relationships or marriage or if she is sexual only in committed monogamous relationships of greater than a year. The reality is, that's not bloody likely.. But if you look at the sexual history above, is this someone who is a tramp? Hardly, the history is based primarily in relationships, with limited non-recurring partners, most of which were probably of the Asshole variety.. The average number of lovers is 1.32 per year.. Not exactly someone making the rounds on the Strip now is it?? Yet most men would get hung up on the number of 25 without realizing that there is more to the story than a number..

Of course, the real kicker as I terminated the numbers discussion was when I sharply pointed out to him, it's better to sleep with an SPF 45 with protection, than an SPF 4 without.. That's one way to get burned for sure..

In the end, that's all your number is.. Just a number..

Men are from Hell...

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the gynocologist..

I stopped by a coffee shop to kill some time and read the paper... Lo and behold a cute guy sits down on the couch across from me and strikes up a conversation.. The first thing I notice about him is that he is wearing a wedding ring.. I don't jump to any negative conclusions, it is a coffe shop and I don't always assume everyone is trying to get in my pants.. As I am getting ready to leave, he asks if he could get my phone number and take me out for a drink one night.. I asked, ever so politely, if he would be bringing his wife and if I should bring my kids?? He proceeded to tell me that he is in Raleigh for business several times a month and that he lives in Ohio, further, he and his wife have an "understanding" about when he travels as she her sex drive disappeared after the birth of their 4th child.. That he felt a real connection with me and would like to get to know me better.. To this I replied that there was no point in getting to know me better b/c if he did, he'd know just how lucky he was that I was just walking away and not dumping a steaming hot chai tea over his head..

Out of the ordinary?? Nooooo.. Not even close..

Several months back, D and I were having drinks at the pub (as we do) and were approached by several gentlemen.. Again, no harm, no foul, we did the ring check, 2 with, 2 without.. One of the "without"s was passibly cute, he chatted us up and eventually asked for my phone number.. I gave it to him way too early in the night.. By the end of the evening, he was blotto, all charm had evaporated, he got handsy and tried to kiss me twice.. Blech!! After he finally left, I ended up striking up a conversation and hitting it off with a friend of his that came in a bit later than the rest (and was therefore sober).. When I asked the friend to call me, he expressed concern that I had also given my number to his friend.. This did take a bit of backpeddling to explain, but I was honest and said at the beginning of the night, he seemed ok but by the end, he was a jackass.. At this point, he tells me not to sweat it, I probably wouldn't be hearing from him again, anyhow because he was married with 2 kids.. Sweet.. Way to affirm my already non-existent belief in the sanctity of marriage..

So what? Lightning strikes twice? Uhh, more than that, kiddies..

Remember when Halloween, AJ and I met up with 2 handsome gents? I had previously written about how I had met up with Popeye and scared him off by joking around that I was a part time dominatrix (which I think I might be good at, in all reality).. Humorous post-script to that story.. come to find out, Popeye was married as well.. AND he and his wife are swingers.. Nice one.. He get's a bit squemish about the fact that I jokingly told him I spank people for a living but he has no problem passing his wife around like a joint at a frat party? I think "ewwwww" doesn't begin to cover it..

My beloved CB once said I was "flypaper for freaks".. I think we're going to have to ammend that to say "married freaks".. Altho, technically, I seem to attract the weird ones, married or not.. On one hand, I can see the "nothing ventured, nothing gained" attitude from the guy at the coffee shop but the guy from the pub, I just don't get.. He lives here.. What if I had seen him out day at the WalMart with his wife and kids and walked up and said something? "Hey! Gosh, I was wondering if I'd ever see you again after we almost made out that night.. I guess you must have lost my number, right??".. Something tells me that would not have made the little woman happy..

Yep, it may be time to start really weighing my options and seeing if that whole lesbian thing is worth a go or not..

Waxing Philosophical

Friday night I went on another date.. With yet another man that I will never be involved with in any meaningful way other than friends (T-2).. Here's the question I keep asking myself: Why is it we only want what we can't have? Actually I'm not even sure if that's the right question.. All I know is that the only 2 men I have had any interest in an actual relationship with since my break-up with P are J and T-2.. J, who's unresolved ex issues seem to have solidified into more of a "just not that into you" standpoint and T-2 who has so many neuroses that a functional relationship would just never be possible..

Amazingly, these 2 men are strikingly alike in the characteristics that make them desireable.. The are both independent, strong, accomplished, successful, established, sharp witted, smart, funny and charming.. But when I look at the other gentlemen I am dating (and yes, that's plural.. I'm essentially *this close* to having a male harem.. I actually have double booked twice in the last 2 weeks and once in the coming week.. That's tricky stuff..) there are several others that also bear those same characteristics (maybe not as big of a smartass as J and T-2) but the difference is they aren't utterly emotionally unavailable to me.. Several have made it very clear that they are very into me.. One actually wants to take me out of town to spend time away from the Usual Suspects to get to know me.. Funny thing that.. When T-2 and I first dated last fall, we raced to see who could "end it" first.. Him because I have kids and complications and me because he was insanely neurotic and an athiest.. Now that I know there's no hope in it, I find myself seeing him through rose colored glasses and romanticising him and "what might have been".. Same thing with J, several days before he said we couldn't see each other anymore I was seriously doubting that I wanted to keep dating him.. He wasn't overly attentive, seeing me seemed like an afterthought at times and he was a smartass to the point that it annoyed me.. He was even a smartass during sex, for God's sake.. There has to be some boundaries.. Now that he's unavailable I find myself overlooking the self centeredness and lack of romantic attention.

I actually suspect that if either J or T-2 actually wanted to start dating me seriously, I'd give it a shot and then probably end up dumping them because I was able to have them.. I think that emotionally, I'm still not ready to get involved.. That anyone that smacks of genuine interest and possible real romantic intention for me scares me shitless.. I'm looking for this mythologically perfect relationship and tend to see it's potential in places where I know it will never exist.. So, in the end, maybe it's not them, that they are not the ones that are holding the cards.. That maybe they are not as wonderful and spectacular I would believe, that it is simply because I can't have them that I can fictionalize the potential relationship into something that probably wouldn't happen even if they could resolve issues, get therapy and become fully actualized, functioning, rational men.. If we stop and consider that possibility, what conclusion can I draw, what life's lesson do I take away as I traverse the path of singlehood in search of a companion? That I alone hold the keys to my happiness? That maybe part of settling down is just settling? That there is no one perfect person out there?

Or maybe I'm just fucked in the head..

Drive by dating.. Bits and pieces..

OK so I've had a few random occurances that don't really fit into a specific article or my perpetual entry of bad dates.. This is just the flotsam and jetsam floating in the dating pool..

I had the best email exchange, to date, on Yahoo just last night.. It was a georgous guy that I'd sent an email to that responded to let me know that he wasn't dating these days, he had too much going on with his adopted children, sick parent and teaching classes at a local university.. Why is it the good ones are always taken?? Or conversely he's a pathological liar and was just trying to make me feel better.. But hypothetically, he was hot, smart, educated, cares for his ailing parents and had 2 adopted kids?? Dammit.. He told me to keep looking b/c eventually, after kissing alot of frogs, I would find a real prince.. My reply??

Don't even get me started on my extensive experience in "frogs".. One of my best friends and I have a "non-lesbian life partnership" agreement (We're just giving up, buying a house together and becoming pseudo-nuns) that kicks in once we hit a predetermined number of bad dates.. Sad to say, we're rapidly approaching said number.. Did you know that 3 out of 4 people suffer from some form of mental disturbance? This statistic is only hard to believe if you aren't single and dating, otherwise you find yourself questioning if the 1 out of 4 people who is supposed to be normal really exists.. or if they were the authors of the study in the first place ;)

To which he "LOL-ed" and replied he was very sorry he wasn't currently dating but if circumstances changed, could he give me a call b/c I had a great sense of humor and a beautiful smile?? Does that sound familiar to anyone? "If I get my issues worked out, can I call you??".. What am I, the first relationship stop for people coming out of major life changes? On the dating superhighway is there an exit ramp for Rebound Girlfriends with my name on it?? WTF? Whatever the case, it was a genuinely decent exchange and gave me a bit of hope that not all men on Yahoo are psychopathic reprobates..

You had to know that the gods would have to bitch-slap my fragile hope with something that makes me question my will to date and reinforces my belief that I do in fact have some rare chemical imbalance that generates a phermone that is detectable only to freaks of nature, parole violators and the mentally disturbed.. and that said phermone is effectively channelled via the internet..

Yet another Yahoo candidate (I'm just a walking advertisement for Yahoo, huh? Except that all my experiences with Yahoo have sucked ass).. Let's call this one "I'm Nuts and Maybe A danger To Everyone I meet".. Initially, INMATE seemed normal, but then, don't they all.. We clarified that he did actually look like his pictures, had a 3 year old son and was not a Jehovah's Witness and proceeded from there, affirming that my screening process has got room for improvement.. We never actually met, which is why this doesn't qualify as a bad date but it probably could count at least as a half a date, given the circumstances..

So after chatting a bit he discloses that his former business partner was recently convicted and sentenced to 9 years in prison for violation of SPAM-ing laws but that he had left the business prior to the illegal activities.. He said he felt he had to mention it b/c his name was associated with the criminal charges, even though he was never involved in them.. I did a little research and yep, his name was all over the news associated with this trial.. I'm not a complete fucking idiot (Oh wait, yes I am..) but the info I found seemed to support his story that he was not actually involved in the criminal trial, just that he was a former partner in the business.. Of course, the slight skepticism that remained should have been exascerbated into full fleged "abandon ship" panic by the fact that he seemed to have no current discernable job and indicated his income came from "investors from up North" and that he worked primarily in real estate "shelters" and "non-traditional investment opportunities ". Most of his income was generated through "undocumented commission".. Uhh, wasn't that dialog cut from the Soprano's?? I chose not to ask for more details..

Despite the red flags, alarm bells and the sound of the siren they use for impending nuclear power plant disasters, I agreed to meet him for a date the next week as I was going out of town for the weekend (why I would agree to this is covered at the end of this article).. I called Sunday when I got back and left a quick message, just saying hi and to call me back.. About an hour later I get a call back.. From his mother.. She wanted to know if I knew her son.. "Uhhh, sort of? Why??".. Apparently he disappeared a few days before and she saw my name on his caller ID and wanted to know if I had any contact with him.. I said nope, none since last week and I had never met him in person, didn't know anything about him, knew nothing about his business activities or what he even looked like (just in case we were dealing with a wire-tap, I don't want to be the subject of a mob hit).. I did ask if his 3 year old son was ok, if he was missing as well.. She said oh no, she had been watching him all weekend.. I said if I heard from him, I would be sure to ask him to call home.. After we hung up, I changed his number in my caller ID from his name to "DNA" as in Do Not Answer!!..

I have not heard back from my Sunday email to date so I am not sure if he ever turned up.. I have a morbid curiosity and wish I knew but I'm not curious enough (or morbid enough) to actually ever make contact with this guy ever again.. The part where he was gone for 3 days without calling to check on his kid (no parent does that) has caused me to draw the conclusion that he either is fleeing an indictment or ran afoul of the mob.. Neither of which screams Happily Ever After..

You might be asking yourself, why I would bother with continuing the online dating, regular dating or even taking the chance of leaving my house every day for that matter, when every date, nay, every single interaction with the opposite sex is such a disaster.. Simply put, I'm hoping to actually capitalize on my misfortune and love of writing by scoring a book deal at some point and the more hell I go through, the closer I get to my goal.. When I was happily involved with P, I never had anything to write about.. The way things are going these days, I suspect my book could rival the legnth of War and Peace by the time I settle into another relationship..

Hell, if INMATE is any indication, I'll probably finish the book by the end of the summer..

The 17 Bad Dates Rule.

Cindy Chupack, SatC writer and dating goddess, proposed the theory that after a breakup you have to go on 17 bad dates before you get a good one.. I'm not sure if she was specifically referring to a good date or a good man, but I'm beginning to believe it may apply to both.. To test this theory, for purely scientific purposes, I decided track my own dating progress to see how long it takes me to get to the "good man" part of the equation..

Before I could begin to chronicle my disatrous dating experiences, I had to determine the appropriate starting point.. Do I start after I officially ended things with P or after I was dumped by J? P was an actual relationship while J was only 3 dates.. I think the fact that the first 2 dates with J were fabulous and had all the indications of hitting the "good man" mark, means I probably can't count them so I decided to call it a draw and count the date that J dumped me as Date #1.. It definitely qualified as a bad date..

After my 13th bad date, which was essentially a repeat of Date #1, right down to who it was with, I gave up.. To be honest, keeping track of my bad dates has only served to depress the hell out of me and possibly caused me to reconsider chastity and a life safely locked in a convent.. The fact that I have ceased to chronicle the tradgedy of my dating life certainly doesn't mean I am done having bad dates.. I'm truly not that optimistic..

Here we go..

1. J dumps me. See previous entry for more details.

2. Dinner with T-2 (yep, that one).. Technically it probably doesn't qualify as a date b/c we are just good friends *and* it was more of a hangout thing for his birthday *AND* the evening in question also occurred the day before J dumped me but the fact that he spent the whole night flirting with my roommate while I was making him dinner was annoying enough for me to decide to count it anyways.

3. Went out dancing on Cinqo de Mayo with M, a 22 year old that can do amazing things with his hips.. Let me clarify that comment.. This guy is the best dancer on the East Coast which is saying alot for a straight man. This was probably the only time in my life I woke up sore the day after a date where no sex was involved.. It definitely counts as he paid for the drinks and there was some random smooching on the dancefloor.. The fact that I could have babysat for him while I was still in college virtually eliminates any chance of him being anything other than a hot dance partner and incredible ego boost..

4. Drinks with a T-3 from Yahoo personals. Yes, I know, I know, you think I would have learned my lesson but I'm willing to give it another shot.. The look of panic on men's faces when they hear "2 kids" once again prompted me to be willing to go the online route.. All my baggage is right out there so anyone that has a problem with it won't waste my time. It's the equivalent of wearing a dating biohazard sign. Anyways, nice guy, 2 kids, church goer, lots of promise.. We met for drinks at a local restaurant.. At the risk of losing points, I have to say it wasn't a bad date, I just felt absolutely no sparkage between us.. But he was such a nice guy, I agreed to a future date, just to make sure there's nothing there and to fill up more of my dating slots..

5. Dinner with a huge, drunk, obnoxious, redneck. This was not a date of my choice. I was sucked into flying wingman for D on our girls weekend,while she was spending her previously scheduled wedding day on a date with an official Cute Boy whom she met the night before. This situation was in fact just as twisted as it sounds. The dinner was actually not that bad but after it was over and we headed to a bar, HDOR proceeded to get pretty schockered and chase away every remotely eligible cute guy within a 10 foot radius. I called it a night at 11:00 and went back to the hotel in favor of a book and some soft core porn on the Oxygen channel.

6. Dinner with JC, also of Yahoo personals. This is where we encounter the stock and standard problem with the personals.. After several emails and exchanged pictures, I pushed for a face to face meeting at which point he back peddaled and suggested I would be disappointed in him.. This set the alarm bells to ringin' and the red flags a wavin'.. And with good reason.. When he arrived to pick me up, it became obvious that the pictures were (once again) not very recent.. This was an individual who described himself as athletic and sent pics of himself with what appeared to be a 32' waist.. That was probably about 50 lbs ago.. I am not shallow by any stretch of the imagination but, damn.. That's just false advertising.. I would assume most men would be pissed if I touted myself as a tall, busty blonde who sports C cups and then showed up looking like, well, me.. Not that "me" is bad, but it ain't a tall, busty blonde with C cups.. You might think this was what sank the deal for this guy, but actually, the deal breaker was his admission that he was a Jehovah's Witness.. The words "nail" and "coffin" immediately sprang to mind..

7. Movie at T-2's house. Another "techinically this is probably not a date". No physical contact (just friends, remember) but we did have a beer and watch a movie. I count it because I went over to his place to watch said movie after my disatrous date with JC from Yahoo. I think it counts as there was a drink involved and I double booked for the same night.. Essentially the T-2 hang out rides on the coattails of JC's date. That's a fair play in my rule book.

8. I had a 15 minute smooching session with a friend, HIB, after he gave me a ride home from downtown. This might be gray area in the use of the word "date" b/c he kind of has a girlfriend (that he claims not to like), but he did buy me a drink, we spent about an hour hanging out before we left and there was kissing involved.. I blame the Miller Lite and my enforced celibacy..

9. Second date with T-3 at the local comedy club.. This has to count as a bad date, not because of my companion but the comedian.. I have no race relations issues but the fact is I am a itty bitty white girl.. We went to see a very hard core black comedian.. Bear in mind, I am used to the foul mouths of Irish bartenders and dated a Scotsman with Tourettes so precious little offends or bothers me but even this was a bit much.. His performance was so foul, raunchy, racist and profance that I was actually embarrassed. That's saying something.. I felt bad for T-3 b/c I think he was mortified that the show was beyond comedic or risque.. At one point it was just this guy shouting "N" this and "mother fucker" that .. I couldn't tell where the profanity ended and the jokes began.. I quite literally morphed into my mother for a few minutes: "This is what passes for comedy these days??"

10. The Inevitable Sex with the Ex.. Yeah, yeah, yeah.. I ended up giving into my hormones and allowing my libido to take the wheel for a night.. I count it as a date b/c P cleaned up before I came over (at 11:00pm), I had a breath strip before I went in, we talked over beers for 15 minuted before the sex commenced and he kissed me goodbye at the doorway.. Oh come on, there's a reason the phrase "Sex with an Ex" was invented..

11. This has to be the most humiliating bad date ever, at least for me, that did not include getting dumped at Ben and Jerry's. It was a strange enough night already, given that T-2 and I kicked off the evening by having a very long drawn out discussion about whether we could be "FB's" or if our friendship had progressed to the point that intimacy would be a bad idea. I said it had, he disagreed. Imagine that. Anyhow, it was one of those "phermone" nights as my best friend CB calls them.. I give off some bizzare phermone that has every freak within a 10 mile radious lit up like a Christmas tree.. Ended up leaving and going to hang out with M, a "friends only" guy and watching a movie.. Then halfway through the movie I started getting strange vibe that felt like a pass was getting ready to be made so I left before we moved from "friends only" to a new, unknown label.. After I got home, I got a call from a person with whom I can only term our relationship as "complicated".. We've never dated, will never date and generally don't even care too much for each other but we have a strange sort of chemistry between us.. So I get this call where he proceeds to invite me over to watch a movie.. What the heck.. it's only midnight.. I have no intentions of there being any naked time but I am kicking around the thought that this may be yet another indivudal with whom I am on the cusp of finding a new label for. As I have had several drinks, I call a cab to ride over.. Once I get to his neighborhood, I give him a call to remind me where the actual house is.. No answer.. I call again.. No answer.. And again.. No answer.. After about 10 tries I tell the cabbie to head back home.. The next morning I get a text message from him saying he was sorry but he fell asleep.. Priceless.. This, my friends, is the sludge sucking bottom of the dating pool.. When they can't even be bothered to stay awake for the date, you've hit rock bottom.

12. I'm actually counting the last one twice. He fell asleep, people. That's worse than being stood up.. I was stood up by virtue of him being unconsious.. The blow my ego took was harsh enough that counting it only twice is probably a total underestimation. At the very least it evens out all those "pseudo-dates" with T-2.

13. Lunch date with J (I know, I know.. I'm a glutton for punishment). This one started out innocently enough. He emailed me to tell me he liked a band I recommended to a bunch of people. We started flirty bantering back and forth.. Stupid me, I thought that our last conversation where we laid out the ground rules about how as long as he had issues, I wasn't up for the "let's be friend's" thing would have set standards for future contact. Primarily, don't contact me if you still have issues, I am not your therapist. I did lay out the ground rules and assumed all players would be following them appropriately. So, after a week of increasingly playful banter, I agree to a lunch, assuming that he's going to be telling me that he has relinquinshed all mental roadblocks to our blissful union and we can proceed to the "happily ever after" part of life.. OK, I just figured he wanted to get naked again with some expectation of exclusivity.. So after a lovely lunch, I finally hit him with "What gives?".. Whoops.. My bad.. He hasn't resolved his issues yet, he just wanted to see me because I am cool to hang out with.. Translation: He just wants to know he can still have me, which I have just proved by giving a shit.. For the love of God.. I reiterated my position that friends is not an offer on the table and then we called it a day.. Later I ended up emailing him to say I'd reconsidered and friends is fine.. Not being friends was my reaction when I hoped we would end up dating at some point.. I've had the whole head-smack moment where I realize (again) that as the saying goes "There are no points for second place, gentlemen.." and that we can be friends because I am no longer willing to go out with him, even if he does get everything resolved.. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself today..

You believe me, right??

Getting ahead of the learning curve..

So the FNG lasted a grand total of 3 weeks and 3 dates.. Not bad for a first run.. As previously noted, he did pay for dinner, owned furniture and was fun to hang out with.. He also had "unresolved issues" with a former fiancée who lives in Europe.. Actually, his opening line was "I’d like to ruin dessert with a serious conversation.". Fuck me, I just wanted to eat my Ben and Jerry’s and go home for a nap..

I think it's time we implemented some rules around this phrase and "We need to talk".. Everyone knows what those words mean.. I actually considered telling him to just stop, any conversation that begins that way ends with the other person being dumped and to just save us both the mind numbingly uncomfortable conversation that he thinks we need to have.. As a matter of fact, we should all carry a card that says "We need to talk" on it and, at any time in a relationship that you are handed this card, the rule is, no words are spoken, you both just stand up, shake hands and go your separate ways.. But no, we all just sit there and listen to the long winded explanation that includes many assurances of what a wonderful person we are, just not quite wonderful enough..No matter how you slice it, you still end up dumped and that’s 8 shades of “suck”..

The gist of this situation is that it is apparently preferable to spend time resolving issues in a ‘DNR’ relationship with someone that lives on another continent than to date me.. His logic was that she was coming for a visit next month and he wanted to spend time with her to potentially close the book on the relationship.. That they needed to resolve some open issues.. Translation: His ex is coming to town and he might accidentally have sex with her. I speak “guy”, altho, it wasn’t exactly rocket science to figure that one out. By that time she was scheduled to arrive in town, we would have been dating 2.5 months which would definitely put him into monogamy territory.. He has actual morals and principles, and he doesn’t want to “cheat” so he's got to use the get out of jail free card for sex with the ex.

Now this development would have been relatively unremarkable if that was the sum of the conversation, I mean, it was only 3 dates, that’s fair play for ending things due to potential nakedness issues with an ex, however, there was the attempt to leave the door open for future interaction.. After he told me about his "issues" (which sound alot like subscriptions) he asked the classic male question: "Can we still be friends?".. He wanted us to stay in touch, go out and grab beers together and be best buddies.. I think it was a bit of a shock when I said "I'm going to have to go with no, sorry, we can't.." Call me nuts but I have enough male friends in my life and while I'm always open to having more, I tend to set certain boundaries for my male friends.. The minimum being they can't be adorable guys I've slept with that dumped me to work things out with the last Great Love of Their Life.. I tend to marry those guys, come to think of it.. No seriously, this was exactly what happened with the ex-hubby.. It was freaky deja-vu time...

After I finished explaining my unwillingness to repeatedly rub salt into the wound by hanging out together he came out with yet another gem.. "If I get these issues worked out with the ex, could I call you and would you be willing to pick this back up?".. Essentially, he wanted to know if, after spending time (a transparent euphemism for having sex) with his ex for 8-10 days and she went back across an ocean, therefore limiting their relationship's continuation, could he give me a call so we can start dating again?? Oh boy, lucky me.. I get to be the consolation prize in the dating sweepstakes.. Yes, in the Miss Girlfriend Pageant, if the actual selected winner (the ex) is unable to fulfill her duties (because there's this ocean between them) then, being the first runner up, I can wear the crown.. I have no doubt what he was asking was meant as a genuine compliment but second place is second place, no matter how you look at it.. Now, being that as we've covered before, I am a complete fucking idiot where men are concerned, I did not exactly say no, but I did tell him he would have to make major effort and that he would have to convince me he was worth taking a chance on again..

I gotta admit, I really liked him, a first in a long time.. I would get the stomach flip when I saw him and he actually made me a bit tongue tied and self-conscious.. Half the time I blurted out completely random statements that had nothing to do with our current conversation.. Come to think of it he probably dumped me because I acted like Rainman on crack.. He had many traits and characteristics that I could look up to, respect and admire.. That and he had furniture.. I'm telling you, given my last relationship, a man with furniture is hot.. In discussing the remote possibility that he would call to give it another shot, one of my beloved guy friends (you know, the ones I haven't slept with and that haven't dumped me..) pointed out, even if he came back in a month, flowers, sash and tiara in hand begging for me to accept the Miss Girlfriend title and all duties, rights and privileges that accompany it, I was still just the runner up.. Double ouch..

Even after some deep thought and discussion with The Sisterhood, I'm still not quite sure what to make of this guy and this situation.. Mature break-ups/dumpings are a bit out of the scope of our experience. Given the disappointing sum of our collected interactions with the male of the species, we tend to be a bit cynical and harsh in the face of such situations.. And to be honest most of our dumpings/break-ups/emotional implosions have been much more messy, filled with venom and recriminations. As much as being stung by rejection tends to make me bitter and typically pushes me into full character assassination mode, I have to admit, I'm lacking that caustic rage I tend to have right about now.. He handled the whole thing in a calm and mature manner and given that he's not an idiot skirt chasing 25 year old boy but a 38 year old skirt chasing man with many admirable qualities, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt on this and am willing to take the whole conversation at face value..

We take a little something away from each dating experience and this was no exception.. I learned that there might actually be a few mature grown-up men out there that aren't pathological fuckwits.. And that I probably should wait longer than a week to sleep with a guy I really like.. And he learned how to text message.. Yeah, I'm still thinking I came out on top in this.. I doubt I'll actually hear from him again as, sadly, my well honed personal cynicism is leaning towards this was a grand calculated move on his part to end things but still look like a good guy (as the saying goes "he's just not that into you") but at least he ended the encounter with dignity and maturity..

Stupid boy.