Digital Love

My sentiment exactly multicolored humanoid…

I am not sure what is worse speed dating or first dates set up via digital media?  At least with speed dating all the contestants are set up right in front of you from the start, no awkward look arounds at the restaurant or outside the meeting spot.  Those first few moments before meeting someone in person for the first time is pretty daunting, well at least I think so.  Dates could take a quick look and then dash for the door if they wanted to, maybe I should of took that route on a few of these, ha! Kidding.  That is pretty cruel.

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Mr. Seattle slowly but surely morphed into Mr. Stalker, I should of been more cautious than gracious.  After a total of 5 unanswered voicemails and multiple emails on absolutely nothing, I think possibly he received the hint.  Mr. Stalker’s over zealousness got to me and wore me out, I couldn’t keep up with it, and I just needed space.  I should of got the hint of this when he texted me a total of 20-30 minutes after the first date…

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Surprisingly Mr. Margaritas sent me a mid week text, asking how I was.  I was not expecting that at all.  Mr. Margaritas and I ended up going on an impromptu second date on Friday in my neighborhood.  This date consisted of  a rousing game of Uno(I won all games by the way).  Mr. Margaritas was a gentleman the entire night(not sure why I didn’t see this on the first date) and he talked of “future” get togethers.  The second go around, we had more to talk about, and I really enjoyed our conversation on religion, it was kind of refreshing.  The tentative third date is set for this coming Friday, where I venture out to northern Virginia.

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Mr. RIT and I had been emailing each other since the beginning of my joining chemistry.com.  These emails were small and pretty boring, we didn’t really discuss much.  I learned more about him on the first date, then I did from the 10 emails we sent to each other.  After a weekend delay some weeks back, we decided to meet on a week night, after I got off work in Crystal City for dinner at Teds.  I was mighty tired from the work week, so I opted out not to drink anything, and had a small burger.  Mr. RIT and I, had the most a-typical first date, we didn’t have any qualms about going with the old standards of favorite movies, hometowns, favorite tv shows, favorite vacations, and excerpts about our own families.  I learned Mr. RIT was from upstate NY, went to RIT which I learned has a 95% male student population, go figure; by way of NY he ended up in Houston, which he didn’t really enjoy but he did work for NASA at the time, so that was the perk of Texas.  Basically our date was just a nice, normal dinner that ended with very standard “let’s get together” sometime soon emails.  I just don’t think we really clicked at all, we just didn’t have anything in common really, but  at least we were very good at keeping up appearances when we did meet.

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The Professor(in reality he is just a PhD student living in DC) was my wild card.  The Professor’s emails were stunning, they were witty and clever, he blew everyone else out of the water with his knowledge of music, movies, poetry, and being from my area of Virginia was a definite plus as well.  Digitally and verbally I thought he was “the one”, this would be the date that would shame the others under a rock. Ha!  Never be over optimistic, if it looks too good to be true, it usually is.

The Professor suggested we meet up on a Monday night at Rocket Bar in Chinatown.  I never had the best experiences at this bar, maybe because I always went on a weekend after the movies.  The bar was practically empty at 8:30, which I didn’t mind, all the games were open(but not once did I use them that night).  Also the bartender I had actually was able to talk, that’s never happened with me at this bar, they usually were far too busy to even hand me a drink.

I ended up being the first one at the bar for a good 20 minutes and while sitting on my stool, I heard someone ask for a drink, I turned around, and it was the Professor.   I was the first one to greet him and now that I think about it, he didn’t say one word when we initially first met, there was just awkward silence on his end.  This was the trend of the night, as I sipped on my beer, and just kept getting chattier and chattier, and I asked alll the questions.  The Professor put in a few words from now and again, but I did most of the talking which is quite odd if you really know me.  Not like what I was saying was very coherent, I was just babbling because he wouldn’t talk, or take initiative with the conversation, so my talk box just went on autopilot,and my brain was screaming (what the hell are you talking about?).  I even asked for a Red Stripe one hour in, which I don’t even drink, seriously that bottle bothers me, I think the one sided convo was getting to me.

After much probing we discovered we had a few things in common, weird things, but still I guess it was a start.  Two hours in, after the Professor had demonstrated the rude/bored/far away look ( turning of the head looking elsewhere, not saying anything while I talked) far too many times, I just wanted to go home, or at least finish my Red Stripe without him there.   Maybe talk to the bartender(I did, while said Professor was in the bathroom, asked him how he thought the date was going, no comment). I even told the Professor multiple times he looked tired and I am sure he had to get up early for the single class he teaches once a week.  11:00 pm we mutually decided to go our separate ways.  He walked to the metro and I decided to take a short walk to the bus, I even complemented him on his jacket before he left, one last failed attempt at being nice.  I think he hurriedly said something about exchanging emails in the future, ha emails, yeahh I doubt that, him and I both knew that.

I think the Professor was seeking some of this unfortunately I am not that.  I am a dental receptionist that happens to like reading and music.

My Red Stripe doused mind was even thinking of sending him an email later that night stating we should never talk to each other again.   Ha, but my sober mind in the morning thanked me for not letting the craziness seep out, I mean why waste good emails on disinterested Professors?

Halloween Plans? Halloween Dates………..

Call Of The Wild

I am no She Wolf but I noticed this past weekend the animalistic tendencies of  others.

Date One with Mr. Margaritas (he enjoyed  girly/fruity drinks)  started out at the very loud, very bright Cafe Citron I had to scream all my questions and comments out over the sound of random whistle blows ( I was told Latin music  encompasses whistles?  per Mr. Margaritas), techno/salsa mixes, strobe lights, and scantly glad women dancing on tables and walls.  It was defiantly a jungle of a place, but I will say they had tasty mango margaritas, and through all the madness our server was very attentive the entire time.  I learned through the roar of the music that Mr. Margaritas was a graduate of JMU, had 2 older sisters one who was named after his father’s winning horse, he was Puerto Rican with a name like Mr. Margaritas,  and was in training to become a Paramedic/Firefighter in Fairfax County.  That was the extent of our conversation, yes a lot of sipping of mango margaritas, and just looking around at the colorful scenery.

My head was throbbing with the pounding of incoherent techno beats, so I suggested we head to U street instead, thus in part due to my decision this leads us to Local 16.  I had been there once before on a weeknight, a very slow weeknight, and  I enjoyed the atmosphere and the decor.  Friday night it was defiantly a totally different place, it was packed for one, so we went upstairs to the dance floor bought a few non-girly drinks, and just basically stood around.  Now I was being hit over the head with rap lyrics and I knew none of the songs, but apparently Mr. Margaritas knew them all, and they were all “good tunes”.

This is when the story becomes interesting. I was just sipping on my drink, looking at the heavy set middle aged man a few feet away from me singing/dancing to a Jay-Z song when lo and behold comes a pack of dark haired temptresses all in little black dresses.  They form the oh so familiar “circle” and slowly but surely their circle moves closer and closer to Mr. Margaritas and I.  I instinctively backed as far into the wall as I could, so they wouldn’t spill my drink.    I then noticed the circle’s leader , started backing up into Mr. Margaritas.  Ha.  She didn’t say anything (which I thought was quite odd, why didn’t she just ask him to dance?)  She just continued to force her backside into him, she was turned around the entire time, and flailing her hands around.  The leader was obviously very keen on the mating habits of female baboons.  Mr. Margaritas just kind of gave me a blank look and shrugged, yet didn’t initiate anything, but still stood his ground.  I wasn’t finished with my drink so I just laughed and continued my middle aged male watching.

I decided that Local 16 wasn’t the best pick, so I offered one more suggestion before the night was over, Solly’s.  It began to rain on our way down U street and through the rain we heard some jazz music, decided to detour into the bar featuring the 5 man jazz band, and to wait for the rain to dissipate some.  It was actually nice listening to the jazz and not talking to Mr. Margaritas.  Reminded me of why I love the District.

Solly’s was our final destination and it was filled with karaoke aka singing along to the jukebox with a bunch of people we didn’t know; along with the jazz it was my favorite spot of the night.

Date One ended with a simple “had fun” text.  I enjoyed U street that night though, even though the actual person I went out on a date went wasn’t as enjoyable, but in all it was fun.  He did give me a dollar for the jukebox though, that made me very happy at the time.

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Date Two with Mr. Seattle ( I have no quirky title for this one just yet) was much, much tamer.    Mr. Seattle is a traveling IT man who flies to Columbus, Ohio by week, and is located in DC for the weekends.  New to the area, he spent Saturday doing some sight seeing before our meet up in which he waited a good hour for me to get off work, just wandering the streets of Foggy Bottom,  I thought that was very nice of him.  I thought Pizza Paradiso would make a good dinner spot and I wanted to try a new beer.  This date had less awkward pauses and silences than the first, Mr. Seattle is a very good guy/person, he was easily excitable, and always kept the conversation going by remembering random things I had written on my profile.  Also we ordered the same pizza (aw how cute).

In all it was a nice dinner and walk through Georgetown.  The end of the night he insisted on walking me to the metro and waiting until my train came.  I received a text message 40 minutes later stating he had successfully found his way back to his car and was excited for next weekend when we tentatively have scheduled a ride on one of those double decker buses (weather permitting of course).  I also received a voicemail this afternoon after work from Mr. Seattle stating he was safely back in Columbus, Ohio.

I don’t know if I should be cautious or grateful?

Next post the road that lead to the first date………

Scary Dating Horror Stories anyone??

Email My Heart

Or just haphazardly shoot at it with pointy cliche arrows.

Much like this cheesy, ultra horrible 1999 Brittney Spears song from her debut album ….Baby One More Time (I know everyone wanted to know the background) emails from active matches on chemistry.com are just as bad.  These are a few of my classic quotes thus far…

“Hopefully you don’t yip and pee everywhere “

REALLY did you actually just type that into an email to someone you potentially want to meet in real life??  Attaching the statement with a smiley does not  make it look any better.  Please don’t compare the  girl to a dog in the first email, save it for the break up thank you very much.

“I am excited over our asset management team finally moving my boxes from one geographic site to another.”

Well I am not very excited about your topic of choice because 1.) I have no clue what exactly you are talking about 2.) This is just as interesting as me talking about the amount of units it takes to undergo a standard root canal 3.) Wow, if this gets you excited I mean how could I possibly not want to meet you in person!

“You know that feeling you get when you see a cute little puppy and your brain breaks and you just sit there and blink a few times and are entirely dumbfounded. You’re sure there’s something you were doing, something you were going to say, and somewhere you should be. But you are entirely overwhelmed with the cuteness? Yeah, that was me with your photo this morning.”

I mean don’t get me wrong, I like a little bit of  flattery now and again, but this just makes a girl like me want to run far far away, especially if you write this in the first email!   It is just a tad bit creepy.  Sappiness and cliches abound with this quote.  Once again with the dog analogies, please stop, especially with a person who cares <>this much about them(I apologize profusely to dog lovers out there).

Needless to say this person is going into the inactive/archived pile.

My Short First Email Bullet Point Presentation:

*Always begin with a standard salutation not with a pet name such as cutie, sweetie, honey, baby ect..(that is just silly)

*Keep the email length at a minimum; please don’t write an entire page about the weather and how many sweaters/shirts you need to keep your body at an appropriate temperature setting.  I just don’t care and I stop reading your email half way in.

* Less adjectives the better.

*Have your email convey a small part of who you are, we hardly know each other; just keep it short, sweet, and to the point.  Please don’t thrust out all your crazyness in one long meandering email,  I usually save my crazyness for at least the 3rd date.

Next post the inevitable first meet up and how you get there……

First date locales?  Your worst, best first date? What was the latest email to bring you to your knees or left you with tears from laughing so hard?

The Periodic Table Of Dating

These are the only 4 elements chemistry.com uses for “determining” an individual’s certain personality type.  There are only 4 types of people in the world according to Dr. Helen Fisher.   Dr. Fisher is a biological anthropologist at Rutgers and I think basically in her free time writes those horrible self help books for women with titles like “Why Him, Why Her?” , “Men are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” ,”What You Feel Can Heal” , “When You Love A Man Who Loves Himself” , “He’s Just Not That Into You”  and the list goes on, on, and on…

Chemistry.com is a huge marketing ploy for her book sales and we go along with her methods because she has obviously done years upon years of research on the mating of human beings.  Why else would she have such a thriving, trendy(ha) website?

After taking Dr. Fisher’s 45 minute questionnaire on chemistry.com I learned that apparently I am an empathic, “big picture” kind of   gal .  The questionnaire  involved reading the faces of random people, asking how long my ring finger is, rating my reaction to PDA, and actually that is basically all I remember from the questionnaire, it was obviously very important.

It is quite interesting though, the chemistry.com bot assigns you this meaningless title/personality track yet they don’t use it at all to “match” you with others, the bot  just gives you a random selection of people in your area.  Unless I a missing something here, why did I need to take the questionnaire in the first place??

Well thanks to Dr. Fisher I know now  I am at least socially and verbally  skilled enough to meet people.  That brings me hope in the deep recesses of the night.

If you are interested in a mating/dating study that is legitimately factual and a little bit fun here you go:

The Dating Go Round

I mean does anyone really look at anything besides a person’s picture on their profile anyways??  Who needs a personality when you have good bone structure…..