To Thine Own Self Be True

"I think I remember Hamlet accurately."
"Well, I remember Mel Gibson accurately, and he didn't say that. That Polonius guy did."

About a week or so ago I was out with some friends celebrating the Queen's birthday. (Queen of Spades, not the Queen of England. Google tells me her birthday is coming up this week, however, if any of you wanted to send felicitations.) A friend and I ended up talking with two guys who had been sitting next to her at the bar. It was fairly uneventful chitchat until the end of the evening, when one of those two gentlemen asked me to talk politics with him. Specifically, he asked what I thought about "the fact that our whole government is going to shut down because of abortion".

OK. So.

I'm not really sure why I went forth with the conversation. Honestly, I don't usually like to argue with people I don't even know, and besides which, "belligerent humorless feminist"* isn't typically considered attractive, you know? (*I don't actually think I'm either belligerent or humorless, but I know how this stuff is often perceived. Anyhoo.) So I politely said that the potential government shutdown wasn't really about abortion, but that the issue of abortion was being used to make the debate more heated, and that what was really at the heart of the issue was access to preventive care and contraception.

This led to Guy #1 saying a variety of interesting (read: totally off-base if you ask me) things, such as:

1. "I don't want my tax money paying for abortions!"
2. (when told that it doesn't, actually) "What, you actually think Planned Parenthood follows the law and doesn't use federal money for abortions?"
3. "Well, we don't subsidize smoking, why are we subsidizing birth control? We should tax condoms like we do cigarettes!"
4. "Poor people just choose not to be educated. I mean, the internet is free and everyone has access to it, so they have no excuse."
5. "You might end up getting pregnant when you're not planning on it for a variety of reasons. Maybe your marriage isn't so great so you weren't planning on having kids, maybe it's because you got raped. Either way it's about choice."

Yeah.

So there was about fifteen minutes of him saying things, and me disagreeing with him and offering some information/opinions, and the whole time I'm thinking, "This guy is kind of out there" and "Well, his friend who was seeming sort of interested in me is probably about to run for the hills. Oh well." But I couldn't justify hearing someone saying "a bad marriage = rape, basically" and other such things and just letting it slide and giggling and saying, "Oh, I don't know!" Because yeah, not really me. I mean, to be fair, it would have been me even as recently as a year ago. But these days, I'm not so much interested in pretending to be neutral about stuff for the sake of looking dateable. My true nature will emerge eventually, why engage in false advertising?

Imagine my surprise when Guy #1 and I wrapped up our conversation and I prepared to leave, and Guy #2 asked me if I'd like to have dinner sometime. I'm probably making much more of this than it deserves, but as someone who has been told that my opinionated nature is a liability in dating on more than one occasion, that was...nice. You know?

So we did just that, went out for dinner, and had ourselves a nice time. So we'll see...

Dating PSA

Dear Daters over 30,

While it was understandable in your teens, and even twenties, to not know how to let someone down gently, it's really not okay after thirty.

I suggest that if you go on a few dates with someone and say things such as: we should go (insert restaurant one has never been to here) or Oh, you've never been to (insert touristy location here)? We should go when it gets warmer. Or if you end the date saying: Give me a call next week, when that person calls or texts because they are thinking you are also interested, please, I am begging you, grab your sack and have the balls to say something like "I'm really sorry. I'm just not sensing the connection" Do NOT blatantly ignore them. WTF.

The day after

Well, friends, after a bit of a hiatus from the search to find love, I went on a date last night. I'll save you all the details on how I found myself single again. Suffice it to say--he's a douchebag and a shade on the crazy side.

Last night's date went well. We actually have a mutual friend and went to college in the same city, so we had that to talk about if all else failed. As far as first dates go, it was full of all of the awkward getting to know you and weirdness of any other first date. I don't even have an outrageous story to write about, it was a perfectly normal date. I would definitely go out with him again, that alone deserves a round of applause.

So today is the day after. Where I become way too preoccupied with whether or not I will hear from him. We did leave saying we'd like to get together again, but sometimes I think people just say that to be polite. I did text him earlier to thank him for dinner and some other flirty "yes I'm interested in seeing you again" line. I hate this part...

XX NB

DELETE, DELETE, DELETE

There's an expression, "In order to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs." Plenty of people have waxed sentimental about the necessity of destruction as part of creation, of wiping the slate clean to start over properly.

Well, I am on my way to a delicious omelet this week. Western, perhaps?

Part of this was motivated by a recent "person" doing something so incredibly insulting and selfish that it made me want to go to his apartment (with which I am quite familiar, having spent many nights there, no matter what he told his new girlfriend, THANKYOUVERYMUCH) and punch him in his stupid lying face. But because I like my freedom and I don't really believe in actual violence, I refrained. Instead, I did some deleting. Any connections to him online? DELETED. His phone number? Oh, the joy in seeing the question "Delete XXXXX?" on my phone. YES.

But I also got to thinking about some other people in my life, with whom I had relationships that were not so contentious and dysfunctional, but certainly were a bit complicated. And somehow, my fiery rage motivated me to look at those situations and be more honest about them. The results? I've destroyed some safety nets. I deleted the parts of those relationships that were making things complicated for me (in one case) or for him (in the other case).

And then I deleted myself from online dating completely.

I'll go back eventually, but for now I am not in the right head space for any of it. While this means I'll have nothing to write about for a while, I hope it also means that I can focus on rebuilding.

Quiz Time!

Alright, dear readers. If you'd like to play, just read the message below, and then tell me in the comments how many dates you think this gentleman and I had been on before he sent me this. (Small edits have been made to make this more of a challenge, but the sentiment remains as-is.)

Hi *****,

Sorry I was out of touch for so long. You seem really amazing and wonderful and...just a little bit too late -- I started going on some dates with someone else, and it's gotten serious. I hope that you find someone who appreciates your knife-lickin', dimple-havin', smart-writin', all-around awesomeness. I can already tell that you deserve amazing things in your life and hope that you get them. Maybe we'll run into each other on the candlepin lanes someday.

All the best,
****

Yawn.

I had such high hopes for my date on Friday. Not that it was going to be amazing, but that it would at least be interesting. You know? Like, even if we didn't click, maybe I'd get a good story out of it.

But alas, it was not to be. It was...boring. He was very polite. He's attractive, and certainly smart. But the conversation just didn't flow. His jokes just fell flat. No spark. Just...none.

As a "get-back-on-the-horse" date, I'm glad it was with someone who was nice. But it did make me rather nostalgic for all of the truly great first dates I've had, where you leave wanting more.

Even though the date isn't that great of a story, I can offer this gem I found in the ol' inbox that very same night:

"You are stunning, radiant, and sexy. I'm ____ and I approve this message."

That's Ms. Fat-Ass, to you

In the last week, or so, I have received the following two emails on an online dating website:

"You should say fat"

"You need to quit deep fried twinkyes [sic]"

I did NOT respond to either, but holy hell did I want to. What the fuck (excuse me...) is wrong with these people? Let me also say, I am fully aware of what my body looks like. My body type is very much for some and very much not for others. I have tits. I have an ass (excuse me, again). In the grand scheme of things do I honestly give a rat's ass what these two nitwits, who can't string a proper sentence together or post a picture on their profile, say? No. But my feelings are hurt. I'm not sure what bothers me more the fact that they said it, or the fact that I'm bothered by it.