Pet Peeve

Photos mean a lot on an online dating site. Bad photos can leave a negative impression, while having one or no photos can make a profile look rather sketchy. (I learned that lesson with Ian, though looking back through my posts about him I see that I never mentioned he only ever posted one photo.)

So my biggest pet peeve is photos taken in front of a mirror. They're not terrible if you can't see the camera, though they're not great. However, when one can see the camera in the picture, it's generally a bad thing. It's not that hard to have a friend/roommate/relation take a decent picture or three—do it.

Canceled date—My choice

Two weeks ago, I received an IM from a guy on the dating site that was different from the usual: it was something to the effect of, "I'm playing a game. I'm trying to guess what else people are doing while they're on [the dating site]." Then, without any comment from me, he made some guesses that were silly, but intriguing. Since I was bored and he got my attention by writing more than just "hi" like many do, I wrote back. We chatted about mostly benign things, and, after almost an hour, he gave me his phone number and asked if we could continue chatting in person sometime. I told him it might be a week or so, since I was really busy that week, but gave him my number anyway.

When he texted me this week, I agreed to meet him this weekend. However, I started having second thoughts: he's 36 (I'm 25), he lives about as far away from me as possible while still being in the same city, and he's 36. I guess I'm just not comfortable with such a large age difference.

Then, when he asked me to send him the info about the gallery opening I'd suggested, I found that he'd deleted his profile from the dating site. WEIRD. That's just not OK with me. Therefore, I did something I've never done before: I canceled on him. If the same thing had happened to me before Henry, I might have still gone on the date, albeit with a bit of worry. I was really desperate—and I'm not afraid to admit that now—to go on dates. I was happy to find, as I sent the cancellation text, that I felt relief and no regret.

A Date with Nate

As I mentioned in my last post, I went on a date on Friday night. The previous weekend I'd received a message from a guy I'll call Nate with the subject line "Long shot." He wrote saying that he had received a pair of symphony tickets and figured, based on my profile, that I might be interested. I was. I rather like going to the symphony.

However, I had a minor thing to work through first: did I want to go out with someone who says he "sometimes" does drugs on his profile? After some thinking (and consultation with my dear friend Superquail) I decided to go for it. He didn't seem like the kind of person who would show up to a symphony date high, nor did he seem like someone who was deep into drug culture, so I figured it wouldn't be an issue. It wasn't. Plus, I didn't really see Nate as someone that I would want to date long-term; if he was, then we could talk about it.

All in all, the date was fine. We met for dinner before heading over to the symphony. It turns out that he's never been to the symphony, at least not as an adult. His dad (who does not live in the area) bought him the tickets (orchestra section!) so as to try to get him to be more cultured (or so Nate supposed). Nice dad.

Nate was a nice enough guy, but I doubt I'll see him again. We'd talked about board games during dinner, and at the end of the date he said I should call him if I was ever going to a board game meet-up; I might, but I might not. What was good was that I went on a four hour date and barely thought about Henry at all. Onwards!

Late-Night IMs

I went on a date last night and I'll write more about that in a following post, but first I had to share these charming IM's I received yesterday. First I'm offered food, and then…

These Posts Write Themselves Sometimes

Username + Quiz Result = WTF?

New look for Second Round

Now that I've been through my first relationship that got its start online, I'm feeling less frantic and/or desperate about making the whole thing work. I hope that the new colors make the blog more readable (sorry for making you read green text on black for so long) and also lend a more relaxed attitude.

That said, you'd think I would have learned the lesson of leaving myself logged in on the dating site late at night. Apparently I haven't. I received these charming instant messages last night:

AboveEnvy: you+me=bow chicka bow wow ;)

and then:

Juangalt: We should rub our privates together tonight

Really? You guys think you're going to get me to respond by starting off like that?  Sorry, I don't write back to such entreaties—I also block people like that, as I've done for both of you.

Henry's gone

As some of you know, my relationship with Henry ended about three weeks ago. At seven and a half months, it was by far the longest relationship either of us had ever had. It was a sad break-up. He broke up with me, but I don't think it gave him any great joy to do it. We'd grown really close over those months and it was like breaking up with your best friend. He felt that we were drifting apart and that there wasn't anything we could do about it. On a good day, I find myself agreeing with him—there were a number of things we each wanted to do/were interested in that the other just couldn't muster any enthusiasm for and then there was the issue of time. I had oodles of it, not having been employed since June. He had much less, given that he spends two hours commuting plus eight hours at work. My eagerness to spend most or all of his free time with him became a strain and, even though I started to realize it in the last month of the relationship, neither of us said anything, so we allowed the stress to go unchecked.

I know that we're not going to get back together, but I also know that he's not looking for anyone new right now, and I find a lot of comfort in that. We're both still on the dating site, and we've both switched back to "single;" however, he told me last week (when I went over to his place to pick up my stuff) that he's just doing his thing and enjoying having the free time to do all of those things I never cared about (like brewing beer, experimenting with cooking meat, and programming projects galore).

I'm having a lot harder of a time, what with all of my free hours to sit around and get stuck in my thoughts. I've acknowledged that I was exceedingly lonely before I met Henry, and that I'm lonely all over again. I'm trying to find my single-girl footing, but I've realized that the things I was doing to fill all my time before (especially in the evenings) don't really appeal to me now. I'm just going to have to find new things, which is going to be hard, but necessary.

That all said, I was having dinner with my roommate and a friend the other night, when I decided that I really needed a laugh. I went to one of the best places for a laugh (which had somehow come up in conversation), Craigslist personals, and found some real gems. I'll be posting those in the next few days. I don't plan on looking seriously anytime in the next month or two (at least), but if someone finds me, we'll see.

Hiatus

Things with Henry are going really well. As such, this blog will be on hiatus until further notice.

Thanks for reading!

Cyanide and Happiness

Henry and I have been e-mailing a lot in the lead up to our date tomorrow, and we've spent a good deal of time sharing things we think the other person should know about. From him, I received links to a web comic called Cyanide and Happiness. I'd never heard of it before, so I checked it out. There are many funny ones, but here was one I though had a little bit of correlation to this blog. If I had to guess, I bet there are a fair amount of people in the online dating world who, at some point or another, wish there was an easier way to find someone. I just hope they never get to this point:


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

So tomorrow Henry and I are going to dinner at a Moroccan restaurant and then on to a Slavic women's circus. At this point, we have quite a long list of other dates to go on, so I think there's a pretty good chance that I'll make it to date four. I haven't been on a fourth date with someone in a very long time.

Second date with Henry

The second date with Henry was wonderful. We joined a group of about 20 people for board games at a nearby cafe and played five or six different games over three and a half hours. He'd been twice before, so he knew a few of the people but we each met lots of new people. I would definitely go back again because it's a great way to try out lots of new games. 

Afterwards, we dropped our games back at my apartment and then walked over to the most fabulous little pizza place (it's truly tiny—four tables and four seats at the bar) and shared delicious pizza and a slice of goat cheese kumquat tart. If that sounds odd, trust me when I say it was amazingly good (and I even passed up on the flour-less chocolate cake for it). We stuck around and talked for a while—amazingly no one needed our table—before going back to my apartment. 

We watched "Once," which is a truly great movie with a spectacular soundtrack (if you haven't seen it, get it now) and lots of unresolved sexual tension. Let's just say that he stayed for another three hours after the movie ended and I finally had to send him home so we could both get a little sleep before work today.

I caused a bit of trouble this morning however, when I sent him an e-mail that was supposed to be flirty and facetious but was taken seriously by Henry. I quickly responded with a clarifying e-mail, so hopefully all is well there. Regardless, we've already decided to go out again Friday. We don't have any plans for the date yet, but I'm happy just to spend some more time with him whatever we end up doing. 

So far, so good. I'm happy and hopeful and I can't wait for Friday.