Recap

The date the other night went really well. I met Richard at a nifty Ethiopian bar across the street from the concert hall and we hung out there for a couple of hours. We spent a little bit of time talking to his friend and her date, but mostly the two of us just talked about all sorts of things. Interesting things, I should add (given that most of my dates this year have been rather lacking in the interesting conversation department).

The concert was also fun. It was a crazy British band that plays J-pop-esque music. It wasn't something I ever would have found on my own, but I'd definitely listen to them again. We went back to the bar after the show and talked for another hour before I begged my leave. Given that I had to be up for work in six hours, I had to tear myself away. Richard walked me a ways to my bus stop, but as soon as I got to the stop I had to hop right on a bus, which led to a bit of an awkward goodbye. That said, it spared me from what might have been an even more awkward, first-date goodbye.

The best part of this whole saga is that I think we're going to see each other again. I sent him a message the day after to apologize for running away, tell him I had a really good time, and give him a link to some music we'd discussed. After waiting on tenterhooks for a day and a half, I heard back from him. He told me he'd burned me a copy of the album by the band we'd seen but had forgotten it at his friend's house and that he'd like to give it to me. So now the stage is set for a second date. Hmmm… Sunday?

Date!

Originally, this post was going to be called "Disappointment" and I was going to write about how every time I see a profile of a guy that seems really cool I freak out and decide not to e-mail him for fear that I'll never hear back. There are a couple of guys on the site who seem awesome, but I've not messaged them for this exact reason.

However, right as I started to title this post, I was IMed by one of these very guys (I'll call him Richard). Hurrah! We ended up chatting for a couple of hours and, towards the end, he asked me out—for a concert tomorrow! Yay! I'm really looking forward to this. I know next to nothing about the band, but it should be an adventure at the very least. Wish me luck!

Oh, and because I can't leave without giving you something bizarre: I'm expanded within my own finding that only being so trully compacted within myself. I dream lucidly in search of more why's and how's. A technicolor daydreamer of sorts. I am THE audiophile. My heart beats because music allows it to. I enjoy the world in depth. I am a lover and not a fighter. A good portion of my time is spent in search of truth and a better definition of subjective reality. I'm extremely passionate when inspired and completely destructive when not… (from the profile of AcidEtched)

News and Notes

Before I get to the salient portion of my post, here's today's silliness. I must preface this by saying that it's funny to me and likely will be for anyone who watched Gilmore Girls, but perhaps will not be for everyone. From a profile I encountered yesterday:

Dating Site: What's the most private thing you're willing to admit here?
Guy: I am special.

As soon as I encountered this I thought of Rory and Logan slow-dancing at Richard and Emily's vow renewal at the point where this exchange occurs:
Logan: I have thought about asking you out several times, I just don't think it's a good idea.
Rory: Why not?
Logan: Because you're special.
Rory: Special? Like, "Stop eating the paste," special?

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So I actually do have something to write today that isn't snark: I IMed with a guy (let's call him Robert) last night for over three hours. He doesn't have the highest match percentage with me, so when his IM popped up, I was tempted to ignore it. However, he actually asked me an intelligent question about something on my profile, so I decided to respond. What followed was much discourse on personality tests (Myers-Briggs, Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, etc.), college a capella groups, and some personal history. Robert seems like a good guy and I would definitely talk to him again—or even go on a date, if he was so inclined. I'll keep you posted.

In other news, I've gotten a bunch of other messages in the last 24 hours—way more than I usually do—but no others that I've been inclined to respond to. There were some interesting usernames in that bunch too: CuriousCactus and ElvisPelvis, among others.

Finally, I've reached the 300 mark in the reject category; that is to say I've now blocked over 300 profiles. I blacklisted them for different reasons, including, but not limited to: age (way too old or young), inanity, disgusting messages, and—my favorite—bad username. 300 in 10 months. How long will it take me to get to 400?

No, no, no, no…

From a guy with a bad beard, long hair, and crazy tie-dye t-shirt who goes by jestingsorrow:

Hi! I am a student/poet going to a University. My passions include women, poetry, digital painting, 420, religious debates, philosophy, being a hippy, and trying to stay sane in this beautiful world. I love assertive women, women who can act feminine but not overly feminist. I like strong personalities and people who aren't obsessed with money. My attitude toward life is that of an artist and sometimes angelic in nature. I have visions and hallucinations. I think an honest approach is better...

An angelic 4/20-loving hippy…

This is not the classifieds

If I only wanted to know your height, weight, build, and a superficial detail, I would search the newspaper classifieds or Craigslist—but I don't. I'm on my dating site because I want to know more than that. Therefore, I found these two profiles a little lacking:

funtallwhiteguy: "Easy going and fun to be around. Tall and athletic, 6'2 197lbs and fit, muscular body, blue eyes and well endowed!" Oh, did I mention his picture is of him lying on the beach in a speedo?

howareu123: What's up, Im Allen Im 6" tall, blonde hair blue eyes with a toned build. But Im not huge or anything.(Lol) 6 inches? I'm sure he meant 6 feet, but given how many pieces of punctuation are missing in his statement, I really shouldn't be surprised.

Too bad he lives 300 miles away…

The dating site has a journal feature, which many use only a few times (to reach 100% profile completion); however, new posts of the opposite sex (or same, if that's your thing) will appear in the sidebar on a regular basis. Usually they're inane, but today I came across one that I could have written myself:

"The following things are not attractive:
1) Smoking
2) Tattoos whose combined area is larger than that of your hand
3) Piercings on the face (note: the ear is not part of the face)
4) Loving animals as if they were people
5) Looking forward to getting drunk"

If it weren't for the fact that he lives so far away, I would message this guy, but I can barely keep up with my friends let alone manage a long-distance relationship.

No Luck with Luke

I don't think the thing with Luke is going to go anywhere. Too bad—he's really into typography, just like me. Unfortunately, a shared love of light serif typefaces is not really enough to build a relationship on.

Now, for today's silliness, as taken from ho11yw00d's profile: "I've gone out with my share of crazy chicks lately, so please don't be one of those. I'm a good guy so I'm looking for a good girl. I'm not so much a partier anymore. I'm more into doing things like jetskiing, bbqs, trips to Vegas, Tahoe, sporting events,…"

Right… so he's not into partying anymore, but he likes going to Vegas? He doesn't really seem the type to go see Cirque du Soleil or Celine Dion, so he goes Vegas but doesn't partying?

Today's bit of wisdom

Today's post is brought to you by the profile of edit_this:

The slip and slide never got as much credit as it deserved. All you had to do was turn on a hose and throw down some plastic and poof, you've got fun. Minus of course all those rocks under the slide which cost your friend Timmy an ER visit. The slip and slide giveth and taketh away.

(You should message me if) You're funny, freakishly good looking, have a drinking problem, etc.

Two in one day? Crazy.

That's right. I e-mailed two different guys in one day and a total of three this week. After my successful date with Greg, I was feeling a little more confident with this whole online dating thing, so on Monday I messaged I guy I've been thinking about messaging for months. However, right after I pressed 'send' I noticed on his profile that he hadn't logged into the site for over a month; in other words, I'm not surprised I've not heard back from him.

My dating site claims that October is Ladies Month, and as such, we women should take the initiative to message guys in whom we're interested. It's not that I haven't done that before, but I've decided that I should be a little more gung-ho about this whole thing. Anyhoo, on Friday, I wrote to two different guys and I actually got a response from one of them, who, for the time being I'll call Luke. Hooray! We've now exchanged a few messages so maybe something will come of it.

Finally, here's today's ridiculous profile bit: "I am so tired of writing these damn things. No one really cares anyway, right? I know most of you girls just care about the pictures anyway, and I know that in that department I'm not particularly impressive. As my screen-name would suggest, I'm a huge film geek. Yeah, that's right, a geek. If you don't geek out about something, then quite frankly, you are boring."

This is too much fun

I have a friend who has made it a personal goal to create and post a piece of artwork everyday on her blog. Usually they're simple, but gorgeous photos and they always make me feel calm and pensive. I encourage you to check them out.

While I sincerely doubt reading my blog will make you feel calm—perhaps pensive, though—I'm going to see if I can post something amusing from the world of online dating on a daily basis. Online dating is hard, because you can learn so much about a person before the first date, but, ultimately, not a lot of what really makes a relationship tick. It isn't until an actual meeting that you can say for certain whether or not someone is a great find or a dud.

So, here's the humorous line for the day: "Aye! I am of the human species. I come in search of adventure." (I feel that I should also point out that this person is one of those obnoxious people who lists every single artist/band in his iTunes playlist in the section "Favorite Music"—are all of those really your favorites?)

Edit: I wrote this before bed last night, but seeing as it was past midnight, it technically counted as today's post. However, here's one more choice tidbit from a profile I encountered this morning: "I am a hippie/techie/frat boy who follows the Buddha."

Another Ridiculous Profile

"O hai dere. I don't fake the funk! My cat recently died. He was so awesome. Sheesh. I hope you're up there in cat heaven, buddy! Oh man I love Mexican beer so much. Maybe because I'm a Mexican Jew. Do they make Jewish beer? I bet its gross like that Manischewitz wine. Makers Mark is my favorite whisky. I like to sing. I write about movies for a living. Blah, blah, blah!"

I'm laughing so hard that I'm having trouble typing this. I'm sure this is just place-filler, since he only joined the site yesterday, but still…

This Morning's Rejects

My site allows me to block people whom I find distasteful, thus giving them no chance to message me. I just blocked two people:

666voices. Even if he hadn't looked totally scary in his picture, the name was enough to send me running for the "block" button.

clogan9. Here's the part of his profile that popped up on my homepage this morning: "yes i know i need to write things here, maby u can help fill this up with what u think of me?" I could let him know, but it would be mean… so I wrote about it here, instead.

An Afternoon with Greg

The date, all things considered, went well. We had a good time at the surprisingly empty museum. The new exhibit is fascinating and we were able to keep up a good conversation both about the art and ourselves. (I learned that he was a little misleading on his profile when he listed English as his primary language and Russian and Polish as ones that he only speaks "okay" because he IS Russian, not Russian-American, but straight-up Russian. That's fine and all, I was just a little surprised. He grew up there, went to school there, and only came to the US for grad school. I think he's been in the US for about ten years.) He'd never been to the museum before, so it was fun seeing what he was drawn to and viewing the museum with fresh eyes.

After the first museum, we ended up going into another. Though they were both modern art museums, the second was very modern, in that the exhibit is being assembled by a collective as well as the visitors. It was really cool, but it took a little getting used to. I, for once, found myself being the extrovert as I tried to get him to interact with the exhibit, but in the end, we both contributed something.

Though we could have gone into a third and yet still different museum after that, we decided to spend some time walking around the area, as it was such a lovely day. We wound up down by the water, buying some fish and chips to eat on the pier. We went our separate ways shortly thereafter, but I had a good feeling upon leaving.

I don't know if I'll see Greg again, but it was a good date. After my previous bad dates, I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever have a good one; this was a welcome change. There are a few more guys who've just joined the dating site recently that seem interesting, so I'm going to do as the site is encouraging me to do, and initiate conversation with the guys rather than the other way around (not that I've not done that before, but I don't do it as often as I should).

I've got a date tomorrow!

It's with a really cool sounding guy I'm going to call Greg and I'm pretty excited. Here's why:

1. He just moved to this city and is from the opposite coast. He's curious to learn about the city from a native like me.
   
2. He's told me twice that he's excited.
3. We're not going to walk for miles—we're going to a museum to see a cool-sounding exhibit that opens tomorrow.
4. We haven't exhausted every possible conversation topic before the date (like I have with the last couple guys)

In other news, sfgiantnut21 just looked at my profile.