[Part 1]
The Good, The Bad, and The Desperate
I didn’t expect to be single right now. Almost exactly a year ago, the guy I thought I was going to marry, Jordan, broke up with me. So suddenly that I didn’t see it coming. It took a lot of tears before I started enjoying my unexpected singlehood.
And then I met Jay on a hike. We dated for four months. It was like a fast-moving romantic hurricane that ended when we realized – on Thanksgiving Day – that maybe we weren’t as compatible as we had thought. For example, I want children. I’m 29, and my biological clock is most definitely ticking. Jay can’t stand kids. But it’s easy to overlook things like that when your partner is, um, taking you to Hawaii.
Since early December, I’ve been on six first dates. Seven, if you count last night’s – but that one deserves its own blog post. Some have been good. A couple have been really bad. And one, in particular, made me want to go hide in a corner because the guy was so desperate.
Before I get into all that, there’s a little more that all of Katie’s readers should know. I’m a Seattle native who still lives in her hometown. I love Seattle – especially on beautiful, crisp, clear mornings such as this one. The mountains are a short drive away, and I’ve spent so much of my life surrounded by water that it feels strange when I’m not. Most of the time, I love my fair city. It’s full of bookstores, characters, seafood, concerts, parks, and yes, coffee. Because of the tech industry, Seattle also happens to be home to my “type” – the Geeky Mountain Man. Go hang out in Ballard on a weekend and you’ll spot plenty of ‘em. Yet all those rumors about the Seattle freeze? They’re true. People don’t really talk to each other here. You could be standing next to a tall, cute, 30-something bearded Geeky Mountain Man on the bus, chatting away about hiking gear and REI, and never get his number. Let alone learn his name. If you want to “meet people in real life” to date, good luck. Seattleites don’t talk to strangers.
This is why online dating is so big here.
Back to the six first dates. Since early December, I’ve gone out with Hungover Guy, NW Male Action Hero #1, Justin, Desperate Guy, Pete, and High School Guy. I’ll take these in order.
Hungover Guy, a lawyer, met me at a coffee shop near Green Lake. One of the first things I noticed about him is that he looked like crap. There was no way he was the 32 he claimed on his profile. He looked more like 42. I bought a chai, and suggested that we walk around the lake, as it was a pretty day. One of the first things he says to me is “I’m so hungover.”
Yeah. Did I mention it was 1 PM on a Sunday?
As we were walking around the lake, I tried to start a good conversation. Yet he kept coming back to the fact that he’d gotten really wasted the night before. He told me that all Seattle natives were assholes, and that my Irish family must like getting really drunk all the time. Had we not had half of a lake to walk around, I probably would have gotten up and left. But I’d committed to walking around Green Lake with this jerk. There wasn’t even a handshake at the end of this date. It was that bad.
NW Male Action Hero #1 was better. I just didn’t really feel any spark. He took me to Tamarind Tree, a super tasty Vietnamese place in the International District. The food was good, and I enjoyed our conversation about climbing mountains and good places to snowshoe. No spark, though. We just weren’t that into each other. Moving on.
Justin I won’t say much about, as we’ve decided to be friends. Good guy. Super busy. Not the right person for me. Very hopeful he finds someone as sweet as he is.
Then, there was Desperate Guy...
I didn’t expect to be single right now. Almost exactly a year ago, the guy I thought I was going to marry, Jordan, broke up with me. So suddenly that I didn’t see it coming. It took a lot of tears before I started enjoying my unexpected singlehood.
And then I met Jay on a hike. We dated for four months. It was like a fast-moving romantic hurricane that ended when we realized – on Thanksgiving Day – that maybe we weren’t as compatible as we had thought. For example, I want children. I’m 29, and my biological clock is most definitely ticking. Jay can’t stand kids. But it’s easy to overlook things like that when your partner is, um, taking you to Hawaii.
Since early December, I’ve been on six first dates. Seven, if you count last night’s – but that one deserves its own blog post. Some have been good. A couple have been really bad. And one, in particular, made me want to go hide in a corner because the guy was so desperate.
Before I get into all that, there’s a little more that all of Katie’s readers should know. I’m a Seattle native who still lives in her hometown. I love Seattle – especially on beautiful, crisp, clear mornings such as this one. The mountains are a short drive away, and I’ve spent so much of my life surrounded by water that it feels strange when I’m not. Most of the time, I love my fair city. It’s full of bookstores, characters, seafood, concerts, parks, and yes, coffee. Because of the tech industry, Seattle also happens to be home to my “type” – the Geeky Mountain Man. Go hang out in Ballard on a weekend and you’ll spot plenty of ‘em. Yet all those rumors about the Seattle freeze? They’re true. People don’t really talk to each other here. You could be standing next to a tall, cute, 30-something bearded Geeky Mountain Man on the bus, chatting away about hiking gear and REI, and never get his number. Let alone learn his name. If you want to “meet people in real life” to date, good luck. Seattleites don’t talk to strangers.
This is why online dating is so big here.
Back to the six first dates. Since early December, I’ve gone out with Hungover Guy, NW Male Action Hero #1, Justin, Desperate Guy, Pete, and High School Guy. I’ll take these in order.
Hungover Guy, a lawyer, met me at a coffee shop near Green Lake. One of the first things I noticed about him is that he looked like crap. There was no way he was the 32 he claimed on his profile. He looked more like 42. I bought a chai, and suggested that we walk around the lake, as it was a pretty day. One of the first things he says to me is “I’m so hungover.”
Yeah. Did I mention it was 1 PM on a Sunday?
As we were walking around the lake, I tried to start a good conversation. Yet he kept coming back to the fact that he’d gotten really wasted the night before. He told me that all Seattle natives were assholes, and that my Irish family must like getting really drunk all the time. Had we not had half of a lake to walk around, I probably would have gotten up and left. But I’d committed to walking around Green Lake with this jerk. There wasn’t even a handshake at the end of this date. It was that bad.
NW Male Action Hero #1 was better. I just didn’t really feel any spark. He took me to Tamarind Tree, a super tasty Vietnamese place in the International District. The food was good, and I enjoyed our conversation about climbing mountains and good places to snowshoe. No spark, though. We just weren’t that into each other. Moving on.
Justin I won’t say much about, as we’ve decided to be friends. Good guy. Super busy. Not the right person for me. Very hopeful he finds someone as sweet as he is.
Then, there was Desperate Guy...
[End of Part 1]
I'll post the rest of her entry tomorrow. Check back to read the adventures with Desperate Guy, Pete, and High School Guy.
1 comment:
Is it not true that the best feeling in the world is to love and be loved in return? Finding the right partner though is not as easy as selecting which dress to wear to a party. Most of those who are looking for a lifetime partner would have to think about the "How?" This is because the search would have to be a process of getting to know the person and liking everything about him or her.
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