After I joined eHarmony, I was deluged with many women ignoring my questions. I later discovered this might not be because they weren’t interested in me but rather they weren’t active users. (A large flaw in pay dating sites, a lot of women can’t respond to you, since they aren’t paying for the site, so it’s like ships passing in the night…if one ship doesn’t even exist.)

So with those thoughts of being rejected by so many ladies in a cyber-second click of the mouse, I boldly ventured into the realm of free dating: namely okcupid. I had one brief moment where plentyoffish and I locked eyes and then simultaneously retorted, “it’s not me, it’s you.” By brief I mean a week, but who is counting. For me, the commitment-friendly man, a week is a short time before breaking up.

I was in Pittsburgh at the time, stomping around my old college haunts on Divorce Toue 2010 and I began messaging this okcupid girl as I was All You Can Jet-ing around the country. Messaging led to texting and we were texting each other flirtatiously. Occasionally I would look at her profile and see some red flags: she said her body type was “a little extra” but her pictures showed a beautiful woman with curves. Her profile also left the smoking section blank, but she had several non-answers so I didn’t think much of it.

We decided to go play Disc Golf, it was something she always wanted to try. First, she’s about an hour late because she can’t find the place. Then she peels into the lot and she stinks of cigarettes and it seems like I have a chain smoker on my hands. And lastly, by a little extra, she’s carrying about 40 pounds of pregnancy weight without ever getting knocked up. When did a little extra mean 40 pounds right in the tummy? When did a little extra mean, lads, I carry a 13 year old Somalian child around mummy’s tummy?

Always be vigilant. She admitted the pictures weren’t close to recent. And know your dealbreakers. For me, it’s smoking. So ask the person if they smoke if they haven’t filled that piece of their profile.

This is a short entry but I wanted to put something out there for all of you loyal fans-all four of you. So the story goes about a month ago I tried something different and asked out a girl through less conventional means. No okcupid dates, but another site that has nothing to do with dating. Well, after @TheSassyFiles got asked out by a linkedin guy, I figured it couldn’t be that weird. I keyed in on something she was into, and made some small talk and an opening to do that activity together. Kept it short and sweet (hat-tip to @DatingRev.) So I saw a cute girl that I had met in person, but then used the site and asked her out and we went out together.

Turns out she was married. Whoops. At least it’s a story for you guys. I’m pretty sure she didn’t think it was a date. I will also admit I had no idea what it was, but I was hoping maybe it was a date.

Now the question for my female friends, if a guy asked you, a married or taken woman to do something, and you were not friends before hand, how would you react to the question? Would you politely decline, because it’s odd for a married woman to go out and do something with a stranger? Or that he (or maybe your husband/boyfriend) would get the wrong idea?

We were together over 5 years, and you were the most important person in my life for that time period. You’re still important to me even now, and I know that our relationship has a huge hold over me going forward because you were my first real relationship.

There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about you. Everything reminds me of you-it doesn’t help that you left me with most of our shared possessions. I really should have sold everything and started over but I thought that was stupid and irrational. Well a year later I want to go back and punch that version of myself in the face. I should have sold everything when I had the chance.

Right after you told me you wanted a divorce (on the phone-classy) I moved out of our place. I went home and slept in my old bedroom at my parents, the only room I had no memories of you in. I cried a lot. I don’t care if it’s unmanly to say, I cried like a 12 year old girl who found out unicorns weren’t real.

I thought I might need to leave this city, because we spent so much time here together. I feel like it’s tainted with you. Maybe that’s cruel but so are the things you did to me.

Part of the problem is I’m not busy so all I have to occupy my thoughts is you, us, us not being together anymore.

The worst part of everyday is when I wake up and for a split-second, I wonder why the bed is half empty and then realize you’re not in it. How did I combat the thoughts? I moved to the other side of the bed. To your side. Now when I wake up-instead of looking at your side and instinctively reaching for you, I avoid it.
More than anything I am deathly afraid that you will forget me. We had so many inside jokes, things only we shared.

All the pet names you had for me. The pet names I had for you. That I lost my virginity to you, all the promises we made to each other. How many promises we broke.

How we would make dinner together…and how you loved to eat my food. How you would put your hair down and call it weird beard. How you would make up songs and sing to me-I never appreciated them but I miss them so much now.

We have so many spectacular memories, elefante and Lafawnduh, BU winning the national championship in 2009, our wedding, the moment I proposed to you in your parents’ living room. How you would cry every time we separated when we dated, including sobbing three months before our wedding and sobbing the time you knew you would see me a week later.

Our cross country move, our trips to the zoo, watching Amazing Race. So many memories we’ve had over the years. I’m so afraid you’re forgetting me, that you’ll be able to delete them from your life. That it will be like I never existed, that we never existed.

You don’t speak to me, we have 0 contact, and I wish we could just talk. Then I could get some closure. I opened a bag of old hand towels and they absolutely smelled like you. When will I escape this?

And let’s be honest, if a potential first date candidate can’t come up with one half decent date idea, what can you imagine your life together will be like? You planning her/his entire social life? That gets boring after awhile, trust me-I’ve done it before.

I love a woman who has good ideas for dates: she’ll have good ideas once you’re in a relationship too.

When one woman posts: “How about we… Go out with a nice, smart and funny guy! Eat dinner and wine, have a good time” , well I get a little sad when I see the bar lowered to the point where you can’t do the limbo under it. I can’t even feign excitement for this woman. And if you know me, if there was one thing I am magical at(besides falling asleep), it’s feigning excitement.

I don’t want to go out with a nice, smart, funny guy, and I’m confused…is this a three-way date? Are we picking up the third wheel? Also how does one eat wine?

I think the greatest flaw with HowAboutWe, is the site is limited by the number of people who can respond to you, and you can’t read messages unless you’re a paid member. So the majority of messages could easily be the equivalent of well to pardon the phrase, “messages in a bottle.” The person will get notification that you had messaged them, but no ability to read the message. It gives me the feeling that there will be a good deal of ships passing in the night. And that’s not what a site should be imparting upon me, impression-wise.

What would I fix with howaboutwe? I think everyone should be able to read their messages from subscribers. You’ve already gotten payment from someone, why limit the value for the people that those people get from their subscription. One thing they do that is better than match is they will give you a list of people who ARE subscribed. But everyone should be listed as a member or a non-member. I don’t want to waste my time.

My one howaboutwe experience? It turned into “how about we” go ice skating, never get a thank you, and spring the fact that you had adult kids at the end of our date.

I’m willing to try again, but the site needs massive improvements for me to pay for it.

What’s your big pet peeve about online dating? A lot of my female friends say it’s about the quality of the ideas the man postulates. Maybe this site helps them.

Some I messaged just because I liked poking the bad news bear. Others? I guess I’m a glutton for punishment.

Beer me, Danno

Take one woman, a young African American single mother on PlentyOfFish (I spent maybe a week on this site, a week too long except for the stories I got from the experience), she stated a need for a man to provide for her and her child and to “not waste her time” but also made sure to know that the man wasn’t going to be getting some for a long time.

Thanks for inviting me to pay for the barn after the horse has gone free, now shall I close the doors? I guess you want me to take care of some other man’s kid? Eh, she’s entitled to be gun-shy, and I get that. But keep your desire to have me pay for the cow and get 0 milk to yourself. It’s in your best interests.

Maybe I should throw in some more pithy responses. Suffice to say I didn’t message her.

Okcupid questions:

Have to laugh through the responses on the okcupid website. For those who don’t know how okcupid works you are matched based on the compatibility of your answers. Now while we all expect a certain amount of lying, I don’t expect telling the truth on something bad before we’ve met.

Oral sex? One woman said, DISGUSTING. Now I wonder what the point of answering the question is for her? Maybe she hates doing it, but isn’t that something a little personal to scare the guy off with so soon? Our society is more sexual now and I think in America the number of women are age unwilling to do it puts them in the minority. It’s an even smaller amount who actually considers the act gross. I don’t expect it to be enjoyable for everyone but an eww gross response comes across like I’ve got cooties and so does my penis.

Another said, “cutting during sex?” AWESOME. Aren’t these things we need to build toward before meeting up in person?

Is this too much too soon all over again?

Crazy Magnet

My whole life, I have been in relationships with only two different ethnic groups: I’ve dated within my ethnicity, and dated two Indian women (rather they were girls, it was college) and I’ve dated several Caucasian women. It’s not to say that I don’t give other ethnicities a chance. I do message women of all colors on Match and okcupid. I do flirt with women of all colors when I am out in public. But I will admit that I have a type. My first girlfriend from high school was Caucasian, short, skinny, blond, and blue eyed: and that’s been my type for the rest of my life.

I guess I prefer to date outside my race, but that’s as much the odds as anything else. There aren’t that many Indian women in Southern California anyway and the ones cute enough to date? Well they know they’re a hot commodity.

So back to the question: She answered “Do you prefer to date within your own race” and she said yes, that she preferred to date white men and found them to be the most attractive to her. Now crushing as it was for my ego, she also said that she would date men of other ethnicities. Best case: it’s just that she found her own race the most pleasing to date. Worst case, she’s not into men of color at all. Now, how can I be upset at her preference? I have a preference for her ethnicity but don’t limit myself, and neither does she. I’ll take the ego hit. But if any women really find Indian men attractive, give me a call, ok? And I’m annoyed at myself for even being irritated at her answer. So if her preference isn’t me, and she is my preference, them’s the breaks.

Is variety the spice of life? Have you gone out with a person from a race you didn’t find attractive and decided that they were attractive to you despite them not being your typical flavor?

And last but not least, if you do have a preference, do you admit it?

I had my own issues with Escargot besides her being a single mother, but one memory (besides my mouth being violated by a snail against my free will) stands out to me. When I picked her up for our third and ultimately final date, she was dropping off her son at her father’s house. I asked her if she needed any help and she warded me away. She grabbed her kid (who stared at me) and walked him to her dad’s front door. No introductions. She didn’t think it was appropriate for me to be meeting him that early in our budding relationship. Maybe she knew she was going to violate my mouth (in a bad way) later.

Or maybe, just maybe, the one sane bone in her body, (probably the pinky, she wasn’t *that* sane) realized “hey it’s way too early for you to meet my son”, and that the kid needed stability. So the kid looked at me perplexed as his mother pulled him to his grandfather’s house and we never ended up meeting. Her theory about waiting for men to meet her son might have been the only sane thing about her, when I piece it all together Memento temporary tattoo style.

Fast forward to the future. I’m contacted by a cute girl on okcupid, and we go on a date. She has the same name as my ex, is vegetarian, and used to be married to a guy of the same ethnicity as myself, and was married and then got divorced around the same time as me too. It was eery how similar she was to my ex: we went on our first date and held hands when at the end of our first date I found a difference. She had conveniently hid the fact that she had a child from me. Oh…well, about that.

We went on a second date, and things dropped off. I made my effort, she didn’t, and I lost interest. Out of the blue, she texts me and asks me out on a third date, to go for a walk or dinner. I chose the walk. She wants to pick me up and she arrives and as I am hopping into the car I notice the car seat is full. With baby.

No matter how adorable they are, no one wants a third wheel on a date. No one should bring a kid on a date, especially not ambush style. And I love kids, I held him, I fed him, I talked him down through fits 4 through 9 in the car…but for my relationship with his mother, I felt it was the death knell.

Was it a test? Was she nuts? Am I doomed to be the crazy magnet forever? Should I give up single mothers forever?

Your thoughts?

Haven’t been on a date in a week, and figured I would post a comment that I posted on another blog belonging to Twitter’s @JustMeWith

For my entire life, I slept on the left side of the bed. My entire life. When I got married I took the left side again. I had always slept on that side no reason to change now. My then-wife said to me, “I want the left side.” I told her she could have it, but she decided to keep the right side of the bed instead, she had grown accustomed to it.

When she left me, I was devastated. I didn’t know what to do. What I did right away? I moved to her side of the bed. Why? Because when I woke up in the morning I didn’t see her when I woke up or to look for her. I was on her side of the bed…one of the most comforting things in the world when I was married was to look to my left and see her. It’s one of the memories most etched into my brain. With it lost, I decided to create new memories. Now I have a new side of the bed.

What did you do when you split with your ex? Keep your side of the bed? Change your side of the bed? Set the bed on fire and sleep on the couch?

When they got together, he had less hair, and more around the middle. My friend being the sweetheart that she is, gives him a chance anyway.

They get to talking and he admits he’s not French. He’s Moroccan. Moroccan? Mo-roccan the lies. Am I right? Sorry for the terrible joke. (I’m not sorry.)

So he’s Moroccan but he at least speaks French…right? Wrong. Just kidding, Il parle français. So at least he had that going for him. Why say he was French you ask? He said he was French because he didn’t want women to know he was Muslim.

Well that’s not so bad, she understands that some guys lie because they’re afraid of rejection and women lie all the time, so why not continue to talk to him…except he says “you know how I said I was divorced…” and she thinks “you’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Well my wife and I are divorced, but not legally, you see as a Muslim I just have to say ‘I divorce you’ three times and we’re divorced! Nice deal, right? But we still live together and share a bed!”

Check please. My stories are a bit different but sometimes as humorous…(if you can’t laugh, you can’t survive the dating world.) The first date I went on after I got divorced the woman said she was 5’7 but she was more like 5’9. She towered over me. Why lie about your height? Maybe she was hoping to cast a wider net but I had never expected a woman to lie about her height to me. She was the first of three women to lie about their height. The second lied by about three inches (and about 100 pounds, but I digress) and the third lied by two inches. What is that all about? It seems like the least likely thing to lie about. I expect men to lie to make themselves look more appeal-able. But why say you’re shorter than you are? Because you think men want a petite girl?

The second lie to me was a woman who lied about children. Really? Lying about no children? That one truly baffled me. It turned out she didn’t have biological children but had basically adopted her drug-user sister’s daughter to make sure she was raised properly. That part was commendable. Lying wasn’t. You see, nothing starts off a conversation better than “so you know how I said I didn’t have children yet?”

I’ve had women lie about their weight, their jobs, their marital status, etc.  The only common lie was this one: “I’m over my ex” but I should have realized that based on the fact that everyday something came up with her about him.

That’s the most important lie to ignore in the future. Don’t pay attention to the lie, pay attention to what else is said and how she acts. She might not even realize she’s lying.

Which weird lies have you experienced?

To be honest, I think wolves are honorable animals, so maybe some wolf reader will soon be learning how to use the internet to fire off a nasty-gram. Thank God they don’t have opposable thumbs, otherwise the comments section would get “done blown up.”

I’ve read countless articles about how men need to be gentlemen again, that the art has been lost.

But today’s entry is about why the art has been lost to most men and my theories behind it.

For me, I think that one of the biggest reasons why men aren’t gentlemen anymore is because they don’t see any value in being gentlemen. This is a issue that is two-fold: men aren’t appreciated for being gentlemen anymore, and they’re also not finding women worthy of  having a gentleman.  Some of them are still gentlemen around their friends, mothers, relatives, etc. But they don’t see the value in being a gentleman to women. Because the princess fantasy seems to have died in the current dating market and men realize it.

The princess fantasy involves a Prince Charming, a guy who sweeps a woman off of her feet with impeccable grooming, manners and credit history.

It’s been fueled in part by the fairytale of living happily ever after but in this generation it’s built on the dreams of many a woman to have that role in many a chick flick-of the under-appreciated girl who snags a guy who is as sweet as he is hunky.

But the new fantasy is another creation of Hollywood. Reforming the bad boy into a good guy. He’s sweet on the inside? What, is he made of strawberry jam? FFS.*

*Look it up.

Scene:

Girl 1: “Oh my god, all I seem to date are assholes. And he’s not even filled with strawberry jam”

Girl 2: “Isn’t that the worst? All I find are the ones who taste like chalk.”

End Scene.

You can tell that I’ve been wondering on this subject quite a bit-the second issue is more complex. While we’ve already talked about the reason why men aren’t gentlemen because they don’t think it’s what women want, there’s a big elephant in the room. I don’t think men by in large believe women deserve gentlemen anymore. A gentleman deserves a lady and in this day and age, those ladies are significantly rarer than you think.

When I go to the mall and open the door and hold it open for the people that pass, I find significantly more men than women saying thank you or at least acknowledging my presence. It’s not even dependent on age, plenty of older women walk through the door as if it opened magically. You’d be surprised at the number of women don’t say thank you, wait, maybe you wouldn’t be.

Women want equality and it seems a fair number still want the man to pay, and they also want the sexual revolution and have one night stands. Women, you might want a gentleman but you don’t deserve one unless you are a lady. Be someone worth wooing. Otherwise it seems like you want your cake and to eat it too. You want a guy to respect you, be someone worth respecting. Leave the one night stands in the past: (sorry fellow men) and move forward.

I’m a gentlemen just for the hell of it. There’s no quid pro quo behind it. But ask yourself why would a man settle for you? A prince you say? He deserves a princess and not today’s diva-like perception of a princess. A lady, one who uses good manners and is polite. She’ll be appreciated by those of us who are gentlemen, I promise.