Category: Turn Offs

Is It Too Much To Ask?

divorcedanddatingat304 Comments

Jul-2017

In the midst of the O saga, when I was trying desperately to retain some distance and not put all the eggs in the world in one O shaped basket, I decided to go out on a first date with another Bumble match. Surely it could only be a good thing?

The Calgarian house painter, had only recently moved to Vancouver to work with his brother and was living in North Van. He seemed nice and had pretty good chat in our messaging. Although it took us a little while to get to him asking me out, when he eventually did he suggested we go for tacos, which is a plan I can always get behind.

He chose a pretty small, kind of hole in the wall taco place in downtown that I hadn’t been to before which I was pretty pleased about because I’m always keen to try new taco places and everyone knows some of the best tacos come from the smallest places.

On my walk to meet him there, I remembered that his pictures had been the type that could go either way. He could have totally downplayed his looks or those couple where he looked pretty good could have been total flukes. It had been hard to tell, there was no real consistency and so I was a little apprehensive.

Meeting him as planned at the taco place, I realised that the latter of those possibilities was true and I knew his personality would have to be sparkling for me to find him attractive. I was a little disappointed. But you should never judge a book by it’s cover so I forged ahead. Plus, tacos.  

It didn’t start well though when on walking up to the counter to order he sort of hung back and essentially made it impossible for me not to go up and order alone. Once I’d placed my order for 3 tacos, I turned around and asked if he was ready to order. He said he wasn’t and to “just go ahead”. Ok, so I guess I’m buying my own tacos?

Now, they were $12 and it’s not about the money, but we’ve had this conversation many times here. Paying on a first date. I am happy to pay, but I’m happier if you at least offer. Especially, if dinner and the venue for dinner were your choice. That for me is kind of a rule I follow – if I suggest the date and/or I suggest where to go, then I will always plan to pay.

Thus I figured he’d suggested the hole in the wall cause at least it was cheap. But he didn’t even offer to pay! Don’t worry, bud, I got the $12 covered.

In the short space of time it took for me to wolf down my tacos – what can I say I don’t like them to get cold – I had done a great impression of an interviewer. That is to say, I asked all of the questions and he asked almost none. I know I can talk a lot so it’s something I’ve worked on to ensure I don’t always lead conversation on a date. Not least because I am looking for someone who can take the lead in a relationship at least half the time, so being the only one to drive the conversation isn’t generally a good sign.

Which begs the question, when he asked if I wanted to go for a drink after we ate, why on earth did I agree? If I’m honest, it was possibly because we’d probably only been on the date for less than 30 minutes at that point and he’d come all the way over to downtown from North Vancouver and I guess I would have felt bad if it had ended there. Although I realise writing that now, it actually wouldn’t have been my problem.

In hindsight, there’s something to be said for valuing your own time and not drawing out something that you already know isn’t going anywhere. Why was I too polite to say no? Why did I allow myself to follow him to the bar when I was already bored.

Add to this, the fact that when discussing where we were going to go for a drink, he suggested an Irish bar across the street because, looking pointedly at me, “it’s Irish!” Um, great, but I’m Scottish. The correction didn’t seem to land with him, whether he didn’t care or he thought Ireland and Scotland were one in the same, I couldn’t be sure…

So we get to the Irish bar, the home of not my people, and I can already tell it was a terrible idea to agree. There was no atmosphere and despite the few other patrons, the service was sloooooooow. My hope for a quick drink followed by a quick escape was dwindling.

And when he suggested he might want a second one, I made a comment about wanting an early night before a 5.30am workout tomorrow but again, the comment didn’t land. Or maybe he just chose to ignore it?

So he had another while I nursed my first cider, and when eventually he was finished and we agreed to leave, of course the server took forever to bring the bill. In the time we were waiting, I decided I’d already wasted enough time and rather than play out the whole “I’ll text you”, “let’s do this again” thing, I decided to just say then and there that it had been good to meet him but I didn’t feel he was that interested in finding out about me, aka “you’ve asked me next to nothing throughout the last hour and a half”.

He said it took him some time to warm up, and he wasn’t sure what he was looking for anyway, having not long moved to Vancouver. Both of those were valid points but would it have been too much to ask for him to have seemed at least semi-interested during our date?

When the bill finally arrived, I made the executive decision not to even offer to pay for my cider. My time was worth the $6.75. In fact, that was a bargain. I was just glad it was over. As I watched him pay the bill though I noticed he didn’t tip. Nothing. Zero. $0. Oh wow. I was mortified. If I’d had cash on me I would have done a Ross in Friends when he tipped on the dinner with Rachel and her Dad. I almost wanted to apologise to the server as we left. Or go back in later and give him a tip. 

Now I was really glad it was over. We hugged goodbye, I hurriedly left and texted O. So much for spreading them eggs around.

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Sex, Brunch & First Dates

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Jun-2017

You know those first dates when you talk about children, anal sex and sex clubs? Yeah, me neither… until I met Ukrainian Race Car Driver.

One of the most annoying things about online dating can be the time it takes between matching with someone and finally meeting up in real life. Between starting a conversation (though I always start convos because ain’t nobody got time to wait and what’s the point in matching if you weren’t going to message?), to both becoming comfortable enough that you know the other one isn’t crazy to then making plans to meet up, you can have lost interest before you’ve even seen their face in real life.

Some guys, on the other hand, are a little more proactive – asking you out almost as soon as you’ve matched. And when that happens it’s always cause for massive brownie points. So when I matched with this blonde haired, blue eyed 29 year old one Saturday afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised, albeit a little taken aback, when his first message was “want to get dinner tonight?”

In the midst of making plans with him, I got side tracked by an attractive trainee medical professional, and so dinner that night didn’t happen but we did end up making plans for brunch the next day. It was so easy and quick, and the next morning at 11am he was picking me up to go to one of my favourite brunch spots.

I should note at this point that he picked me up in some pimped out car with one of those exhausts that generally make me turn around in disgust when you hear it roaring down the street, and whose seats were so low slung, I could have been in a hammock. As we drove the short distance to the restaurant he explained this was one of his favourite of his six cars and he’d chosen it because the exhaust wasn’t too loud for driving around the city…. I beg to differ.

He was clearly super passionate about cars, and not only was it his passion it was also his career. He owned a car body shop and they did everything from general repairs to what appeared to be Vancouver’s very own Pimp My Ride. It’s not a world I’d ever had any exposure to other than in TV shows but from his stories it sounds like it was quite accurate.

Not only did he own a car garage, but he also drove race cars whenever he could. If he took vacation it was to go to a race, he’d save up and work on a car and then go race it. It was a whole new world. And he did all of this while married and with two kids. He was now separated, don’t panic, I hadn’t all of a sudden taken to dating married men.

They’d been separated for six months and by all accounts things had been difficult. But I never trust one side of the story when I hear it like that – I can only imagine what my ex says about me when he tells people stories of our marriage…. Still, Ukrainian Boy Racer saw his kids a lot and, of course because of the kids, he was still in touch with his ex frequently and things were getting better.

As we sat on the patio in the June sunshine, we covered a plethora of topics over brunch. He told me about his marriage, I told him about mine, we chatted about work, whether he wanted anymore kids, whether I wanted any kids at all, and then we discussed (commiserated about?) dating in Vancouver, which led us into date stories and then, somehow, onto sex stories. It was mostly light hearted but I remember him saying he was surprised to be having these conversations in public at brunch on a first date. Though he also noted he was thoroughly enjoying it, and it was clear he had very strong views and needs when it came to sex.

The conversations continued after he asked me if I wanted to go for a walk when we finished eating. I was quite enjoying spending time with him so I agreed and as we walked the seawall and came across an ice cream van I realised how chivalrous he was. He had got out the car when he picked me up to open my door, he paid for brunch, he insisted on paying for the ice cream.

He was very much the perfect gentleman. He was also clearly a bit of a freak sexually. Because, after all, the two absolutely aren’t mutually exclusive and I was loving getting to know both of those sides of him.

He mentioned a few times he had to go to work at some point, before he picked up his kids later in the afternoon, but he kept putting work off to extend our date. First with the walk after brunch, and now with some park time after the walk. After our ice cream we ended up settling down on the grass in a park by the seawall. And again, the conversations continued.

During our discussions, I’d been open about my feelings on anal sex, and he claimed it was rare to meet a girl who a) enjoyed it and b) was so open about her enjoyment of it. He’d also mentioned a couple of times that his “size: often put women off sleeping with him. But I felt like that was a line, doesn’t every guy make out like he’s “just SO big” that girls are scared. Um, no calm down little boy, we know how to handle ourselves and you. But there was part of me that wondered whether with him it might be true…

He told me about the open marriage he’d tried with his wife. He casually mentioned he’d had multiple orgies, with escalating numbers of participants. He went into detail about the stripper he dated, who still gets her car serviced at his garage, and has a massive face tattoo and he talked about their first date at a sex club.

There were more than a couple of moments when I had to truly control my facial expressions because he told the stories so matter of factly that I felt my reactions should be deadpan also, but inside my head all I could think was “WHAT THE FUCK!? A STRIPPER?! A FACE TATTOO?! A SEX CLUB?! I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THERE WERE SEX CLUBS IN VANCOUVER!!!”

Up until this point in the Summer, I’d been feeling pretty confident in my sexual exploration and felt like I was becoming fairly well versed in and, more importantly, comfortable with casual sex but this was next level! And I was trying my best not to come across as completely naive and green around the ears, which was difficult when I felt like a schoolboy who stumbled upon a porn mag.

So when he suggested that the date end with becoming more intimately acquainted with each other (not at the park thankfully, he did suggest we go back to my place) I have to say that fear and intimidation took over. I could not understand what a guy who had dated a stripper, whose body I was imagining to be like a temple and flexibility to be like that of a cirque du soleil performer, would want to sleep with me. I was also wondering if I’d somehow accidentally bigged myself up.

Yes, we’d talked about sex but I think I was honest about my preferences, experience and comfort levels. I’d sex clubs interested me, mostly from a genuine fascination perspective, but that I wasn’t sure in what circumstance I’d be likely to go. I also said I didn’t think threesomes were for me. Personal preference, no judgement. But maybe he’d got the wrong end of the stick and thought I was a freak in the sheets.

Instead of disappoint him, I made up some bullshit story about my girlfriend coming to stay and that she had texted me to say she was arriving early so I had to go home. Again, totally chivalrously, he offered to drive me home and got out to open my door when he dropped me off. Although I think that time it was mostly to kiss me. And it was a pretty hot kiss.

His pale skin and blonde hair, which I’m not normally a fan off, aside I found him incredibly alluring. But still, his sexual experience intimidated me so I was glad that was all it got to.

But not long after he dropped me off I got a text to say he was incredibly turned on by our conversations and he couldn’t believe he’d have to wait to sleep with me. In my head I’d presumed saying no to him that day might mean he’d be having sex with the stripper again across the hood of some souped up racing car in his garage again the next day (that is a totally made up scenario in my head, he never said that had happened, but it felt like it might have… I’m not alone am I?!) but maybe he was more interested in me than I expected.

Turned out he was, he messaged me the next day and the day after that. Having not been able to meet him the day following our date, I was working from home on that second day and, to put it bluntly, I was feeling kinda horny. So when the text came in I decided a lunch date might not be the worst idea. He did offer to actually bring me lunch, again good manners, but I declined and so he essentially came over for a sex lunch date.

I was almost as apprehensive as I’d been on the Sunday but only marginally more content in the knowledge he had sought me out again, so I decided that if he then did turn out to be disappointed in the sex we had he only had himself to blame.

And so we had all the sex. And while the sex itself was great, that pale skin and blonde hair really didn’t do it for me. So quite early on I decided to chalk it up to an interesting sexual experience. And interesting it was. In a complete 180 from the experience with Teeny Irish Peen, I could definitely see what he might have meant when he said some females were put off sleeping with him due to the size of his penis. It wasn’t so much length, it was GIRTH. And, ladies, you know that’s harder to deal with than a few extra inches in length.

But we worked with it and I think he was fairly impressed at my steely determination to not let it put me off. But I just remember it being SO WIDE! For the most part though we had fun and we both enjoyed it. But good God, THAT WIDTH! Anyway, you get the picture – if you don’t imagine me having to use two hands to get all the way around it.

So yeah, that’s what we were working with, but the sex really was pretty good. Other than that though, I felt nothing. Despite our good chats I didn’t even really feel that connected to him in any other way. Previously with casual sex I think most times I’d felt some sort of attraction to the person, maybe other than Penne and Penises? But this was flat out just sex. It felt a little odd.

After our lunchtime session, we both went back to work – him to the garage and me to my sofa. After that day we saw each other once more. There had been a couple of “are you free tonight” texts but whichever one of us was the recipient never was free. So the following week, I was working from home another day and he came over when he could get away from work. But we spent so long talking about his ex that we didn’t get to have sex before he got called back to the garage. Once he’d left I kind of wondered if I’d in fact stalled any chance of us having sex because I really wasn’t feeling it.

He texted me a couple more times to try and meet up but I was never free and, even if I had been, I didn’t think I really wanted to see him again. The sex wasn’t worth looking up at someone and playing a mind game of trying to extricate sexual attraction from physical attraction. It’s like when you’re on the treadmill and doing running maths, as I like to call it – ”if I run at this pace then it’ll take me x minutes to run another x km”, or “only another x.x km to have run 10 miles”. It’s exhausting and you’re only doing it to distract yourself from the task at hand. And, let’s be honest, that’s never how you should feel during sex, now is it?

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The Power of No

divorcedanddatingat305 Comments

Jun-2017

At what point in matching with someone on a dating app do you give up your right to say no? At what point when you’re chatting with someone over text do you give up your right to say no? At what point after you’ve met up with someone in real life do you give up your right to say no? Oh that’s right – never.

I’ve written about it before and, no doubt, I’ll write about it again before my dating life is over but feeling in someway coerced into making a decision you may not have been fully comfortable with when dating, happens more frequently than I would like – which is never.

And I’m talking about everything from staying for one more drink, to kissing someone, to letting someone come up to your apartment, or asking someone who has come up to your apartment to leave. You could put it down to being too nice but, for females, it can also come down to fear.

We walk a fine line between not caring what others think of us and doing what’s right for us, and knowing all too well that a single, solitary, even unintentional, dent to a man’s ego can result in their behaviour towards you changing very quickly. We witness it as early as the school playground when if a girl doesn’t like a boy back, he’ll start being mean to her. Which, interestingly, is also the same way that he shows he likes a girl (,which is fucked up and a whole other problem for a whole other post).

Of course, I’m not talking about all men, I’m not even talking about most men, but the problem is when you’ve just met a man you have no idea if they may fall into that category. Having said that, you also hear of people that have known each other for years, never thought they were that type of person, and one day something flips.

The most WTF version of this I’ve witnessed on a regular basis is when messaging guys on a dating app. Everything’s going fine until they ask for “pics” or ask a sexually explicit question before we’ve even established the basics, and I decline. The change in their tone and language, and the quickness with which they can become incredibly angry is entirely unwarranted.

I’ve been told to “fuck off”, been called frigid, a cocktease, a time waster, all sorts. And it really affected me to begin with. I hated feeling like I’d in some way led someone on, while all the time trying to remind myself that starting a friendly conversation on a dating app wasn’t leading someone on.

But at least when it’s only in an app or over message, you don’t have to worry too much for your safety. More just his safety in case he bursts a blood vessel in anger about a girl he’s never met not wanting to send a picture of her naked body to him. Shocking.

When it’s in person however, it can be a different story. I definitely felt that way a little at the end of the night with Whistler Teacher Slash Photographer, and I remember distinctly having the thought in my head when Irish Tech Triathlete didn’t seem to want to leave my apartment.

What I’d never had was a guy so explicitly tell me I owed him something, until the night I met American East Coaster. I know it’s a very generic nickname, but he had actually been the first East Coaster I’d met up with… so we went with it.

He was 37, had not long moved to Seattle for work in some medical field or other, and was up in Vancouver for the weekend by himself just to explore because he’d heard it was lovely. He wasn’t wrong. I spent Saturday morning after we matched messaging him all the fun stuff he should do while he was here.

There had been talk of us meeting up during the day or for dinner but I had plans and it wasn’t until much later at night that he messaged me to check in on my night that I said I’d actually just got home. By this time it was after midnight and I was done drinking after a long day so didn’t want to meet up for a drink like he suggested.

Instead, I’d clearly got a second wind and suggested that we go for a walk. He was just heading back to his hotel from a bar near mine so I said we could meet up a couple of blocks away and then walk to the seawall from there.

Walking Vancouver at night is one of my favourite things to do. It’s such an incredibly safe city and, despite me living right downtown, it can also be incredibly quiet at night. So a walk wasn’t the craziest idea. Thankfully he agreed, but probably partly because I think I made it clear if he didn’t want to do that then we weren’t meeting up!

And so we did, and I got to show him Vancouver by night. And it was fun! He was a really nice guy, super chatty and kinda funny. But I didn’t find him super attractive. Still, as I was feeling with dating in general now, there’s something about just meeting people you otherwise wouldn’t, that is a win regardless of the outcome.

As we walked, he noted a couple of times that we were going in the direction of his hotel. Which I was fully aware of. I’d actually planned the route so that he’d end up back at his hotel, and I would then just finish the last few blocks to mine. Now, I’m aware dates usually end the other way, with the guy walking the girl home but given where we were walking and the fact he was the tourist and I obviously know my way about, I decided he should go home first.

But while I thought that was a nice gesture on my part, he had somehow taken this to mean that if we were going back to his hotel first then I was obviously going to also be stopping there… um, no. I had designs on bed. My own bed. By myself.

So we get to the hotel and there’s this awkward moment when he carries on walking toward the door and I hang back to initiate the goodbye. He turned around surprised “are you really not coming up?” Um, no. I explain that really was never my intention and he hits back with “well that’s not what it sounded like in your texts. Why don’t you just come up for a bit?” And this started a full on back and forth about how our night was going to end.

For every time I said “no” he either came back with something about me having intimated something else to him, or trying to convince me to. But that was how he was making me feel, like somehow I owed him a trip up to his hotel room.

In the quiet Vancouver street at 1.30am, I was glad I could see the hotel concierge from where I was standing and so firmly, for the last time said “I’m sorry you thought this was something else, it was honestly just a walk. It was lovely to meet you, enjoy the rest of your time in Vancouver.”

Rather than accept it and reply courteously, or even not accept it but at least still be polite, he told me it was bullshit, threw his hands up in the air (not in the “like you just don’t care” way though) and turned around to head into his hotel.

Before I was more than a block away my phone pinged with a message. Oh god… And right enough it was him. Again, telling me it was bullshit and asking if I was serious. As if, I don’t know, somehow that would make me change my mind and head back to his hotel for a night of wild sex? I didn’t reply, there was no point and the day had now caught up with me, so it seemed best to just go to bed, in my house, on my own, as I’d always planned.

But I can’t let messages go unanswered – I don’t know if it’s because I’m too polite or I just love a convo – so the next day I replied and just said I was sorry if he was upset, that was never my intention and, again, wished him well on his last day in Vancouver.

Rather than just replying with something civil, or even just not replying, he decided to start screenshotting me parts of our message conversation and marking them up with red lines and red circles, clearing hinting that these were the phrases that led him to believe he was picking up a sex date on the corner of the street last night, and not just someone to go for a walk with.

He actually marked them up! Took the screenshot, went into edit, chose ‘Markup’ and got busy with his virtual red marker. I was shocked but also kind of impressed by his dedication to his argument. But mostly, I was just seriously pissed off, which I hadn’t been before. Before I’d felt kinda bad, really hadn’t wanted to upset him, but knew I was in the right.

Now? Now, I was about to give him a lesson in how to treat women. Or at least I would have if he hadn’t blocked me on Bumble. So I missed my chance.

But here’s what I would have told him – even if I had explicitly said in my text “let’s meet up and have sex”, while yes there could be some surprise, or disappointment, on his part if those plans changed, I still wouldn’t have owed him the sex I talked of previously.

And I know some people will say, meeting up with a guy from a dating app after midnight, even if it is only to “go for a walk” can only mean one thing. And to that I say, fuck off. There is NO circumstance, no way of meeting, no time of day, no setting that determines that I owe a man anything.

There is power in “no” and the power is mine.

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Pasta And Appendages

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Jun-2017

We’ve talked about it before – someone being great on paper but then it not working out in real life. But what about being great on paper AND being great in text and then there being zero spark in person? How is that possible? Do people have ghost (text) writers?!

The week after the half marathon in June, and the awkward date with Whistler Teacher Slash Photographer, I was off to Vegas for a bachelorette weekend. And contrary to the general consensus about Vegas, I’ve never once gone to hook up. My focus is only ever on having fun with the people I’m with. Unfortunately on this particular trip I was sick as a dog with a cold, and so neither of those things were going to happen.

Just before I left Vancouver, I matched with a guy on Bumble and we started chatting the day I flew out. Turned out he was away for a boys weekend to Seattle and so via text over the course of our weekends we compared drunkenness, funny stories, mishaps and suntan progress. I hadn’t expected to hear from him as much as I did but it was kind of nice.

We both worked in tech, we lived near each other and it sounded as if we liked a lot of the same things. So far so good. He also had some pretty good banter. The night when our group’s plan was to go for an Italian followed by the Thunder From Down Under Strip show (yes, it’s really called that) he made the observation that it was going to be all “penne and penises” for us. He was then forever known as that to me. And given that he shared a (real life) name with Toronto Dimple Chin, I chose to save him in my phone as Penne and Penises also, you know, to save confusion.

As our weekends wore on and a couple of drunken nights threw up (pun intended) some drunken texts (more on his part than mine, because my cold had rendered me almost unable to drink), the messages definitely turned a little flirty. Add to that, him having started following me on Instagram and making comments about pictures of bikinis and barely there Vegas dresses, and you got yourself some fairly sexually charged conversations.

It was a risky move and I was aware of that but I like to think I’d always done my due diligence… to the extent that you can with online dating! At least been able to prove they were a real person and not some creepy old guy getting his kicks pretending to be a 27 year old hot guy.

I always find that bit weird. I’m not saying I don’t engage in it. I clearly do. But when you take a step back, it’s still odd to me that people can get to that level of “comfort” with someone who is essentially a stranger. That we can be so happy to share such intimate thoughts and details with someone whom we haven’t even met yet. Don’t get me wrong, I know there are some people that would absolutely not let any dating app conversation go down that road until, maybe even well after, they’ve met someone, and I always thought I was that person too. But, as I was becoming more comfortable with my sexuality and my apparently growing sex drive, I was finding it easier to let my mind wander and open myself up to people who were still just a name and some (hopefully not false) pictures on a screen.

So yes, the texts had escalated and, by the time our weekends were over, we were pretty excited to finally be able to meet up when we were both back in Vancouver. Unfortunately, the cold was still kicking my ass, and I was rendered useless for the first week after I was home.

During that time he checked in on me everyday and asked if I needed anything brought over. But I was hardly about to have a guy I’d never met, who I thought there might be potential with, see me for the first time when I looked like a massive bag of crap.

Eventually the second Monday after we were home, I felt a tiny bit better to the point that when he said he didn’t care I was sick he just wanted to see me, I agreed that he could come over. It wouldn’t have been my first choice of first date location but I still wasn’t up to going out.

After what had, by that point, been a couple of weeks of texting we finally got to meet and I was super excited. But that excitement was put on hold when he turned up wearing a Celtic football top – Celtic are a football team from Glasgow in Scotland, and the football I’m talking about is the OG, not of the American variety. But how was he to know that my ex-husband was a die-hard Celtic fan and, in my residual pettiness, I now hated everything about them?

It wasn’t the best start, nor was the fact he looked a little heavier than the pictures on his profile. And it didn’t look like muscle. But whose weight doesn’t fluctuate at times? And I’m hardly sat here with an athlete’s body. So I didn’t let it put me off. However chewing gum the whole time we had sex, keeping his white tube socks on throughout, and the incredibly off-putting sex faces? Yeah those put me off.

And yes, I had sex on a first date. And yes, I had sex while I was still full of the cold. And yes, I’m aware none of these revelations paint me in the best light…

The spark that we’d had in all those messages was definitely not translated into real life and I remember I was really keen for him to leave as soon as possible after we’d finished the no pants (but keep the gum and white tube socks) dance.

I hoped it had just not been great because I was still sick and that maybe if we’d had a proper first date, rather than a 6pm slightly sick sex date, it would have been different. But you can’t undo what’s already done and so, arranging to go on a proper second date, I just held out hope that we could figure it out from there on out.

In between the first and second date, the texts went back to being great and, maybe unsurprisingly, even more sexually explicit given that we now knew each other more intimately. And, despite the lacklustre feeling I’d had after seeing him that first time, the spark was re-instated in our messages. So I was hopeful the second date could be an improvement and wondered if he’d been in anyway disappointed in our first meeting…

As it happened, the second date ended up occuring in the exact same way as the first one – I was still sick (and by now so incredibly sick of being sick), so he came round to mine. Albeit not wearing any reminders of my ex this time, thank the Lord for small mercies I guess. But I was even less physically attracted to him and it actually annoyed me.

It annoyed me that there could be what felt like a great connection in messages, fun, easy banter, playful flirting, all mixed in with some serious life talk but when it came to being in the same room as each other it was flatlining. And that’s not to say it’s all on him, that he was a good texter but a bad in-person person.

It’s just that’s the way we were together. It was as much about me as it was him. Dating truly is a chemistry thing. And you can get the formula right on paper, but in real life it can still fuck up.

It didn’t mean we didn’t have sex again but nor did it mean he took his socks off this time either, despite me hoping that had just been an oversight the first time. At which point I decided I definitely wouldn’t be seeing him again because, let’s be honest, when the sexts are far better than the sex, you know you should cut your losses.

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Can I Go Now, Sir?

divorcedanddatingat306 Comments

Jun-2017

You know when you make plans and they seem like a good idea at the time, but then when the time comes you realise you’re tired and you’d rather stay in? But you go and figure you’ll just cut the night short but then the guy you’re out with attempts to bargain with you to make you stay out and chooses to lecture you on how much you’ll regret it if you go home? Yeah that’s what happened with Whistler Teacher Slash Photographer.

I’d only gone to Whistler to run a half marathon. I had no plans of organising a date, or meeting someone but while lying in my hotel room bed awake earlier than I even needed to be with pre-race nerves, I was mindlessly swiping through the Bumble and Tinder, wondering what the usually bustling ski town of Whistler would have to show for itself on a dating app in the middle of summer.

I was pleasantly surprised, but I was also sure the majority of people were likely to be just visiting. Not that it mattered – again, I wasn’t planning to meet anyone.

My friends, who were also running the half marathon, and I had arrived the night before, just in time for a glorious carb load and then an early bed. Somehow, despite travelling with two couples, I had ended up in the huge hotel room, with a King size bed, full kitchen and dining space, corner windows and a balcony overlooking Whistler village.

As I lay swiping in that giant bed, having probably used about a third of the available space at most during the night, I matched with a few people and was surprised when at 6.03am one of the Tinder matches messaged me. At first I figured it must be someone who was just getting in from the night before but, after a few messages back and forth, it turned out that when he wasn’t being a teacher, he was a photographer and had been asked to film the race. So while I was preping myself for getting sweaty while running through the mountains, he was preping himself for filming people getting sweaty while running through the mountains.

Hs asked why I wasn’t sleeping and I said I wasn’t sure when I was in such a big, comfy bed. It was a throwaway comment that I didn’t even think about because I’d just been messaging friends back in the UK and had been telling them the same thing. But I realise that making any reference to your bed when you’re chatting with someone on a dating app, instantly sounds like an invitation for sex. It was not.

He didn’t seem to read too much into it, or at least if he did he didn’t let on. Although he did make a comment about me probably needing a massage later. I wasn’t sure if it was an offer or merely a suggestion. I chose to just take it as friendly advice and skip on over it.

As it got closer to race time, he wished me luck and said he’d look out for me on the course and hopefully would see me later as well. The first part of which horrified me, to think that a guy you’ve met on a dating app might see you for the first time midway through a half marathon didn’t bear thinking about – it’s not a pretty sight. The second part of which sounded like it could be fun.

He’d been funny and engaging and he clearly had a number of passions in his life with the teaching and photographer. He seemed like an interesting guy. So I said yes maybe we could do drinks later and left it at that.

I hadn’t actually thought I’d see him on the course, I presumed he’d be filming the people who could actually run without looking like they were having a heart attack, and those people aren’t me. But would you believe it, first corner we turn on the course having come out of the starting line area and I see a guy on a bike (as he said he would be), with a camera (as I imagined he would be) sitting in the central reservation capturing everyone as they’re going up the first stretch of road.

Despite the fact it was so early on in the race and my face hadn’t yet turned the beetroot red colour that it so loves to go after any small amount of exercise, I still decided to try and maneuver my way out of his line of sight. I wasn’t really prepared to do a whole weird, awkward “oh hi, it’s you” thing while trying not to get out of breath in the first five minutes of the race.

A very long and very sweaty two hours, fourteen minutes later and I was back in Whistler village, having enjoyed some beautiful sights around Whistler (not so beautiful were the really big fucking hills). Shortly after all my friends had gathered at the finish line area and we’d picked up all the required post-race snacks, I got a text from him to ask how I’d done and how I was feeling.

As my post-race recovery of a bath followed by brunch took place, we toyed around with the idea of meeting in the afternoon, but he then said that he’d rather do a night date so suggested we meet for drinks after my dinner.

Now two things about that: 1) a guy who “would rather do a night date” instantly makes me think that they’re in it for sex and they don’t think it’s as easy to get to sex on a date if it’s a middle of the day date. Little do they know me, I’d far rather have sex at any other time of the day than at night. 2) given that we’d both had a pretty early start and a fairly busy morning, there was a high chance that by the time I’d had dinner I’d be ready for nothing but my bed. Alone.

I should also note that by this stage in our messaging, he’d started to make more comments about my bed, following on from what I’d told him in the morning about it being massive. Coupled with his insistence that my muscles must really need a good massage and low and behold he had great massage skills, they were cheeky, flirty comments which for the most part I laughed at but didn’t entertain.

By 6pm, even getting myself up after my post-race, afternoon nap was a struggle and I had a feeling that by the time I’d stuffed myself with food I wasn’t likely to be feeling much more spritely. Alas, halfway through dinner he texted to confirm we were still on for drinks and made a plan where to meet based on where we were having dinner.

The friends I was with thought it was hysterical that I had arranged a date while only in the village for two nights and were especially excited when the date plan was that he’d come by the bar we were now in and we’d then walk somewhere else for drinks. I wasn’t sure why we couldn’t just meet there. I had Google maps.

So that was the first thing that kind of irked me, as well as the time it had taken to actually get to that plan. But he duly turned up outside the bar I was in, although thankfully stood just out of the line of sight of my friends so they couldn’t gawk too wildly.

Mercifully he looked like his pics, however, everything from that point was just a bit… blah. He’d brought his bike, presumably the same bike I’d seen him on during the race that morning, so, while we walked to the bar we were headed for, he walked with his bike. Now, if you’ve ever walked with a bike or walked with someone with a bike, you’ll know it can be awkward as hell. And this most definitely was. Add to that the fact that when we got to the bar we then had to find suitable bike parking and, to be honest, it just wasn’t the sexiest thing I’d ever encountered.

Once inside the kinda weird bar (there’s a tonne in Whistler, I didn’t know why he chose this one), he didn’t know what he wanted to drink. Oh god, I could feel my spikiness rising. Then, as I was telling him how tired I was, he told me I had no reason to be tired as I’d had an afternoon nap. Um, hey, Mr, you don’t get to decide if I’m tired or not. Again, the spikiness in me rose.

Given that by the time he’d decided what he was going to have to drink I’d almost finished my first gin, I ordered a second just to make sure I wasn’t sat there empty handed, though I was already thinking about leaving. But then he ordered a second and I could feel the will to live start to slip away from me.

The chats were fine, he was nice enough and hearing about his teaching and photography was interesting, but we were very different people. Apparently he didn’t go anywhere without that (damn) bike and never went to the city. He also apparently couldn’t take a hint that I was tired regardless of the number of times I yawned.

Thankfully the barmaid then came round and told us it was last call – I could have kissed her, I was so happy for the get out of jail card. Especially when he asked for the bill to be separate so we each paid our own way – again the paying on a date debate requires it’s own blog post, but that’s for another day.

I figured he would have caught onto the fact that a) there wasn’t really a connection and b) I was hella tired. Turns out, he’d caught onto neither so as we were leaving the bar he started to throw out suggestions as to where we could go next. When I politely declined, he started to do that reverse psychology thing of telling me what a fun night I was going to miss out on, not realising that a private show with The Killers wasn’t even likely to make me stay out at this point. Ok, I lie, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Brandon Flowers.

Just as I was saying that I’d had fun (why did I feel the need to lie about that?) but I was really tired, as we were stepping out of the bar, I realised why he’d chosen that bar – it was right opposite my hotel. So he took it as the perfect opportunity to say “ok, why don’t we just go to the liquor store and go back to your room?”

Wow. Just wow… People’s inability to read a situation is flabbergasting at times. Take a hint. Know your audience. Sense the tone. I WANT TO GO TO BED. ALONE.

After many more insistencies from me that I really was tired and I really did just want to go to bed (ALONE!), but I really had had a good time (why must we stroke the male ego simply to be allowed to do what it is we want to do?), he reluctantly started to unlock his bike from the bike rack. Then he stopped.  Was I really sure I didn’t want just one more drink? Was I sure I didn’t want him to come back to my room with me? Didn’t I want a massage? And couldn’t that big bed use a second person?

Oh good God. By this point I was done being nice. I cut him off, told him I was going and momentarily was concerned that he knew which hotel I was staying in and with it’s proximity to where we were standing, him following me wouldn’t be that difficult. Thankfully he didn’t go full batshit crazy and do that but as I was in elevator up to my room my phone buzzed and it was him. Just checking (AGAIN!) that I didn’t want another drink because I was going to regret it.

I decided to ignore it, until just as I was closing the door (and firmly double locking it) my phone rang. Of course, it was him. I answered it mostly to make the noise stop, I can never find the silent switch when a call is incoming – why is that?!

There was yet more protestations on his part that I would regret it and I’d made a poor choice., and that he was still downstairs if I’d changed my mind. At this point I just laughed. The fact that he thought there was any chance of me going back on my decision and either inviting him up or heading downstairs to meet him again, was laughable. I was already in my pjs as I listened to his sales pitch on loudspeaker.

But I was done with the entertainment of someone trying to sell themself, it was now starting to get a little degrading, on his part, so I once again cut it off and told him I was turning my phone off and going to sleep. By this time he was pretty pissed off about it and wasn’t doing a good job of hiding it. I don’t think I could have cared less.

The next morning, after a blissful sleep in my massive bed all by myself, I woke up to more texts from him. All bemoaning my choice and telling me I’d missed out on a “night of fun” and that he could have really shown me a good time. Jesus, I hope he was drunk when he sent those.

I’d definitely made the right choice but all I could think was, I wonder what he must be like as a teacher? Was he that insistent? Did he make it that difficult when a student wanted to leave the classroom? It must be a bloody nightmare if you were desperate for a pee…

Next post…

…previous post

Full Disclosure Required

divorcedanddatingat304 Comments

Feb-2017

Nobody wants to be a downer on a first date and generally topics such as bad breakups or ongoing medical conditions might be left until a possible second or third date. But when does trying to keep things light and fun actually become hiding, or lying about, your current state?

I met Irish Tech Triathlete online, he was 36, so entirely age appropriate (whatever the hell that means) for me, we had a lot in common in that we both worked in tech and we both enjoyed working out, not that I was training for triathlons or iron man races, and he was pretty funny.

We matched on a Sunday afternoon and by 5pm he called me. Like phoned me. On the telephone. I forgot people used them for that. It was a pleasant surprise in a number of ways – a) no one calls anymore, everyone hides behind texts (me included); b) often online matches can take what seems like an age to actually get to the meeting stage which bores me and; c) he was just as fun on the phone as he was on text.

He had a busy week coming up, and so did I, so he suggested we meet for drinks in the next hour. Um… what? I’m lying on my sofa, covered in cookie crumbs, wearing bed socks and now I have to make myself presentable not just to the world but to a first date. Ugh… fine.

An hour and a half later, cookie crumbs and bed socks gone, and we’re in a bar close to my house, having a really fun time. He was a super funny guy, we got on immediately, with a lot in common and easy banter back and forth. It’s the one difference I’ve noticed between dating North Americans and people from “back home” or maybe just outside of North America – there’s a sense of fun and banter and sarcasm and teasing that I haven’t found with people from Canada and the US. That’s not to say they don’t get there eventually but in the first instance, with someone new I don’t feel like they’re entirely comfortable with being that way. Brits or Irish on the other hand are happy to absolutely take the piss out of anyone and there’s something strangely comforting in it!

As the date went on, we had more drinks and he probably had two beers for every gin I had but he was a big guy, like 6”2 and he was well built so I didn’t think much of it. However by the time we got ready to leave he’d had a good few pints and I was aware he was definitely tipsy, while I felt fine, thankfully.

I lived a block round the corner which I didn’t strictly tell him but when he suggested walking me home, I figured I didn’t mind him knowing where I lived. When we got to my building though he made a comment about the building I lived in and how he was interested to see the view from my apartment. I’d had no intention of inviting him up but for whatever reason, in that moment I decided I’d let him come up. I was actually surprised by how much I liked him.

Did I feel pressure? A little. Did I think it was easier just to concede to a half drunk guy? Probably. Did I feel threatened? No, not explicitly. But it was another situation where maybe I should have found and used my voice more vociferously.

Voice MIA, we go up to my apartment, and in my head I know it’s literally going to be a look around, let him see the view and then say bye, no offer of a drink, no offer of a seat, nothing. I’m aware that trying to get rid of him from inside my apartment is arguably more difficult than from outside my apartment building when my concierge was 20 metres away. I’m not saying it made sense, but it’s what I did.

We duly look at the view, I show him around my tiny apartment which takes all of 20 seconds and then I say it’s time for him to go and me to go to bed. Of course he makes a joke about us both just going to my bed, which I laugh off. Then he says “but how am I supposed to get home? I drove and I can’t drive now.”

This is where, previously, I would have started feeling bad, offered for him to stay, offered to drive him myself (even though I definitely couldn’t have either), just tried to fix it in some way. But after bending over backwards for guys previously and it coming back to bite me on the arse, I decided he was a grown ass man who could figure it out himself. How had he thought this was going to play out? That I’d just let him stay? Not tonight my friend, not tonight.

He pretended to be hurt that I wasn’t helping him solve the problem he’d created for himself and then conceded that he would get a cab and come back for his car in the morning. He kissed me goodnight and it was a nice, albeit slightly drunken kiss. As the kiss went on I could feel him exerting some of that 6”2 frame on me to try and get me towards my bedroom from standing by my front door. I tried to resist, but at 5”4.5 I was really up against it.

So I pulled away, called him out on it and said goodnight. He gave me another peck, then just as I thought he was leaving, came back and started to kiss me again, and yet again tried to move me towards the bedroom. At this point I realised he had to go, so I pulled back, opened the door and essentially, hand in the small of his back (which was about mid-rib height on me), ushered him out.

I was disappointed the night had ended like that, he’d been a really fun guy and I had wanted to see him again but feeling like he was pressuring me first to come up to my apartment, then to stay and then to get me into my bedroom – it didn’t feel great. I put it down to him being drunk, he hadn’t seemed like that earlier in the night, but even if it was “just” when he’s drunk surely that was enough to be a red flag. And I wondered if he was even aware of it.

The next morning he messaged to say he’d had a great time, that he’d picked up his car and he was sorry for being a little “worse for wear”, he hadn’t realised how much he’d had to drink. I appreciated that he made mention of it. I’d have found it more difficult if he’d just swept it under the carpet. I also felt bad for him that it was a Monday morning and he was feeling rough – not a great start to anyone’s week.

Still, the end of the night before had definitely left a sour taste in my mouth and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see him again. So I replied to his initial text, something light and non-committal, wished him a good day and left it at that.

We texted a couple of times over the coming week, just small talk around our days, jokes from our first date and then the next Saturday when we were messaging, he said was skiing up in Whistler but suggested meeting up when he was back down in the city. I figured a second date was at least worth a go, so told him to text me when he got back and then we could see what time it was and make plans.

Silence.

I never heard from him again. For two and a half weeks. No follow up to our potential Saturday night plans, no messages afterwards to say his day had changed or to catch up with me after the weekend. Then one random Thursday afternoon at 5pm he messaged asking if I was free and wanted to go for drinks that night.

I was already at happy hour with a couple of friends, but figured I could go meet him after that. In hindsight, between the weird end to the first date and him going MIA for over two weeks I should have called it quits at that point, but it seems I’m not a quitter, in the worst possible way, so we made plans and I headed to meet him around 8pm.

He was really apologetic about his disappearance, which I fully called him out on. He’d been busy with work and there had been a lot of stuff going on. I explained that inconsistency didn’t work for me, which he said he understood and it wouldn’t happen again. He’d wanted to see me, but had just needed to sort some stuff out.

In the next couple of hours he did a great job of turning around the situation because somehow we ended up back in my apartment, again, and this time I was more open to the possibility of him ending up in my bed.

He was really fun and funny and (despite the initial red flags) seemed to have his shit together. He had his own place, had a good job, seemed to have a busy social life. He also wasn’t bad to look at and that never hurts. The rugby sevens weekend was coming up and he hadn’t been planning to go but as we were talking about it he mentioned it would be fun to hang out together at it, so he’d look at getting tickets. It felt like he could actually slot into my life kinda nicely, if it came to that.

Back at mine, he was far more respectful and guarded than he’d been the first night. He didn’t seem in a rush either which was nice. Or at least, it would have been if it hadn’t been for the fact that as things were about to start getting kind of serious after a whole lot of getting naked (side note – triathletes have incredibly lean bodies!) he “lost that loving feeling” – as it were.

Now, I get it, shit happens, you can’t control that thing – I mean the feeling, not the actual “thing”, although I’ve heard it claimed many a time it does in fact have a mind of its own – but twice? I had to try my best not to take it personally and wonder if my less than triathlete lean body wasn’t quite doing it for him.

After the second time, it was clear he wasn’t up (pun intended) for trying to make it work and instead just lay quietly in the dark. I gave it a minute and then asked the darkness “so, what’s up with that?” I’m sure I could have been more sensitive but… fuck it.

He stayed silent for a few minutes as the question kind of hung in the air. A number of times I wanted to interject the sound of tumbleweed and make a joke or try and offer up a possible reason or solution but instead I let the silence fill the space.

Eventually, after what felt like a lifetime, he started to talk. With an arm over his face, like a little boy admitting to something he’d done. He explained to me that the ex he had mentioned briefly on our first date was not only an ex from just a few weeks ago (the most recent time they’d broken up anyway), she was in fact also the mother of his 18 month old child.

A child he was now in a custody battle for, but was already solely looking after. A child he’d had with him in Whistler those few weekends ago and so was never going to be able to go out when he got back to the city. A child that he was going to have at the weekend and so he was never going to be able to come to the rugby sevens. A child that meant he only worked 4 days a week, yet he’d made comments about being Monday to Friday. A child he’d had done a very good job of actively avoiding talking about. A child I didn’t know he had.

The fact he had a child wasn’t the issue. The fact that when he’d told stories, like how he’d been hiking the other weekend, he purposely neglected to tell me that the other person on the hike with him, had been his baby. That when we agreed about how great living alone was, he didn’t actually live alone, he lived with his child.

I get it, it was a second date, I was hardly about to walk down the aisle and was just hearing all this stuff for the first time but there was something about the fact that it was a massive part of his life that he’d left out, so the whole picture of his life he’d painted was in fact false. Plus, now that massive part of his life was impacting his ability to be present in this part of his life.

He had been trying to learn Canadian child custody laws so he could fight for sole custody without having to pay for lawyers he couldn’t afford, he’d had to get a restraining order against his ex to stop her taking the child out the country, which apparently she’d attempted to do a number of times, he didn’t have a huge support network here with his family being back in Ireland and the 4 days of the week he worked he would do 14 hour days so he was almost working full time hours.

When he was explaining the situation, and giving the backstory, he was clearly anguished, he was clearly stressed and, despite how little I knew him (clearly!), it pained me to witness it. I started having flashbacks to when I had felt trapped and unable to cope with a situation. But that was years ago and I wasn’t attempting to date while going through it.

I mostly stayed quiet throughout his explanation. There wasn’t a lot I could say. I quieted my first instinct to help and, I don’t know, offer to babysit?! This wasn’t my mess to try and fix and while I felt bad for him and thought it was incredible he was stepping up to be the sole caregiver and I hoped the situation would resolve itself, I knew that I didn’t have the capacity to support someone through something like this. And in fairness, he wasn’t asking me to. But he clearly also wasn’t able to put it aside, which is no surprise, and so there really wasn’t a lot else to say.

He admitted he had hoped that dating might help him take his mind off it and would bring some light relief to an otherwise fairly stressful life, but had realised that in fact he wasn’t ready for it. Well no fucking shit. If he’d actually told me the situation right off the bat I would have told him he was attempting a triathlon before he could even crawl.

I halted the dragging night from taking either of us down further with a swift and entirely inappropriately cheery “well, you should probably go now!” I’m not sure I’ve ever asked someone to leave as they were lying naked next to me in my bed. But I guess there’s a first time for everything? And this felt like the right time to try it out.

And that was that, Irish Tech Triathlete, and his complicated custody issues, was never to be heard from again.

Next post…

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You And Me Does Not Equal One Plus One

divorcedanddatingat30Leave a comment

Oct-2016

When it comes to dating someone new, I’m sure most of us have been guilty of rushing a little bit ahead of ourselves at one time, at least I know I have. Hell, that’s my go to when I meet someone new! But when is it flattering and when is it too much?

I matched with Ukrainian Nigerian Engineer (clearly the nicknames write themselves most of the times) on Bumble and it turned out this tall, dark skinned, well dressed 28 year old lived on the opposite corner of my cross-streets. He asked me out fairly swiftly, which I always give multiple brownie points for and he also suggested a really nice bar that was close to where we both lived. Add to that the sensibility to suggest earlier in the evening considering it was a Sunday, and I was impressed so far, though maybe I’d already mentioned to him how much of a Granny I am and love early nights?

On the night in question though the bar turned out to be closed for a private event so we ended up in a nearby, although not quite as nice, alternative. Other than that slight hiccup, it was a good first date. He was chatty, he was interesting, he told me all about his new job and the travel he might get to undertake as a result, he seemed to have a good group of friends and he was also super interested, asking lots of questions of me. Interesting and interested are two key things I look for in someone, especially on a first date.

He walked me home afterwards but we were essentially going to the same place so it was hard not to I guess. We said a very respectful goodnight with what felt like a bit of a cursory hug and I remember leaving and not really feeling like I’d got a good read on him. As easy as he was to talk to, I got the feeling he was kind of quiet and we know how I do with quiet guys… He also hadn’t really given me any strong indication about how he felt about either the date or me.

I followed up later that night with my usual “thanks for the date and the drinks” (he paid) text and over the next few days we exchanged polite chit chat about our working days before he asked if I’d like to go out on the Thursday night. He’d read about some gallery opening and suggested we go check it out and then have dinner. I love a man with a plan! And not just “drinks”. So given that I wasn’t sure exactly where things were going prior to that, I took the second date intention as a good sign.

On a pouring wet October night, he picked me up and we went to this random little gallery over on the east side of the city and checked out what turned out to be a fairly small exhibit. But it had some great pieces and the wall with artwork made entirely out of business cards provided us with plenty to discuss around the merits of modern art.

After deciding neither of us were going to be making an investment in business card art, we made our way back towards downtown and an Italian place that does great pizzas a little closer to home. And while sipping on our wine and waiting for our food to arrive, I had one of those moments when recognising something in someone else makes you realise something about yourself. I love those kind of realisations, they fascinate me!

We were discussing his background – Ukrainian, Nigerian, in Canada since he was a young child is fairly unique – and when I asked how often he goes back to Nigeria he said “I’ve only been once and to be honest I don’t think I’ll go again.” I asked if he felt a bond to the country or if it would be a heritage he would pass onto his children ,if he had a family, and he said “no” to both.

In that moment I realised that if I were ever to have children, which is still TBC, of huge importance to me would be making sure they knew they were Scottish. (This presuming I have them here in Canada. I’d hope they’d be bright enough to know that they were Scottish if they were born there…) I realised that having children in Canada would mean I would have no commonality in terms of upbringing with my children, we would have had completely different lives, they wouldn’t even necessarily understand the cultural nuances and the pop culture references of an entire part of my life.

These were all gaps I’d considered that I would potentially need to bridge with a partner if they weren’t from Scotland, but I’d never thought about having a similar disconnect with my own offspring. And I know there’s a debate around nature vs nurture (and I think there’s a lot to be said about both) but as we sat at the table I was struck by what an enormous responsibility that felt.

At the same time, I realised that his answer of not wanting to pass his Nigerian heritage onto his children was kind of disappointing to me. I know it’s likely due to the fact that he didn’t feel a connection to it himself but it just didn’t sit particularly well with me.

While I was trying to digest the nugget of self discovery I’d just unearthed, along with my incredibly delightful truffle pizza which had since arrived, it was unfortunate timing for him to tell me a story that would literally make me choke.

You know there are those times when you start telling a story, or you’re halfway through, or maybe in fact you’ve gotten right to the end of it and you all of a sudden think to yourself “why the fuck am I telling this story?” Yeah, well this obviously wasn’t one of those times for Ukrainian Nigerian Engineer cause he just kept right on telling his story while I’m pretty sure my face contorted into the exact human version of the flushed face emoji.

It turns out his new company were getting in the planning of their Christmas party early and were asking everyone to RSVP that week. His colleague who was organising it had gone up to him in the middle of the lunch room, catching him entirely off guard, and said “are you coming to the Christmas party?” and as quickly as he said yes, she then tacked on “And what’s your plus one’s name?”

Now, there are many answers he could have given to that question: “I don’t have one”’ “I’ll need to see if she’s available”; “I’m a lone wolf”; “she lives in Yemen” – I mean, so many answers. Instead he gave my name. Not only did he give my name, he then thought it was a good idea to tell me that he’d given my name and so was now essentially asking me to go to his office Christmas party.

Now, again, there are many things wrong with this, but the first one that came to my mind was that the Christmas party was on the 16th December. It was only the 27th October. And it was our second date. Holy shit balls, we were making plans for 7 weeks away… To compound my shock, I still wasn’t really getting any in-person vibes from him that he was particularly interested in me. Apart from, you know, giving my name as his plus one to his work party in almost two months time.

Having picked my jaw up off the floor and returned my eyes to their normal size, I tried to quickly end the date. The heritage discussion, Christmas party plus one invitation and also a discussion we’d had about his car while parking that sort of presented him as a little materialistic had all really turned me off.

When we said goodbye as he dropped me back off at home, I had kind of made up my mind that I probably wouldn’t see him again – so he was going to have to change his party plus one’s details – and realised the fact I could see his building from mine probably wasn’t ideal in this situation but I’d never seen him around before we’d met online so why should I now?

Because Sod’s Law, that’s why.

Of course, just over a week later I was out with friends at a bar round the corner from my apartment and as we were all sat chatting, actually about another date I’d just been on (blog post to come), some guy walking behind me just caught the corner of my eye as he stopped right over my shoulder and just stood staring, the way someone would when you want them to notice you’re looking at them.

I turn around to meet the stare and there’s Ukrainian Nigerian Engineer. I get up from the table, hoping he didn’t just hear the last comment my very crude friends just made, and try to usher him away from the group. But he seemingly had other plans and as soon as our hug was over he started introducing himself to my friends. Um, ok then.

I was really caught off guard. I never introduce people to my friends, they’re too much of a liability and now was definitely not the best time for intros considering they all knew I wasn’t planning to see this guy again.

Despite him now being ensconced in hellos with my friends, I still felt like there was someone staring at me and as I turned around again I realised the table of what I presumed were his friends are now all watching our table intently. I laughed and said “oh looks like you’re wanted, you better go” hoping it would cut short this very out of the blue meetup. But no. He insisted I go and meet his friends now also.

So I politely went over, how could I say no when they were all watching me?, and did the round of names and waved hellos but before that was even finished one of them piped up with “so I hear you’re going to the Christmas party?” Cue incredibly awkward silence from him, who had taken his seat again and left me standing like a lemon by the side of the table. Cheers.

I mumbled something about how I’ve heard engineering Christmas parties are the best (what?! I don’t know!!!) before sharing an awkward standing/seated goodbye hug with Ukrainian Nigerian Engineer and then making the hastiest of hasty retreats back to my table of friends, where I swiftly told them all to “drink up, we’re leaving.”

First the Christmas party, now the friend introductions… but yet still no real sense of intention from him. It was just slightly confusing.

We texted a little after that bar encounter but my Mum came to visit and then it was almost Christmas and eventually we just stopped all communication, which suited me fine. Until that is I bumped into him in the street one day. Of course.

We shared the usual “what have you been up to” chat while dodging weekend shoppers passing us by but when he started to go down the route of “we should catch up sometime” I stopped him before it went any further and said “I’m actually seeing someone just now”. It sounded like such a lie coming out my mouth but it wasn’t.

Regardless of who else I was seeing, and there was someone else by then, all of the interactions I’d had with him had either left me wondering if he was interested in me at all or wanting him to massively pump the breaks, there was no in between, no happy medium and in neither circumstance was I that attracted to him.

So I decided to chalk this one up to experience, appreciate the lesson I’d learnt about how important passing on my Scottish roots is to me and vow not to date anyone who lived across the street again. That last part has not held true…

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Blah, Blah, Blah & Blah

divorcedanddatingat302 Comments

Sep/Oct-2016

After the excitement of Arms (part 1 & part 2), I guess I knew the next dates would be… interesting. Physically they had a lot to hold up to. Sexually, if it got that far, they were going to have to be out of this world. And on a common connection level they’d need to be pretty spot on. Unfortunately, if not unsurprisingly, none of those marks were hit.

The first, was a 26 year old Canadian, who’d just moved back from Vancouver after being in Australia for a year. He was a lawyer, lived and worked downtown, and we arranged to meet for drinks one day after work.

I always think if someone has travelled they should be fairly well socialised and have something about them, something interesting, something to say. This guy? Not so much.

The fact that even making the arrangements of where to meet was difficult should have been a red flag. He kept saying “I haven’t lived here for a few years”. Yeah but prior to that this was the only place you lived, you were back here visiting within those two years you lived away and things don’t change that fast – just pick a goddamn place! Then he did and it was shit, so be careful what you wish for, I guess.

Unfortunately, things didn’t get any better when we met. On first sight he was cute, with a lingering tan from his recent travels and blonde curls framing his babyface. Which at least was pretty to look at when very swiftly after we arrived I found myself bored. Like, looking around the bar bored. Generally I can, and will, talk to anyone. But this was painful.

Add to his lack of chat the fact that anything he did say centred around really not wanting to be back in Vancouver, not liking the job he’d gotten since he moved back but thought it was the best he could get, and hating where he was living. I actually left feeling marginally depressed.

Babyfaced Non-Aussie Lawyer had brought my mood down to zero over the course of two gin and tonics. That takes some doing, cause the gin alone lifts my mood so he’d managed to entirely counter those effects. Dating is hard!

The next date was with a 32 year old Canadian travel marketer at a really great cocktail bar I’d been wanting to try for a while so this guy got instant brownie points for a) picking somewhere and b) picking somewhere good. However, for happy hour at 5pm on a Tuesday it was lacking a little bit of atmosphere.

Thankfully we had a lot to talk about and enjoyed 3 cocktails each while discussing his travels around the UK, his job which I was pretty fascinated by and my recent found love of kickboxing and half marathons.

By the time he paid the bill and we left though, I knew that no matter how easy our chats on that date had been and how much of a nice guy he was, I wasn’t attracted to him. He looked decidedly middle aged for his 32 years, and while I know I’m no 20 year old, it was a little off putting. In my mind now, I associate the colour brown with him for some reason, though I’m sure that’s not the only colour he was wearing…

I was only just formulating these thoughts as we were fumbling with the door and umbrellas though, so when he quickly said he’d love to do it again I didn’t have time to respond appropriately so just responded inappropriately with “sure, I’d love to!”

Ugh, I hate that. I hate being that girl, I hate being the one who lied, who was dishonest with their intention. Nobody really wants to be the one that has to tell the ugly truth but, in my opinion, it’s far better than doing what I did and then having to follow it up with a text that explains that… what? I changed my mind? Had a change of heart? Am just a big ol’ liar who couldn’t just strap on her big girl pants and say “this was lovely, but I don’t think there’s anything there for me”? Why is that so hard????

I won’t even repeat word for word the bullshit text I sent, but suffice to say, it was bullshit but covered what I should have just said at the time. And Canadian Travel Marketer was such a nice guy he just said in reply “that’s a shame, I thought we had a lot in common but I wish you the best”. Seriously, dating is hard.

Next up was a lunchtime date with a 34 year old Irish financial worker. He’d been fairly lowkey in messages but was quick to make a plan for us to meetup and after realising neither of us had time after work for a few weeks, we decided a lunch hour date was going to be the best bet.

So I kept my schedule clear, made sure I took makeup with me to work to do a little refresh before I rushed to meet him to ensure we had enough time to eat and chat before either of us had to get back to our respective offices.

Possibly the only good thing to say about this date was that I got to eat. I mean, I paid for my own, but at least I got to eat. And, let’s be honest, if that’s the best thing you can say about it, you know it was a shithole of a date.

He’s quite possibly the most negative guy I’ve ever been on a date with.

His job was ok but he wasn’t loving it. The friends he’d made since he moved here were nice but a bit boring. Vancouver was ok but he’d probably rather be at home. He was applying for his permanent residency but the whole process was a hassle and expensive.

Here’s a thought bud – if you dislike it so much here why don’t you fuck off back to Ireland and not apply for residency, you absolute loon? I felt like I worked for the City of Vancouver’s PR department by the end of lunch – I had put so much effort into trying to convince him it was a great place to stay. And I spent the entire walk back to my office wondering why I’d done that. I’d actually rather he left.

And quite possibly my breezy disposition and selling of Vancouver put him off as well because we clearly both ended the date on the same page – never wanting to text again. We didn’t text again after it, at all. Mutual ghosting is the only ghosting that’s acceptable. Is dating supposed to be this hard?

Lastly on my run of blah dates was this really quiet Canadian Country Boy. He’d moved to the city and seemed a little overwhelmed by it all, but I admired his bravery and not once did he talk about moving back out to the sticks where all his family still were. He didn’t seem to have spent too much time downtown but was keen to meet me somewhere near where I lived, and again I admired the fact he wasn’t shunning something he obviously wasn’t super comfortable with. Not least because I’m a city girl so if he couldn’t get on board with that then it would have been a non-starter.

Our first date was at one of my favourite happy hours that I suggested. I did all the ordering, seeing as he’d never been and I knew what was great, and for that night at least it worked. But when on the second date (yes this one got to a second date, such a rare occurrence for me, I know!) he still wasn’t really able to order his own beer without some assistance I started to wonder how far out in the country he’d actually been living. Did they not have bars out there?

His initial quietness turned out to be real shyness, which in turn presented itself as awkwardness. Unfortunately, if I can’t make someone comfortable, I don’t deal well with that and I’ll do one of two things – laugh or become really awkward myself. So you end up with a shit show one way or another. And when he admitted he was even shy around his nieces, who are toddlers!!!, I pretty much knew this was probably done.

The last game of the World Series was on in the bar we’d met at and I worked out that if we got the bill right then I could probably be home before the Chicago Cubs would eventually beat the Cleveland Indians and watch it by myself, which at this point was preferable.

Shortly after I watched all the celebrations in the comfort and non-awkward silence of my own apartment, I texted Canadian Country Boy to say I just didn’t think there was a spark and I thought he was maybe a bit too quiet for me, or in fact maybe I was just too loud for him. He texted back saying “thanks for your message, maybe you’re right.” Way to grab it by the balls!

And so in a short space of time, I went through four first dates and a second date, which left me feeling flatter than flat. And in these instances, I’d gone for the nice guys, the good guys, the ones with “good” jobs, not swiping on them because of their muscles (or arms!) and this was where it got me…

Dating. Is. Hard.

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I Stayed For The Gym Bod – Part 2 of 2

divorcedanddatingat301 Comment

Jul-2016

Over the subsequent weeks with Asian Weightlifting Firefighter we went on all sorts of dates – park dates, movie dates, symphony orchestra dates, dinner dates, watching the Olympics dates (he imparted his knowledge of Olympic weightlifting while I filled him in on Rugby 7’s), film festival dates, furniture shopping dates… wait, woah, what? Furniture shopping?

In fairness a few months had passed by this point. We would see each other most weeks or every couple of weeks and it felt like how I’d imagined “grown up dating” would feel. The furniture shopping was a bit of a weird one though, I mean do you really want someone helping you pick out a sofa you might sit on for the next 3 years when you might not be seeing them for another 3 weeks? But it was him that was buying so I happily went along and gave my opinion.

In the midst of all of these fun dates my girlfriends noticed something that I hadn’t quite seen myself. I was never SUPER excited about any of it. It seems my reaction the first time we had sex was maybe an indicator of what was to come. But it was hard to put my finger on why I wasn’t beside myself with glee that this incredibly fit, successful guy who was planning all these really great dates wasn’t entirely lighting my fire.

The seed of questionability might have been planted when during one of our early dates we were talking about what we were looking for in partners and he said “I want a woman that looks good on my arm but can also work a room”. Now, if I break that down, those aren’t bad qualities to want – someone who’s attractive and someone who is sociable/confident. But that’s not what he said. The way it was phrased was so much more objectifying to women and if you asked women what they’re looking for in a man, it would likely take a long long time before you got an answer that objectified men in the same way.

Also, “work a room”?! You’re a firefighter and a gym owner, not a politician, why the hell do you need someone to “work a room” for you?

The comment irked me (if that much wasn’t clear from the above?) and the couple of girlfriends I shared it with shared the sentiment. One was so put off by it she told me to stop dating him immediately. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and hoped it maybe just came out wrong or the way I took it wasn’t what he meant. But it definitely stayed with me.

As did the fact that every time he got undressed, I was bowled over by his body. Like, picking my jaw up off the floor. He wasn’t a tall guy but the rest of him was so impeccably formed. How could it not be when so much of his life had a fitness focus? It was an incredible turn on as well as an excellent motivator for me to keep getting my ass to kickboxing.

9 weeks after our first date, things started to slow down a bit, we both had a lot of other stuff going on and the time between our dates was definitely stretching out. Again, the fact that it didn’t bother me that much other than it just started to feel a bit odd should have been enough for me to conclude things there.

I then got sick, one of those colds that completely floored me for a week and my life was on hold for at least two. Two things happened with Asian Weightlifting Firefighter around this time.

The first was that in all the time I was sick and at home, which he knew as we would text more regularly than we’d see each other, he never asked if I needed anything, never suggested he drop by to see me or offered to help in any way. Now, we weren’t explicitly boyfriend/girlfriend but we had covered off the fact we were dating exclusively and I know if the shoe had been on the other foot I would have done those things. Even though at the time I’d probably have declined a visit as I was an utter mess, the offer really would have been nice.

There are a few things I miss from relationships as a singleton, and one of them is having someone to take care of you when you’re sick. When you really can’t get out to the supermarket for food but you know you should be eating veggies and drinking orange juice, or you run out of tissues, or just need some more medication but getting out of bed and across the street to the pharmacy seems like a round the world mission. Someone to just do those things for you, that doesn’t put them out their way like it does a friend who offers, but someone who genuinely, truly wants to do it for you and take care of you and doesn’t even care that you’re a big bag of sickness. I miss that.

Side note – the other things I miss are someone to help you get into/out of clothes/jewellery and someone to pick you up at the airport. There are more but those are the three that always get me.

When I was getting back on my feet after the cold, he took me out for dinner to a place known for comfort food, their toasted cheese sandwich and tomato soup was the perfect thing. But I’m not sure if it was just the after effects of my sickness lingering but the whole evening felt very… flat. It had a real feeling that we were both there because we felt we “should” be. I couldn’t nail it down but suffice to say by the time we were walking back to the car I was really questioning how much longer I’d be seeing him.

Then he pulled me in for a hug, and with those muscly arms wrapped around me I wondered if maybe, despite all that, he could be the guy for me… This was the moment I found out I could be blinded by a bicep. The lifted spirits were only to be momentary though.

As we got back to the car, he said something about the passenger door lock not working and came round to unlock it but, as he did, he didn’t follow that up by actually opening the door.

He unlocked it, then left it.

As in, he put the key in, probably put his hand on the door in some capacity, but didn’t actually lift the handle and open it for me…

I actually stood, kind of aghast, looked at it for 5 seconds (which felt like longer but it was long enough to make a point), laughed and said “don’t worry, I’ve got it”.

Now, I’m not a stickler for manners and the fact he’d obviously never opened a car door for me before clearly hadn’t even struck me but there was something about the fact that he was AT THE CAR DOOR and didn’t open it that made me realise it wasn’t something he would ever even think of. And that really jarred on me.

I got home that night and kinda felt like it almost hadn’t been worth going out for. I was frustrated and disappointed, which aren’t really the lasting feelings you want from any date, let alone a date with someone who you’d been seeing for a few months.

As I thought about it over the next few days and chatted it through with girlfriends, who declared they actually couldn’t understand why I was still seeing him, though they did appreciate the body aesthetic angle, I decided that the next time I saw him I’d have a conversation about what we were doing/where we were going, almost with the prophecy that I knew that would end things.

One of my friends posed the question to me “what do you do if he says he wants to be in a relationship?”… well shit, I hadn’t really figured that out but at least my reaction made it obvious to me that definitely wasn’t what I actually wanted.

Interestingly, rather than just tell him I didn’t want to see him anymore, which presumed he wanted to see me and almost felt scarier, I decided it felt safer to ask him where he was at with us, feeling pretty sure he’d say he didn’t want anything more, if even, what we had at that point.

As it was, while casually chatting over Mexican food the following week I readied myself to ask the question and realised it was the first time I would properly have that chat with someone. It was kind of a bid moment in my dating life but the nerves were unnecessary, not least because I felt fairly certain where the conversation was going to go.

Turns out, I hadn’t planned for his answer to be “um, I don’t know, I hadn’t really thought about it.” Um… ok… well… is that something you can maybe get back to me on?! It was a weird turn of events that I actually hadn’t been prepared for. It also made me question how you can get to a certain point with someone but never actually think through where things are or what you want. He said he’d think about it and the conversation was left there. Needless to say, dinner ended kind of awkwardly.

A few days later he texted me to say that he’d thought about what I’d asked and he’d realised that he had so much going on in his life with his two jobs and moving house that he wasn’t sure he had time for anything else just now. I didn’t need to ask if the “anything else” was meant as anything additional to what we had already or just anything in addition to the jobs and house move he’d mentioned.

The fact was I didn’t care. I actually hoped he meant anything else outside the job and moving, and that this was done. Even my reaction to the end of it was flat. It was such an odd feeling because we had fun on our dates, he planned really great dates!, I was unbelievably attracted to his body and he was a driven and motivated individual. But clearly, there was something missing. A spark. A sense of excitement. The thing you need to have to make you actually give a shit.

But, as it turned out, no shits were given and that glorious gym bod was never to be seen again.

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When Are Seconds Sloppy?

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Jul-2016

Vancouver isn’t a big place. So I guess it was just a matter of time before one of my other single girlfriends’ and my dating paths crossed. Did I think it would be with a guy whose messages and drunk calling to my girlfriend we’d ridiculed? Unlikely.

At first I didn’t even put the two together. I don’t know why I thought the guy who my girlfriend had been chatting to was called something entirely different. Or maybe it’s because I never use their actual names. Whatever, it was only when he recognised me in my girlfriend’s Snapchat story that he asked how we knew each other and everything fell into place. He was a 28 year old Canadian web developer, recently moved to Vancouver.

Side story – this revelation took place at my birthday night out, in the midst of me getting completely confused when my Irish friend called me from an unknown number to say he would be late. But his first name happened to be the same as that of Teeny Irish Peen, add to that they share an accent, and I was momentarily confused as to when I’d invited the less than well endowed Irishman, who I’d avoided since our last date, to my celebratory drinks… confusion and panic ensued.

Once I worked out my night wasn’t being gatecrashed by an uninvited guy and his pencil penis, I went back to trying to figure out just how far down the dating road my girlfriend and this pretty hot Canadian had gone. Turns out they’d never met and by the sounds of it from her, she had no intention of. So I guess that felt ok? When are they truly seconds? And when are they truly sloppy seconds? You always wonder if he’s only chatting to you because she gave him he brushoff. That in and of itself is a natural cycle of dating but it’s weird to think about it when one of the other females is a friend of yours…

Even if I could get my head round that, the other issue was that in all of the discussions we’d had about him we always commented on the fact he just didn’t come across as that bright. On the flipside, while none of his messages to me had been MENSA worthy, I didn’t get the “thick as two short planks” vibe from him either. And so his nickname of Pretty (But Maybe) Dumb came to be.

Between his unknown mental capability and not really liking the idea of it kind of it still feeling like my girlfriend’s seconds, I phased out the texting and never thought anything else of it. Until, that is, I was walking through the block party on Pride Weekend and we ended up walking right by each other on the street.

He hollered at me to stop, but I was with friends and still didn’t particularly feel like having to decide if he felt like a friend’s castoff. I mean, they never met but mostly because she decided she didn’t want to. And I know different people suit different people but there was a sense of him not being good enough for her so I wasn’t sure how it felt to then step up and be like “I’ll take him!” Add to that the fact that, other than looking pretty cute (which, thankfully, he did in real life) he hadn’t really set my world on fire through texts or consistency or action so did I really want to bother?

We kept walking and while I was explaining to my friends who the hot guy that had just yelled at me in the street was, my phone buzzed with a text. “Where are you going? Why didn’t you stop?!” I replied that I was going to meet other friends and couldn’t stop but would be around the block party all night. He told me we’d be drinking together by the end of the night. And I kinda liked his boldness.

The majority of my night was spent up in a hotel room with friends overlooking the block party from the balcony and when he later texted to see where I was, my friends and I decided we’d invite him up. Within 5 minutes (and a lot of directional text messaging which didn’t help the opinion on his mental strength), I went to collect him and his friend from the lobby.

He was definitely hot and a little more softly spoken than I imagined, which was a pleasant surprise. I’d always wondered how much of a “bro” he would be, he definitely had that North American frat boy look about him which, shame on me, I still find intriguing just because it’s such a goddamn novelty but, thankfully, that wasn’t the vibe I was getting from him.

His friend on the other hand… drunk, belligerent and when pushed as to why he was being an asshole (my friends take no prisoners) insisted that because he worked for a charity he was actually a good guy. Um, that’s not how that works. So after a short 15 minutes with us and before they could finish a drink, I told Pretty (But Maybe) Dumb that he could stay or go, but his friend had to go. He made the decision in less than a second and promptly started to say his goodbyes to his friend while ushering him out the door and closing it behind him. That’s mate solidarity for you, isn’t it?!

We had another few drinks in the hotel room and then decided to venture back down to the throngs of people for the end of the street party. Pretty (But Maybe) Dumb had done a fairly good job of easing in with my friends and making conversation. But he became most animated when one of my (male) friends, while discussing where to go for an afterparty, suggested a strip club. “This will be a great first date story” he told me while enthusiastically high fiving my friend.

I wasn’t entirely sure this was a date. But regardless of that and the fact that his incredibly “bro”-like reaction should have put me off, fast forward 15 minutes and we’re standing in line to see some of Vancouver’s finest pole dancers. I know, I’m always making the good decisions.

I probably glimpsed more naked skin while using the bathroom where it appeared the strippers also got ready before and after their stints on stage than when I was actually sat out in the main room. It turned out Pretty (But Maybe) Dumb, despite his excitement about coming to the strip club, decided to sit with his back to the stage and actually engage in proper conversation with me, which was surprising. Or maybe there was a mirror he could still watch the dances in? But my friends had sat at the table beside us so it was essentially just us, for all intents and purposes on a date, having civilised (albeit slightly drunken) chat at a cosy table for two while the entertainment got progressively more naked on the stage in the middle of the room. If it was a date, it was definitely my most bizarre.

At the end of the night, and by end of the night I do mean when the strip club was closing and they actually turned the lights on (which was a horror show no one should see), my friends had long left and Pretty (But Maybe) Dumb offered to walk me home. It was in the entirely opposite direction to where he lived and I knew that by no means did he intend to leave me at my doorstep.

Over the course of the night he’d definitely grown on me, he was funny and opinionated, was obviously up for spontaneous fun, didn’t mind being thrown in the deep end with my friends and he was definitely pretty in that North American college boy way.

At this point of my dating life, I was always making those “going home together” decisions based on whether I actually saw anything happening with someone, i.e. If I thought there could be a potential for a relationship, I wouldn’t want to jeopordise it by sleeping with someone on the first night. Because isn’t that what society and dating advice tell us? That giving it all away too soon can wreck any chances of a relationship? And not to mention the obvious shame of sleeping with a practical stranger? And and and… Ugh.  Yet I know many people who did exactly that on the first night and it made no difference to the long term success of their ensuing relationships.

But at this stage I was still trying to follow that advice and despite how much he’d pleasantly surprised me over the course of the night, I saw no real potential with him, so sure, the walk home with no departure point seemed like it wouldn’t be the worst idea.

We had fun, he had a great body and was pretty dominant in the bedroom. Though at times it bordered a little on selfish and I’m not really a fan of that. Who is? Add to that his frequent complaints about the stiffness (pun intended) of my mattress, him mentioning me making him breakfast, which I think I just laughed at, and bringing up how he thought my friends had been rude to his friend, by morning I was kinda ready to get him the hell out of my apartment. So around 9am I got out up and started to strip the bedding off the bed. With him still in it. I’ve learnt this is a really great, not at all subtle way of telling a remaining visitor from the night before that time is up.

He left and made a comment about seeing each other again, which I thought was one of those involuntary things people accidentally say because the situation brings it out of them, the proverbial “I’ll call you” with no intention behind it. But he did actually text me a few times after that, all of which I responded to but not with a yes to meet up. I should have just told him I didn’t want to see him again, instead I always made up an excuse. I guess because, and I was right, I figured he’d get pissed off eventually and tell me to fuck off.

Thinking back on it, the two gut feelings I had at the beginning – that it felt too much like a friend’s castoff and he didn’t seem that bright – were probably right. Despite them never meeting and by the night of the block party they weren’t even in touch anymore, there was just something about the fact that there was any history there that I couldn’t get over. Girl code aside, which I truly believe in but wasn’t really relevant in this instance, I just never want to feel like someone you know can say “I could have had him first”. And while he was more softly spoken than I imagined, he still definitely had a bit of a bull in a China shop about him. The sort of guy you’d be worried would somehow end up in fights a lot.

So, although we took a detour via a random night at a Strip club, it was definitely time to trust the gut and decide to no longer allow him to fall into the seconds category or me to fall into the sloppy category.

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