V-Day or D-Day?

For the mother of all holidays, Valentine's Day, I was a guest author for the3six5, a blog featuring 365 days of posts, told by 365 different people, from 365 points of view. A very cool and innovative concept. 

My post for February 14, 2012...

February 14th. Such a polarizing day. Whether you are single, committed, casually dating, happily married, recently divorced, or pretending to be (or not to be) in love with someone, you can’t avoid the day.

Valentine’s Day shows up on the same day, every year, mocking or celebrating your life choices.

And I’ve been in both boats.

Today, as with every day, I spent a great deal of emotional and strategic energy planning my outfit. Ever since I closed the door on my Catholic uniform-wearing days, outfit selection has occupied more time than I’d like to admit. But today’s mental tug of war pulled me between the two polarizing personas I could choose to be perceived as embodying today.

If I wore red, I would be implying that I supported the day; that I was on their team. One of the people with romantic dinner plans and a dozen roses on the way to her stark desk. One of the people who cooed at the Hallmark commercials, instead of scoffing at them. One of the people who didn’t “see red” when she saw red.

If I wore black, I’d be pegged a cynic. A soon-to-be spinster. Miranda Hobbes' understudy…untrusting, unhappy and one candy-coated heart away from a public mental breakdown.

I wore neither.

I settled on a colorful, non-black, non-red, patterned dress. My outfit screamed effortless ambivalence. What? TODAY is Valentine’s Day? I totally forgot. I would fool them all.

But I soon realized it was I who was the fool. Everywhere I turned, I couldn’t escape it. My StarbucksTall Blonde was served up in a cup littered w/ hearts and sweet nothings. Forbes “thought of the day” discussed love at first sight. (Or as I like to refer to the theme of relationships in my younger days: love at first slight.) #HappyValentinesDay was trending on Twitter worldwide.

I may have not made a choice to be on the Lovers or Haters team with the choice of my color palette. But the world was forcing me to make the choice now.

So to keep this V-Day from turning into D-Day, I’ve decided.

I choose red.

I’m thinking a nice California Cab will do just fine.

Zero to Awkward

It had been awhile since I'd been on the dating scene, so I was pretty excited for what I thought would be a promising date. We did the email dance for a bit. "Where'd you go to school? You like Baskin Robbins Winter White Chocolate too?!" You know the drill. So, when he suggested dinner for our first date, I had a pang of anxiety and a jolt of excitement. Excitement for the fact that this dude was willing to commit to a full meal before actually meeting me (could this mean that he would maybe commit to me for life as well?). And anxiety because a full, lengthy meal with a blind date who you know five minutes into meeting will not be making it to date #2 can be torture. But in the spirit of positivity and all that other crap, I was in. So, it was set: 7:30, Wednesday, Quartino. But, to tell you what happened next, I need to give you a little back story.

K, as we will refer to him, is an Illini. He's 31, lives in Lakeview, has a dog AND he's tall. Truly, perfect on paper. His spelling and grammar in emails were impeccable. (A sick turn on for me.) He wanted to have a bet between us for the Michigan/Illinois game. (Competition AND collegiate sports all wrapped into one? Sign me up.) So, based on our previous Baskin Robbins Winter White Chocolate conversation, we settled on ice cream as the prize for the game winner. Sort of third grade; sort of endearing. I went with it.

Flash forward to Tuesday (day before the date). K sent the obligatory (although largely forgotten gesture by most men/boys) text, "Looking forward to tomorrow." All systems seemed to be GO.

And then Wednesday came.

At 5:04 p.m. (that's 2 1/2 hrs until date time), I received the following text:

"Hey, what do you think about getting ice cream? I had to push back my dentist appointment, and didn't eat before the cleaning, so I just had a bite to eat. Maybe we can do Quartino next time..."

Go ahead, folks. Go back and read that again a few times. I know I did.

And here were the thoughts that went through my mind:

1. If you knew you were eating at 7:30, why did you mow down on whatever you did at 5 and not, instead, have a snack to tide you over?
2. You're a dude, right? You really can't muster up some hunger again three hours after eating?
3. I don't do sans-imbibing dates when I'm meeting someone for the first time. It's a cardinal rule.
4. It's freezing. I don't want ice cream.
5. WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME ANY OF THIS?

Shouldn't he have just sucked it up, shut up and met me at 7:30? I'm sure he could have eaten enough for me to not accuse him of being anos (anorexic). I literally sat stunned for a bit, because I wasn't sure how to respond. I was less disappointed and more pissed. I wore heels to work, damnit! So, I responded with this:

"I need to eat dinner so I guess we could meet at 8. And I'd rather get a drink."

Simple, to the point. Or so I thought. His response:

"I'm trying to cut back on the boozing...And I'm having a shitty day. Would you rather just reschedule?"

Let's go through the numbered-points exercise again, shall we?

1. Aren't we all trying to cut back on the boozing in one way or another? Don't tell me that. Just show up, have one drink instead of five and give yourself a pat on the back that you didn't black out on a Wednesday when you get home.
2. It's November. This is when I ramp up my boozing...all the way into the new year when I go to the gym on Jan 1 and feel as though I've accomplished something great...not only for myself or my country, but the world.
3. We're not dating and yet, I'm already bearing the brunt of your "shitty day"? Sign me up for more of that!
4. Would I rather reschedule? Well, you're a combo of Sober Sally and Debbie Downer tonight, so I'm thinking, yeah.
5. Did you just use "shitty" in a text message before we've even met?

So, at that point, I came to the decision that all was lost. But, because I didn't want him to head straight for the Ben & Jerry's in his freezer and drown his sorrows in a pint while watching "Someone Like You," I responded: "Sure" I did not use punctuation to show him just how pissed I was.

So, that was that. What I was really most upset about though was the fact that I was getting a haircut at 6:45 and now would not have a date to showcase my freshly snipped ends and professionally blown out hair. That was the real tragedy.

Until 6:30.

6:30 is the time when I received my second to last text message from K. As it turns out, he was deep into his Heath Bar Crunch pint and had just witnessed Ashley Judd crying over her breakup with Greg Kinnear.

"Sorry about tonight. Was looking forward to meeting you. Hopefully it's not too awkward now :o)"

The only thing that makes a situation awkward is saying that it may or may not be awkward. The only thing that makes that more awkward is sending a follow-up text calling the awkward text mentioning the awkwardness awkward."

7:25 p.m.

"It's too awkward now, isn't it? Wish you the best."

And that my friends, is how you go from zero to awkward in under two hours flat.

I will leave you with a lolcat translation of the last two text messages from K. And let's be honest. They don't sound that much different from the originals:

SRY BOUT TONITE. WUZ LOOKIN FWD 2 MEETIN U. HOPEFULLY IZ NOT 2 AWKWARD NAO :O)

IZ 2 AWKWARD NAO, ISNT IT? WISH U TEH BEST.

Falling Just Short

Running late for a first, blind date is a sure-fire way, in my case, to give the guy a preview of things to come. In my defense, I’ve gotten better over time. I’ve embraced the numbers. I’ve learned that SAT questions do have their place in real life: If you have 5 minutes to spare before you need to be at Location A, and you choose to “fit something in” that takes 15 minutes at Location B, how pissed are your friends going to be on a scale of 1 to 10? The answer varies on this one. But, when I arrived at Justin’s Beer Garden (an actual bar and not a friend’s man cave) a full 15 minutes late, hair wind blown in a wind tunnel sort of way, looking like a bag lady with my oversized purse and workout bag in hand, I was mortified.

Until I saw my date.

To give him credit, he was wearing the red shirt he informed me ahead of time he’d be sporting, but there was no mention of the “I’m a tourist and comfort is #1” tennies. I’m not talking cute, trendy, casual-chic New Balances. These were white running shoes. And they had seen better days. The first thought that popped into my head was, “Well, if you weren’t even going to take the time to get dressed, I would have left my heels in the cab and rocked my Havaianas.” But, I had banked the calories of an Oberon into my allotted caloric intake that day, so I forged on.

His nervousness was palpable. It’s hard not to notice when the table is shaking from the person’s leg bucking beneath it. Throughout the evening, he kept reaching into his pocket for what I thought was his cell phone, but nothing ever emerged. Lucky Match.com blind date rabbit foot? I still don’t know.

Regardless, it’s an unsettling thing to watch someone do in excess. The waitress took our drink order and told us about the specials…which included 2-for-1 burgers. At this, my eyes lit up and I may have even leaned in to show my interest. He did not have the same reaction. It was pretty much at that point that I decided I was ready to order my 2-for-1 burgers to go and watch Next Food Network Star on my couch in sweatpants. But, I stayed…and thought about all of the friends I could bring to Justin’s next Tuesday for this amazing deal.

The more and more dates I go on, the more I discover that those traits I’ve decided a guy “must have” start to lose their attractiveness when in excess. For example, too often, I’ve dated guys who just sort of sat back and observed…not saying much, even when asked to say anything. A guy that can hold up his end of the telephone tin can is great. But, in this case, I started to get annoyed. With myself. The number of times I heard my voice uttering “uh huh,” “wow,” “hmh” exceeded the number of times the Beastie Boys sing “jump” in their song appropriately titled, “Jump.” It was a mean game of verbal Double Dutch where my attempts to insert comments, reactions, questions or – can you believe it – facts about myself became too tiring. I sat back, Oberon in hand, and listened to his oral autobiography.

Almost two hours in, my second Oberon sitting abandoned and warm, I wished that I had pulled the waitress aside at the beginning. You know, to work out a sign or a gesture to let her know that it was time to drop the check and move us on our way. Every time she came by, his response grated on my ears: “We’re okay…right now.” I wanted to rip those “right now’s” right out of their conversation bubbles and scream, “We’re all set!” Which I eventually did, with slightly more restraint. I even, to cushion the blow of my blatant readiness to be dunzo, went as far as to say, “I’m just getting so old. I’m exhausted.” Really? I have maybe two years on this kid and I’m AARP’ing it? But, at that point, I was desperate. I would have lied and said I needed to go home to relieve the babysitter.

As we stood from our seats to leave, I observed that his 5’9” status was about 3 inches off…in the wrong direction. But, he was a gentleman; as much of a gentleman as a 26 year-old is capable of being. As he acted out each chivalrous behavior, he verbalized it. That’s right. He was like a new actor that didn’t realize you aren’t supposed to read the words in the script that are italicized. Those are actions. “I’m going to stand here with you until you get a cab.” Great. I was noticing that…since you were standing here with me…until I get a cab. “I’m going to open the door for you now.” You’re all intelligent people, so I’m just going to assume that you’ve caught on to what his next move was. It was too bad…because those two actions could have been the life preserver that pulled this drowning date out of Lake Match.com. A few of my other dates have merely shouted, “Can you lock it from the inside on your way out?” as I departed. So, this was a step in the right direction.

But, a step was not enough. Back at home, as I laid my head on my pillow and began to dream of 2-for-1 burgers, the sound of a new text message jolted me from my reverie. “Hey! Hope u made it home safe! Hope to see u again soon :).” Letters for words and an emoticon to top it off. [Insert exasperated sigh.]

It was the icing on my date.

I'm (Almost) Thirty...Where Is He?

Something happens when you enter your late twenties and are a single girl living in a big city. That something is called panic. As you sit at your favorite watering hole and look around at your extremely attractive, highly intelligent, witty, funny, sports-loving girlfriends, you start to wonder: What’s wrong with us? Why are we all single? Are we going to die alone? It’s totally different for guys. They are sitting at that same bar wondering: What’s wrong with our waitress? Why are we all sitting here with empty beers? Are we going to die of hunger?

You can see where the disconnect happens.

Are they faced with a nail polish color cruelly dubbed “I’m 30. Where is he?” that mocks their singledom while nicely complimenting the ruddy undertones of their pale, Irish skin? No. They are not. (I have two bottles.)

Everyone has that wave of six weddings in one summer or the three girlfriends who are excitedly expecting and expecting you to care. Don’t get me wrong. I do care. I’m happy for the newly wedded and the parents-to-be. But, there is no celebration for the girls who “didn’t get married to the wrong guy” or “didn’t go home with the right now guy after a few too many vodka sodas.” No. We single girls are left to our vices. So, when faced with another weekend of cocktails with my girls – which really was code for “discreet husband hunting” – I couldn’t bear the pressure. I figured, hell, I’m online enough already (I can stalk a new love interest on Facebook while I search for that hot Michael Kors watch on Nordstrom.com and pay my Comcast bill…all at the same time. What’s the word you’re looking for? Skills.). Why not use this technological prowess to my advantage? And so, I turned to the dating professionals: Match.com.

Now, I will have you know that I am totally normal. Ok…almost totally normal. I have a few idiosyncrasies and neuroses that make me totally adorable and original, right? Right. So, I was a little weary of entering this uncharted dating domain. Wasn’t “Match” (as the seasoned users affectionately refer to it) for the freaks? The people who had no social skills and were holed up in their basements in holey pajama pants eating Cheetos by the fistful? I was skeptical and judgmental. But, the dudes on there all looked so normal. I take that back. Most of them looked so normal. And some of their profiles made them sound normal, too.

So, I decided to get over myself and give this thing a shot. The online hunt began…it was actually more of a one-handed scroll so I could dedicate my left hand to the bowl of Cheetos.

After hours of crafting the perfect one-pager comprised of all of my professional and personal accomplishments, sprinkled with egomaniacally downplayed highlights ("I’m blonde, love sports and eat hot dogs without mentally adding up the calories…until later that night"), I felt like I was ready to launch “Cyber E” into the dating universe. I chose not to do a quick search of the three blocks in my area where 329 other women were also simultaneously clicking submit – and 32 men were clinking some Wits. I had put myself out there. Literally. And now, I just had to sit back and wait for the men to come a flocking. And to step away from the browser refresh button. Was this thing broken?