Date #12

During one of our lunches together, Schmoozer and I figured out the algorithm for online dating. Date #1 is always coffee/drinks at a coffee house/wine bar/dessert place. Notice how no meal is involved in case of early exit.

Date #2 is a light dinner out at a restaurant followed by an activity.

"But how much is the entree?" asked Schmoozer.

I thought back to my previous second-date experience. The Hungarian took me out to a nice Tex-Mex restaurant. Memphis and I checked out a gourmet pizza place. Valdostsa and I had Cuban.

"Mmm, $10 – 15 entrees," I said.

"Damn, I paid too much," said Swayze when we later announced our algorithm.

"Now Date #3, that's the money date," I told Schmoozer. "That's the date where the goal is for the guy to get the girl to his apartment." He raised his eyebrows, surprised that I was onto the game. "The ruse is usually one or two things: he'll offer to cook dinner, or he'll send an invite to watch a movie at his place."

He laughed. "We're that transparent?"

"Yes."

***

The cycle starts yet again. I met Date #12 at the same café that offers spiked coffees and desserts that I met The Hungarian and Date #4. I breeze in, relaxed.

Date #12 is 26 years old and a second-time college student. He went back to school when he figured out that he wanted to manage hotel restaurants, not just work in them.

He's bald. Shaved-head, shiny-skinned bald. It's out of necessity. He offsets the look with thick plastic-frame glasses. Think preppy Moby. What cinched it for me was his attire. There are two super-secret outfits that make me swoon and he wore the second one. I like to call it The McDreamy Look. A thin, dark sweater layered over an Oxford shirt with the collar and sleeves showing.

Due to the slow waitstaff, we hit every topic that could possibly be covered on a first date.

"Coke or Pepsi?" he asked.

"Are you kidding me? Coke."

"Sweet tea or unsweetened?"

"Unsweetened."

He raised an eyebrow. "My parents were Yankees, so I grew up with unsweetened and it stuck," I explained.

He was nice, maybe a little too nice. He asked me at least three times to not play games with him and just be honest and shoot him an e-mail if I change my mind about dating him. The fact he repeated it several times smacks of insecurity.

I agreed to go out with him again, but I find myself battling with his full-time student status. He's a college student and because he's not working, he's college poor. College poor is below poverty-level poor. He told me he had to find a specific parking space at the café because his 20-year old truck no longer goes in reverse. I asked him if he was current on his bills and his answer was "This month." That kind of poor.

I remember college poor. It was awful. It was also almost 10 years ago. I'm not really looking to go back to that lifestyle. I also worked my way through college so I wouldn't be college poor. Moreover, I've also spent 3 of the last 4 years financially supporting other poor boyfriends and I'm not hip on going through that situation again either. I was hoping to date someone who could meet me where I am.

What would you do?

A heartbeat away from being

It's been a month since my breakup with Valdosta and I'm surprised with how much it has actually hurt.

I think it was Banky in Chasing Amy who said that love is best when it dies young, a la Romeo and Juliet. You fall in love, and one person dies at the apex of the relationship. The love never dies. Harsh exchanges were never made. Ultimatums were never given. Feelings were never hurt. You're left with only good memories and because of that, the one who left is idolized. Or maybe idealized. Most likely both.

I feel there are a lot of similarities with Valdosta's and my relationship. It was easy. It was only good times. And then it stopped.

He left before the bad and the ugly could have transpired. Before the faults could be discovered. I'm left alone with only the good. I have nothing to work with as to why I shouldn't like him. As to why the relationship couldn't have lasted (other than the glaring one of that he left).

When I stood up the from the table and walked home, I was cocky in my absolute certainty that Valdosta would regret his decision and come back one day. I give it six weeks, I thought to myself. Let him date others and think of me. A girlfriend told me I would be the one that got away in his life. I agreed! My mother said that this wouldn't be the last that I hear from him. My own past dictates that he will return. They all do. They all say that they didn't realize what a good girlfriend I was and how they missed me and, by the way, they are sorry they treated me badly. Unfortunately for them, this never happens until I'm good and pissed off and don't care anymore.

But because Valdosta was such a great guy, I'm beginning to think he won't come back. He said he gave me and him and us a lot of thought because he didn't want to make the wrong decision in leaving me. And because he was a good guy of respectable character—unlike my sleaze-bag ex-boyfriends—he won't come back. He made the right decision.

I didn't expect it to hurt this much. It was only two months. I had been happy before I met him. I still don't feel back to normal. I don't feel as shiny as I used to. I'm worried that instead of me being Valdosta's one-that-got-away girl, he's going to be my one-that-got-away guy. And that utterly terrifies me.

Dolla Dolla Bill Y'all

We were at our happy-hour bar Friday night. It's a seedy bar with beer-stained wooden plank flooring that's only good for three things:

• Zac Brown Band got their start there, playing there for years before anybody heard of them.
• They give a free shot to the entire bar every Friday at 6 o'clock.
• Anytime you mention the joint, someone has a really good story that happened there. The trouble with really good stories is that they often don't come from positive experiences. I know a guy who was stabbed in the parking lot with a drunk guy's car key. He thought his side hurt after the belligerent guy attacked him, so he covered his side with his hand, and his finger slipped into the stab hole. Ack. Another guy I know told me he used to go there when he first moved to the city and didn't know any better and he was approached by a pimp and the ugliest prostitutes he's even seen in his life.

But we love our shady happy-hour bar, despite the stabbings and the terrible, terrible girl band that replaced the Zac Brown Band. We only go there on Fridays for the 6 o'clock shot. The waitress knows us and our food orders by memory. I got my bangs trimmed last week and she noticed and said they looked good.

By this time, happy hour had lasted at least five hours. Harvey and her husband were playing pool with Katie and Schmoozer. I was seated at the table with Swayze, Vince and Vince's girlfriend. Vince is the newest member of the group, meeting Harvey through work channels. The girl band was over and an 80's hair cover band began to play. The singer of the band stopped at our table and serenaded us with a few verses of the song before he continued walking through the bar with his wireless mic.

After he left, I continued my story:

"I went out with this guy once. He paid for everything in hundred-dollar bills. We went out for burgers and tator tots—not an expensive meal—and he paid with a hundred-dollar bill. The waitress had to bring back over 70 bucks in change.

"Then we leave the restaurant and stroll through the neighborhood. He points out an ice cream place and we walk inside and pick out a couple of cones. I open my wallet to pay, but he tells me that he's got this too. I thank him. And you know what he did? He gave the ice-cream place another hundred-dollar bill! He didn't use the obscene amount of change he got only minutes earlier! Who does that?!"

Swayze took a sip of his beer. "You know who has hundred-dollar bills?" he offered. "Guys without bank accounts."

I pointed at him. "You know, I never even thought of that."

Vince turned and faced me. "You should start a dating blog," he said.

I tipped my head back and laughed from the bottom of my stomach. If my friends only knew.

Thelma & Louise & Louise

As you are reading this, I am in a Suburban with BFF's Mel and Jenna. Mel's driving. Jenna's sleeping in the back seat. I'm drinking a Red Bull and am waiting for the perfect opportunity to put in my Ke$ha CD. We're heading down the coast to West Palm Beach for the week.

I'm hoping this road trip and time away will cure me from my funk. I packed several books, my painting materials, some knitting that's been commissioned, my bathing suit and my running shoes. I have everything I need. I've scheduled some posts over the week, so you'll have everything you need as well.

Sex and the City Box Set Winner

Congratulations, Nicole of Our Little Idland World, you won the entire Sex and the City TV series on DVD! Hopefully this will provide you some enjoyment as you raise your little ones. Visit her blog to read the amazing story of the birth of her little daughter.

(Send me an e-mail and I'll get your shipping info!)

Date #11

I revamped my profile on e-Harmony. I reworded my essays, focusing more on Fun! than seriousness. Fun! is closer to my personality than droning on about the importance of honesty and blah, blah, barf. I uploaded a picture of me when I went ziplining. I was sporting the chest and butt halters and a red helmet. I wasn't wearing any makeup, but I was sticking my tongue out at the camera. Look at me displaying my Fun! I had a coworker read the new profile to detect any missed instances of Fun!'s evil step-sister Crazy and got her approval.

The revamp seemed to get things moving again.

Of the six or seven people I'm currently communicating with, Date #11 seemed to have the most promise. He was 28, a web developer and had a hobby of photography. When we set up our date, he said we had to do it earlier in the day since he was going to the city-wide pillow fight later in the afternoon. What? A city-wide flash-mob pillow fight? That sounds like something my friends and I would enjoy. The guy sounded alright, so I threw out a time and a place earlier in the day.

I picked a restaurant in Buckhead that's tucked away in a small neighborhood. It's a local hideaway. Even though it was a Sunday at 1, the boys were dressed in pressed Oxford shirts rolled up to the elbows. The ladies wore over-sized sunglasses and dresses. The day was sunny and everyone crowded on the wooden patio hidden beneath the trees.

Date #11 had never heard of the place. I was kind of surprised that he's lived in the city for 10 years and he never knew about it.

We stood outside waiting for a table. Date #11 was skinnier than I expected; he appeared smaller in real life. I wondered about his profile picture and his photography skills. But the conversation flowed easily enough.

"I don't think that the purpose of high school is to get a book education," he stated.

I lifted an eyebrow.

"I think it's to learn how to behave socially."

I thought about it. I guess that's true. A big part of high school is social interaction, but I don't think it's a lesson that requires conscious thought. It happens naturally.

"As soon as I learned that high school was about socialization, I had to make an effort. I was a bit behind everyone else," he continued.

I felt my jaw tighten. His statement did not sit well with me. What exactly does being behind everyone else in social interaction mean?

We were seated. The conversation continued.

"So what did you do last night?" I asked.

"I had a party," he answered.

"Oh that's cool. My friend Harvey had a party last night too. What did y'all do?"

"Well my friends were pretty out of it. They were passed out on my couch and I stayed up until 5 a.m. playing [some video game]."

Two drunk guys on a couch while he played X-Box solo was a far contrast from Harvey's party. Her husband grilled out and we took turns playing beer pong and Rockband.

It turns out that we are both members of the same beer club in town. That's not really much of a coincidence; most people are. But Date #11 kept his list of beers on him. He pulled out his wallet to show me.

His wallet was made entirely out of duct tape.

It wasn't even one of those professional ones you can buy off the Internet. This was a homemade job. I don't think I've seen a duct tape wallet since I was 14. My coworker's 9-year-old son has a duct tape wallet. I was turned off.

Then a few minutes later, he rolled up his sleeve and showed me a rash in the crook of his elbow. "I'm allergic to the sun," he tells me.

He explained the rash to me in far more detail than what was appropriate. Which would have been never. It is never okay to display a rash on a first date. I guess I should be glad that he didn't unzip his pants to show me the rash.

He scratches his rash. "It really itches," he says.

Sometimes I have thoughts and sometimes I don't filter them. "What, does the sun interfere with your rickets?"

He looked at me, puzzled. I assume he doesn't know what rickets is. This is probably a good thing.

After about five minutes of talking about his rash, he realizes his faux pas.

"Do you have any weird medical problems?" he asked me.

I shrugged my shoulders, "Nope."

Guess that high school socialization didn't work.

Emotional Me

Flashback once again to that phone conversation with Harvey the night I got dumped.

"I wish I was more like Katie," I sniffed. "Guys seem to be more attracted to her energy."

"What do you like about her?" she asked.

"She's so even keeled. She never lets on that she's annoyed or angry. The minute I become unsatisfied, I announce it. It causes problems."

"There's nothing wrong with admiring a trait in other people and trying to replicate it in your own life," she said. Her voice became softer, "Maybe if you became more logical like Katie, you wouldn't get hurt so much."

Her words were meant to soothe me. Harvey, a person also ruled by logic, was trying to help me find a logical solution in her logical way. But instead it incited an emotional reaction within me.

I don't feel that my goal in life is to hurt less. I would rather take the hurt and the pain and the rejection if it meant I could also have the good things: the love and the joy and the acceptance. I believe that because I am a person who is so in touch with her feelings, I am able to love more freely than the logical person. And I would never ever wish that away.

And Katie is not without her own problems. It isn't my story to tell, but the best I can share is that she has the exact opposite problem that I have. Whereas I feel like I am too much of a personality, she feels like she isn't enough of one. She can feel anxious in social situations, hence the drinking her face off and passing out in the bar bathroom when Schmoozer initially showed interest in her.

Not to mention that I already tried the experiment of emulating the friends. I spent a week trying to be like Harvey and it blew up in my face.

I was silent on the other end of the phone with Harvey. I never responded to her "Maybe... you wouldn't get hurt so much." But I knew the answer and it surprised the hell out of me: I would rather love messily than not at all. I'd rather have my problems than somebody else's. I've never felt that way before.

So give me the heartbreak and all the pain that comes with it. Give me the tears and the running mascara and the splotchy face. Because you don't get that way if you haven't invested yourself and loved.