Adventures in Match.Com-world (part tres)

Alright, so I went on two dates in one night and the first person stand me up, another just not in the right mindset to date.

I really took to heart that it didn’t matter, as I always had someone else. That was a huge paradigm shift for me. Hate to spoil the fun, but I didn’t go on my first date until college. Success with women was a huge sticking point for me as early as middle school. Girls I was interested in never liked me and some made it a point to drive that home. There were very few girls I found attractive before college, so I totally lived in a world of scarcity. Friends dated, I was the third wheel. It messed me up to the point where I didn’t even try. Freshman year of college came and went and I moved back home to commute to school. I would occasionally get fixated on one girl who showed a bit of interest and then get hurt. But I began to grow as a person, better late than never, and online dating helped get me over that one particular speedbump.

This was probably two months into my subscription and I had been out on six dates or so. I began to notice a pattern: I felt like I had a good idea of who I was meeting, but my dates had no clue as to what they were getting into.

The only thing I found that soothed their mind/ego was talking on the phone more than I normally would. One girl in particular… the hairstylist, was attracted to me from the get-go but wanted to talk on the phone all the time. By the time we finally got around to meeting she felt like she knew everything there was to know about me. We went to shoot pool at Twain’s in Decatur (where it’s greater) and I could tell she was expecting so much more from me… she idealized this guy in her mind and when I fell short it was over before the date began. You could almost physically see in her eyes her mind retreating into it’s shell. I discovered she lied to me about being a smoker, as she kept going outside to smoke during our game. So finally she said she had plans to go to her friend’s place for something and had to leave. She was dressed-up for a date, not to go hang out at her friend’s house… another lie. “No problem, have fun” was all I said to her as I racked the next game… which I played by myself. Next day she blocked me. :)

The next girl was someone I met from True.com during a ten-day trial. She worked for The Weather Channel. Looked cute, chatted a few times before swapping numbers. I call her one night to set up a date later that week and she says she’ll get back to me. At that point I’m not holding my breath, but to my surprise she called me on my drive home from work to invite me out. Her friends were dragging her to some singles event called “Smyrnabration,” hosted by that god-awful radio station Q100, so I knew it would be equally annoying. I was hesitant about agreeing to go since it was her and her friends and me. I did not want to drive to Smyrna, have things fizzle, and then I’m stuck at this thing by myself. So I persuaded Luke to come along. I called her once I arrived and we agreed on a place to meet. Couldn’t find her. Due to the noise, we played phone tag for a bit. Then we happened to bump into Tricia and some of her college friends, so now I had a posse. While walking around I saw this really cute redhead in glasses. Upon closer examination, it was my date.

She was super glad to see me and we walked over to a bar to get some beer. About that time my friends found me and I introduced everyone. Then her girlfriends came up and I met them. Apparently they had come to find her because one of them was getting creeped-out by some guy and wanted to drag her off. I told her we’d meet up later. Well, she never answered her phone again. We stayed until the place began to close. I was then convinced that some kind of girl-code had transpired right before my eyes and her friends were there to “save” her. I dunno if they didn’t like me or if they talked some sense into her… maybe her friend really was so self-centered that she’d drag her friend away from a cute guy because some other guy is making her uncomfortable. Or maybe it was one of those “I’ll blink three times if I don’t like him, then you come bail me out” strategies. Thank God for friends who will go to events like Smyrnabration with you, because that one was probably the biggest bust of my “career.”