He Said Whaaaa???

This past dip in the pond of online dating, though it was a very short one, yielded some of my most interesting interactions of my online dating expedition thus far. There’s the good, the bad, and the funny and more than once I found myself shaking my head thinking “Did he really  just say that?” Spoiler alert:Yes he did.

Now there’s a pick-up line that would actually work on me!

The Good Gone Bad

“You and I are probably apples and oranges but you’re adorable.”

Good opening line, right? Unfortunately after a little surface level banter he busted out this line: “Some friendly advice, try not to be so complicated. Guys don’t like that shit.” Ummm, what? I’m not even sure where this idea that I’m complicated came from…we hadn’t even started to get into the actual nitty gritty of my life. The five kids and crazy schedule with very little free time, you know, that stuff. Jeez! And I’m pretty sure the goal is to find a guy who likes me, not to change to get guys to like me. I told him as much.

You know how they say people will tell you who they really are so you should believe them? So true! After that this dude told me he could be sarcastic and that he had a nice way of insulting people to their faces and they’d just laugh it off (paraphrasing here). Is that supposed to be appealaing to me? He mixed lines like that in with things like “You really are very cute.” and “So how is someone like you still single?” (to which I responded: because I don’t date assholes.) Then after faux apologizing, the dude unloads this crazy story about how he had been an Olympic swimmer but got burned out on the training, he was with this woman who’s seven years younger than him for a long time and she suddenly told him she didn’t love him anymore and up & left, that his dad had died, and he’d been single for five months now because no one he had dated was “right”.

News flash, buddy, No one is going to be “right” until YOU are right. Take some time to get over that girl…and yourself. You think you can insult me and I won’t notice because you say something nice two sentences later?

Nope. I’ve already had that relationship and , Spoiler, it ended in divorce.

This one also had a great opener. “You are absolutely gorgeous. If you’re half as kind, as you are pretty, I’d probably end up being crazy about you. Are you attracted to scruffy musician types?”

It didn’t get too bad and he seemed pretty decent. We actually exchanged phone numbers and were talking about meeting but (surprise) our schedules weren’t meshing that week due to my kids’ spring break. We texted a little though and at one point, when I was driving back from Ohio, he made the comment that he would just be sitting home alone watching tv when I drove by. *hint hint*

Wanna know why he would just be sitting home watching tv? Because his kids would be in bed sleeping. Does he not realize that I could be a crazy psycho killer or worse, a stage 5 clinger or something?!?

And this one, this one just made me say “What is wrong with you people???” Like the others it started out okay: “I like your name. Well you may not believe this, but I also like Pina coladas and getting caught in the rain…and Batman. I like to boat and fish and be outdoors in the sun. I work at an industrial gas plant as a foreman. I love trying new beers…and retrying old ones! 🙂 I greatly dislike flying in planes but I will if I have to. Your turn for now!”

This wasn’t his opening message. He lead with the classic  lame “Tell me more about yourself.” To which I responded “I have more personal information in my profile than you do, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

It lead to a few more messages one of which ended with this: “The picture of you in the short skirt and high boots kind of gets me going. 😉 I’m not a perv….just have a high drive for it.” Umm, okay. I didn’t really acknowledge that comment but responded to the rest of what he had said. Then there was this at the end of his next message: “So, I hope this isn’t poorly received, but how would one get to see more pictures like the short skirt picture? Or find out what’s under there? ;)”

A vagina. What do you expect to be under my skirt? And, no, you can’t see it. Adios.

Then there was the guy I talked to for over  a week. He seemed okay and, honestly, I wasn’t super interested but was giving him a one or two meeting chance as part of my “try something different” approach to dating. I was a little concerned because he lived about an hour away (sounds familiar right?). I expressed this concern to him but it did not dampen his enthusiasm. He assured me that he liked driving and would gladly come out my way regularly if I wanted.

After some consistent back and forth texting, mostly initiated by him…on an almost daily basis, (which had me wary of a certain unwarranted level of attachment on his end) we were making plans to meet the next day. And then this: “I should also tell you, I won’t have a car for like two more weeks, mine was totalled by a drunk driver and I still have a few weeks of saving to do before I buy my new one.” He went on to apologize for not saying something sooner and all that. Blah, blah, blah.

“So you wouldn’t be able to meet somewhere tomorrow?” I responded. “If it was around here I would. I really don’t have anyone to borrow a vehicle from.” Followed by more apologizing and talking about how he really does want to meet me… So….you think I’m going to drive over an hour to an area of the state that I’m totally unfamiliar with for a first meeting with a guy I found online??? That sounds like the beginning of a horror movie. No thank you! I haven’t heard from him since and it’s been four weeks. It’s okay though, I get the feeling I dodged a bullet on that one. There were a few signs of more clingyness than I can handle.

The Straight Up Bad

I know I mentioned in a post early in my online dating experience about some of the…straightforward messages I’ve received so I won’t go into those type of messages that I do occasionally get but there’s another type of bad that’s been creeping up…The You Owe It To Me guy. If you’ve online dated before you probably know what I’m talking about. The guy who messages you, most likely says nothing except “Hi” or ” how r u today”. You check out his profile and maybe don’t see anything that interests you or even see something that is a major red flag ( or something like this: “if you want to know anything about me ask even though i am sure alot of you ladies think you are better then me and everyone else i have to try this sorry if i am being too honest but thats how i am i speak my mind if you dont like it ohh well get over it. It does not matter what a person looks like really as long as they have a good heart and look for the beauty within a person.”)

So you ignore the message. Then he comes back with something along the lines of “Oh so you think ur to good to talk to me”…Umm, nope. But just because you took all of one second to message me a few words does not mean I am obliged to respond and now I really don’t want to talk to you…let alone entertain the idea of meeting you. Does this approach actually work for anyone???

The Ood  Odd

One guy I was talking to last week seemed pretty normal. He gave me his phone number and we started texting back and forth a bit, mostly about food since we both happened to be preparing dinner at the time. I mentioned I was cooking for my kids. Usually I throw out that I have kids (it is on my profile too but I don’t have pictures of them or mention them in my write up at all so I think people forget) He took the bait and asked “How old are your little ones?” Umm, yeah, some of them are not so little. I told him as much and that there are five of them…there was a notable pause, an increase in response time before he came back with “How many dads?” That one caught me by surprise, I’ve never been asked that but it’s a valid question. At this point I thought for sure he was about to run away. It’s okay, it happens. But then it didn’t…

We talked for a few more days, food came up a lot. That first evening he mentioned that he loves milk but buys 1/2% even though 2% is his favorite…”Less fat obviously.” Then he mentioned that he’s “trying to avoid bread…even tho i luv it” and later that he’s going on a high protein diet. When he commented “i luv chz (cheese). Thinking about giving it up tho.” I just had to laugh. Seriously, from his pictures he looks like a pretty skinny guy too. I just don’t understand. I told him no one should give up cheese…ever!

Shortly after that comment, though I don’t think it was related, he asked if I had a picture I could send him. Crap! I understand wanting to see that the person you’re talking to is who they say they are and that a lot of people use misleading photos on dating websites BUT my phone won’t send picture messages right now. Lame, very lame, I know. And I said as much to him. He seemed a bit miffed by this saying “That is lame…lol…who the hell cant send pics in 2015??? Ha.”  Welll, me. That’s who. I explained how I had just switched phones and a whole bit about SIM cards and stuff. The more I explained the weirder it sounded. Double crap! I thought this was it for this guy…he is surely going to run away now. But he didn’t.

The next day he texted & asked how I was…and what I was making for dinner. I had to chuckle. Isn’t there some saying about the way to a man’s heart being through his stomach? Maybe there’s some truth to that. (I’m fairly certain being able to cook doesn’t hurt with guys…ever). Admittedly this one was a little odd with his food issues but I found it amusing, almost charming. My friend pointed out that he had “fat kid food issues”. Oh, now it made sense. Okay. I can deal with that.  In fact, this guy’s oddness made me more curious to meet him. I really wanted to see how it translated in person. He commented that “we seem to like similar food. I think ud like arabic food…maybe we should try it together sometime. Theres a restaurant near my condo thats good.”  I expressed an interest but there was no asking about an actual time that would work or attempt to make plans quite yet. It was a promising sign though.

And then he upped the oddness ante. “Random question” he asked “what size shoe do u wear?…im assuming small since ur 5’2” Yup, that’s random. Apparently he’s “attracted to small feet”. I told him my shoe size (which is not actually very small). Curiouser and curiouser.

I think the feet did it though. We chatted a little more that evening but that was the last day I heard from him. I texted a few days later and got no response. After all that, the five kids & not being able to send pics, it seems it was my big feet that finally killed my chances with this one. Not going to lie, I was slightly disappointed. I’ve never met anyone with food issues AND a foot fetish. Plus he had a very normal nine to five, weekends off work schedule. Odd AND available. Huh, too bad.