Meet Ed

He's 43 and loves Long Island Iced Tea. He says he's looking for a woman...so why is he wearing a vest from the gay section of the fetish clothing store?

Abracadabra!

So, in the past six weeks, I've had a ridiculous number of guys ask me out and then disappear. Clearly, they enjoy the ego boost that comes from a girl saying yes, but for whatever reason they don't feel the need to go out on an actual date. Here's the list of my Incredible Disappearing Romeos!

Superfruity (Why did I ever respond to a guy with such a stupid name?) Asked me out. I said yes. Gave him my number. He sent me a bunch of random texts, but never called. I finally called him at a pre-determined time. He didn't answer. He emailed instead. I responded and asked him to call me. I never heard from him again.

Smoochyshark (again with these names!) Asked me out. I said sure. Sent him my schedule. Never heard from him again.

Mr. Not Sweaty, Fat or Cheap (He was all those things when K went out with him. But he was on his best behavior when I met him a few months later.) Went out. Had a fine time. Ended the night with a "see ya soon." He sent an email the next day asking if I wanted to go out again. I said yes. Never heard from him again.

Weirdo: Kept saying, "Let's Hang." I'd say "sure." He'd respond with a nonsensical one liner. He complained that I wasn't giving him enough love. I pointed out that I knew nothing about him because all his emails were nonsensical. He said, "you can find out more when you meet me." I finally said that if he didn't talk about something real, I would stop responding. He asked me a real question (about my profile.) I sent back a real answer. Never heard from him again.

Psycho guy: Asked me for a Saturday walk. I said yes. Then asked for a Friday drink. I said I was busy. He went psycho. Luckily...I never heard from him again.

eHarmony guy: Asked me out. I said yes. Asked if we could meet late in the evening on a Thursday. I said, why not? We made a plan. Then he canceled. Asked to reschedule to Tuesday. I said yes. Never heard from him again.

Gemini guy: I emailed him on match. He emailed back saying he'd like a date. I said cool. Never heard from him again.

Hot for Teacher: Swapped a few emails. I liked him a lot. He asked me out. I said yes. Never heard from him again.

Whew! That's a lot of rejection coming down on little ole me. No wonder I'm tired of it!

Meet Frank

Meet Frank. Frank claims to be 53. He's looking for a woman between the ages of 30 and 60. I'll leave the rest of the introductions up to Frank himself:

I work till 2pm then go home to play with my 2 cats. one is 17 years old the other is 5 YEARS OLD. I like walks on the beach, going out to dinner, watching sports and animal shows on tv. I have a 20 year old son who is the love of my life, and is in the us Army right now getting ready to go to Iraq for 15 months.

Frank seems to be a very sweet old man. He clearly cares for his cats. He still has a strong desire to work and contribute to society. And he's a loving father who is facing a very difficult time away from his son.

But there is no way in HELL that Frank is only 53 years old. I'm really not sure I'd believe Frank if he claimed to be a day under 73 years old. Guys...I can see why you might wish to shave a year or two off your age. Believe me, when I realized how much harder it was to date at 36 than it had been at 34, the thought crossed my mind, too. But, I have to draw the line at 20 years. That's just a few too years many to shave...

Look Who's Crazy!

Do you ever get yourself into one of those situations where you're completely shocked to discover that someone is absolutely bat-shit crazy?

Yeah, that's the story of my life. Or at least the story of my February 2008 - July 2009.

But, for a more contemporary example, I started chatting with this guy on match.com. From the start, I should have known he was insane. But, let's face it, my long-standing gullibility is likely to become a running theme of this blog. Besides, he was cute. And he had a job. I mean, that's pretty good for match.

So, the whole thing started off kinda weird, because he just sent me his address and said "email me." I thought he was cute and liked his profile, so I wrote back with...

Me: Okay, I'll bite. Why am I emailing you here instead of on match?

Psycho: b/c i never log on to match and i quit match this afternoon -- it is silly
Me: Hmmm...hard to argue with that logic. Is there a reason you wanted me to email you, or did you just want to warn me that I'm wasting my time on match? ;-)
Psycho: now that you met me, you are wasting your time. ;-) let's meet up!

Don't ask me why, but I found this charming so I keptd writing. We agree to go for a walk on Saturday. Then we swapped 20-some-odd emails in less than 24 hours. In my defense, a few of his emails seemed really sincere and charming. And, who can resist a cute, sincere, charming, employed guy on match.com?

Then, I get this:

Psycho: do you want to meet on friday?
Me: I'd love to meet, but I thought we were going for a walk on Saturday? I'm planning to go swing dancing Friday night (dorky, I know.) I have plans Sat night, but could do something during the day. Or, Sunday evening? I have a work thing, but it's over at 4. Yeah, my schedule is stupid busy, but I kinda like it that way.
Psycho: I just figure I would offer Friday instead. I am not a busy person when it comes to meeting someone I really like! Even if we only meet for 20 minutes on Friday we can see if we want to see each other again on Saturday.

Note to self: I am a total sucker for a guilt trip. And that last email? Clearly a guilt trip.

So, now Mr. Psycho comes up with his brilliant "how about I give you a ride?" idea. I say, no, I need my car to get home at the end of the night. So, he just invites himself to ride with me to Somerville, where he'll be meeting a buddy.

I'm not thrilled by this idea. I just got in a little fender bender, so my driving skills are questionable. Plus, who wants to be cute and charming and funny and sexy and fabulous while trying to drive across town in rush hour traffic?

But, due to that earlier guilt trip, I feel compelled to say yes. Luckily, I don't have time to shoot off an email before heading to see my shrink (a.k.a. Dating Coach.) I relate this story and my shrink just kinda sits there for a minute and then finally says:

Shrink: I'm just trying to figure out why you're being so...
Me: Fabulous?
Shrink: I was gonna say accommodating.

Well, um, now that I think of it, I really don't WANT to go on a Let-me-drive-you-across-town-during-rush-hour first date. That seems almost as annoying as that time I went on a Let-me-watch-you-take-a-nap fourth date. And we all know that didn't turn out too well!

Me: Actually, the thought of first-meeting jitters paired with post-accident paranoia is stressing me out. How about if we meet first, and check out each other's driving skills some other time? If you really want to meet me before Saturday, I'm free after work on Wednesday or Thursday. Would one of those evenings work better?

Psycho: not going to work
Me: Okay then, back to the original idea of Saturday during the day?
Psycho: we'll see your reticence is not awe inspiring

Then the emails start coming, rapid fire...

Psycho: if you dont trust me instinctively then its a good idea not to meet me

Psycho: this whole thing is about instinct you seem a nice sincere woman so i
wanted to meet then you express all this apprehension about very very
minor things getting in a car with someone with YOU driving even,
crazy clearly you dont get a good enough feeling from me that you
wouldn't think i wouldn't urinate in your car or something

Psycho: doesnt make a lot of sense to me

Those last two came while I was formulating my response. If I had seen them before I replied, I don't think I would have been nearly as nice!

Me: Who said anything about not trusting you? I said that I didn't trust myself to not drive my car into a curb while trying to combine meeting someone for the first time and driving in rush hour traffic. If you can't understand the difference between those two then, yeah, let's not meet. Good luck with your search...

P-S-Y-C-H-O!

The Candidates: May 12, 2010

Okay, today was a bad day for eHarmony. I'm gonna cut them a little slack, because yesterday they at least sent me cute guys. Still 90% of them are maybes for kids. I'm trying to look beyond that. But, I thought you might enjoy some of the worst of the past week. I got my computer to take screen shots so you could go eeeeeek with me!

First up we have this guy. He claims to be 45, which would make him 42 when this photo was taken. I'm not buying it. I say, 55...minimum. He's cute, though! For an old guy...


[[Okay, I admit it. That's a pic of Anderson Cooper. Fact is, the guy turned out to be 45, just like he said. Nice guy. Bad story. Despite my anonymity here, that story's too embarrassing to share. But, he turned out to look a whole lot like Anderson Cooper. And, like Anderson Cooper, he had prematurely gray hair. Thus, a photo of Anderson to brighten your day!]]

Second, we have the guy I like to call the "tall dwarf." He's 5'10" but has the weirdest body I've ever seen. And no neck. I gave you two of his photos!

The Tall Dwarf on a horse!

The Tall Dwarf looking sad. :-(

Next, Greg. He's 42. Wants kids. And apparently really, really wants to make sure I know he's earned a degree of some sort.

Really, Greg? This is the best photo you can come up with?

Finally, Richard. He's 42. Only 5'8". A maybe on kids. And looks old enough to be my dad. I'd say Richard is representative of the guys eHarmony is sending me. Most of them look like him...or older.

See? Really not a good day for eHarmony.