I finally succumbed...

...to internet dating.

After some consideration and given the current state of my love life or rather lack of it, I decided to subscribe to Match.com two days ago. And I must say I have been pleasantly surprised.

In the last 48 hours, my profile has apparently been viewed 149 times and I have received 11 emails and countless winks including a wink from a 90 year-old man.

I was curious about the 90 year-old so I viewed his profile and I noticed he had put up around 10 pictures and had a very long write-up about himself and what he was looking for. He stressed on how fit he was and how he exercised regularly. His profile seemed so eager and hopeful that it struck a cord in me. Here is a guy at 90 who is still out there looking for love like the rest of us.

Then I thought, it bloody doesn’t get easier does it?

Dear god, if that was me at 90, I’d want to kill myself. I’d probably want to kill myself if that was me at 40.

Depressed suddenly, I decided to read through all the emails I’d received. Out of the 11, 3 looked promising. Their pictures were alright and the emails funny. So, I replied to all 3 and now I have 2 dates set for this weekend. Which isn’t bad I guess (?)

Then I went to check out the guys who had viewed me. As I perused through the pages, I saw one guy who looked familiar. I clicked on his profile and realized he was a guy I’d been on a date with a while back, whom I thought was incredibly cute but who hadn’t made a move to ask me out after the date. Since I had found him oh-so-cute, I asked him out instead, to which he politely declined claiming some work commitments. So I wrote him off thinking he wasn’t interested. Later my friend who had set us up told me he had met another girl very soon after he went on that date with me and they had hooked up almost immediately.

So, what then was he doing here? And he’d been active in the last 24 hours!

Remembering how cute I’d found him, I asked my friend of his status but she didn’t know. I did the next thing I could think of. I stalked him on FB. His relationship status was back to single (yes, yes I stalked him before too) and the pictures of him tagged with the girl he’d been seeing had been removed. So, was he single again?

Saying a silent whoppee I decided to message him on FB and not on Match though perhaps I should have done it the other way around…

My message to him (when it seemed like a good idea) said…

“Hey. Didn't we meet once through that thing that Miss S set-up a while back? I can't remember when but I know we met at Chilis. Anyway, you popped up in the people you may know thingy and I thought you looked familiar, decided to say hi. So hows life and the dating going? ;)”

He hasn’t replied.

Crap.

I actually wish now I hadn’t sent the message at all. Why did I message him so impulsively without thinking it through? I’m pretty sure now he knows that I’ve viewed him on Match AND that I’ve stalked him on FB (no matter how blasé I tried to make my message sound). Nobody wants a stalker....!

Okay, so tell me what you think… how lame was it of me to message him that way? And should I even be expecting a response?

Sweep me off my feet already...!

I'm a romantic, still waiting for my knight in shining armour to sweep me off my feet.

In this day and age, I'm still expecting to be swept off my feet.

Here I am, a woman of 30, a professional in the corporate world, someone who makes presentations to the chairman of boards of multinationals and listed companies, who is about to be earning a five-figure salary in a couple of weeks when I start this new job.... wanting, really, really wanting to be swept off her feet.

Am I at the end of the day just a needy, romance novel heroine wannabe, wanting to be saved by the tall, dark and handsome stranger who finds me at my most vulnerable and thinks me endearing enough to fall in love with?

And then, of course, he has to sweep me off my feet.

I'm an idiot.. and he's stupid (part 2)

He kissed me that night.

And two days later he bailed on meeting me for dinner saying he had other plans he had forgotten about.

When I texted him saying ‘That’s too bad. Was looking forward to it’ his reply was ‘It would have been a great idea if things weren’t getting so complicated. Another time.’

Angry, I texted back ‘If that’s how you feel there won’t be another time. I’ll be out of your hair to make it all less complicated’.

Knowing how he avoided me like the plague when I get angry, I did not expect a response. So I was surprised when 4 minutes later, I got a long text from him saying ‘Think we have some issues. Cause we just can’t be doing this all the time and we have to move on somehow. Just like you, I have to sort my stuff out and since I can’t speak to you about it I am in a bit of a pickle. So, lets take a step back and see how to sort this out.’

It took me 3 hours to reply. I’d waited till I’d gotten my girlfriend Miss X’s input on this. We tried coming up with an appropriate response over some margaritas. After dissecting the text to pieces, we decided the best way to go would be a short and succinct text that did not show him I’d been affected by what he had said.

So my reply ‘I guess you’re right. Sorry to put you in a pickle’.

I didn’t hear from him for over a week until he called 2 nights ago. He asked me how things were and when I was starting my new job. We chatted a short bit on that. Then I asked him why he called.

His reply… ‘Simply’.


What. The. Fuck.

I'm an idiot.. and he's stupid

“I chose to be with you now, didn’t I?” Mr. Stupid told me when we were standing at the bar in the club we had just entered. Slightly appeased, I smiled at him.

But the events of the night came flooding back and my smile faded. What started as an ordinary Friday night, having a couple of drinks with a bunch of friends turned into something I hadn’t quite anticipated happening, at least not so soon.

I met the girl Mr Stupid was dating.

At first it was a bunch of us seated together having drinks, including a close friend from work, her boyfriend, my ex-boss, his friend. And Mr Stupid. Soon everyone left and it was just me and Mr Stupid. I was sipping my mojito when he ordered another round of his whisky with water and we were talking about something I cannot remember, when suddenly out of nowhere this girl comes up to us and plops herself onto Mr Stupid’s chair practically falling on to his lap and gives him a huge hug. Ignoring me for the first few minutes, she talks loudly and fast with him. I’m a little taken aback, so I sit back and watch the whole scene in front of my eyes. She was pretty, I’ll give her that.With long curly but a little unkempt hair and minimal make up (was this his type?). But she was wearing a pants with a ridiculous length, hovering somewhere between her mid-calf and her ankle. I was glad I was wearing a dress. Then I caught myself. What the hell was I doing?

And boy, could she talk a lot. I saw Mr Stupid shift in his chair, was it discomfort? Still talking to him, she turns to me and then says, “Oh sorry. Hi! I’m Miss Gab-A-Lot” and extends her hand to me. I shake her hand and give a smile I’m not feeling and say, “Hi. LittleMissAngry”. She smiles back, turns and continues talking to him. She seems a little too excited and the glass she’s holding follow her hand movements precariously, till it slips out of her fingers, spills half its contents onto his trousers, my dress, pantyhose and shoes (I was sitting pretty close to him and she had somehow managed to plop herself between us) before it went crashing to the floor. She gets all flustered, crouched to the floor trying to clean it up when I realize she’s drunk.

Oh (!)

Her friend comes to get her, while apologizing to Mr. Stupid and me. I dismiss it with a smile and she’s gone for the moment. I turn to Mr Stupid and ask him “Did you know she was here?”.

He says “Yes”.

Before I could continue, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and it is her again. She asks me.. “So, you’re MissAngry?” I say yes. She asks the same question again to which I say yes again. Then she goes “The MissAngry?”

I’m not sure how to respond, so I smile and nod. The she says “Ah. I’ve checked you out on Facebook!” and she turns and walks away.

I turn to Mr Stupid and give him an incredulous look. “Seriously?” I say.

“She’s a little drunk” he says almost apologetically.

“You think?” I said. “And you knew she was here! When were you planning to tell me?”

“I don’t know. I did not anticipate that happening” he said. He looks caught between disbelief and amazement.

“Well, it did. And my shoes are wet and sticky. I cannot believe this. Did you plan this? Having two women in one night? Was that the plan?” I say harshly my anger building up. “She bloody ruined my shoes!”

“I’m sorry. Obviously, I didn’t plan this. And I obviously can’t handle two women in one night…” he said trying to make a joke out of the whole thing. I give him a blank stare.

“I want to leave” I said.

We left the spot, (and to my amazement) he still went over to say goodbye to the drunk lady friend of his…but not before asking me “Do you mind if I go over and say bye to her?”

Idiot.

We left the spot, and went to another club in the same building. He got me a glass vodka because I told him I needed another drink to erase whatever had just transpired. And then it hit me, what if he wanted to be with her??

Feeling sick to the stomach, I asked him “Hey, do you want to get back downstairs? I mean if you want to go back there, its fine. I’ll leave.”

To which he said, looking me right in the eye “I chose to be with you now, didn’t I?”

And I stood there, relishing the moment, thinking that at least for now, I had him all to myself.

The dating game

One of my closest friend Miss X called me up the other day, depressed. Her mum and aunt are trying to set her up with a guy, basically get her to go on blind date with him. Her aunt mailed her a picture of him. He's 37 which is not a bad age for a guy but when I asked Miss X what she thought of how he looked.

"You know how some guys who are about that age..say like Mr. Stupid (who btw is 36 this year) but don't look it? Well, he's not one of them. He actually looks 37, " she said.

"But how is a 37 year-old supposed to look like?" I asked.

"I don't know! But we go after men who look like guys not men who look like MEN," she said. "And this one looks scarily like a MAN! He's got glasses, wearing one of those silky shirts and looks serious. Basically he looks like a 37 year-old man not a 37 year-old guy."

"But that's not all" she continued "The date on the photo was 2004, which means he looked like this when he was freaking 31!"

I had to laugh but I didn't know what to say to that. Thinking about it now however, I'd day how do you trust someone who shares a picture of himself (and I'm sure to their best interest they would want to share the best picture they've got) which is 6 years old? So what, he hasn't taken a decent picture of himself since? That's a huge flapping red flag if you ask me.

But anyway, I digress. The point I'm trying to make is... 3 maybe even 2 years ago, Miss X and me, we would not have been so obliging to our mums setting us up this way. In fact, we would have been downright hostile. But here we were, a bunch of 30 year olds, actually succumbing to the pressures of society or rather pressures of family, specifically, our terrified mums.

Not to mention certain aunts who, despite their best intentions, make us feel like total crap when they tell us how small the pool is for girls over the age of 30.

But is it just about the age? Is there really a stigma attached to someone like me, who's touched the big 30 with no man in sight? Or are our mums and aunts over-dramatising their concern? And when they convey their concerns, it seems to me, everything is so black and white. You meet a guy. You like him. He likes you. You get married. Happily ever after.

But most of the time, I'm stuck in grey. For example...

Scenario 1
I meet guy. I like guy. Guy seems to like me but guy is commitment phobic and runs the 100m dash (in the opposite direction) when I tell him I like him.

Scenario 2
I meet guy. I like guy. Guy likes me. We kiss and make-out a couple of times. Find out guy also likes 5 other girls.

Scenario 3
I meet guy. I like guy. Guy seems to like me. We go on a date. Then guy never calls.

Scenario 4
I meet guy. I don't like guy. But guy likes me. Guy calls me everyday. And when I don't answer guy texts incessantly till I call guy a psycho and ask him to bugger off.

And so on and so on.

Okay, I'm going way off tangent here. What I'm trying to say, I think, is, "Mum, I know I've turned 30 way faster than you wanted me to. And as much as you want me married and start making babies.. it does look rather bleak right now, and you may have to wait a while before it even remotely starts looking possible.."

Right. If only I could gather the nerve to tell my mum that to her face.

Love always wins

"Have I told you about the tension of opposites" he says.

"Tension of opposites?"

"Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted."

"A tension of opposites..like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle."

"Sounds like a wrestling match" I say

"A wrestling match" He laughs "Yes, you could describe life that way"

"So which side wins?" I ask

He smiles at me. The crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth.

"Love wins. Love always wins."


-Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom

Fools in love

I was talking to my friend last night. She’s with a guy who appears not ready to be in a committed relationship. His excuse is that he is focusing all of his time and energy to his work. Relationships require too much effort and he just cannot afford it right now. If that is not an indication of a guy who’s not ready to be with you, I’m not sure what is. But my friend, who despite wanting more from him, is meeting him for drinks this week. She is aware of all the facts, but she just likes him too much to refuse.

Are we all fools when it comes to love?

I’m trying to maintain a platonic relationship with a guy I thought I loved a while ago. But if all I want is to be just friends why does the idea of him being with someone else make me feel that someone has punched me in the stomach? And why is it that whenever Lady Gaga sings her bad lyrics ‘I don’t wanna be friends…want your bad romance’ I find myself bopping my head, nodding and agreeing and thinking of only one person in particular.

Sometimes I wonder, is love really so complicated or am I just making it so. Do I only want what I cannot have? Am I only after the chase? Why is it that almost always the anticipation of my time together with someone feels better than the reality of it? And then why does it again seem better on hindsight? Is it nostalgia - making it more romantic than it really was? Every time we put pen to paper, we are writing on hindsight, riding on something that has already happened, something in the past. And when we write it, do we embellish, making what was only mediocre seem more special than it truly was?

Love should be experienced and not just felt, I read that somewhere. But in most of my past relationships I feel I’ve only felt it, either anticipating something that is going to happen and then thinking about it fondly on hindsight. Was it because the experience in itself was so fleeting? In all honestly I can only think of one time when I truly felt I was experiencing love. My then boyfriend was sitting at the computer trying to get some work done and I was sitting on the couch next to him trying to read. I looked up to find him frowning, deep in concentration. Wanting some attention myself, I went up to him and sat on his lap facing him. I remember him smiling then gently pushing my head to rest on his chest where I could hear his heartbeat. I closed my eyes and allowed him to continue working. The love I felt for him at that point was so overpowering that I made a mental note to never forget it. And I never did.

Is it sad that I can only recall one such incredible moment of love? I’m sure I have experienced others, it’s just that I can’t recall them. Fleeting moments passed by, never to be relived or felt again the same way.

And we keep putting ourselves out there, going on dates, meeting new people trying to make a connection, trying to recapture the feeling of being in love with someone who could possibly make us feel those moments...again.

And therein lies one of my biggest fears - what if I don't?

These moments are so rare, so few and so fleeting – it just does not seem enough. I feel I’m missing out on something bigger. There must be more to love than these rare, few, fleeting moments. Otherwise, I’m thinking.. love is overrated.

I'm being set-up

My mum is setting me up on a date.

I cannot believe I've reached a point in my life where my mum thinks she needs to interfere with her daughters dating life for fear of having her daughter become a middle aged woman without a man in tow. She's obviously fearing the fact that having touched the big 30, I'm still without a husband prospect in sight. 30 is ancient in her books to be without a man and to top that she's gone beyond hinting that she'd like to be a grandmother.... soon.

I love my mum. But I am glad I live a whole 2 hour distance away from her, thus limiting our face to face confrontations about my love life. She manages to get her messages across over the phone though. Its maddening when I've had a perfect Saturday all to myself, lazing in bed with the nicest book and even nicer music in the background, only to have the magic broken with a call from my mum exclaiming "What? You've been in bed the whole day?" like its the worst sin in the world before adding "How are you expecting to meet men if you lie in bed all day like this?".

Anyway, I got a call from her yesterday telling me that she got a call from an aunt of mine about a 'nice' and 'handsome' boy who is a son of a friend of hers who just started working around my area. He's apparently looking to meet new 'friends' and my mum and my aunt have decided that I should do lunch or dinner with him. I retorted saying if he was so 'nice' and 'handsome' why did he need help making 'friends'. My mum told me to not be rude.

Firstly, I don't trust this particular aunt's judgement in men. Secondly and more importantly, why would a grown up man need help from his mum to set him up? Is he so lazy that he couldn't be bothered to make his own efforts to finding a date and would rather rely on his mum to get him one? That or he is really ugly.

I'm not in the least bit intrigued. But you try saying no to my mum. Suffice to say, I've agreed to meet him... but only for coffee next week. I'm not going to suffer through a meal on a date set up by conspiring aunts and mums. My mum agreed reluctantly saying dinner would be much nicer though. But I stood my ground - its coffee or nothing at all- and the tiny win did placate me a little bit. Anyway, I'm thinking, if anything, this might give me some material to blog about.

Mr. Stupid

I started this blog as an angry retaliation towards Mr. Stupid. Along the way it has become something else, but I began writing the blog because I had all this anger towards this one person and no real way of channeling it.

Anyway, it started because I thought Mr. Stupid had wronged me in some way. Led me on and then blew me off. We were so close emotionally and physically, but when it finally came down to making a decision about us, I felt he made the wrong one. I was so mad.

The thing is, he was no 'great' love of mine. We were never in a 'real' relationship. We never called each other cute names. But we did spend enourmous amounts of time with each other. We talked to each other every day. Sometimes for hours. Most important, we laughed together. He was my friend.. and so much more. A friend with benefits of sorts. I thought we were so in tune with each other, we should definitely take this to the next level. He thought not. I couldn't understand why and behaved like a child who did not get that candy she wanted. I threw tantrums. I got petulant. And when all that failed I used guilt. But it was like hitting myself against the wall, because my outbursts never got me the responses I wanted. On hindsight, of course, I realise I took the worst approach possible.

And because I had done all I could to anger him in real life and because on some level I realised what I was doing wasn't just hurting him, but me too, I took my angry venting online. Hence, this blog. Along the way, the anger dissipated, of course, and I moved on. And we're civil now, at least most of the time minus a couple of slip ups. I still care about him, not in the crazy way before, thank god and I'm pretty sure he genuinely cares about me too.

The only problem is as much as I still want him in my life, I am afraid of history repeating itself. The danger is I feel so comfortable with him and we know each other so well, that we sort of fall into a false pattern of ease, using each other to fill up the gap of not having a significant other in our lives. And then slowly and sneakily, without really any conscious decision on my part, I end up wanting more. And that's square one for you.

Its dangerous. And its stupid. Because, by doing this, we're not really allowing each other to grow or move on in the real sense of the word. So as much as I'm enjoying his tentative re-entrance into my life under the guise of a platonic friend, I'm not sure how long that's going to last until the truth about how I really feel about our situation comes to the surface.

Looks like I'll have to wait and see.

Bad behaviour?

Miss X has been hitting it off with the object of her interest these last couple of weeks. And although they don't meet as often as she'd like to due to their busy and conflicting work schedules, they flirt with sexy texts and conversations almost daily.

Then, this one night, they were supposed to meet up for dinner. It gets cancelled at the last minute. And of course, she's expecting him to reschedule, he doesn't. She sends him a text which goes unreplied. She calls him, he doesn't answer. By now, she's obviously totally pissed. And asking me what the fuck just happened?

And the thing is. I honestly don't know.

You're into someone. Things are looking good. The chemistry is there. Its not a full blown relationship. Sure. He's under no obligations to report to you. Definitely.

But, there was a certain expectation set in motion already. You don't disappear on someone after creating that expectation. Or you shouldn't. Right? Right??

Once, Mr. P didn't reply my text, for a whole day, and it drove me up the wall. The next day, he claimed he left his phone in a friends place. At that time, I felt a little foolish over how it had affected me.

This guy, has since apologised to my friend, claiming some work disasters which took up all his time... he seems genuine enough in his apology.

But what does all these non-reply, non-calls mean?

In my books, generally, not replying to my texts or calls is just bad behaviour.

But being fed shit on tv which would proclaim this might be him not being into you doesn't help either. Because, just when you're thinking, okay, maybe he's not into me, he goes and does something completely contrary to show you that he maybe, perhaps is. And come on, just how annoying is that?

Tingly, warm sensations

I was at the pharmacy the other day to pick up some condoms before heading over to Mr. P’s place. The last time I was at his place, we were going at it but had to stop because he didn’t have condoms. So I wanted to be prepared this time, just in case. I picked up a colourful red box which said tingling, warm sensations, thinking that must feel very nice. How very creative of them to think up such condoms. I walked to the counter, paid for it and headed off.

At his place, after the 2nd glass of wine, we were all over each other and rushed to his room to finally have great, fantastic sex. He said he still didn’t have condoms and even in my horny state, I wondered how come I thought about it but he hadn’t. But no matter, luckily I was prepared, I thought. It was dark in his room and I had to scramble for the box in my purse. It was killing the moment a little. He had gotten up to search his underwear drawer to see if he had a spare packet he had forgotten about. Both of us scrambling in the dark and I was the first to find it. Giving a triumphant squeal, I peeled the box and waved the tiny packet in his face.

He took it from me, ripped it and said.. “What the fuck?”

“Why?” I asked.

Somehow, noticing the look on his face in the dark, I grabbed the packet from his hand and felt something soft and squishy in my hands. I said out loud.. “The condom melted.”

“Its lube, idiot!”

How in the world had I gotten mixed up with lube and condoms? I blame the packaging. They looked exactly the same.

Mr. P was sweet about it though. Teased me about it the next morning when in the bright, still in bed, I picked up the box and read the label where it was unmistakably stated.. tingling, warm sensation lubricant.

I turned and looked at him, purple in the face. He laughed and hugged me saying, "Don’t worry, we’ll find some use for that too.”

I shut my eyes, pretending not to hear, snuggled up closer to him smiling.

Beers and mojito

R, a close male friend of mine of many years sent me a text around 11pm yesterday asking me what I was doing. My friendship with R is pretty strange. Mostly, he's someone I can talk to, share things with, get a guy's input on matters which are beyond my female comprehension. I wanted to maintain things to be platonic, but since I've already established I'm bad at that, we've crossed that line (kissing only though) once or twice, okay, maybe three times, all thanks to him and alcohol. Things get weird for a while, then we pick up and pretend it never happened and all is good. Plus, he has a girlfriend. But their relationship is even weirder, I'm not going to get into that today. Not enough time..I'm at the airport - I've got fifteen minutes to try trash this out.

Anyway, after he sent me the text, I called him cause I wanted to ask him what he thought about my on again, off again, on again relationship with Mr. P.

R knows that I suck at the whole friend's with benefits deal and was skeptical when I mentioned I was giving it a shot with Mr. P. But he listened anyway. So I told him about how I overdosed with Mr P two weeks ago, and how he asked me to meet his friends and I did. And how we took his dog out for walks at night holding hands and stopping to kiss at corners. How we just sat and talked in the German bar, me sipping a mojito and him having beer.

As I was telling him all this, I knew at the back of my head what R was going to say already. And he did.. "get out while you still have your heart intact".

But, that's the thing, I said. I don't really have to worry about my heart. After all that two weeks ago, I haven't heard from him since. His dissapearing acts are exactly whats keep me from falling for this guy. So maybe, maybe this could actually work?

R's response.."you're so fucking delusional!"