False alarm

I’m baaaack. It became clear that all of you were too lame to fully supply me with blog material, so I had to put myself back on the market. No, seriously, things didn’t work out with the boyfriend, for reasons unrelated to your lameness. But it ended about as well as these things can– I didn’t do it by text, phone or email! [INSERT APPLAUSE.] Aw, thanks! I like to think Miss Manners would also be impressed by how I waited a full 12 hours before blogging my breakup.

Anyway, I’ll be doing my best to get back on the job as soon as possible, although it might take me a little while to rejoin all those speed date mailing lists and compose my pithy emails to the fresh meat on the matchmaking sites. Who knows how the dating world may have changed in the six months I’ve been gone? So be patient, and feel free to send your assistance (in lieu of cash, SDG accepts weird invitations, self-improvement advice and English-speaking guys) in the meantime.

Don’t say that #46

Just because celebrities are doing it doesn’t mean you should.

I’m guessing this guy, who my friend recently tried to stop dating, must have been inspired by the recent rash of movies about friends with benefits. But he needs to work on his game a little more if he wants to be the next Ashton Kutcher. My friend had spent three dates (and one quick kiss) with him, decided it wasn’t working out, and politely emailed him to tell him that. His response:

“If you find yourself looking for a firm once over from a guy friend without all the traditional relationship who-ha and expectations and stuff… Being that I am single, I would be game for that…”

A firm once over? Who-ha? This weirdo may have been trying for Ashton, but he came off more like DeNiro.

Delighted to dump

I have always assumed that the rest of the dating world shares my distaste for dumping people. (And that some folks have even more. My mom recently told me, “You are really good at rejecting guys you don’t like. I could never do that.” Still trying to figure out whether it was a compliment or an insult.)

So it’s a little mystifying that online daters have been contacting me just to let me know that we’re incompatible. One guy actually went with the subject line, “I don’t want to adventure with you.” (My profile says I’m looking for a guy who wants to join my adventure– cheesy, I know, but I have trouble selling myself without sounding like a travel brochure).  He went on to describe the flaws in the site’s matching software, as if he had me confused with either the customer service department or his robot servant. 

At least my other complainer’s issues were specifically directed at me, like my hypocrisy in loving my Subaru while claiming to care about the environment. Lucky I didn’t mention how I also like to eat and be skinny or vacation and have money.

But my friend beats that with her story of a guy from online whom she agreed to firstdate. (How many times will I have to use this word before Webster’s bites?) Then she changed her mind and cancelled the date. A few days later, he left her “a rambling/ranting voicemail about how I was ‘boring and bland’ and he never wanted to go out with me anyway.”

The best part? He called at 3 am! Could it be the start of a new trend, phoning people you don’t want to have sex with in the middle of the night? Just in case the dictionary writers are still reading, I’m proposing a name: let’s hear it for the “Giving the boot-y” call.

SDGoldilocks

Lately my dating life has felt like a fairy tale. And not the sort where Prince Charming appears and whisks me off my feet.

Instead, it’s one of those stories where you wish for something and your wish is granted, but so excessively that you’re worse off than you started.

You remember how I went on the date with the guy who didn’t talk? Well, shortly after that, I found myself out to dinner with a guy who only paused for breath. I’m serious– he had to get a doggy bag because he hadn’t had time to chew. I learned about the annoying habits of his company’s HR department, even the continuing education opportunities offered by the grad school he attended. When he asked for a second date (he liked the conversation), I declined.

Instead, I made plans with another guy who had been pestering me to go out with him. Yes, pestering. Before we had met in person, one night I told him I would probably be available after 9 to discuss plans for a date on the phone. By the time I got home at 10, I had two texts and a phone message from him.

Could have been a warning sign, but I thought after dating a couple guys who mysteriously disappeared, this could be a pleasant change. The change part was right, the pleasant not so much. In two weeks of dating, he sent me NINETY-FIVE text messages.

I developed a big phone bill and an even bigger aversion to my phone’s text alert. BZZZZ. What would be this time? Checking again to make sure I got home safely, or some more discussion of whether our relationship should be exclusive? Did I mention that we only went on two dates?

I told him I wasn’t into constant communication. I tried ignoring the texts. So naturally (and by that I mean, natural for a crazy stalker), he started resending the unanswered texts.

I saw no other option but to send one of my infamous dumping texts. Then I turned my phone off and went to heat my bowl of porridge to just the right temperature.

Really dead, or just to me?

I suppose it’s only fair that I, an admittedly terrible dumper, would eventually encounter someone who does it even worse.

It’s unfortunate that I actually really liked this guy and even had this ridiculous gut instinct that we were going to work out together. (Perhaps my gut had been overstimulated by the combination of bad popcorn and Hollywood romance.  So overstimulated, in fact, that I may have prematurely calculated on how clever our kids would be.)

Anyway, things were proceeding well until the day scheduled for our fourth date (yes, yes, I just acknowledged it was too soon to line up a babysitter). He had confirmed in the morning, but mid-afternoon he sent an email saying that he was really sorry, but he had eaten something bad or caught a stomach bug and had to cancel, and he would call to reschedule. Like a normal person, I emailed back a quick “Bummer. Hope you feel better soon!”

Then two days later, I emailed him again, because I had just acquired an extra ticket to a comedy show. And I swear, I didn’t say anything crazy about our nursery school options– just “Hope you’re not sick anymore” and “Hey, do you want to come to this because I have an extra ticket?”

Silence. That day, the next day, the next and the one after that. So finally I employed the modern “Are you still alive?” test (who needs a mirror to fog when you have a cell phone) and texted him. Still nothing, which leaves me with two possibilities: he’s either a total asshole or dead.

I told this story to a friend of mine (actually lots of them, but this specific one had a related story). A guy had repeatedly acted very interested and then disappeared at the last minute, so she left a voicemail telling him off. Then she watched a Sex in the City episode where a guy who no-showed for a date actually was dead, and she felt compelled to call her guy back: “So, if you didn’t call because you died, I’m really, really sorry about that.”

It’s a nice move, but I’m going to go with the odds here, assume that a 29-year-old man was not freakishly struck down by a tummyache, and consider him just dead to me, not the world. Although I might check the obits next week to make totally sure.