“You catch more flies with honey.”  That’s what they say.  I hate “them.”  Self riotous weirdos.  Alas it’s a saying for a reason (do you realize how long it took me to understand the saying “you drive me to drink”?  One evening, in the not so distant past, I took a sip of Cabernet and the light bulb went on …. oooooh!  You drive me to drink!  I get it.)

This leads me to my new online dating thinking.  It’s not so much new as recently become more clear to me.  You see now that I’m not flying all over the US every week (once did 5 planes and one train in 3 days) I actually have time to have a social life — gasp!  I’m really very excited.  Now if I can only get someone to go out with me.

I’ve always had luck with online dating (despite what you may have read in past posts — I’m defining luck with actually going on a date with a human.  It’s a very general and open definition).  I have more than one friend who have met their “special one” through dating sites and honestly feel that it is the “go to” in the 201Xs.  (I just wrote something mean about where my male friends find dates but then deleted it —- see —- I’m trying — honey=flies.)

There are a number of things going against me now.  My age – which is terribly young, don’t get me wrong.  Just not as young as I was.  The internet has taken away humans ability to socialize and mens willingness to actually go on a date (Dr. Drew agrees with me on this although he blames internet porn.  Works for me.  Damn you porn.)  But what REALLY works against me is me.  You see … I give bad email.  What does that mean?  Well you know me.  You can read what I write (like this brilliant blog post) and think, “That Wendy is Creative, Funny, Witty, and Charming.”  Unfortunately if you don’t know me and read what I write those adjectives become “Harsh, Hurtful, Negative, and Mean.”   Example, I was emailing a “gentleman” (quotes put there on purpose – sigh – baby steps) whose last email described how he had taken a young woman (15ish years his jr) to Hawaii for new years, on a whim.  Sadly, it did not work out as he was now in Hawaii alone for the actual New Years Eve celebration.  Seems the young woman only wanted to text on her phone and in a fit of unhappiness demanded to be taken back to the airport abandoning her knight in shining armor.

Now let’s step aside for a second and think about her …. ARE YOU KIDDING ME????  I’m pretty confident I could find a way to have fun in Hawaii with ANYONE.  Seriously anyone.  Name someone one … yup …. I could have a good time with him/her.  Here’s the thing I learned a long time ago.  I’m an adult.  I can not get stranded somewhere I don’t want to be (in the civilized world that is).  If I’m not having fun with you at Hawaii hotel A fine … then I’m off to Hawaii hotel B.  IT’S HAWAII.  I’ve been to Hawaii by myself and had a BLAST!!!  It’s obvious this girl has no imagination.

Now back to him.  I wrote back what I thought was a nice email but COME ON …. I HAD TO POINT OUT HE DESERVED WHAT HE GOT.  You brought a young-un, who you barely knew, to Hawaii and didn’t get the magical New Years you expected?  Color me surprised.  I can’t be held accountable for telling him that.  Seriously.  I expect he heard it already from any friend/family member he communicated with.  It wasn’t the ONLY THING I said in my email response …. but it was said.  Needless to say I never heard from him again.  (Based on the email exchange we did have it is possible he just got distracted by something shiny and it really had nothing to do with my email …. but I’ll never know.)

So!  Turning over a new email leaf.  All dating site emails will be put through the “stupid girl” filter.  Don’t look at me like that.  A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.  I’ll have to save my sharp wit for later … perhaps date 10ish.

XOXOXO AND SUGAR,

Wendy

Just a note:

If you are 50, your user name includes the word “dragon,” and you don’t post a picture of yourself I consider that three strikes and no amount of “winking” at me is going to make me change my mind.

I am.  Easily amused that is.  That is actually a good thing for me when it comes to my online dating life.  You have to be easily amused or you would slam you head against the closest hard object over and over due to who horrible it all is.

This weekend I got my hair cut and my stylist (brilliant by the way … if you need someone good in the area) was telling me that her dad had a heart attack earlier in the year and for some reason she was just overwhelmed with hurt and angry that he had not yet walked her down the aisle.  He is fine by the way … so she still has time.  It caused her to jump back online (she has been on before) and start dating like a mad woman.  She told me she knew the guy she went out wtih the night before wasn’t for her when he discussed how he once almost killed his dad.  I told her about the guy I dated who believed that we lived in the Matrix.  Yup.  That is the quality of men we are pulling from here!

Today I got a “wink” (if you are on match.com and too lazy to type an email you can “wink”.  I’m okay with it as I’m lazy.) from a guy that for many reasons is not my type.  No need to go through it all.  YET I will thank him for the wink and I will go out with him if he asks because of one thing.  His headline amused me.  That’s it.  That’s all it took.  His headline.  It reads, ”

Tact is for people who aren’t smart enough to be sarcastic…”

See.  Amusing.  Told ya!  As I know I’m easily amused that is all it took for me to ignore everything else in his profile that tells me it will never work!  Perhaps it is this lack of filtering criteria that leads me to go out with men who believe we live in a video game.  Perhaps I should think a bit more about that.  Nah!  The stories alone are worth it!

I spent a lovely weekend with friends in Catalina.  G (as always name edited to save the innocent) ran her first ever Marathon on, what is arguably, the 2nd hardest marathon route in the US coming in 3rd in her age group.  Another friend, C, ran the 10K coming in 2nd in her age group.  I had originally planned to run the 5K (as I’m not insane and that island is nothin’ but hills) but was unable to take Friday off of work to make the boat ride over.  Instead I made lemons into lemonade (or grapefruit into Salty Dogs to be more specific) and came over on the morning boat in time to see the first marathoner cross the finish line and meet up with my friends husbands at the bar.  I then spent the next 3ish hours running from the table we’d taken over in the bar to outside in order to clap/scream/cheer as the runners came by.  I honestly can’t tell you if the bar locals were amused or annoyed by my antics.  Probably both.

The rest of the weekend was a blast and I had tons of fun with two couples I was with.  We ate and drank and had fun on top of fun with a little side of fun.

I’d been looking forward to possibly doing the new Catalina zip line Sunday morning.  Unfortunately the 8AM was sold out and the next wave, 10AM, wouldn’t get me to my boat and home in time.  I had to take the 11:45 boat so I would have time to pick up Riggins from my folks, go home, and get ready for a drink date at 7PM that I had scheduled earlier that week.  The next boat at 3:45 was just too late.  I stood strong, despite my friends suggestion that I cancel the date, saying that I would feel too bad and didn’t want to be rude.  Even though I REALLY wanted to do the zip line.

It was a hard choice.  You know I live by my mom’s motto of “never say no to fun” YET I am dating for a reason.  I want to, someday, have a husband and family and to make that happen you actually have to date.   It isn’t always fun.  It means I have to MAKE TIME to do it.  Even when I’m tired, or rather be chillin’ with Riggins on the sofa, or out with friends, or in the pool swimming laps.  None of those activities will get me closer to the goal of having a family (a human family as you know Riggins is my baby).  So, just like in relationships, sacrifices have to be made.

I made the decision to stay on schedule instead of canceling on a date even though I had a long/fun/tiring weekend and was missing zip line action to be there.

I napped on the hour boat ride home, jumped in my car, headed to my folks house, picked up Riggins, hung out with them for a bit, drove home, threw on workout clothes, ran my 3+ miles (as the weekend of drinking/eating made me feel like a big puffy slob), hopped in the shower, frantically got dressed and was about to throw on the mandatory date make up when I received this email …

“I have to reschedule

I just sent the following email to the Chemistry.com customer care center.  I wonder what kind of response I will get.

Hi –

I have tried three times to change my “profile activation” to “No.”  Yet I still seem to receive notices from “matches.”   Don’t you find that odd?  It’s almost like Chemistry.com is not allowing me to hide my profile in the hopes that I find myself engaged by a vague “Chris is interested in you” email and I will give the okay to charge my credit card just so I can see what good ol’ Chris looks like.  It kinda seems like that at yet that would not be very moral and would be slightly shiesty, so that can’t actually be what is happening.  Can it?

Please make sure that my profile is no longer active.

Thank you,
Wendy