FuCupid

Back in the saddle again, and this cowpoke’s enthusiasm for all of the new, unsuspecting men that OkC had to offer may have been premature. Had another first last night with one Redondo Beach. That’s how uninteresting my night was, this guy didn’t even have a distinguishing characteristic worth parodying so I am resorting to referring to him by his city of residence. If I were you, I’d stop now and invest the next four minutes of your life into looking up where Crimea is on a map.

We met at Urth Caffe in Santa Monica at 8. I had some terrible hair and a case of I’ve -been-at-work-since-9-am-face going on, but, as a true feminist, I decided not to be self conscious, and instead to be annoyed with RB (not to be confused with Red Barron of my first entry) for his unrealistic expectations and demands of working women. Asshole. 

I pulled into my usual Main Street parking lot just as a specimen who looked suspiciously like that depicted in RB’s (let’s just go Arby’s for the fun of it) profile was walking out of the lot. In my rush to leave work I had skipped a needed trip to the bathroom. I checked my phone as I walked to Urth and still had five minutes till meet time. I shot straight to the bathroom inside the cafe, hoping a nearby lurking Arby wouldn’t spot and circumvent me, then I crept outside the cafe where the fateful meeting occurred on the steps.

Within 30 seconds I was pretty sure Arby’s and my expiration date was the same as my metered parking- an hour and 54 minutes. The bubbliness which was translated through Arby’s vigorous head nodding and bursts of sudden laughter that ended .7 seconds after everything I said couldn’t last. 

Nice guy, worked for a group of charter schools and seemed very open minded and involved in LA happenings, but there was no attraction. I deftly declined his invitation to get a drink while we roamed Main Street post lattes, then also passed when asked if I wanted to share a joint in the parking lot.  But was still cowardly enough to say ‘Yeah, definitely!’ when he asked if I’d like to hang out again. Still. The fact that my transcribed response merits only one exclamation point is a sign of progress. 2012 Liz’s performance would have required at least three as well as an attempt to set upon a potential time and date for a follow up that she would later cancel by texting a plausible excuse that prevented her attendance and communicated her regret about 24 hours before the intended meet up. For good measure.

The beat goes on.

Guess whose back?

Plan B.

A happy November 18th to you all,

Sometime last week I came to the conclusion that I needed a hiatus from the merry-go-round of dates that I have been stuck on, strapped onto the stationary tiger, but still getting a little queasy and irritated by the tinny carnival song playing on loop. I am sure that you are all horrified to hear this, and wondering, “But Liz! Where now will I turn to get my fix of dating anecdotes that are so heavy on the mocking and devil-may-care attitude?” Fret not. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I realized at some point (possibly after, or more likely during, Wednesday night’s first) that I am in a place where I really should be spending more time working on myself, and figuring out how to find contentment in the every day rather than putting effort into getting to know someone new. This fact was illuminated on Friday afternoon when my second first of the week asked me what my hobbies were and I nearly had a breakdown struggling to identify what the hell I do in my non-work hours.

I have found myself spending the 2 – 4 hours that I am with a person on the first date smiling a lot and kind of just going through the motions, with indifference as to what the guy thinks of me, or if I’ll ever see him again. Having no investment in the future of an acquaintanceship and being unable to envision a future relationship with anyone is probably not the best angle to come at dating from. With this state of mind, I decided I would tie up lose ends, attempting to meet with the three guys from OkCupid with whom I had progressed to the texting phase to give them each a chance, then I’d deactivate my account for the umpteenth time. Dates one and two of the week played no part in derailing my plans to take a dating sabbatical. Both guys were nice, as 90% of guys I’ve OD’d (online dated) are, or as a 90% are at least capable of keeping their douchiness under wraps for a single night. Apparently, the OkCupid compatibility test that was designed by ‘Harvard math majors’ has pretty effectively red-flagged any users who are homophobic, misogynistic, hate the environment, or are otherwise closed-minded by ensuring that we don’t reach more than a 60 percent match. I have it from a source that one of these ‘Harvard math majors’ dated her friend. Aaaaand they met through J Date. Which system should one put more confidence in? That designed by a Harvard grad- whose education makes them a clear authority on all things in the world of the living- or that used by one? Maybe J Date is the next frontier. I give you permission to imagine a hilarious, madcap, yet somehow inoffensive storyline in which I infiltrate J Date by pretending to be Jewish, meet The One, but am then scorned by my true love for having disingenuously represented myself. Just like Mulan. Or Yentl. Or Tootsie?

SO- yes. Thing 1 and Thing 2 were nice guys. The first, a film score composer and Culver City resident, and I spent a good amount of time speaking about traveling, family, and languages. He was particularly interested in my time spent in Spain, since he was a bit of a Hispanophile and led us into a few bland conversations in Spanish. I met Thing 2 for coffee on Friday afternoon. Actually, for the sake of accuracy, I should admit that we both had cold teas, and for the sake of comedy that he felt the need to tell me that my iced green tea looked like one of the containers of piss that he so often saw as a third year med student. Hawt. He was a pretty funny guy, we were just on different conversation beats. There is, however, a chance that the dinner invitation he made for later this week might materialize into something. Later on Friday, as I got dinner with one of my roommates and a friend we realized that an ability to banter was one of the prime requisites for any future relationship. This, somehow, seems like a small step towards more effectively focusing my efforts on finding someone who can help me break my two month curse. The length of time my past ‘relationships’ have all fallen short of, if you weren’t sure.

Lord this is getting long. I hope I haven’t lost you just yet. So. Last night was my third first date in five days. Without spending too much time combing through the archive of dates past, I’m pretty sure that I’ve set my new PR. Plan B (the rational behind the name shall be revealed in due course, worry not) and I met at a super-dive-y bar that I had found through Yelp when attempting to chose a spot between Culver and West Lake, where he is staying with his cousin and her family since arriving from Chicago last week. Actually- we met outside the bar, and he promptly told me that he had tried to get in before I got there, but the bouncer doubted his Mississippi ID and refused him entrance. We both found this pretty funny, and deferred to Yelp yet again to find us an alternative. The closest option, and clear winner, was a locale called ‘Plan B’, which promised a lounge, champagne, ‘American’, and a name that was so fitting that we would have been thumbing our noses at the gods had we overlooked it. PB suggested that we walk to Plan B, having definitely underestimated the distance on google maps. I quickly agreed and we set off.

PB assuaged the embarrassment of my car collision with a tree last month by detailing his older sister’s five accidents that had all taken places within their family’s garage or with other family-owned cars. He talked about the eight years he had spent in Chicago for undergrad then law school, and shed some light on what growing up in Mississippi was like. We got within sight of Plan B, and even my untrained eye was pretty sure that we weren’t looking at a typical bar/lounge. Yes. Plan B was a strip club. We decided it wasn’t quite what we were looking for, and lamented not being able to meet Champagne, who was probably the lead dancer. I spotted an illuminated cactus sign down the street and knew we’d found our place. PB joked about his creepy intentions to lure me into a strip club as we made our way to a Mexican family restaurant. The banter level was pretty solid throughout the night, and PB proved to be a witty and positive person, but not as annoyingly positive as his enthusiastic texts had led me to worry he might be before meeting him. He’s pursuing intellectual property law in the music industry, which is probably the type of law that sounds the least appealing to me, but, to be fair, I also know near nothing about it. Despite the fact that we both saw 2 Chainz preform in August, PB is not the kindred music spirit who I am still searching for in L.A.

I said I should probably head out at 9:30, three and a half hours after we’d met, and we walked back to my car. PB went in for the kiss and it was a little more than I was feeling at the moment, but wasn’t bad. We have tentative Thursday night plans.

Productive?

Good evening dear friends,

I start this entry about ten minutes after having received a text from P.P. that I am grappling with. He called a few hours ago while I was at a work event, then followed up with a couple texts to see if I wanted to check out a cool film screening tomorrow night. Instead of first deciding how I wanted to proceed with P.P, as I should have done, I responded with a short ‘hey, just got out of a work thing’ text to which he replied ‘Productive?’ Yes. My work night was productive, but I don’t know if I want to launch into more boring text talk and I don’t know if I want to go on a third date with P.P after a pretty mediocre second date.

P.P. and I met for the second time two nights ago. Since we’d first met last Monday we had exchanged a few texts, I tried to subtly hint that he shouldn’t call me “dear” or go too text crazy by selectively ignoring his more grating messages. The worst are those that ask multiple questions that require answers while also containing extensive statements that it would be rude not to respond to, and require equally awkward paragraph responses. Kicked this game Thursday evening when a particularly unnecessary text came my way suggesting that my roommates dress as Little Red Riding Hood and Grandma to complement my Big Bad Wolf Halloween costume, then joking that I huff and puff at any bartenders that aren’t giving me good service…Wait. That didn’t include any questions to answer, it was just painful to read and could not illicit any civil response from me. I let that one hang out on a limb for a few days, then texted him Sunday night to make plans for this week.

P.P. asked me out to get a drink at a bar downtown, but I countered with the suggestion that we go to the Grammy Museum where I had won tickets months before which I had been trying-and repeatedly failing- to use. I was actually meant to check the museum out with Wells a few weeks back, before he got flakey and confessed to not being over his ex. I thought it would be great since P.P. was very into classic rock and we had pretty similar music taste, but I quickly learned that walking through exhibits that require lengthy reading and the use of headphones aren’t the best when you are trying to talk to and get to know someone. En route to meet P.P. at the Grammy Museum, I and my fellow metro car mates were victims to/witnesses of an INSANE confrontation between an old man and another rather drug-addled, gentlemen who claimed to have killed four men and told the aforementioned to lick the crack of his ass. Metro real talk. After about 20 minutes of threatening to knife the older guy, the junky, or “poor shadow of a man” as his opponent referred to him, proceeded to hock a loogey and spit on the older guy right before getting off on the same stop as me. So Kewl.

When I met P.P at the Grammy Museum, there was a hello hug, which he turned into a hello kiss, that I was just not feeling. You might point out that this is completely contrary to my feelings about the first date goodbye kiss, and you’d be right. But Sliz (that’s Sober Liz) was not in quite the same carefree/charmed state that Tliz had been the week before (that’s Tipsy Liz). This overtly affectionate behavior continued a few minutes after we got into the museum and this guy was JND. Just not down. Perhaps some of the attraction from last week had gone the way of Asher Roth’s career and faded away during the sober up process. Chemistry, or even just a comfortable flow of conversation was lacking.

Maybe it was this evident barrier that led P.P. to share loads of intimate stuff about himself. Like how old he was when he had sex for the first time. Or how he used to steal alcohol from convenience stores a few years ago. Or what he saw (and felt) one night after doing 12 tabs of acid. It didn’t help that I felt like a musical idiot when he was rolling off all the instruments he played and watching me while I was trying to use the interactive DJ equipment. There was the potential for what could have been a ridiculously cute moment when we went into a closet-like studio that was part of the Ringo exhibit to karaoke Yellow Submarine. But it didn’t happen.

We walked to a nearby bar once the museum closed and kind of rehashed a lot of the convo that had already been had the week before. Dysfunctional families, Catholic disappointment, yadda yadda yadda. I had a single beer, while homeboy had two and plans for a third before I said I should head back. He also may have tried to be cute by playing peekaboo from behind his menu but that ish fell flat. I wonder- could anyone have made that cute? Had I already decided that I wasn’t into P.P and therefore his actions and the fact that he was showing me animal videos was annoying, or are those really annoying things? I’m fairly positive that I wouldn’t have let anyone get away with that.

P.P. and I walked to the metro station together, and he waited with me until my train came, missing his own once or twice. As luck would have it, we were standing on the wrong platform, so before running down the stairs that led to the opposite side of the tracks I delivered a rather frigid hug goodbye and just met his lips that ARE SOMEHOW ALWAYS THERE, gave a terse, “Well have a good night,” and was glad that I didn’t allow things to go any further.

I don’t know why I am so conflicted. It seems pretty clear that I am not into this guy, but he is a nice person who has shared a lot with me and who I wouldn’t mind hanging out with as a friend. I even want to see that movie with him tomorrow…Oh universe, is this my time? Am I being given the downgrade-to-friendzone challenge that I have never been adept enough at tactfully communicating my lack of attraction to  another person while praising their other qualities to complete?

Two great side notes: 1) Apparently, when I had been stalking P.P’s linkedin to send a few of you a screenshot of his profile picture I had been logged in, so he knew that I had creeped on him. I just thought it was hilarious, but P.P. said how embarrassed he was that I’d seen his shitty (not really) resume and how he now knew after viewing my profile how poorly his GPA measured up. And 2) He asked me at one point what I thought of people who put a lot of faith in horoscopes. I replied that last year I had a coworker and roommate who were really into astrology so I would check with them on occasion when I needed some horoscope insight. He proceeded to accuse me of having already looked up his sign, which I unconvincingly laughed off and denied.

Another text tells me he’s going to bed soon, and suggests that I watch the movie trailer for tomorrow night and have a good day tomorrow. So on the fence. If the trailer is good, I’ll go. But can I go and reject his hello kiss, and all subsequent kisses that I don’t want to be part of?

What the world needs now is love.

Hey gang,

I’m going to try to get passed the epic arborial collision that was my commute to work today, and harken back to Monday night, which was a good date night, and even more interestingly, a good night for shedding light on just how many of us are feeling lost in this 21st century dating game.  As I mentioned in my first entry, I made this blog for myself as a way to document my interesting Los Angeles interactions with subjects ranging from USC Marine Bio PhD students to aspiring film makers from Philly. However, almost everyone I have told about this blog, from good friends to friends of friends, married, in a serious relationship, or single, has been pretty excited about it. I was even asked to review someone’s dating profile and suggest any revisions I found helpful. Have I been giving off the impression that I’m really good at dating? I think incredibly skeptic and mocking enough to stave off any possible disappointment is more accurate. A friend in a relationship also said she was jealous of my ability to have a bizarro dating life to blog about. To that I can only say: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5qcxrvJDk1qcbg1zo2_500.gif

Soooo Monday. I decided to take the metro to (yet another) Irish pub first date. This time the location was Hollywood and, in case you don’t have your notes with you, the subject was one Persistent Pedro, a Tinder match whom I had made plans with before deleting the app, then reconnected with upon redownloading the app and finding a slew of messages that had been sent over my three week absence including: ‘Whose the first person, fictional or historical, that comes to mind when you see the name Charles?’, ‘Hey, Liz. Wanna get a game of Catan going?’ and ‘Do you watch Ted Talks?’. Charmed. I knew literally nothing of PP before the date, besides that he was a big Jurassic 5 fan, lived in Koreatown and really liked board games. I actually confused him with another Tinderer I had been chatting with weeks earlier who worked at Hot Topic, and may have seriously insulted him when I asked if Hot Topic gave him the day off for Columbus Day. Whoops. A rookie mistake. I have known people who take screen shots or even pasted the text of OKC profiles to remember details about the million people they are talking to since OKC allows you to see every time someone views your profile and we all want to pretend that we aren’t tempted to re-browse someone’s profile to find possible conversation topics or in case we missed some type of terrible red flag that they might be cannibalistic or Tea Party members. That is unless you get ritzy with that ish and become a paid member, allowing you to enjoy anonymous profile stalking and cigars sent monthly to your home.

Refusal to pay for a dating site is just one of my many principals when it comes to navigating through the digital dating world. Just for your own reading pleasure here are a few more: 1) I will not message or respond to a message from someone who has a picture with his shirt off if there is not a pool or sandy beach in the photo. 2) Sorry you don’t have more pictures, but seflies and particularly MIRROR selfies are a ‘terribly wrong’. 3) I will not message or respond to a message from someone who claims to be an aspiring actor/screenwriter/director/producer unless they seem to have an interesting enough personality to counterbalance this. This alone cuts down about 70% of the L.A. dating pool. 4) You will get negative points for listing Eastbound and Down under your favorite t.v shows. 5) You will get infinite points for mentioning the Talking Heads or Magnetic Fields under your interests.

So- I got to the metro a little after 6:00 pm. Waited for 15 minutes or so while two trains passed on the opposite track. Typical. And tried not to look too much at a cute, tattooed skateboarder who chose a bench next to mine. Transferred at 7th St onto the wrong line, then deboarded (how is deplane a real word and deboard isn’t?) and waited for the red line. At least three others had made the same mistake, and got off with me. One was a guy in his late 20s who asked me how he could get to Union Square. I told him he was heading in the wrong directions, and that his would be the train after mine. We chatted for about 5 minutes, he was an aspiring actor/USC grad student who wanted to know if I partied a lot in Spain. The only reason that this is worth mentioning is because this NEVER happens. This type of impromptu conversation with a stranger. I mentioned to a friend a few months back that given all of my friends leaving L.A. and the fact that I’ve already met most of my friends’ friends, I only meet about one guy a month who is under 30 and single. I have gotten to the point that such trivial meetings as this on the platform of the metro with a male human being see me turn into a blood hound sniffing out possible hookup/relationship potential. Alas, I got on the next train, said goodbye and what could have been will never be! But wait- homie’s personality was a 5, face was a 6, and he was an aspirining actor. Sometimes the rarity of being flirted with in person gives one an attention high whilst dulling the mind and the senses. X’d.

Made it to my stop, Hollywood and Vine, and noticed the cute skateboarder from my Culver City stop had made the same transfer and ridden in the same car as I had. As we made our way through the turnstiles a few steps from each other he pointed out that we’d made the whole trip together. I told him I didn’t even know where I was going and was just following him. Learned that he worked in Culver but lived in Hollywood and was metroing while his car was in the shop. As we got onto the street I asked him where I could find the bar I was meeting PP at and he walked with me to it (I think it was on his way and was only about 100 yards from the metro). He said it was kind of a douschey bar, then I said I hoped the guy I was meeting for a first date wasn’t too douschey. Skateboarder asked if a friend had introduced us, and I told him that no, in fact this was the work of Tinder. He admitted to being on Tinder too, but had never actually met up with any of the girls he’d talked to on it. He also mentioned being on OKC and ventured that the experience must be a lot different for girls with all the messages we get pouring in. I said goodbye to the skateboarder at the corner and hoped that maybe our meeting would push him to give a Tinder girl a chance. Spreading good will left and right.

Called PP from outside the bar, he was already inside, and the audio from the Dodgers game being shown on the first floor could be heard from both mine and his ends of the call. First impression: PP is really cute. Good smile, and amazing first hug. We sat down in a corner where the game was still in sight and started talking about work. I learned that he works for an immigration advocacy org that we did some collaboration with at my old job (slash year of service…). Kind of amaziiiing piece of info since I have really missed that work and being in the middle of this exciting, albeit glacially paced, move towards Comprehensive Immigration Reform. I also learned that PP went to Cal, whom our own UCLA had slaughtered in football a few days before. This was more than conversation fodder. This was common interests and interesting convo. After debating whether or not to take PP up on a round of car bombs (and caving) things may have gotten sickeningly Nick and Norah  (let the records show that I haven’t seen the movie but LOVE to make uninformed judgments) and we exchanged phones to browse each others’ music selections.

Crazy families were discussed, drinking problems, proposed Game of Thrones story lines, being middle children and God knows what else from 7:30 pm to 11:30 pm when PPs brother came to pick him up. Points for not drinking and driving. We headed out together and I refused a ride since the metro was just across the street. Hug goodbye shifted and morphed into a kiss goodbye that was sweet and short. PP asked/told me to call him, I nodded yes, then walked to the crosswalk where I would stand awkwardly and wave as PP and his brother drove past me 5 seconds later.

Once I got onto the metro platform I was approached by a guy who asked if I liked hip hop and was about to pull out his headphones to play me his album. Slightly buzzed, and to the point, I told him that I sometimes did like hip hop but that I didn’t have any cash on me to buy his C.D., then we fell into conversation. Turned out Mr. Hip Hop was also from San Diego and went to Bonita Middle. He asked what I’d been doing that night, I admitted to having had a first date. When prompted I told him it went well and that we had met online-ish. This threw Mr. Hip Hop into a 20 minute soliloquy about the girl he loved and how she was into exciting things like online dating but how worried he was about her because it’s dangerous- doesn’t she know that it’s dangerous? Mr. Hip Hop was initially adorable, withdrawing into himself and talking about how much he missed her smell, and everything about her. But at around Wilshire/Vermont things took a weird turn when his monologue shifted and he was claiming that we were living in the first level of hell and God didn’t go give us all his glory, now did he? At this point, I really just wanted to ask if it was too late for me to have a listen to his C.D. Lost Mr. Hip Hop when I transferred to the expo line, but I did counsel him to reach out to his girl again.

Unfortunately, my next first date, a hike which was scheduled for Sunday, has been postponed. Fortunately, one fantastic jungli billi is visiting from the Yay Area and an amazing One Heart Source fundraiser will be happening Saturday night so I shant have the time nor the sobriety to hike Sunday. Hoping to reschedule, cause this one, Great North, (from the bay and went to college in Canada…) seems pretty chill. However, there will likely be a second date with PP before that happens.

Number of texts exchanged with PP since Monday night: Too many. Cannot break my cardinal rule of not building a relationship over text that will not translate in person.

PP’s sign: Pisces. Understanding, easygoing and accepting. (Um, shouldn’t I be a Pisces? #selflessfordayz). Comforting with an aura of quiet empathy. Love match with Cancer: Both are water signs, the match is a calm meeting of spirits. Shared emotional depth. We’ll see. (Credit: www.astrology.com)

Wish everyone had forgotten about: My prediction that RB would contact me by Sunday and I would have to break his heart by denying him a second go at excavating my mouth. He hasn’t contacted me yet. Maybe my amicable nodding was just boring?

Nightzees.