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Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right September 27, 2007

Posted by charmingbutsingle in Dating, General Clumsiness and Related Stupidity, Life, Men, Single Girl Cliches, Tales of Online Dating.
22 comments

Note: Ok, so my life hasn’t been totally devoid of fun, promise.

I, like a lot of people I know, am on a co-ed sports team. It’s pretty low maintenance and I must admit that I missed a lot of the games. But the ones I did go to were terribly fun, as my team is very much about the socializing and the smack talking and the beer drinking and less about the winning and the competing and the having of actual athletic skill.

The first awkwardness was that one of my teammates happens to be a guy I talked to during my disastrous stint online dating. He definitely stopped e-mailing me and I know this can’t be attributed to his subscription being up, because we actually had started e-mailing off of the site. I’m not sure he knows who I am, but I think it is somewhat likely. That said, my observations of him in person are that we’d probably not be compatible and he doesn’t seem to be my type. This didn’t make any easier showing up at the first game, getting sweaty and wondering if he was thinking, “Thank God I never e-mailed her back.” No one, especially me, wants to face rejection, especially by someone who never even met me. I’d rather believe I was simply too wonderful for all of my past dates to handle.

So, that’s The First One.

As we’re “warming up” for our game, I checked out the other team – I’ll admit that I was looking for potential guys for future flirting. The teams are co-ed for a reason. My eyes fell on a nice-looking guy on the other team who stood chatting in the opposing dugout. And, of course, I was horrified to see that it was The Engineer, him of the flirting and the public kissing and the not calling, which was followed by the outright denial that I existed another night.

So, there was The Engineer, looking cute over in his dugout, which made me want to smack him or send an errant ball his way – not that I have that kind of ball control, mind you. I was unsure as it if he saw me until he came over to be the third base coach while I was rotated out for an inning and drinking beer in my dugout. He definitely saw me and the flicker in his eye let me know that, oh yeah, he remembered me. And, not having a close girlfriend there to save me, I simply smiled and talked to a teammate and prayed that he took a foul ball to the groin in a painful, yet not harmful, manner.

So that’s The Second One.

By the time the game ended, I was excited to move from the hot, muddy field to a more civilized location – a dark bar with a jukebox and drinks in plastic cups. Problem was that all of the teams normally go to this bar, and that night was no exception. Both The First One and The Second One were there, and I was less than thrilled that two walking, talking reminders of my dating deficiencies were to be drinking beer nearby.

I put on my best game face and strode in to find my teammates, only to pass Little Mister Small Town, who was sitting at the bar with a woman. I’ve seen him less and less around town since I e-mailed him to no response last summer.  Seeing him was weird – for some reason I’d been 100 percent sure he was going to e-mail me back and express interest, which made him ignoring my e-mail even more annoying.

So that’s The Third One.

Fed up and frustrated, I retreated to the ladies restroom. I grumbled as I looked into the mirror. I was sweaty and muddy in Capri-length sweats and a neon shirt. My hair was pinned awkwardly against my head, as I’d forgotten a rubber band but remembered bobby pins. What little make-up remained on my face was smudged beneath my eyes.

And there it was, the ridiculousness that is my dating life – failed by online dating, failed by drunken flirting, failed by meeting men through friends. I had a talk with the Gods of Dating and well, let’s just say I let them know that I was pretty pissed by the parade of past rejection. But I sucked it up, wiped the mascara off of my sweaty face and had a few beers. Little Mister Small Town mouthed “Hi” as I walked by. I smiled and hovered around my teammates, expecting for the first guy to ever kiss me to walk in, hand-in-hand with every guy I’d ever kissed in college.

Not that the bar was that big, mind you.

Just how the cookie crumbles sometimes July 3, 2007

Posted by charmingbutsingle in Dating, Friends, Men, Tales of Online Dating, Women.
11 comments

Ed note: I often look through my blog archives to see what I was doing this time last year. And this time last year, well, for better or for worse, I was about to unknowingly enter into a weird few months of dating. And it reminded me of a conversation I had a few weeks back with a friend.

“Every time I see [The Nurse], he’s in those stupid white scrubs. Every. Time.” Single Girl said, sounding exasperated.

“What?”

I was confused. I hadn’t brought up The Nurse. I hadn’t seen her in awhile and I’d asked about her job at the hospital. And this was at least the third time over the months that she’d mocked his choice of scrub color to me.

“He’s the only guy who wears the white scrubs,” she continued, as if this were a crime against something other than fashion. “Why would he wear white scrubs?”

She looked at me for an answer. As if I dressed him in the mornings.

“I told you, he was cheap. I guess he just didn’t want to buy new scrubs,” I explained for the third time, bored with the question. “They had to wear white scrubs for school.”

“But he looks so terrible! All of the other male nurses wear NAVY scrubs,” she said.

And she was about to launch into another tirade about the importance of scrub color when I cut her off.

“[Single Girl]?” I said, adopting her tone of exasperation. “I don’t care.”

“What?”

“I don’t care what color scrubs he wears,” I said forcefully. “I don’t care about him. I met him a year ago. We dated. He broke it off. He’s a jerk.”

I paused for a second and said, “And I’m over all of it.”

She looked at me with wide eyes, as if she didn’t believe something that I’d said. As if I couldn’t not care about the color of his scrubs or couldn’t possibly be over him. And I braced myself for her response.

“There is NO WAY all of that happened a year ago!”

“Time flies,” I said, with a smile and a shrug.

Closer to Finally Being the Last Unmarried Woman I Know June 12, 2007

Posted by charmingbutsingle in Advice People Give Me, Dating, Friends, Random Musings on Life, Single Girl Cliches, Tales of Online Dating, Weddings.
30 comments

It feels somewhat meaningful now that I was reflecting on my First Roommate Ever just a few days ago. Her strong personality and independent streak. Her silver Volvo, which carried us to many high school activities, both officially sanctioned and otherwise. How she kept our Southern Comfort under her bed when we were in high school and doing tequila shots in her bedroom before we left for prom. That bathroom also was the first place I ever dyed my hair bright red. So many fond memories, full of the little life lessons I learned from her – because, really I’m not friends with people who can’t teach me things and bring me some sort of happiness.

So, yes, it seems almost fateful that after my evening of memories on Sunday, today she told me she is engaged to her boyfriend and planning a small wedding in the California wine country very, very soon. Because there’s nothing better than really missing someone and then finding out that you have a fantastic (albeit expensive) chance to see them soon and wear a pretty dress and toast to their happiness and eat yummy cake and tell stories about Back In The Day when She was just a rebel with an untucked uniform blouse and penchant for skipping gym to go see the “Guidance Counselor.” (Actual visits to said office? Zero. Successfully pretending to be an emotional teenager to get out of archery and softball is just one of the many perks of oversensitive teachers at an all-girls high school.)

She joked that she was hopping on the Wedding Bandwagon like everyone else. And some mild self-deprecation for my sake and an offer to hook me up with a Friend of the Groom at the vineyard wedding, since it seems like something’s in the water – just not in the water I’ve been drinking, apparently.

Best Friend Ever. First College Roommate. Little Brother. All getting hitched, with Southern Belle (owns house with boyfriend, has looked at rings) and College Roommate (lives with boyfriend, has discussed marriage and rings) following close behind.

College Roommate sent me kind words to soothe my heart – pointing out that I was her best friend and she didn’t make friends “with just anyone.” And Best Friend Ever called to tell me that another of her good friends has found success with eHarmony – “We’ve got to get you on that site!” she announced, excitedly to me.

“You have to fill out a 40-question survey and then it is all seems very much like it is all about looking only for a husband and not just a date,” I said.

“I know. What’s the problem?” she asked.

“I tried Match.com and we all know how that ended,” I said. “Plus, all of these weddings! I can’t keep making financial investments in my dating life because all of you keep getting married!”

The good news with all of these permanent pairings, of course, is that if I ever find myself without a job, I am qualified to be a professional Wedding Guest. I am familiar with the proper etiquette, am proficient at the Chicken Dance and can navigate a registry with ease.

Also, I can be counted on to not accidentally catch the bouquet you’re trying to toss directly to your unmarried best friend so that her noncommittal boyfriend will finally get the picture and pop the question. Because trust me when I say that after I am forcefully separated from my drink and taken to the dance floor – I’ve once had my name called out on the microphone by a bride because I was hiding from her Flying Flowers of Future Marriage — for this slightly humiliating ritual, I will dive so far, far away from that ribbon-tied bundle of pale-colored tea roses that I might take out a groomsman or your grandma.

Suggestion for the MySpace Folks May 3, 2007

Posted by charmingbutsingle in Friends, Life, Men, Tales of Online Dating.
26 comments

Dear MySpace –

Please make a feature that allows users to compare MySpace profiles with profiles from online dating sites. It would be great. Users could match dating profile pictures to MySpace photo albums and friend lists.

It could work just like that database they use for evidence scans on CSI. With the partial thumbprints.

You know. To find the criminals.

Thanks, Charming

Listblogging 2007, #1 (Updated with soup!) April 29, 2007

Posted by charmingbutsingle in Cooking, Life, Tales of Online Dating.
16 comments

I haven’t written a listblog in many many months – perhaps not since 2005, though I haven’t the time to re-read my blog to confirm this. Since I can’t organize my thoughts into a post, I’ll just list ‘em out.

Question of the day:

Cheesy Song I’ve Been Dancing Around My Apartment To Whilst Wearing Fuzzy Slippers

  • “I Don’t Like Your Girlfriend” by Avril Lavigne – Because I am damn precious. Also, I can do it better, natch.

Other Songs:

  • “Beautiful Disaster” by Jon McLaughlin
  • “Never Again” by Kelly Clarkson
  • “Tell Me Bout It” by Joss Stone

Goals for the week:

  • To the gym thrice
  • Find a cute hairstyle, as long mane needs a trim
  • Cook chicken tortilla soup

Update: By popular demand, a soup discussion.

I was thinking of trying this Rachael Ray recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup, despite its terrible cheesy name: Why-the-Chicken-Crossed-the-Road Santa Fe-Tastic Tortilla Soup. (And the terrible picture online. I saw Rach make it – yes, I call her Rach, we’re tight – on her show and it looked really good.)

I was thinking of doing some substituting and changing because Rach is all about “learning the method.” And I think the “method” here is cooking your veggie base, pouring things into a pot and garnishing – and yes, I know how to do all of those things already.

For starters, I’m not going to roast my own red peppers or corn since I don’t have a grill handy. However, I think that my neighborhood Fancy Organic Mega Mart probably sells roasted corn or roasted corn salsa that I could substitute. (And I know that they sell roasted red peppers, both in the jar and on the olive bar.) I’m also going to up the garlic. Three cloves in an entire pot of soup? I need at least five or six.

I’d probably sub veggie stock/broth for chicken because I’m used to cooking with veggie stock. (I was veggie for years.) Also, I will nix the poultry seasoning and go with just freshly ground pepper, a cajun seasoning called Tony Chachere’s and smoked paprika to season the chicken.

I’m also not a huge fan of the zucchini here. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE zucchini, I just don’t always like it in my Mexican-style food. I want it to be crisp and I feel like this would make it too soft.

Also, since it is soup, I’m tempted to start with “the Trinity” (for the uninitiated, that’s finely diced celery, onion and bell pepper) because I can honestly tell you that I’ve never made a non-cream based soup that doesn’t start with a fine chop of celery, onion and bell pepper. I figure, why start now?

And, oh yeah, I was thinking that at the end, I’d add a can of black beans, drained and rinsed, because if there is one thing I know for sure, it is that anything plus black beans equals something better. And I’d serve with fresh lime slices as a nice garnish and cilantro only, because cilantro is superior to flat leaf parsley for anything Tex-Mex.

And I wouldn’t mix the tortilla chips in with the soup because they’d get soggy and I live alone and so I have to eat a lot of leftovers and the thought of soggy chips in leftover soup makes me want to throw up. Also, avocado? I’d probably put one on top of each bowl because I love them so.

See why I don’t have a cooking blog? Is there anything left to her recipe except for the canned tomatoes and cheese?