Taking the online plunge

It is a woman's prerogative to change her mind. Which I've done. I was very wary of internet dating. I didn't want to try it and didn't like the idea of filling in little boxes about myself. Then one day I was off sick and bored and I decided to see what dating sites were out there. Just out of curiosity you understand.

While researching I came across a site which instantly appealed to me. It's called My Single Friend and I have linked the site in case you're curious. The difference with this site is that rather than you writing about yourself and making yourself sound fantastic, a friend does it for you. You fill out all the basic information- height, city, employed status, etc. you get a friend to write a description and then you write a response. My type of site.

I mentioned it to Vi who agreed this had potential. And because Vi knows me really well and has a way with words I enlisted her help. She wrote a lovely and witty description and now ladies I am on a dating site.

And it's fun.

There are different things that can be done:

1. I can add guys to my favourites and they can add me to theirs
2. There are 'mutual favourites'
3. I can email guys and they can email me
4. And finally, Vi's favourite- she can recommend guys to me. She is loving the meddling opportunities!

So far I've had about 16 guys add me as their favourites, some have looked promising. Others I've deleted pretty much straight away. It's bringing out my ruthless side. I have 3 mutual favourites and 6 emails. One email consisted of: 'Hey, you've got an interesting profile? where do you work?' Um...no. However, one particular email was really, really good and made me laugh. A lot. I'm trying to formulate a response.

I'm not yet thinking about actually meeting up with someone. I'm taking it in baby steps. But my conclusion so far? Loving it.

Chivalry is not (quite) dead

My car will be the death of me. Financially, anyway.

I was on my way to pick up Eloise yesterday when, once again, my car started making ominous noises, which were a little too similar to last month. This time, I pulled into a gas station as soon as possible. Luckily, my spindle hadn't snapped again. No, my rear tire was merely ripped to shreds. On one hand, I was happy that's all it was, but on the other, it was blatantly obvious that I was going to need a new tire. This was no patch job, that was for sure. At this rate, I will need a third job just to pay for my car (which is paid off).

I've changed a tire all by myself before, so that's what I set up to do, thinking all the while about what Grayer said about the man of my dreams coming to my assistance. I jacked the car, and got out my wrench, and took off the first two lugnuts. But I was still sore from my kickboxing experiment on Monday, and was really struggling with the last two lugnuts. Throughout this process, two men were standing at a pump, waiting for their tank to fill up and watching. And watching me struggle. I am an independent woman, capable of changing my own tire, but I just kept thinking, really guys? Can't you help a girl out? Finally, when I straightened up from another failed attempt to loosen the stubborn lugnut, one of the guys was standing right next to me. It was kind of creepy. He didn't say anything, just took my wrench and started unscrewing. "Thanks," I said. He didn't say anything. His friend finished pumping his gas, helped the first guy take off my shredded tire, and put on the spare, not saying a word. As the first guy was tightening up the lugnuts, I once again said, "Thanks so much!" Finally, he spoke: "Make sure you don't drive over 45, 50 mph on these donuts." Right. And that was all.

For all the "luck" I am supposedly having, it's not translating into any other aspect of my life. I've sunk $1,000 into my car in the last month. I have not met a Harvard Hottie in Eloise's building, and I certainly can't meet men outside of her building, since everyone assumes the mini-me holding my hand is my daughter. Dogs are man-magnets. Children are not. Now I can't even find a man while being a damsel in distress on the side of the road. What is this world coming to?

Mama said knock you out

The other day, I had a rare late morning/early afternoon off, so I checked the gym schedule for a class, saw kickboxing at the right time, and went.

Two days later, I'm still struggling to lift my arms and put a bra on.

What I expected was a toned, 40ish woman standing in front of the class, instructing us to punch and kick the air in reps of 8, all to the tune of dance hits of the '90s. Instead, I found an Ultimate Fighting Champion/Brad Pitt in Fight Club, complete with the tattoos and mohawk, wrapping my hands and handing me boxing gloves, and blaring Eminem-type rap music with lyrics like, "take that, mother fuckaaaaa." And yet somehow, while he was screaming "Push-ups! Go!" and "Mountain climbers! Go!" over said rap music during our "warm-up" (which had me sweating profusely in mere seconds) I found something about it oddly sexy. Hmmm...

Since I was new to the class, I had the dubious honor of being paired with the instructor so he could show me the proper fighting technique. It was brilliant, actually. For 40 minutes, I did my best to beat the snot out of a man. It was incredibly therapeutic.

Emotionally unavailable?

THWAK!

$800 to fix my car? Do you know how many pairs of shoes I could get with that?

POW!

Not to mention the self-defense skills I picked up as Brad Pitt taught me how to use knees and elbows, as well as a jab and right hook.

So yes, every inch of me hurts, from my abs to the palms of my hands. (Seriously, the palms of my hands!) But I'm itching to do it again, and I would recommend you do the same.

Rejection Adjectives

I am no longer a cool aloof ice queen. You may remember my discovery that WW is just not that into me. However, was I smart enough to leave it at that? That would be a no.

I blame wine and technology.

I was out with friends on Friday night. After a bottle (or two) of wine we got discussing WW and the men in our lives. My friend decided that I needed closure. I have no idea why I agreed with her. I guess I just had that scene from Friends stuck in my mind where Rachel leaves Ross a voicemail: "and that my friend is what they call closure." I've always kinda wanted to do that.

Now my drunken self should have been prevented from making a fool out of myself because I had smartly deleted his number from my phone. But my drunken self can be quite canny. I remembered that his number was saved in a Facebook email. And this is where technology is evil. Thanks to the progression of cell phones that were once the size of bricks to fancy new cell phones that can access the world wide web with a touch of a few buttons, well, you can figure out the rest.

His phone number once again installed in my phone I proceeded to text him. Even at this stage it could have ended relatively painless as the first couple of texts were innocent and friendly enough. Then I ruined it.

I said something along the lines of: "Just so you know I don't make a habit of kissing my guys friends...I kind of like you...thoughts?" I have deleted the messages so I'm relying on memory here. I'm sure that you've guessed by now that my drunken text didn't work out like Violet's.

Picture the scene. It's 11.30 on a Friday night. I'm in McDonalds because I decided that I really needed a burger. Burger in one hand, phone in the other I read a text message that went something along the lines of:

"Wow, big question! I know we kissed both times we met up...you're nice but...sorry that's just how I feel."

I'm nice?! This is one of the worst rejection adjectives. Ever. If you're going to hear: "You're _____________ (insert adjective) but..." you don't want nice.

Maybe it's just me. After all why should the choice of rejection adjective matter? But I think it does. If I'm going to get rejected at least let me maintain a little bit of my dignity with a decent adjective.

So what do we think are 'good' rejection adjectives?

And once again ladies I urge you to not drink and text or dial. One of these days I will practice what I preach.

Hot for Teacher

I teach. I teach adults. Some of my students are older than I am. Some of them are younger. Some of them are the same age. While I've been known to socialize with students, (as neither of the schools I've worked for have had policies against it, it's not that serious) I don't date them. That's just weird.

Earlier this week, I was checking my email before class, when a student who is not in any of my classes asked me if I had a good weekend. Since my weekend involved dressing up like a figure skater and telling strangers I was a gold medalist, I replied that it was. Then he asked if I went away with my boyfriend. "Nooo," I said slowly, thinking that was a strange question to ask. Then I remembered that it had been Valentine's Day. Just goes to show how easy that non-holiday is to ignore. "Why not?" he asked. Without thinking, I said, "Because I don't have a boyfriend."

As soon as I said it, I knew why he asked it. Especially since I kept catching him watching me for the past week. Sure enough, not two minutes later, he asked if he could see me outside of class. This is not the first time a student has asked me out, and I am a master of avoiding and wriggling out of awkward situations. I told him sure, sometime, but not this week, as I'm very busy and important, but, you know, sometime. Of course, this took longer than normal because he has only been in the country for a few weeks and speaks little to no English. My strategy (as it has always been) is that by continuing to say "sometime" they will either give up or forget about it. In the past, it has been very effective.

I immediately went to Fenella, since she has also been in this same situation before. While all of our colleagues were dating (or just sleeping with) students, she and I stayed out of that. I gave her the need-to-knows:

1. He's not my student, and never will be.
2. He speaks almost no English. And while I'm used to speaking to people who don't speak much English, conversation would be extremely difficult. (Although as Grayer pointed out, we both know the language of love.) Dinner conversation would consist of a lot of pointing and "Fork!" "Waiter!" Although, come to think of it, that may be better than some of the conversations I've had on dates...
3. He's an Italian Dreamboat.
4. He's a smoker.

Sadly, Number 4 cancels out everything else, as we would just have a repeat of Popcorn Man.

I managed to avoid the Italian Dreamboat all week, until Friday. After he had won a school-wide musical chairs competition, I gave him a high-five (which I had to do, as I had done the same for the runners-up). He kept a grip on my hand, and (I'm not kidding here) nuzzled it to his cheek. Only an Italian Dreamboat can pull this one off.

A bit later, I was gathering my stuff up in my classroom, when he walked in and handed me a piece of paper. For a brief, horrifying moment, I was afraid I would open it to find "Do you like me? Check yes or no." Fortunately/Unfortunately, it was his number. "For Saturday," he said. "uhhhhh, I have plans, I can't." Then, so he could understand more easily, "I'M. BUSY." This did not phase him. "Sunday then." "O-ok," I said, surprised at how sure he was of this. Oh, to be Italian. And a dreamboat. He laughed. "You don't like me," he shrugged. "I didn't say that. It's just... I'm busy." I have no idea why I felt the need to explain. I could have just told him I didn't want to go out with him, but his English is so bad that all he would hear is the word "No" and then it would just be mean. Now I've missed out on the opportunity to explain that I don't date students. Or smokers.

Is it some sort of Murphy's Law that you will only be pursued by people you don't want to be pursued by? Murphy's Dating Law?

Wanted: Person

I need a new person.

This morning I received news from Conrad that he had been in the hospital last night. Apparently after hours of pain and limited vision, he got a friend to drive him to the emergency room. Apparently he had a chemical burn to the cornea from working in the lab. Scary! After making sure he was ok, which he is, I realized something. He didn't even tell me about it. I don't blame him for not asking me to take him to the hospital (I live 15 minutes away) but he didn't even mention it. Yes (Violet) I know he's not my boyfriend and he doesn't have to tell me anything, but come on.

If I was at home alone freaking about my burning eyes and loss of vision, I would be freaking out to him about my burning eyes and loss of vision. He's my person!

"You can't be sleeping with your person."

Ok (Violet) so Conrad and I may not be the Meredith and Christina of persons, but we have each other. Sometimes. When we feel like it. For right now anyways.

"Yeah you're not his person."

Yes (Violet) I'm not his person! No amount of pain, burning, or possibility of irreversible damage could get him to even send a complaining text message. I am not his person. So why did I think I was? Maybe because I talk to him everyday? Maybe because he's my closest/most geographically desirable friend right now? Maybe because things between him and I are the best they've ever been? (and by best I mean worst).

"You need a new person."

I know (Violet), I totally need a new person. One who will call me to take them to the hospital. One who I will freak out about things to. One who I'm not sleeping with. Now accepting applications.

Guys from work = NO!

A couple weeks ago I was out with work people. I went up to the bar and got talking to a guy who works for the same organisation as I do but in our other office. Half an hour later two of my friends come up to me, all drunkenly dramatic demanding where I had been, they had been looking everywhere for me. I asked them where they had looked. Answer? The toilets. Oh what I reputation I must have.

We returned to our group of people and continued chatting and exchanged numbers. I didn't think much of it because although he's tall, funny and Australian (check, check and check) physically I'm not really attracted to him and as shallow as it may be you need to be physically attracted to a person, at least a little bit. But the next day, to my surprise, my phone bleeped with a text message that wasn't from my mother. It was from Max From The Media Team (MFTMT). After text chatting for a bit he asked if I wanted to meet up at some point. Hmmmm...

I thought about it. Now normally I wouldn't get involved with a guy from work because it could get messy but I reasoned that 1.) he's leaving the organisation in a few weeks 2.) he works in the other office and 3.) he has seen the movie Sixteen Candles. And although I'm not physically attracted to him I had fun chatting with him and I haven't been on many dates so it could be good practice. So I said yes, we decided on a day and he said he would contact me closer to the time to finalise details.

However, we're supposed to be meeting tomorrow and I've heard nothing. I checked the text he sent me, he said he would contact me. Humph. I spoke to him on the phone last week at work so I would've thought that would have reminded him. Then today I answered someone else's phone and it was him. So the day before we're supposed to meet he spoke to me. Therefore, I would say there is really no excuse for not remembering about pre-arranged plans.

How humiliating. A guy that I'm not really interested in isn't contacting me. Oh dear. Get the violins out ladies.

NB: I am fully aware there is still time for him to contact me. But he's cutting it a bit fine. We'll see.