"I have a date tonight" I yelled in a loud voice.
"what's that?" The hairdryer that had moments before been buzzing around my head had stopped momentarily as the stylist held the machine to her side. "I didn't hear what you said."
"I SAID I HAVE A DATE TONIGHT" I yelled it louder than necessary but she still smiled and went back to styling my hair. "With a guy." I end the sentence with it's justified comment which only made her smile and tilt her head while trying to manage my stubborn part.
"where are you guys going?" She made believe she was interested and nodded while I explained yet another place that sold alcohol and had a bar and some type of fried foods on the menu. The parking would probably be a bitch and nothing would probably come of it but HEY...I WAS OBVIOUSLY EXCITED BECAUSE I WAS STILL YELLING AND SHE WAS NOW CURLING MY HAIR.
"where did you meet him?" She paused and looked at me through the reflection of the mirror. "oh" I said in a quiet voice "I met him online." She nodded her head once again and then said what every person says to me "I have never done online dating but my friend met her boyfriend/husband/lover on there. "
"Yep, I met him online."
My mom belongs to the school of thought where you meet people doing things you love. If you love cooking, you take a cooking class and fall in love with a guy that can flambé like no other. If you like to run, you join a running group then fall at his heels (literally in my case) in love with him. If you like to write, take a class at the University or the local community college and the guy that is in the back row, the one with the dreamy eyes and thick black curls will totally ask you to the dance and you will fall in love during "every rose has it's thorn" by Poison.
If you do what you love, you will find people with the same interests and THOSE are the people you need to date. Not the guys on the dating websites.
Yes, I know, I have heard it many times. But you know who gives you that advice? PEOPLE IN RELATIONSHIPS. My parents don't know what it's like to date in this day and age. They have no idea!! They think that because I love coffee and writing that If I go to a coffee shop and sit outside at a table and start writing in my journal that a guy in a beret will walk up to me, grab a chair and start asking me all sorts of questions about what I am writing. No, instead you go to a coffee shop and you are blinded by the amount of people either staring at their phone or starting at their laptops. Nobody actually writes anymore, that would be asking too much. Instead we hack away at a keyboard, throwing down ideas almost as fast as we can think them. We squint into the illuminated rectangle that we call our friend and swipe through stories, pictures and people that are a part of our lives. There is no room for anyone new in your life because there is not time for anyone new in your life. And if you get the nerve to walk into a bar or a coffee shop on your own in hopes of meeting someone new, you are met with only people staring at their friends within these screens, never lifting their eyes up to see what else could be out there.
I went to a bar one time by myself and saw a cute guy sitting at the bar. He was staring at his phone, swiping away like he was speed reading through his life, and I almost said something then he laughed. Laughed at whatever it was on his phone. It could have been a joke, a picture, a video of a cat attacking a llama, I have no idea. All I know is I saw and heard him laugh and thought "he must be talking to his girlfriend" and I walked away.
So you see, when it comes to meeting people now a days, it is damn near impossible. There is no local Elks club lodge I can go to on a Friday night, put on my best dress and ask Mary Jane to go with me in hopes that Bobby will be there and ask me to go steady.
Not once have I been at Whole Foods and reached for a turnip at the same time as another guy and at the moment our hands brushed, we just knew. NO!!! Instead the hot guy in the turnip section is staring at his damn phone trying to figure out what the fuck a turnip is and all along I am thinking "wow that guy is hot, he must be talking to his girlfriend."
That, my friend, is why I do online dating.
"Well have fun on your date." The stylist hands me my credit card receipt, I pull my sunglasses out of my purse and for about 20 minutes I feel optimistic. I head to Target so I can pick out a new shirt because I cannot be expected to wear what is in my closet. I get a shirt, buy some mascara, new eye liner, new razors, shaving cream, hair spray, earrings, nail polish, 4 pack of red bull, bottle of wine, mousse, gel, and cookies. 65.00 later and I am headed home.
Jump in the shower (pull up my hair cuz damn it looks good.) Shave every area of my body that needs to be shaved (toes, tops of feet, legs all the way to the hips, under arms) Get dressed in amazing new outfit that I will hate the fact I chose it by the time I walk into the bathroom at the bar for the first mirror check. Make up done and body spray.... Head out to bar to meet date.
Ugh, I love this part and hate this part.
Those first five seconds before you walk in the door, I love them and I can't stand them. I love the excitement of seeing his expression for the first time, but I hate the nervousness of it all. "Do I really have to go through this bull shit again? Why do I have to do the get to know you crap every single time. Can't we just submit an autobiography then we can go from there?"
"so, Sarah, I see on page 407 it says that you were taught how to bartend by the time you were 8, can you tell me how that worked?" There wouldn't have to be that superficial fishing you do on the first date, the one where you have that awkward silence where you try and figure out who should talk next.
I spend so many of these first dates in an interview scenario where I sound like Barbara Walters and her oh so dramatic pauses in between the question...."so (guy) I see on your profile you were in the military from the time you were 18 (pause) tell me (guy) ......(dramatic pause) what did that do to your life....(pause) to your parents (fake a sniffle)....to your outlook on ever finding love?" I then sit there for a good 45 minutes and decorate the conversation with a bunch of "uh huhs" and "oohhh, wow. Really?" Bottom line is, they don't ask questions back. They never ask me anything about me. Don't guys understand that it is a balancing act? You ask a question I ask a question...instead I am made to sound like the bachelorette on the dating game "Bachelor number one, if you were a bean, what type of bean would you be and please do not offer explanation in less than 45 minutes time. I want to hear every last part of your thought process on this one."
Most of my dates have been pretty....dull. I can't say that any of them (well, maybe one) was exciting. I just don't think people understand how to truly get to know each other. We are so socially inept that we don't know how to become interested in what the other person has to say. We don't know how to ask open ended questions that create conversation because we spend so much time on our own staring at our phones, computers or iPads. Now, I belong to an app where you swipe to the left if you don't like them, swipe to the right if you do and hope to God that one of them will like you back. And after they like you back, the possibility of it moving past more than one conversation through the app messenger is pretty slim.
My dull date ends, and though my hair still looks good, I hate the outfit I picked out. After my third attempt to go to the bathroom and observe myself from behind the third hand sink instead of the second (why did I chose black linen for a date? maybe the lighting is better over here) we say goodbye. And it is always weird when you say goodbye. Will he kiss me, will we hug, will he run with high knees back to his car and speed directly to the nearest Vorizon wireless to change his phone number. You just don't know. You are basically at each others mercy. I have been on what I thought was a really great date, only to never hear or see from the person again. I have also been on horrible dates where it was me running to the Sprint store only to have him call me again and again for a second date.
So yes, I wish I could meet a guy the way my parents, my grandparents, hey even the way my brother and his wife met. But instead, I am thrown back into this dating pool with a pair of cement shoes and no life preserver. The only thing I can do is wave my hands every now and then and hope someone notices me. You cannot think for a moment that I enjoy this bull shit called internet dating. That is why I started this damn blog so I could at least find some kind of humor in the whole thing. Why do you think my online name is TOATBS....tired of all this bull shit.
Now if you will excuse me, I am going to research some good recipes on turnips so the next time I see the hot guy in Whole Foods I can just jump in head first and offer him my favorite....in which he will probably look at his phone and laugh, "thanks, my girlfriend will love it."
Sigh.....
