Beggars Can Be Choosers...on the Internet

After enough time on an online dating site and you eventually feel the right to be ultra picky amongst possible suitors. Because of the sheer quantity of messages and pool of potential mates, it behooves you to create a list of criteria for yourself that narrows down the overwhelming sense of these sites. Upon joining, my list had a much wider berth, but that led to double booking of dates, a full time commitment to online dating, exhaustion, fatigue, and almost a complete mental breakdown (well not really, but it really was too much to handle). 

By now, I've narrowed down the profile prototype I'm seeking out so far that it is very rare someone makes it past phase 1, being a response from me, or better yet, an initial message from me. I see that this may be a terribly flawed plan and I could be missing out on tons of close-to-perfect guys, but it's a plan created out of necessity for not spending all my days and nights looking at profiles, responding to messages, setting up dates, cancelling dates, re-scheduling dates, going on dates, following up with guys, and simultaneously keeping them all straight in my head. 

The initial message from a guy has to catch my attention. He should show that he actually read my profile, has something interesting and non-generic to say, and isn't sending out multitudes of identical messages to every lady that he comes across. On the other hand, he shouldn't go on and on and on in the first message because that makes it feel like entirely too much effort to respond to. Be short, to the point, but effective, and please, no ridiculous spelling or grammar mistakes. That is an instant turn-off. 

Okay so I like his message. Next comes the oh-so-important profile review. Now be forewarned, this may come across as shallow/ridiculous/what have you, but these are my criteria for ONLINE dating, not necessarily real life. If I met a wonderful guy in real life who didn't fit into some of these categories, that'd be fine because I met him and I actually like him. But without that to go with, you gotta start somewhere to trim the fat. 

I check the guy's height, I'm a relatively tall woman so this is an important factor for me. If I'm taller than he is (or close to it), sorry but veto. I then check to see if there's anything that specifically sticks out in a bad way. Like someone who is a diehard devout Catholic, or makes less than $20,000 a year (but isn't a student), or hasn't graduated from college. He has to be in my age-range (mid-20's to 30's). He should live relatively close to me, generally New Jersey doesn't make the cut. I have a friend who won't go out with someone if he says he likes cats but not dogs (to each her own). I generally question guys who say they don't drink at all. If their percentage match is very low that's often a red flag. If it's very high match that tends to hold less significance. 

Then I move onto his profile pictures. I'd never go out with someone who has one picture, that's an untrustworthy source and he's probably fugly. And if he's not, then he has very low self-esteem or photographs terribly and that would be a shame for wedding pictures. I kid, I kid (sort of). If his main profile picture is shirtless he is vain. If it's far away he's unattractive and dumb (we're on a dating site, clearly I need to see what you look like). If they're all long-arm photos (aka he took them all himself), he's a weirdo/loner. Veto if he's just plain hideous or too serious, too cocky, or is surrounded by women in every picture. Veto for all pictures of one type (all goofy, or action shots, or shots with his sister's baby cause chick dig dudes who like kids, right?). This list continues, but let's just say if he can't pass this phase (and it may arguably be the hardest phase) then I probably won't even read his profile. It's not just based on looks, I know that, but it's what the guy's choice of pictures says about him as a person. 

The meat of the profile is also very important but varies from person to person and is very case specific so I won't go into too much detail here. I'll just say that if it's insanely long I probably won't read it all (and he has too much time on his hands), or insanely short he couldn't care less about this experience and hasn't piqued my interest so why should I waste my time? If under the category of "The Most Private Thing I'm Willing to Admit About Myself" he answers that he's on an online dating site, veto - if he can't even own it, he shouldn't be here. Obsessed with sports and/or working out (and thus having little else to say), veto. Lists "sex" as one of the things he's really good at, veto. Now I'm just imaging you having sex with lots of other girls. Plus, if you have to announce it to the world like that, it's probably BS. Brownie points for originality, is confident in who he is (and is compatible with me), is well traveled (going to Europe once when you were 12 doesn't count), well read (but not arrogant, I hate that), and on and on and on. 

It's a dog eat dog world out there. And I'm fully aware that this all may sound ludicrous, but without a system, you're never going to survive online dating. And conversely, I don't get offended when guys don't respond to me either. Everyone has their own set of criteria, and even though I'm great and we may get on smashingly if we were to meet in person, I could've answered one question in the wrong way and immediately the guy chucks me aside. And that's okay, because there are many many more waiting to take his place. 

The Onus of the Queue

I'm a relatively new Netflix subscriber. I'll admit it, up until recently I still got a thrill from going to Blockbuster and picking out a movie I was in the mood for that exact instant. Life ain't so easy anymore. Last year when I moved back to the US I was shocked and saddened to find out during my first drive back through my hometown that all of the Blockbusters had been boarded up and it was now necessary to order your movies online. 

I held off from doing so for as long as possible. Once I moved to New York I even rented movies from Two Boots, a pizza place with a struggling side movie business. But their selection was lacking, and my computer is on its last leg and refuses to stream even a 30 second youtube video, so downloading was out of the question. I would have to order from Netflix! 

It's not that I have a problem with Netflix itself, the company runs like a well oiled machine. My movies always arrive when they say they're going to arrive and in mint condition. It's even bizarrely skillful at picking out films it thinks I'll enjoy (god computers are so damn smart). Where I take issue is the pressure that comes from picking movies a full two days before you want to see them. 

All of a sudden I have this persistent feeling in my gut that I should choose these movies which I've been told I should see, with references that have gone over my head my whole life, which are important, "classic" films of our generation, of my parents generation, of ALL generations! Rather than movies I want to see. The pressure is just too much. I end up looking at my queue and it's not familiar to me at all, it's like seeing a stranger staring back from the mirror. It's chock-full of foreign films, romantic comedies from the 60's, too many Woody Allen's and not enough mind-numbing movies purely for entertainment's sake. 

I can't lie and say I haven't seen some great things over the past few months, I have (and if there's one I'll recommend right now it's City of God, seriously add that to your queue stat). But a tremendous wave of despair washed over me yesterday evening when I checked my mailbox and found The Godfather sitting there in that bright red envelope. I know, I must see it and it's in every guy's top 5 list, but I just wasn't in the mood. It's long, I have a feeling it's not incredibly laughter inducing, and it felt more like a homework assignment than a relaxing night in at that moment. 

I yearn for the simpler movie store days. Sighhhhh, I suppose like anything else, in time I'll adjust. 

It's a small world, after all

It's an inevitability that you're going to run into people you know all the time in New York City. There are certain spots, popular bars, brunch places, or gyms, that there will be surefire encounters whether you want them or not (and correspondingly look hot or like a hot mess). One place however you don't necessarily expect to chance upon random people you know, or at least I didn't, is in the online dating arena. I would think there'd be a much higher likelihood of this on a dating site like jdate (which there probably is) because clearly you're dealing with a smaller number of people with a common theme. But for a general dating site open to the public at large, aka match or okcupid, it's astonishing how quickly the seemingly vast pool of men turns out to be actually quite small. 

When you boil it down to the elements involved it makes sense. You're entering criteria that are going to match you based on location, preferences, eduction, interests, etc. so it's not that far fetched that someone you grew up with might turn out similarly to you. But considering how large NYC is, it's still a little crazy and unnerving to have those unexpected encounters....and I've had my share. 

The first embarrassing experience I had with an online dating acquaintance was with a guy I went to summer camp with. His picture popped up as one of my matches and when I clicked on him, the initials of his screename confirmed my suspicions that he was indeed the same guy. I had a crush on this guy when I was twelve and his pics still seemed cute, so I figured I'd make light of the situation and send him a friendly/awkward "hello, we went to summer camp together for 8 years" message. A few days (weeks, months, years, still waiting!) went by and he never returned my message, and I had my first brush with online dating induced blushing. He clearly knew who I was and rather than be courteous and act like a normal human he chose to ignore me. My thicker skin began to grow after that. 

The next incident also involved summer camp (go figure). I was out with this guy and we weren't particularly hitting it off, we didn't have much to talk about and the date was dragging like a wet bag of hammers. UNTIL we figured out that from the years 1994-1999 we went to the same New Hampshire sleepaway camp! Then we laughed and reminisced for a good solid fifteen minutes about color war, and jello wrestling, and the seven people we knew in common. Then it fell quiet again and we ended the date and didn't schedule a second one. It would've been nice had we felt a rapport thought, what a story for the grandkids!

I also saw a guy on the site that I was friendly with in college but decided not to message due to incident #1, but ended up seeing him at an apartment party a week later in the city anyway. I was sure to bring it up with him after I was sufficiently liquored up, whereupon we laughed nervously with each other for a brief few moments, then split in opposite directions. I had no shame at all in the situation, but apparently disgrace was cast upon his name with the very mention of online dating. How dare thy bring up what goes on in the imaginary world of the interwebz! 

Then there's the guy who messages you, seems cute and nice, you get to talkin' and realize that he probably runs in similar social scenes as you. So talkin' leads to stalkin' during which you enter his screename into facebook to see if anything pops up, or his work stats into google and try to figure out anything you can about him pre-date, just to be in the know. This is only when you have time and energy enough to care (as of late I have not, but I will admit I have played this game in the past). It's actually pretty fun because all you really have to go off of is their first name, screename and a few scattered bits of information. It's like you're a real life private eye, cracking the enigmatic mysteries of online dating! The trick with this scenario (and it's happened to me more than once) is to never let on about the pre-date stalking. If they want to bring up the fact that you have 3 mutual (probably irrelevant) facebook friends on your first date, then that's their prerogative. But it's in no way well advised to a) be the first one to admit you already knew that or b) admit you already knew that at all (even if he blurts it out first - retain the power!), because while you may think it's cute that he took the initiative to get to know all about you before date one, he may very well think you're a total creep (which you kind of are, but aren't we all?) 

The most recent encounter of this kind was a message I got a few days ago telling me that I looked awfully familiar and asking me if we had a one night stand at some point? At first I was appalled, then curious, then I clicked and the truth was revealed. He was my best friends ex-boyfriend, and no we didn't have that one night stand, it was a joke. So I guess the lesson here kids is in the real world or in the make believe internet one, there's no escaping the many familiar faces of your past. 

But you can't see my face, how can you tell I've got the eyes of a lunatic?!

It's been a while since I recounted the many trials and tribulations of online dating. To be honest, I eased off of it for a bit because there's so much garbage you have to wade through to get to anything (sorry, anyone) semi-decent that it can seem downright daunting. That's not to be said that there are no diamonds in the rough (there are diamonds in the rough, right? so help me god there better be diamonds!). BUT there's a lot of just plain old roughhh. When I first started blogging way back in the day (aka 6 months ago) I posted some AWESOME examples of shocking introductory messages I received, and I thought now would be as good a time as any to post a round 2 of horrific-men take heed please do not send these type of messages-messages, because no, unfortunately they didn't stop. I'll let these gems speak for themselves this time, because you're probably mentally annotating the same way I would anyway.

• wow i gotta say that ur drop dead gorgeous!! heyy have u ever had a fantasy of making love to a complete stranger?? :)  

• Hey there! Since you're a paralegal, you most likely thought of this already. However, as an attorney, I feel obligated to advise you to add some kind of a disclaimer to your profile...I suggest something like this: WARNING: Prolonged exposure to the photographs in this profile may cause sudden heart failure and/or death in men. Advice of physician strongly recommended prior to viewing. Profile author expressly waives any and all liability occasioned from use of content and under no circumstances will be liable for injury, property damage or other casualty loss. All other rights are reserved.

• After a rigorously brief overview of your profile, I wanted to let you know I have already married and divorced you in my mind. Thanks for all the wonderful imaginary memories... you will always have a special place in my heart. your ex-hubby, Alex

• Hey Dork: it took me 2 hours to come up with this message.

• Listen all I could think of when I first saw your profile was how bad I wanted to get in your pants, but then I see you are a fan of MGMT and Jay-Z and I'm like hmm. You know that feeling when you're thinking ah this has to be too good to be true? Well this is one of those moments but I gotta ask do you cook too?!! later hermosa ojos :)

• you know what, you make think my friend Joe would love you.

• Hello angel, wow what cloud did you fall off of? Your mother must be beautiful. My name is james, but my friends call me Jimmy. I think you and I could make beautiful music together, and I would treat you like the beautiful classy, woman that you are. Check out my profile, and drop me a line if you're interested. Take care and stay beautiful.

•  I like your hair. I'm unemployed and up for anything! Check me out.

• So I was looking through all these ads here on the internet thinking to myself “Look at all the poor, desperate, lonely women…” and then I saw your ad and thought to myself “Hey, here’s a poor, desperate, lonely woman that’s actually CUTE…” so I thought I’d write and see if you’re as interesting on the inside as you are in this picture…”

• Hello. Wink. Sorry, something in my eye. You seem cool. How do you do? Do you like tacos?

• You could kill somebody with a smile like that...Just imagine. I'm driving down I-87, looking at my cell phone....like ya do....and that smile comes up...where am i? what's happening? It's a minute before I even realize I'm in a fender bender...Maybe you should think more about the danger that smile puts me in and the commuting public in. A) I don't have a car. B) I would never go on the internet while driving in case you thought I was a total lunatic.

• Hello. You are very pretty. Um.....I don't know anything about women. Would you mind if I asked you a few sincere questions that only an utterly clueless male could conceive in the hope that you answer in a sisterly, brutally honest way? Thanks!

• I live in SoHo, right by Channel... and Dash   

• Is your brunette friend single?

clairvoyance or poppycock?

The other night I attended a charity event where they were offering free psychic readings. I've only had "energy" work done in the past, so most of my psychic knowledge has come from tales of friends' readings. During my freshman year of college, a friend's mom got her fortune read and warned my friend that she'd definitely be pregnant by our senior year, Not a particularly fun message for a mother or my friend to hear, and alas it didn't come to pass. Who's to say that's because she wasn't extra careful due to the warning - another "the chicken or the egg scenario." A different friend in college got her fortune read in Salem at Halloween-time. She plunked down $60 buckaroos hoping to hear the whole enchilada of her destiny but instead the psychic started yammering on and on about her beautiful her necklace was, guessed where she got it (she guessed wrong), and my friend demanded her money back mid-session. 

Needless to say I was somewhat intrigued, but clearly dubious of the whole psychic phenomenon. However, if you're gonna go ahead and offer me a free psychic reading I'm gonna take it (hell, if you're gonna offer me a free pretty-much-anything I'm gonna take it. This is why supermarkets with free bakery samples are my favorite places on earth). The psychic at the charity event was an elderly British woman, or perhaps an American with a fake British accent to make her seem more legit. 

I sat down at her table and she started laying the tarot cards down in front of me. The first card she put down had to do with relationships and apparently it was clouded by a big question mark. She couldn't be sure if the relationship was the romantic type or work type, but either way it wasn't looking good. As she continued to lay down cards she kept telling me cryptic messages like "this looks messy, or you know what I'm talking about but I don't want to spell it out for you here, because we're at a formal event (wink wink)." By golly woman spell it out for me! No I really don't know what you're talking about and you're really starting to freak me out. How bad could it be that you can't say it out loud? Most of what she said made semi-sense but I think the same reading could've been loosely applied to anyone with a pulse. 

As I was getting up from the table, a little shaken, her last words to me were that I've been a "naughty girl." Is that really appropriate (or necessary) psychic talk? My friend got her's read too, and was also a little more worried about the status of her life and relationship than before she sat down. It got me thinking about a few things. First, I wanted to tell this high and mighty Brit that I think her line of work is rubbish. Second, how much of our lives are self-fulfilling prophecies where we hear what we want to hear and then make that happen. Let's say my friend heard the psychic say she would have problems with her boyfriend and then picked a fight with her boyfriend, is that because it was going to happen anyway, or because the psychic got in her head. Finally, even if there is some truth to knowing part of my future, I'm not sure I want to. Where is the fun in that, really? 

The Unsettling Uncertainties of Your....

Your 20's is a time filled with change, growth, and a lot of "holy shits, what am I doing with my life!?" Since college, any time I've gotten comfortable with a city, country, job, apartment, guy, or what have you, a huge curveball gets launched my way and I'm forced to re-think and re-evaluate everything. There's a lot to be said for the uber exciting feeling of not knowing what's coming next, where you'll end up or how. But that excitement is inevitably accompanied by a hint of fear, anxiety, and the dread of knowing that there will be many (many) steps that come between now and who I'll be when I'm "all grown up."

In the last couple weeks change has snuck up on me, tackled me, and is forcing me to face it head on, again...and I don't feel ready...again. But that's just the way the beast operates, because it's never easy and never going to feel easy - and that might just be the point. You learn, adapt, deal with it and hopefully come out the other side a better person for having done so.

So thus begins the next phase of my life. Luckily, being in my 20's with very few external obligations affords me the awesome possibility to experiment, stumble, and literally do anything or go anywhere. Will I be living in Thailand, Brazil, or Costa Rica in a few months? Possibly. Will I be working in New York City at my dream job? Hopefully. Will I be happy I was made to take a closer look at my life, shift things around, shake things up, squirm in discomfort, but ultimately be one step closer to ME? Absofuckinglutely. 

But a BILLION reasons you should...

text-plexities

Text messaging has turned into a fine-tuned art form with too many critics holding varying standards. Especially when it comes to texting members of the opposite (or same) sex you might be interested in. It's rather ridiculous how much thought goes into those 2 sentences that are created to appear as though no thought was put into them at all. I used to think it was just a thing that girls did, mulling over phrasing, timing, use of emoticons - or lack thereof, until I was recently with a male friend who was asking me all the same questions. And so, without further ado, I present the many intricacies of the modern day text:

How long do you have to wait to send a text message to someone you like? Do you bite the bullet and send the first text or hold out in a text standoff to see who blinks first? Do you have to wait the corresponding amount of time to reply as they did? Since he waited 3.5 hours should I wait 4? Or can I just reply after a half hour cause clearly we both know I read the text the second I heard the buzz of my phone. WHY do people wait so long to respond? To make it seem like they're cool/too busy doing other awesome things? I know they're not, they're just annoying, really.

Do you have to be clever/witty/funny or can you just say what you mean and mean what you say? I hate the pressure when text flirting to try to say something totally original and charming to make them fall a little bit more in love with you. Especially since half the time the advice and one-liners are coming from girlfriends sitting around at brunch discussing the best comeback lines for 45 minutes before pressing send. It's usually not coming directly from the person you're corresponding with, so why the charade?

Use of emoticons/punctuation is a HUGE area of debate. Depending on who you ask there are certain uses that are cute, and others that would make someone cancel their date and delete said persons phone number instantly. I know girls who would send smiley faces, but would be repulsed if they received them. I personally enjoy the use of exclamation points! Others find it annoying. Some ladies would dump a guy for using LOL or hehehe, as those aren't deemed "manly." As I was writing one of these texts recently, I used a comma in the middle of a sentence. I showed it to my friend for approval before pressing send. She looked at it for a minute, dissatisfied, even mildly disgusted. I asked her what was wrong with it and she told me point blank, "that comma's all wrong, try a dash." She entered the dash, and sure enough, BOOM! Her face lit up with excitement, that's it! Press send!

The funny thing is there are no rights and wrongs in the art of the text, just personal (sometimes very strong) preferences. So just go with your gut, because in the end, the use of a comma vs. a dash isn't going to make or break the relationship. And if it does, so help you god.

WANNA PEEP MY TWEETS? Yeah you do! Follow me at @Firgalicious or become a fan by clicking "Follow" in the upper righthand corner. All the cool kids are doing it!

Let's take ten, shall we?

How do you know when you've gone on too many first dates?  When you rather sit on your couch alone and watch thursday night tv and play on your laptop or read a book than have to sit through one...more....interview first date. (btw I totally started reading BOOKS again! No not articles on the internet, but actual books made from paper, that you flip the pages and you know, read! ....one of my many new year's resolutions).

Sometimes you just need to take a step back and take a breather. And that's exactly what I'm doing. Maybe it's because it's winter and it's only natural to want to hibernate. Or maybe it's because I was overly ambitious when I first joined an online dating site last summer, going on upwards of 6 dates sometimes in a week, not joking, I double booked on more than one occassion (meet bachelor #1 for early drinks and do your best not to appear drunk when you rush off to meet date #2 for later drinks and dinner to sober up).Or maybe I just am boreddddd of asking and answering the same questions over and over and over again. "How do you like your job?" Not much. "What do you want to do?" I DON'T KNOW! It's like the American version of the tiresome Argentine question "Where you from??"

Whatever it is, I am taking a much needed break from first dates, at least for a few weeks. I was supposed to go out with someone last night and I couldn't even be bothered to text the guy back to decide where to meet. It may have been a bit callous, but I don't know him, and I think he'll get over it. It's easy to tell when someone's faking it and really doesn't want to be there. There's a stench to it and I don't want to be giving off that stench, so I'm not gonna. I think after sitting on my couch for a sufficient amount of time I'll eventually want to brave the storm again and get back out there (quite literally sometimes, I cancelled a date last week due to snow conditions, can ya blame a girl?), but for now I'm going to curl up with Judd Apatow's "I Found This Funny," and call it a (very pleasant) night.

"There is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration." 

It's like privacy in a bag!

A useful napping product has emerged in the napping arena in recent months, the Snazzy Napper! Basically it's a blanket with a nose hole that you throw over your face that the commercial believes makes you actually disappear and is "cool." It's a good idea in theory, if it did actually made you disappear. Unfortunately though, it's more of a "Who's that crazy lady in the corner with the blanket over her face? Is she dead?" type of situation. And it's definitely not cool. 

As I've mentioned in the past in passing, napping is one activity at which I excel. I was always a good napper as a kid, and then in high school I really started to hit my stride. And these were the days before inventions like the "Snazzy Napper" were considered hip and trendy. I'd take a shower in the morning, take a quick nap, then get up and get dressed. I'd go to school, speed home and nap for 15 minutes and then get ready for field hockey. To this day, every time my friend Jenny calls me, she asks me "Did I wake you?" It doesn't matter if it's 7 am or 7 pm, it's just a habit from growing up.

I had never faced an instance where my napping was considered problematic until a couple of years ago. As I got older and bolder, I started napping in more public spaces. I'd take a quick snooze on the bus, or even close my eyes for half hour while laying on a blanket in the park. As an English teacher in companies in Buenos Aires, every day I'd have to travel all over the city to my various companies, often with time in between, and boy was it exhausting. There was one company in particular that was quite far but it was a fun technology company, the students were cool and the pay was good and so I taught there.

Those mornings I taught a very early class at 7 am beforehand and then I'd catch a shuttle that would take me to the faraway company, but annoyingly the shuttle left only once every two hours. This either made me 30 minutes late or 1.5 hours early. So I'd arrive early at the tech company and sit in their lounge which was equipped with ping pong tables, video games, foosball, and irresistible beanbag chairs. I'd read in the chairs and occasionally shut my eyes for a few minutes. Who was I harming? No one! I was always on time for class, and it's not like I was shushing people who got rowdy while playing FIFA.

Well one day I received an email from the institute where I worked saying that many people complained to the HR woman at the tech company about the random napping lady in their lounge, and could I please never nap there again, as it wasn't the first time it happened. Granted most people in the company did not take English classes with me, and to them I was just some weirdo sleeping by the ping pong table, but my students who knew my situation all understood, I had a lot of time to kill!

Regardless, embarrassment and an apology ensued. Now if the Snazzy Napper had existed back then, maybe this entire situation could have been avoided!

Curb Your Enthusiasm is coming to NYC....

....and I'm pretty pretty Enthused!!

The Aftermath of the Globes

The Golden Globes went mostly as expected last night. I predicted almost all of the major category wins correctly, but unfortunately only took home second place in a pool I played with some gals and gays. I think it's blatantly obvious who will be scoring Oscars come the end of February (hint hint The Social Network, Colin Firth, Natalie Portman). But as always, dutifully playing the role of the drunken cousin to the Oscars, The Globes provided some splendid surprises and entertainment last night. A few of the awards from last night's performance that I think deserve mention are as follows: 

• Walking the extremely fine line between funny/cruel/inappropriate/uncomfortable/great/terrible Host: Ricky Gervais, for offending almost everyone in attendance, simultaneously making us viewers feel awkward and awesome while watching actors squirm. 

• Most Blatant Sexual Come-on Joke: Robert Downey Jr. for stating that he'd like to sleep with every actress nominated in the musical or comedy category including Emma Stone who's nominated for playing a high school student. 
• Biggest "Celebs, they're just like us" Moment: Angelina Jolie reapplying lip gloss. All this time I thought those perfectly pouty lips were automatically replenished with color splendor from within. 

• OMG WTF Are You Wearing But It Totally Doesn't Matter Cause You're Still Awesome Award: Helena Bonham Carter, because seriously, who would expect anything different?

• Most Deserved Standing Ovation: Michael Douglass for being alive and beloved by all, even if he did make Wall Street Money Never Sleeps. We all make mistakes. 

• Nip-slip 2011: Jane Fonda showing more skin than intended. Older women exposing their breasts is not a good look.

And there you have it folks! 

Not exactly a Friday evening Pick-Me-Up

I saw the "wrist slitter" Blue Valentine last night, and as my friend so astutely pointed out, there are two very important lessons to be garnered from that film: 1. Even really sexy guys like Ryan Gosling become ugly once they're married. 2. Don't get married.

I think that sums it up quite nicely.

Astrological Meltdown!

How much do we project onto ourselves what we're told about ourselves vs. project onto the world who we really are? The age old question that one can never really know the answer to. I was confronted with this conundrum yesterday in the wake of the ASTROLOGICAL CRISIS! of 2011.

Up until yesterday I was a libra. I very much identified with the libra characteristics and took much delight in being a libra. I know a lot of people think astrology is bs, and maybe it is. But to me, it's no more bs than religion, per se. When I first read about my sign, when I was 11 or so, I felt an immediate connection and something about it made total sense to me. "Oh stop it, I'm only being indecisive 'cause I'm a libra!" or "Yeah, I'm easygoing, I don't like the dramzzz, I'm a libra."

See what I mean? Am I really like that, or did I read the characteristics on wikipedia one day and subconsciously decide to mold the sign to fit my personality? Either way, it's happened. You can go round and round forever like the chicken and the egg. Then came an internet explosion yesterday, telling us "HAHA jokes on you! You're someone completely different than who you thought you were, succccccka!" These whacko astronomers said that "because of the moon's gravitational pull on Earth, the alignment of the stars was pushed by about a month," thus fing up everyones sign, and making me a virgo. A virgo?! Are you kidddddding me? No offense to virgos it just ain't me. No way no how, not gonna accept it.

After that complete mindfuck yesterday, turns out all order in the world has been restored! According to the internet today, zodiac signs are the same as they ever were if you adhere to the tropical zodiac (which apparently most of us do).

The moral of this story is I am a proud libra. Whether I adapted to be that way or was born that way is irrelevant. And don't believe everything (or quite possibly anything) you read on the internet.

The Man with the Angry Face

When I think of all the bad dates I've had (and I've had my fair share), there's always one in particular that tops the list. One of my first experiences dating a fiery Argentinian, was this guy named Hernan. He was Latin sexy, tall, dark and handsome. I met him at an upscale restaurant/bar which was once a mansion that's been converted. He and his friends were sitting at a table ordering rounds of champagne, when he invited me and my friend over to join them. They were very curteous, buying us drinks all night long and engaging in conversation in broken English. He regaled me with stories of his house in the ritzy beach resort town of Punta del Este, in Uruguay. His eyes were dreamy and his voice seductive, and when he looked at me, his intensity burned.

 

He got my phone number and called me immediately the following day, inviting me on date. We went out to a steak dinner (obvs), then a bar for drinks after, and everything was lovely. It was a weeknight and getting late so I asked him to take me home, but he flat out refused. "Just another drink" he begged, which turned into another bottle of champagne, which turned into it being 4 am (their 4 am is like our 12 am), and me very cranky and pissed off. I finally left him at the bar and took a cab home, promising to never see him again.

 

Then I got bored. There were a number of more dates over the next couple of months, always with a new twist. His passionate intensity that first drew me in, turned out to be more closely related to anger. I found myself fighting with him over the most inane things all the time, and it was hard to tell if it was rooted in translation difficulties (as my Spanish at that time wasn't exactly stellar) or general disagreements. But things were always interesting and even though I knew he wasn't for me, he provided me with distractions, stories, and experiences that I thought made him worth the trouble

 

The last date (and here's where the real fun begins) I went on with him was to a bar with a bunch of his friends. He insisted that I leave my friends to come join him, only to ignore me soon after I arrived, and leave into another part of the bar for a while. He returned to the table arm in arm with a breathtaking Argentinian woman. "OMG, did he just pick her up in the other room, with me here? What the F is going on?" I thought. They sat at the other end of the long table from me, chatting intimately, and when I asked who she was, the reply I unanimously received from his friends was that she was his "cousin." Well I didn't know the laws very well in Argentina, but cousins DO NOT KISS LIKE THAT! (Unless of course you're Karen from the movie Mean Girls).  

 

He would later drive away like a bat out of hell with her in the passenger seat, no explanation or regret. In the following days and weeks I got calls and texts, explaining that she was an ex, it meant nothing, they were really over now. But we were through. When I told him I didn't want to see him anymore, that he seemed too angry a person for me, he said he wasn't angry, that was just his face. I guess I wasn't the first person to tell him that.

Dead birds falling from the sky! Snow in 49 out of 50 U.S. states? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE PEOPLE?!

The Accidental Liar

Have you ever thought about making up a completely false persona when you're going out on a date? For whatever reason: you're weird, bored, hate your name, wish you came from more (or less) money. Well, I may or may not have gone out with a guy under false pretenses once. Bear with me, it wasn't exactly my intention to do so, it just kinda...happened.

 

When I lived in Buenos Aires I worked on a viral marketing project for a few months. My initial plan of action was to essentially spam all of my friends on facebook and see how far that took me. It turned out not that far. So, I came up with the brilliant plan to create a fake facebook account in order to spam complete strangers without having to add random friends and mess with my personal life. I was actually shocked at how many people accepted my "fake" friendship - within a day I had in the ballpark of 500 "friends." One of the guys I spammed ended up messaging me back and asking me ("Lauren") out. He was a cute British guy living in BsAs, and what kind of American girl isn't a sucker for a British accent? So after a couple of messages back and forth I agreed to go on a date. Movies and some drinks. 

 

We arrived at the movies, and we immediately recognized each other - I used a real picture after all. He didn't introduce himself by name so I wasn't given a window to do so either. Into the movies we go, barely having had more than a couple minutes of light chit chat. After we head to a bar and order some beers. At this point we'd been out for a couple of hours, and my palms were quickly becoming sweaty and all I could think about was that I gotta come clean and tell this guy that I'm not Lauren, I didn't go to Michigan and study Business, and I don't speak French and Chinese in addition to Spanish. But how could I artfully bring that up without making me seem like a freak? The answer is you can't. 

 

Conversation was flowing smoothly and he seemed to be enjoying my company so I thought now's as good a time as any, just do it. I casually said,  "Wanna hear a funny story?" And then launched into the tale of the marketing campaign, and the fake profile and thus fake identity, and topped it off with "I SWEAR I'm not crazy!" trying to laugh it off. He unfortunately wasn't so amused and moments later asked for the check. I am not the best liar and it doesn't come naturally to me, but I sometimes wonder if I were, how long I could've kept this second life going and dated the Brit. Wouldn't it have been a great story to tell the grandkids?