Blowing It (Not THAT "It," Sicko)

This post is a continuation of my last entry. If you'd like to read that entry in full, click here. I've also posted the last paragraph if you just need a refresher. 

I went on a date the other night, a good date, no, a great one. I told her this story. She was surprised I stayed on Match, that I didn’t ask for a refund and close up shop. This hadn’t even crossed my mind, because with online dating, the reward outweighs the risks. And there are risks: a risk you’ll be hurt; that your ego will get bruised; that you’ll go on an awkward date; that your date will choose a 4-and-a-half Star, insanely expensive restaurant for your first date with the expectation you'll pay; and yes, that you’ll get murdered. But you take precautions. You correspond with him or her prior to meeting up; you message, text, and even call. You meet in a public place and tell your friends where you’re meeting. You take these steps and you put yourself out there, you stay in the game (or take a break and come back) even after a creepy message or 10, you shrug off the shit and continue taking your chances, because if you don’t, you could be shutting the door to the possibility of sitting across from a beautiful person, learning, laughing, flirting, and realizing the countless messages you’ve sent and the countless dates you’ve endured were completely worth it because you’ve finally met a great human being who you like and who likes you for you and who just might end the search. 

And if you're anything like me, that's precisely the moment you start blowing it.  

Yeah, everything except that last part. 

Two years of online dating, my quest to find my diamond in the rough. Many “I’m not feeling it”s and yes,  a few times tears have tickled the terrain of my sad-face. I’ve realized something about myself quite recently, I can be a total idiot when it comes to dating and I tend to completely blow it when I stumble upon someone great. 

I want you to imagine a man stranded on deserted island. Let’s say this man is me (for sake of simplicity (cough)).  I’m fairly content, or so I think, but it’s getting old. I’d like to shake things up a bit, see the world, do something crazy like wander the isles of a Walmart again. So I spend large chunks of my days having sex with coconuts  (and no, it doesn’t fit, thank you, but you fucking make do). Wait, totally meant to say: I spend large chunks of my days searching for a way off the island. I’m looking for a ship, or a plane, or even a portal, but all I keep seeing are mirages from the heat. Then, out of the blue one day, I see a ship bearing straight for island and me. “Holy shit! A ship! Are you fucking kidding me?! This is it! THIS IS IT!” I jump up and down, crack jokes, do 2 pushups, and generally flip the fuck out, hoping it sees me. It slows, turns, and speeds up, veering away from me and my lonely island.

You know what, Jack? There's no crying in banging. Especially when it was:

Meow.

Dejected, I continue seducing coconuts, ERR – ahh, fuck it. I wait for another ship, plane, submarine, zeppelin, hot air balloon, whatever, reevaluating all the things I may have done wrong. Maybe my dreds? My unruly beard? My tattered clothing? Was my duper dangling a coconut?

I put my dreds up, tidy my beard, and snag some new-to-me threads at the island’s thrift store (because let’s get real, what kind of deserted island DOESN’T have a thrift store?!?). Then I wait. And wait some more. Many a more mirage tease my mind and I start counting them to pass the time. Seven months float by and then one day I see it. “ANOTHER FUCKING SHIP HOLY SHIT THIS IS IT MY CHANCE TWO YEARS ON THIS FUCKING ISLAND IS COMING TO AN END WALMART AND WALMART HAS LOTION ME AND MY DUPER COULDN’T BE HAPPIER!poiqe!EF!F!!!” I start flipping out, waving, flexing. I do 3 pushups and crack jokes, all the while planning where ship and I will go, the adventures we will have, how great the sex will be, how ship’s hand will feel in mine, how many pillows will be on our bed, the thread count of our sheets, how she'll react when I try to introduce coconuts into our sexcapades, how many times I'll have to be big spoon before I can be little, what we'll name the puppy, the color of our matching suitcases, and if our wedding invitations will be scented. But then ship slows. “Oh shit,” I say, panic setting in. “NOT AGAIN!” I overcompensate: joke, pushup, joke, attempted pushup. I wildly waive hands and arms and leg (but not other leg) with frightening fervor. “Here! Over here! Take me away from this terrible island so I can distract myself from me! HELP!” And there goes ship, full steam away. 

I bend to just shy of the break. I analyze everything. Everything. Every tactic, every movement, and every word shouted. Was it my double-jointed elbow? Were my jokes not funny or was I trying to be too funny? Can you tell if someone has sex with coconuts just by looking at them? The answer comes to me like a message in a bottle washed onto shore: “Hey Brad, this is ship. You looked crazy, too desperate to get off your island, and simply not confident. So I had to keep going. Good luck, crazy.” 

I realize it has nothing to do with the dreds, beard, clothes. It’s my approach, who I am right now, and how I feel about myself. I need to just be me because me is a fucking awesome guy. I need to relax, lighting a nice big and fire while casually waving her over. “Hey, ship. What’s that? Oh, this fire? Yeah, it’s pretty cozy. Come hang out if you want. I have coconuts.” Pushup.

Holy shit. You can drink stuff out of them too?!

There's a core belief at play here, that I’m not worthy of an amazing partner and it needs to be snuffed out. There's also a script of perpetual shiplessness that needs to be rewritten. Because I'm smrt, funny, decent looking, and talented. I've netted awards in writing and photography. I have a novel that will get published and a good chunk of a 2nd book complete. And I have a full time job with a business that truly helps people who get fucked over. I care. I'm affectionate, good in bed, and one of the most passionate people you'll meet. But for some reason all of this is not good enough. 

It stems from long ago when negative thoughts that grew into a negative self-image were planted in me. Some were sown by others and some, I’m sure, by me. Older siblings soothed their insecurities and jealousy by lighting their baby brother up with the sarcasm bequeathed to them from a father who modeled it oh so well. And she: my protector. It made her feel good to have me rely on her instead of teaching me to rely on myself. She fostered and encouraged the perfect because she needed to be so she wouldn’t face the wrath. My OCD was like 1, 2, 3. When the person you love the most gets yelled at when you screw up, you try your hardest to never, ever screw up again. And when the wrath hangs over her head, ready to pounce on the smallest of mistakes, that anxiety and fear is transferred to a baby boy without her even knowing it. 

But that's me as the victim, which is getting so fucking old and tired. And these are just excuses, and excuses are like assholes, and assholes are like gross.

It’s me. I’m the one still watering these negative thoughts, letting them grow so tall they blot out the sun. I let them ruin days and dates and major chances with great women and then I let those missteps cripple my confidence. I know what I need to do, but it's so fucking hard. I need to stop listening to the negativity, which starts small but swarms like wasps around a jostled hive, consuming me, rendering me immobile and unable to see the insane amount of positive, ship-worthy qualities I have. I need to call the thoughts out for what they truly are: complete and utter bullshit, thoughts that have nearly destroyed me (in the true meaning of the word) on multiple occasions and have certainly never brought me honey. And instead of dwelling on the wasps and their tendency to swarm and beating myself up over their continued presence and dominance, I need to fight them, buck them with a “fuck you” because FUCK THIS. 

Maybe someday I’ll look back on this blahg post and see it for what I hope it will be: a major turning point. Until then, I’ll be trying to suffocate, “unfunny,” “debbie downer,” “woe is me,” “whinny,” and “unfunny.” 

Online dating can be a total shit sandwich at times. But when you realize that you’re the one making your shit sandwich, you need to reevaluate your ingredients. The shit. I’m talking about replacing the shit in your sandwich with something like not shit.  Something like Mesquite smoked turkey breast, cream cheese, apple slices, dried cranberries, and lettuce. Mmmmm. Would you look at that. I’m hungry again.

Wait, so what's a shit sandwich?

The Match.com Stalker - Notable Online Dating Story #2

Some people just take it too far.

She lives four hours away. That was the first and ultimate deal breaker. She also has a kid. The second. The fact she didn’t go to college, third. And the typos riddling both her Match.com profile and her messages, fourth. Normally I would ignore such a woman’s expressions of interest: her wink, her adding me to her “favorites,” the compliments she left as comments on my silly photographs - but in her fourth attempt, she appealed to a strength: writing. Here's the exact message: 

"Good morning. I know you haven't answered my email,but I was thinking even if your not interested you could help me rewrite my profile. Your's is so clever and funny I like the use of skerd and coo, if this is how you write your books then I'm sold, also love that you write random adds on Craig's list few people truly know how to entertain themselves looks like your a master."  

As I read it, my OCD locks onto the grammatical errors and utter lack of proper punctuation, but I push past and hone in on this gem, "-help me rewrite my profile. Your's is so clever and funny..." My ego grows a little. Then a little bit more.  I read it again and my head expands to bobble head proportions, leaning me forward and diving me into a yes. Yeah! I am a good writer. And her profile really blows so giving her a few pointers isn’t going to be too difficult.

Now, I don't want to seem like a snobby elitist, combing over every single mistake she made, because she actually seemed pretty nice. But this blahg post materialized from her crossing a line. 

I open my reply with an explanation of why I’m not interested in dating her: she’s too far away and I don’t have the time to invest in someone so far away, especially when I’m burned out on online dating as it is and I'm not sure if I have time for someone closer. I omit the fact she has a kid, because I imagine it to be very difficult finding a match when you have a kid and I didn't want to completely crush her spirits. A lot of single guys don't mind kids. Others even want a family so bad they're embarrassed to admit they subscribe to Parenting magazine. I love kids, but I don't want any now and I probably never will. The message was around a page and a half and I covered a range of tips as tactfully as possible:

1. She needs to speak highly of her daughter, adding something like, “My beautiful 2-year-old girl is the center of my world,” instead of, “I have a daughter.”

2. I told her guys like me are looking for someone with a higher level of education or someone who is at least working toward a college degree. I asked her if that’s something she wants to do and if so, to put that in her profile.

3. Of the 9 photographs she has posted, only four are of her and each of those four are just headshots. “We men are visual creatures, and if your body is half as hot as your face, you have quite a package. So sell it.”

She responds almost immediately with a paragraph of deep thanks, flirting with me throughout the entire message with phrases like “your a catch” and “whichever woman lands you should consider herself lucky,” and says I should email her if I ever get bored (sidenote: who the fuck gets bored now-a-days?). She signs off with this bomb:

“And keep this in mind, my body is twice is hot as my face.”

Really?!  I haven’t gotten laid in forever, and she drops that? 

“I think you should go for it,” says my good friend, HotMom72. 

I ignore the advice because again, SHE’S 4 HOURS AWAY AND HAS A KID AND CAN’T SPELL BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T GO TO COLLEGE! ARE YOU FUCKING UGLY AND DEAF?! Oh. Under the influence of alcohol and marijuana. Sorry, I get carried away. 

The “settle” advice is forgotten along with pretty much everything else in the world with the help of my on-again, off-again friend, weed. I intend on sending her a thank you email, sealed with a wish of luck for her in finding her match, but I forget about that as well. It’s a couple of days later and she’s messaged me three more times. It’s official, if I message this woman again, there’s a pretty good chance she’ll show up at my house and make a sleeping bag out of my skin.

So I ignore her. But she keeps messaging me. With every update I add to my profile, she’s right there with a comment about it. Every time I open my email and see a notification from her, I feel bad. At first it was flattering, but now it’s straight up creepy. I flash back to a college friend telling me that he had a stalker. I wouldn’t mind a stalker, I thought at the time. That’d be neat. I want to be wanted, to be obsessed over, to get laid, maybe even murdered. Whatever.

But this, her obsession with me, her repeated and unreciprocated communication, and her stakeout of every detail added or subtracted from my profile, was, not surprisingly, washing all of that away.

Case in point: Match.com has a newsfeed, enabling you to see in timeline fashion who has viewed your profile, winked at you, added you to her favorites, and/or messaged you. Check it: below is a screen shot of my news feed and circled is every time my stalker did one of those things. 

Craaaaay. 

It was her last message that put me over the edge. My profile begins with quotes from friends and what they’ve said to or about me. I had recently added one from the chain-smoking receptionist at my work. “How are you single?! Brad, if I was 30 years younger I’d be knocking down your door.” Pretty great quote, huh? So my stalker sees that and writes me with, “You tell Barb you only have room for one stalker.”

Yup. I’m dead. Who wants a “Bradlee Sleeping Bag”? 

Put your hands down, you sick fucks. 

I “report a concern,” tell the Match machines she’s stalking me and creeping me out and I block her profile. The thing about a blocked profile on Match is, they can visit your profile without you seeing that they have, but they cannot message you. I'm now in a glass house with mirrored windows facing the wrong way. This isn't cutting it. I don’t want her to be able to see my profile, to see any of my personal information, most of which, if she’s any good at stalking, could lead her to my work. I send Match a message asking them to prevent her from seeing my profile, but like many of the messages I sent in my quest to find love online, it goes unanswered.

I scrub the internet of any mention of me. I hide my LinkdIn account because hey, I have a good job and that would definitely provide her with enough information to find me. But maybe I’m giving her too much credit. Afterall, she spelled thorough “throe.” Still, I’d rather my last days be spent in the arms of the love of my life instead of down a well, applying lotion to my soon-to-be sleeping bag skin.

Or maybe it would be a handbag. Maybe that’s more practical for today’s crazy woman.

The saddest part of this all is that women endure online dating stalking far more than men do. Am I right, guys? Why do women always get all the fun obsessors?! But seriously, for every woman out there that has been creeped out by a message or stalked to this extent, I'm sorry. I know there are a lot of douche bags out there because I hear the stories from the women I've gone out with. But, and I hope this doesn't sound lectury because I only wish the best for everyone searching for true love, stay strong. For every 30 douche bags, there's a really great guy looking for someone like you. And douche bags, stop being such fucking yous! 

I went on a date the other night, a good date, no, a great one. I told her this story. She was surprised I stayed on Match, that I didn’t ask for a refund and close up shop. This hadn’t even crossed my mind, because with online dating, the reward outweighs the risks. And there are risks: a risk you’ll be hurt; that your ego will get bruised; that you’ll go on an awkward date; that your date will choose a 4-and-a-half Star, insanely expensive restaurant for your first date with the expectation you'll pay; and yes, that you’ll get murdered. But you take precautions. You correspond with him or her prior to meeting up; you message, text, and even call. You meet in a public place and tell your friends where you’re meeting. You take these steps and you put yourself out there, you stay in the game (or take a break and come back) even after a creepy message or 10, you shrug off the shit and continue taking your chances, because if you don’t, you could be shutting the door to the possibility of sitting across from a beautiful person, learning, laughing, flirting, and realizing the countless messages you’ve sent and the countless dates you’ve endured were completely worth it because you’ve finally met a great human being who you like and who likes you for you and who just might end the search. 

And if you're anything like me, that's precisely the moment you start blowing it. 


To be continued...

Bar Character #2: Czech Mate?

Hockey jerseys block the ceiling like a checker board. Old teams mixed with new: the Minnesota North Stars, the Anaheim Ducks, the Colorado Rockies (yes, the Rockies played hockey before baseball). The sweaters are carefully linked together with black metal binder clips to pinch, not puncture, the material - like a dirty defender trying to keep his opponent in check.

They'd swing, 

but all they hit was 'staaaaache.

The multiple flat screens throughout the bar are devoted to hockey games, pretty much any hockey game, with the Colorado Avalanche infecting multiple sets if they’re playing. This is SoBo 151, a Czech hockey bar in Denver that serves up healthy portions of delicious food and beer from the motherland. And I love it. It’s the place I go on occasion to watch my Minnesota Wild, and if the Wild are playing the Avs, it’s a sure bet that if I'm not at the game I'm watching it at Sobo151. It’s also the place, on a cold December night, that my life was threatened. Twice. 

“Do you ever go into an establishment of a particular ethnicity and see someone who looks like they’re of the more seedy section of that ethnicity,” I ask my friend, whom I shall call Ricky. “Like they’re in that country's mafia?”

“Yup.”

We’re looking right at him. He’s tall and stacked. His square face, prominent chin, and cheekbones scream eastern European. He’s wearing a loose leather jacket, which implies he has money and he might be concealing a carry.

“Let’s stay the fuck away from him.”

We’re not there to watch a hockey game, because right now the owners and players (but mostly the owners) are still locking the fans out of our beloved game. Luckily, however, this bar’s TVs have the ability to show other sports games and the Denver Nuggets are playing on 5 screens. We’re 2 Czech lagers deep when the party in my bladder threatens to poor into the room. I stroll into the loo and hesitate for a second. The giant Czech is squeezed into one of the two urinals.

Shit.

I check the stall, hoping to fake a shit while I wait for him to leave, but shit! It’s occupied. He looks back at me and I’m forced, by the code of awkward, to take the urinal next to him.

Not quite, butt close.

“Tell me,” he says in the thickest, drunkest Eastern European accent I’ve ever heard. I’m playing it cool but ready at any moment to pinch off the flow for an exposing escape from the bar. “Why Obama?”

“Sorry?” Fuck! Don't apologize. It's a sign of weakness. Stupid! So stupid! 

He tries asking me again, but I’m still not understanding what about Obama he’s trying to figure out. We finish, I wash up, and we head back into the bar’s main area.

Relieved to be in public, I make a formal introduction, forcing myself to shake his unwashed hand, which unintentionally leads to me imagining how big Czech penises are. Long? Short? Fat? Pencil? He is “Radek" and he actually seems like a nice guy. Circumcised? Small? Shit. What if he's a big guy with a small penis? He buys me a drink and stumbles a little, but what am I gonna do? Refuse his drink whilst telling him he's had enough? Come on, people. He could be the most dangerous of all creatures: a big drunk man with a small penis. 

“Why American for Obama?”

Shhiiiiiiiit. I got this. I take a sip of my beer and dust off my Obama organizer hat. Step one, ask a question:

“What don’t you like about him?”

“My money is my money.” He mentions he works in the transportation industry and that he works hard. “And Obama want my money.”

Step two, empathise:

“Yeah, that’s definitely a concern a lot of people have.”

Sip of beer, pivot to answer:

“The way I see it, Radek, is the U.S. economy is set up right now in a way that doesn’t benefit everyone who works really hard like you and me, it only benefits those at the very top, the richest of the rich. So Obama basically wants to even the playing field, tax the people at the top the same percentage that people making less money pay, and maybe a little more, in order to invest in a system that works for everybody and gives everybody a chance to succeed.”

I've started carrying this around, just in case. 

 

I’m not really sure he understands me. He wobbles a bit, mostly from the booze but possibly from the weight of my words (Please? Please let me think that?). He rests his hand on my shoulder. I take note of this, but I’m not concerned, maybe because he has me convinced he’s a nice guy or maybe it’s a worry that his giant nose can smell fear. He begins chatting with a woman who was wandering by and it seems I’m in the clear, netting a free beer along the way. I thank him for the drink and am about to step back to my safe zone when he grabs me with his bear claw, steadies himself, and brings me in closer. I keep my cool and take another sip.

“What’s up?”

“I tell everybody: anyone who messes with me, anyone, I take them out.”

Oh. Fuck. 

“Anyone.”

“Alright. Alright,” I say with a smile and a few nods, acknowledging his comment without conveying a drop of fear. “I got it. Well, it was nice to meet you Radek and thanks again for the beer.”

“No problem.” His attention is elsewhere so I make my escape.

 

“We should leave,” I tell Ricky. “I think that guy just threatened to kill me.”

“The big dude? You seemed to be getting along.”

I bring Ricky up to speed and he concurs. “You should probably finish that beer first.”

I pay my tab and my seal-broken bladder rings the silent alarm once more. I scoot past Radek to the bathroom, do my business, and make my way back. I catch his eye.

Oh shit.

“Hey, Radek.”

“Hey.” He’s clearly forgotten my name and I’d like to keep it that way. He engages me in some more friendly conversation and convinces me, yet again, that he’s a nice guy. Maybe I just misunderstood what he said. Maybe I’m drunker than I thought. But just as I think the conversation is going well, he grabs me again and says, “Anyone, ANYONE, messes with me, I fucking kill them.”

There’s an urgency in me now, but I keep my cool long enough for a clean escape.

“We gotta get the fuck outta here. Now.”

“Finish your beer.”

I chug, we coat, and we’re out the front door to see none other than Radek, chatting it up with some fellow cig smokers. He gives me a smile, I give him a “Thanks again,” and he gives me a look both Ricky and I infer as, “You don’t buy me beer? Well, I kill you now.” But to my surprise our momentum scoots us past with no confrontation. We walk to a place out of earshot and fill the night sky with anxiety giggles that break us free from terror.

“Holy shit,” Ricky says.

“RIGHT?!”

Click here to read my "Bar Character #1" blahg entry. It's less scary and probably funnier. Trust me.