Despite not having time to eat, sleep, breathe, or even drink, I did manage to squeeze in one date during my extended stint as a professional child wrangler. Please meet: Gingerman.
Gingerman was my most exciting eLove to date. Our relationship had all the signs of true love: we both like to travel, we both appreciate good food and libations, and we have very similar taste in music. He bypassed the "winking" at me in favor of actually writing me an email... so daring. He said things like "you could copy and paste your whole 'About Me' section into mine and it'd still be true." Is there anything more indicative of a virtual soulmate? I think not.
His name derived from the fact in one of his profile pictures, he appears to be sitting in a bar that looks like the Gingerman. So to my friends and phone, this was his actual name. G-man and I exchanged numbers and communicated over text message for an entire week. He asked me out to drinks on a Friday, and I was busy - so we rescheduled for Sunday. This being the first date with substantial potential I've been on in at least 5 years, I was very excited/anxious/batshit crazy. He called me on Saturday and I ignored the call because I was so nervous, and didn't call back until late at night when I knew I would miss him. We established our plans the next day (he answered the phone "Hey there, little lady" .... clearly we had not met in person), and he decided to take me to: The Gingerman !!! It WAS true love!
On our first date, we both ordered Blue Moons. He about had a conniption at how alike we already were (not only were we virtually compatible, but in RL, too!). We did the standard where are you from, how's your family, what's your job, education, whatever, discussion. We had a nice time, and spent the first hour comparing how much we had in common. BUT - me being me (aka a social masochist) I wanted to test if he could handle the "real" me (and by "real," I mean the most exaggerated form of myself). Some advice: NEVER DO THIS. Apparently first dates should be more about rainbows and lollipops and not religion and politics. While I am completely against this secret social rule, it turns out 2nd dates are highly unlikely when you unleash your political wrath on strangers. That being said, this hindsight 20/20 is coming from a veteran... newb me did not know, and I chose to go ahead and address my thoughts on abortion and religion's role in society. Like, totally lighthearted, rigght?
We ended up spending 2 hours together, but he had to go to dinner with friends so he paid the tab (yes!) and walked me to my car. I wasn't 100% sure how to get home (and we had joked about this), so I texted him with a "success!" memo and he told me he was proud. That night I sent him another message because, well - I assume all boys to be incredibly insecure and in constant need of affirmation - so I said "I had a nice time today" and he responded with a detailed "likewise" message.
Come Wednesday of that same week, I hadn't heard anything from him. We had joked about my lack of presence on the bar scene in our city, so when I met a friend for happy hour in the same area where he and I had gotten drinks, I took the opportunity to text him and say "I thought you would be impressed." No response. Again, being a rookie in the dating game, I began getting very frustrated. Why did we talk every day on the phone for a week, meet in person, have a great time, and then all communication stopped? If he wasn't interested, why couldn't he just man up and say so? So come Friday evening, after much man-hating and wine-consuming with a friend, I texted him to say that I really enjoyed hanging out together and would like to see him again given all of our common interests. Last chance. No response. Game over. With no idea of what went wrong between leaving the Gingermen and the sudden halt in communication between us, I can only assume that my intensity on the first date was to blame. I realized that he could easily come to the conclusion that all I ever talked about were serious and mildly depressing matters, which is not the case. Then again, we did have a lot of fun and he seemed to be enjoying himself the entire time, so maybe my personality wasn't to blame. The only thing left, then, was my looks... so we're just going to assume he's not one for deep conversation.
Essentially, I didn't not lose much by losing Gingerman. He was intelligent, likes traveling, food, wine, and we were similar politically, BUT: he prided himself on going to bars almost every night of the week, he wore V-neck shirts, he had a blond uni-brow, he incorrectly used "their" (I should've ended it then), and he had a Chinese character tattoo. He also apparently prefers to communicate in online profile mode. The following is a text exchange prior to meeting in person:
me: What do you do in your free time?
GM: I'm a bit of a wanderer so I try and find new restaurants, music venues, and cool hangouts as often as possible (always looking for new adventurous people to take along). I go to yoga, mountain bike, or ride around the lake a bit as well. I'm a big fan of coffee shops and go out almost every night on weekends. I can generally have fun anywhere including going to a show, two-stepping, booty dancing, clubs, jazz/blues bar, museums, art shows etc.
Geez, he probably takes pictures of himself in mirrors! By the way - on our date he used the term "I'm a wanderer" again - what the hell does that even mean?! The fact he actually said "booty dancing" further reiterates that I am better off without him, but I do have to admit that this first slap of rejection was hard. Fortunately with most failures there is also a lesson... so from this experience I can impart the following wisdom:
1) If you are insanely nervous about the first date, it is probably going to result in a "L"... no matter how much you pregame.
2) Save your inner cray-cray for a subsequent meeting.
3) Men that wear V-necks cannot be trusted.
- It's okay, you don't have any gumdrops down there anyway...
