The Dating Game- Slo Mo

Let me preface the following rant by offering a disclaimer: I'm a highly educated, professional, attractive, fun-loving woman. I don't search for drama, and I try real hard not to create it. I'm not desperate and have never been told that I give off that vibe. I've never been married, and I have no children (not that being single with children is a bad thing...I just don't have any.) By all accounts, most would consider me a good catch. So please keep that in mind as you continue to read. Thank you!

Now that we've got that out of the way, I figured I could take this time to discuss why my dating life has been some bullshit in the last couple of years.

In my four years as a college undergrad, I can't recall there being a single week that went by when I didn't have at least one date...more than one date most weeks. (Ah, the good old days.) I had boyfriends here and there, but mostly I was just hanging out with different guys that I found interesting and attractive. Nothing promiscuous...just getting to know people and slowly refining my idea of what it meant to have a good time and what kind of man I'd prefer when I was ready to be in a relationship. And I met some fantastic guys. Many of them are men that I'm still friends with to this day. I never felt any pressure to be in a relationship because I figured I had my whole life ahead of me and that, when the time was right, I'd know what qualities are important to me in a man. And surely such knowledge would be beneficial and would ultimately make finding the right man easier, right?

WRONG!!!

Things began to go downhill when I started graduate school. I remember an older man I used to work for telling me that I was about to "educate myself out of the marriage pool." I scoffed at this statement, thinking what man in his right mind wouldn't want to date a young hottie who was intelligent and fun?!?! I now know that this man apparently put a hex on me, because my dating life promptly went straight to shit pretty soon thereafter. There's been all kinds of fiascos -- way too many to enumerate. But I figured I'd summarize by lumping the various dating failures into categories based on what eventually went wrong and the questions I ended up asking myself.

1. "You don't know what the fuck you want, do you?"
This category includes the wishy-washy ones. The ones who gave me the full-court press for months and then when it's time to put up or shut up, they get ghost.

Case Example: Dated a fellow grad student for a couple of months. The whole time he kept saying that he wanted to be in a committed relationship with me because he didn't like the thought of me possibly dating other people. He was known to repeatedly say that his next girlfriend was going to be his wife because he wasn't going to commit to another woman unless he was sure she was Ms. Right. I was that next girlfriend, and yet the relationship lasted a solid week before he felt like it was "too much pressure". Oh, I guess I should mention that we literally didn't speak during that week of us being together. Pressure, huh? Punk ass!

2. "You have about as much personality as a corpse."
These men usually have a lot going for them professionally because they have nothing to offer interpersonally. They tend to hide behind work or other endeavors to cover up the fact that they're about as much fun as your average dental procedure.

Case Example: Not all that long ago, I was dating a guy who seemed like the perfect catch in theory. Had a fantastic job...was a bit of a workaholic but I admired his work ethic at first. He was tall and handsome. Had all the credentials of a husband and seemed to be very interested in a serious relationship. At the beginning, I remember always wondering why he was chronically single. I later came to learn that it's because he turned into a box turtle anytime other people were around. He would clam up like a socially awkward child. Whenever we were in a group, he'd go all deaf-mute on me, leaving me to look like the idiot for ever being interested in him in the first place. And he never wanted to do anything fun or interesting. Dates always consisted of dinner at expensive restaurants, which was initially quite pleasant. That is until I realized that he was using his bankroll to make up for the fact that he was aware that he wouldn't be able to sustain a relationship based on personality alone. And he had the nerve to complain about women only wanting him for his money. Well, what else is there to want you for? Harsh, I know.

3. "You're a little bit crazy. If you ever come near me again, I'm calling the cops."
A man falls into this category if he generally gives you the creeps or if he has traits in common with Charles Manson, The Unabomber, or old boy that shot up Virginia Tech.

Case Example: I was out with Jam Session about 2 weekends ago, and we met a couple of guys at a bar/club. One seemed very normal...fun even. The other one immediately struck me as the kind of guy that would slip a date rape drug into my cosmo. He kept staring at us, and not in the "Oh, Lawd...you're so beautiful" kinda way. More like the "I wonder if you'll fit in the trunk of my car" kinda way. As it turns out, we have a mutual friend, who later told me that this guy is a "sick bastard" and that I should maintain my distance. I'm no fool and had already deduced that he was crazy, but the experience was unsettling. Thankfully, there was no exchange of phone numbers so I hope that our paths never cross again. But if I ever come up missing, y'all can just go ahead and name him as the primary suspect in my abduction.

4. "You are too old to have these issues. Dude, get your shit together."
This man's life is in complete shambles, often unbeknownst to him. He usually looks like a good catch on the surface, but with just a little digging the truth can be revealed.

Case Example: Very recently, I met this guy who seemed nice enough to the untrained eye. He was 38 years old, claimed to be gainfully employed and said that he wanted to get to know me...so much so that for our first date he said we can go anywhere I wanted to go. Claimed to be a bit of a baller...made sure that I was aware of his Gucci belt, his bracelet from Saks, and his Cuban cigars. (Who the hell brings cigars on a first date? But whatever.) He also wanted me to believe that he was days away from copping a new top of the line Benz. Again, whatever! So I quickly became aware that this was all a very shiny facade and that underneath lay a broke ass, wannabe pimp who couldn't afford to take me to Sonic for a bacon cheeseburger!! Turns out that this raggedy bastard had no car, was living in another chick's apartment, had been sleeping on an air mattress for God knows how long, and was rude to me on top of that! And if that weren't bad enough, by the end of the evening, he had received word from the woman he was living with that he was not allowed back in the house and that she was going to call the police on him. I could feel him waiting for me to ask him if he needed to crash at my place, but that was certainly not about to happen. And after what was undoubtedly one of the worst dates I'd ever been on, he had the nerve to ask me if I could swing by the next day to help him move out. GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! I guess it's hard to carry an air mattress on public transportation.

Sadly, I could go on and on with examples of the pitfalls of dating, but I won't. The truth is that I'm not doing that bad. Yeah, I get pissed when it seems like all the good men are taken and that the only ones left are the psychopaths, losers, social outcasts, and noncommittal assholes. But overall, it's cool. Besides, such escapades make for good blog material!