To busy to date?

I don't really know if I am to busy to date, but sometimes it feels that way. I'm supposed to meet up with a guy tonight for drinks and I really don't want to. All I really want to do is work on the menu for my pre-NYE party tomorrow night and clean my apartment. And if I'd rather clean my apartment then go on a date, you know that's a bad sign! So is it bad if I call (aka text) this guy and postpone to next week? I do have a legitimate excuse and I don't even know this guy, so who cares right?

Maybe if I didn't agree to go out with guys that I'm not interested in, I wouldn't find myself in these situations. Because let's be honest, if he was hot and he had sent me good emails there would be no question that I would be meeting up with him tonight! So why do I say yes in the first place? Oh, that's right, I have a blog to write and I need to keep my friends entertained :)

Regardless, I think I'm going to cancel tonight. I've just got to much to do. Plus, I'm hoping to meet a hottie on New Year's Eve so that I don't have to go on any more Match dates!

Why do only serial killers wink at me?

I continue to be confused (and amazed) at the people who reach out to me and the pictures that they have in their profile. It just doesn't make sense. When so much of a first impression is based on a picture, wouldn't you think that people would want to have the best pictures possible in their profile? Granted, I have a picture in my set of profile pictures with a fake ginger mustache...but that's just funny, not creepy!

Anyways, here a couple of profile pictures of guys that have winked at me lately. Why can't these guys at least crack a smile?!?


This guy is standing in the forest, with a stone-cold face. If this doesn't say "I know where a good place to hide a body is" I don't know what does. Not only does this guy "like the outdoors" he's also apparently a black belt in martial arts (although I question the black belt thing)...it all just seems a little sketchy to me!


This guy doesn't seem so much like a serial killer, but more likely to bore you to death talking about himself. Plus his opening line in his profile is "Hi! I'm Ron! Want to grab some Starbucks with me!" A little too much enthusiasm if you ask me. But then again, I'm the jaded cynical one trying to do online dating.

I've also recently tried to reach out to guys that seem somewhat interesting. The problem is they don't respond back!!! Its so frustrating! It seems like online dating is destined only to provide good stories for me, instead of someone to actually date...

Match Guy #3 = FAIL

I had another Match "date" on Friday night and this is how I would summarize it, "He has a soul patch and wears bad jewelry". I wasn't excited about this date from the beginning but the one thing I could give this guy is that he at least wrote intelligently in his emails to me (more on that later). But I knew from the start that he really wasn't my type but I figured I'd give him a shot anyways. Turns out I shouldn't have wasted my time!

However, it did remind me of my total distaste of men's jewelry. I don't even really understand why guys want to wear jewelry in the first place (unless you're a rock star) and especially when its bad jewelry. This guy was wearing a black onyx ring that was set in this crazy silver setting. The best way for me to describe it is that it looked like something a LARPer would wear. And if you don't know what a LARPer is, its someone who does live-action role playing. So basically someone who wants to reenact dungeons and dragons. Plus he was wearing it on his middle finger, so every time he brought his hand up all I could do was stare at this awful ring!! Someone needs to tell guys that the only jewelry that they need to be wearing is a watch and if you're married to them a wedding ring. Otherwise leave the accessorizing to the women!

I'm also talking to a couple of other guys, although again I'm not excited about any of them. One guy can't even spell. He sent me a message saying the he "would defanatly like to meet up". And yes, that's how he spelled definitely! I mean come on! You're 29 years old and you can't even spell definitely right! The other guy can at least spell but I have a feeling we don't have a lot in common, he's basically a professional bird watcher. Although, I think I would go out with him just to say I went on a date with a professional bird watcher :)

Not a chance in hell

Well, I had quite the blast from the past this morning. I woke up to a Facebook message from Derek in Chicago. As a refresher this is the guy that "purposefully left his credit card at home to make sure I wasn't a goldigger". WTF?!?

This is the message that I got from him:
"Julie-
Hi, random I know, but just wanted to say hi. I'm sure your doing well. If your in Chicago and have the desire to talk again you can call? Cell 773.372.9731 Nonetheless hope everything is good =)"

I'm not going to respond but if I did, it would go a little something like this. "Hey Derek - I never want to talk to you again. You're a loser with a drinking problem and I wasted 90 hard-earned dollars on you the last time I saw you and then you called me a goldigger at the end of the night. If I didn't make it perfectly clear before, I want NOTHING to do with you. So quit Facebook stalking me and leave me alone."

I don't know, maybe I will send this...:)

Seriously!?!

Well, it didn't take long for the unattractive, overweight, old and/or small Indian men to find me on Match again. I updated my profile and within 24 hours I had a couple of emails. Unfortunately, none are from guys I would actually consider dating!! Also, a couple of them are from guys that have reached out to me before but that I didn't respond to the first time they sent something. If I didn't respond the first time, I'm certainly not going to respond the second time around. Honestly!

Here's the thing that I don't understand. Why do guys who clearly don't have a chance with me email me and then when I "wink" at someone who is cute (or at least cute in my mind), I get no response? Am I destined to only date less than average looking guys? Here's a taste of some of the guys that have reached out to me...


I mean this guy looks so creepy!!


Not my type at all. He also emailed when I first got on Match. I never even responded to his original email and now he's emailed me again!


He's name is Muhsin...how do you even pronounce that??

I don't know, I guess I'll try to put myself out there a little bit more and reach out to guys more often. Have I mentioned that I really don't like online dating!?!?

Back to Square One

I know I've been MIA lately but there wasn't a whole lot to write about except that I was going on dates with Gage. Well, that's now officially over. I ended things with him on Friday night. He was a really nice guy and we did have fun together, but we were just too different. We didn't have much in common and had pretty different perspectives on things so I just didn't see it going anywhere. Plus, I just didn't know how to relate to him. He's a very deep and thoughtful guy but I just couldn't connect with him on that level. So on Friday, I called him and told him that I didn't think it was going to work out. He was a total gentleman about it (which made it even harder!) but I could tell that he was bummed about it. Plus, I have the worst timing ever because his birthday is this week...oh well, I figured it was better to break up with him before his birthday rather than after.

So the good news is I'm getting back on the dating bandwagon. The bad news is I'm getting back on the dating bandwagon :) Hopefully, I'll be able to go on some "awesome" match dates or at least have some good stories to post!

Stay tuned!

A good weekend

There was success on two fronts this weekend. 1) We kissed! (actually we made out for like an hour at the bar) and 2) Gage met some of my friends and everyone seemed to really like him. The funniest thing though that happened was Gage asked me how did I tell my friends that we met? I of course, just said "I told them that we met through Match" and he was mortified! Oh, if he only knew :)

Its looking more and more like this is actually going to go somewhere, which is a good and a bad thing. Its good because its nice to date someone again who isn't totally crazy. But its bad because the whole point of this blog was to write about all of the bad dates that I was supposed to go on! I think I may have to start pawning off some of my friend's stories because I know there are few of you out there that are trying the online dating circuit too. Or I may just have to revive some of my old dating stories....

Another date!

I had another successful date with Gage last night! I'd been wanting to check out this restaurant, Foreign & Domestic, that I had heard good things about so on Monday night I texted him to see if he wanted to do dinner on Wednesday (last night). He responded with a "hell, yeah" so I took that as a good sign that he's at least a little bit interested :)

The restaurant was cool but the menu was a little more eclectic than I was expecting so, I told Gage that I hoped he was feeling adventurous! We had a couple of appetizers: popovers (which were AMAZING, they are basically a big croissant like bread filled with cheese, yum!), an arugula salad and venison heart tartare. Yes, you read that right - venison heart tartare! I told you we were being adventurous :) The tartare actually wasn't bad because it didn't have much taste. Then for entrees I got a braised pork belly and he got a guinea hen leg and thigh. Overall, I would say that the food was good and I liked the atmosphere, but I'm not sure it will become a regular staple on my restaurant circuit.

We sat at our table until about 10pm but we could tell that the restaurant was closing down, and we wanted to keep talking so we decided to just sit in Gage's truck. I know it sounds very high school but it was basically our only option! Its interesting though because even though I've only been on four dates with Gage, we never run out of things to talk about. But we also discuss some pretty serious topics, which is a first for me. I told him last night that we had talked about more serious topics in four dates than I ever did with my ex-boyfriend of two years!! He just really intrigues me (which I told him that last night too) and he's definitely not like anyone I've ever dated before. And he said the same thing about me. So I think there is a possibility of this going somewhere :)

Two things of note. 1) He likes Riesling wine! Ugh! I'm definitely going to have to convert him to a red wine drinker :) 2) No kiss yet! He had the perfect opportunity last night, but nothing! I'm not saying I need a full-blown make out session, but a kiss good night certainly doesn't hurt anyone. I know I just need to be patient but it needs to happen at some point, right?!?

Dates 2 & 3

Yep, that's right. I had dates two and three with Gage this weekend :) Things are definitely leaning in a positive way, but I'm not quite ready to say how I think things will end up.

The dates. So we ended up going to a haunted house on Saturday night. I was a little nervous because I haven't been to a haunted house in like 12 years and on top of that he wanted to go in costume!! I had nothing to wear except the champagne outfit that I had from last year. And let me just tell you, that champagne costume is not haunted house appropriate! But I didn't know what else to do, so I wore it and tried to be as confident as I could in it :)

We were waiting in line to enter the haunted house and they have all these characters that are roaming the parking lot trying to scare people. I, of course, was an easy target for these people because I stuck out like a sore thumb in my short, tight, slutty champagne outfit (plus I was wearing heels, big mistake!). One guy dressed as a scary clown squirted me with water (not real happy about that) and another guy came up to me and burped in my face!! After that Gage was good about trying to block me from the characters. I think he felt bad that I was getting picked on so much! Once it was finally time to enter the haunted house, we were the first ones in our group to enter. It was actually good because we didn't have 14 year old girls screaming in our ears the whole time :) But I had a death grip on Gage's hand and there was no way I was letting go! It was actually a pretty smart move on his part to go to a haunted house because it was second nature to grab on to him or hold his hand as we walked through the haunted house. He was also really good about turning around and making sure that I was doing ok throughout the whole thing, which I thought was sweet. Overall, I had a good time at the haunted house but I told Gage that I was definitely going to need a cocktail afterwards!

After the haunted house, we decided to go downtown to people watch and grab a few drinks. Let me tell you, we saw some interesting costumes! At one bar we saw a woman who had to be at least 45 in a slutty nurse costume and when she leaned over to get a drink from the bar, we also realized that she was wearing thong underwear! It was kind of awkward for us both, but we also laughed about it. Honestly, I think Gage was kind of embarrassed, while I was like "Why does she think its appropriate to wear an outfit like that!" We then headed to a different bar that wasn't quite so crowded and played a couple of games of pool and talked. The whole date was a lot of fun, the only bad thing was that my feet were KILLING me by the time we left the last bar to head home! I literally could barely walk and Gage kept offering to carry me on his back. I politely declined because as I told him, I didn't need my ass to be hanging out all over Austin like some of the other people we had seen that night!

Then on Sunday, he randomly texted me to see if I wanted to grab a late lunch. I had already eaten but told him that I would come keep him company and hang out while he got something. In the end, we decided to go to Central Market (its kind of like Whole Foods) to grab some snack-type foods and a bottle of wine to have a little picnic. It wasn't actually a picnic because we just ate at the tables that are outside of Central Market, but you get the idea :) We had really good conversation and he's a really interesting guy, so he's easy to talk to. The good thing is that he's also interested in what I'm doing or hope to be doing someday down the road, which is nice. Again, a good date that I can't complain about! We haven't made plans for anything this week, but I'm thinking I'm going to see if he wants to meet on Wednesday to try a restaurant that I've been eyeing. I guess the good thing in this whole situation is that I'm actually interested in seeing him again. Its been a long time since I've had that feeling!!

Oh, and the best part of this whole weekend....he was a lot cuter than I remembered :)

A Couple of Updates

I know I've been a little MIA this week but the Match circuit has been slow and I was traveling for work most of the week. However, I do have a few updates to share with you.

First, as I mentioned, its been pretty slow this week in terms of guys showing interest in my profile. Sure, I've gotten some winks from small Indian men and an email or two from Latino musicians but unfortunately nothing of much interest. I even sent my first email to a guy without him contacting me first and I got no response!! Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to be more proactive in my search and actually start contacting some of these guys first. But when I don't get any response it makes me a little self-conscious (and worried) that that's not going to work!

Secondly, I was supposed to go out with coffeehouse Chris on Friday night, but after thinking about it during the week I decided to cancel. I thought he was a really nice guy but there just wasn't a connection there and we didn't have anything in common. So after some convincing from some great girlfriends, I decided to email him and cancel the date. This is what I said.

"Hi Chris,

Hope you've had a good week. Its been crazy busy for me. I am definitely ready to get home and sleep in my own bed!

So I've been thinking about our date tomorrow and I think I'm going to respectfully decline your offer. I think you are a really nice guy and I enjoyed talking with you at Spider House, but I just don't think that we have a lot in common. And I don't feel that its fair to go out on another date with you when I don't see things going past a second date. I'm trying to be honest with myself and other people that I meet through this process and so that's why I wanted to send you this email. I apologize for the late notice, but I hope you understand.

Good luck with your search,

Julie"

He emailed me back pretty quickly saying, that's cool and thanks for the email. He was a total gentleman about it! Like I said, he's a really nice guy but for some reason I just couldn't find the attraction...

Lastly, I have been talking sporadically with deep conversations Gage :) We've texted back and forth a couple of times over the last few days and on Friday we talked about maybe meeting up sometime this weekend to either go to a haunted house or to go downtown and people watch with all the crazy costumes that are sure to come out. The problem with Gage is that he's not quick on making plans. He tells me that we should hang out this weekend but then never says when. For example, his last text to me was the about the haunted house or going downtown. I texted back sure lets meet up that sounds fun and I haven't heard anything since! So does he mean Saturday or Sunday? Does he want to hang out during the day or just at night?? Its just kind of annoying that he doesn't give me more of a heads up on what the plans are. Especially since I will make other plans if I haven't heard from you!

So those are the updates for now. My plan this week is to get some courage (or maybe just drink liquid courage) and to start reaching out to guys on my own. Scary!! I'll let you know how it goes :)

Other News

In other news, my brother got engaged yesterday!! I'm so excited for him and I absolutely adore his girlfriend/fiancee! They are such a great couple and so happy together. I just can't believe that my little brother is getting married....especially before me ;) But in all honestly, I couldn't be happier for them.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I'm headed to Chicago today for my good friend, Blythe's birthday. I'm so excited to see her and hang out tonight but there will be somebody there that I'm not too excited to see...the ex-boyfriend. The good news is that I have a fabulous outfit to wear! Even though its been 3 years since we broke up, for some reason, I still feel like I have to prove something to him - like that I'm fun, cute and have a ton of boyfriend prospects :) I'm not worried about seeing him and I'm of course going to be friendly, it will just be interesting to see how things go. Wish me luck :)

Doozy of a Date

Wow, I don't really even know where to start with the date that I went on last night so get comfy because this is going to be a long post! Overall it was good, but definitely random. To start with, it took Gage a while to actually tell me what the plan was and what time I should meet him. It was a little annoying that he didn't give me the heads up earlier but in the end it turned out fine.

We met at a bar called Club Deville for a couple of drinks (and fyi, he looked nothing like his profile pictures!) I had never been there before and it was a laid back, cool place, plus I always like trying new places. So we're sitting there having that initial small talk, when the bartender comes up to us and asks if we want his tickets to the Gorillaz concert that night. Now you know how terrible I am with music but I had heard of the Gorillaz and knew some of their songs from several years ago. The guy was selling the pair for a total of $20 so we figured why not. So yes, last night I went to a Gorillaz concert where I knew none of the songs, was definitely one of the oldest people there and was a little worried that I might get some side effects from all of the second hand marijuana smoke! For the most part the music was fine and we danced along as best we could in the small space that we had - the concert was at the arena that UT plays basketball in. About half way through the set we decide to go down and get a drink. We grab a beer and start chatting downstairs before heading back up to the concert. And before I know it we're having a D&M (deep & meaningful) conversation at a Gorillaz concert! I don't even really know what we talked about, but it was a lot of what we each want to do with our lives in terms of jobs and goals, and then it got into religion and before I knew it we were talking politics! Seriously! But it was all good conversation. We were down there for probably 30 minutes and then we finally decide to head back into the concert, but it was the last song (which was so disappointing to me....just kidding!).

So now that the concert is over we decided to go grab one more drink. We headed to a different bar than Club Deville because there was another band playing there and we didn't want to pay cover. So we go to another bar, get a table and the serious talk continues. I don't know, this guy wanted to talk about some pretty serious stuff last night, but for some reason it didn't really bother me. I feel like he's someone that needs to know that there are good people out there and I want to be the one to show him that. I'm not saying that I think he's going to be the one guy I date from Match, but for some reason he intrigues me a little bit. I don't even know if he likes me but I would like to see him again just to see if there is anything there. We finally wrapped things up around midnight and we both headed home. He walked me to my car, we hugged and then each went our separate ways. He also called me later to make sure that I got home ok, which I thought was nice, and to say that he had a good time with me. He knows that I'm going to be out of town for the next couple of days so it will be interesting to see how things play out over the next few days!

I've also got an update on the other guy, Chris. He texted me today to tell me to have a safe trip and he also asked me out for Friday night next week. I agreed but then I remembered that it was Halloween weekend, so I'm kind of regretting that decision. But maybe it will just be for drinks and nothing to extensive. I have a feeling that I need to start planning my exit strategy with Chris because I just don't think there is much of a connection there...Anyone have any good exit strategies that they want to share with me :)

Date #1

The first date went okay. It was one of those dates that wasn't bad, it just wasn't really great and there wasn't any kind of spark. Chris is a very nice guy but I'm just not sure he's my type...

We went to a place that is a coffee house/bar. I was originally planning on getting coffee but then when our waiter came over and told me that margaritas were on special that today, I quickly changed my mind! And let's be honest, I didn't really want coffee to begin with :) Conversation was fine and there weren't really any awkward silences but we don't have much in common. For those of you that remember my game from the first round of online dating "Quote of the Night" I'm going to try and keep that up this time too. So the quote of the night from yesterday was "Instruments are like colors, each one has a specific color and you can paint a canvas with all of the different sounds they make". He openly admitted that it sounded weird and cheesy, so at least he was completely serious about the whole thing! He's obviously a bit of a music nerd and plays lots of instruments, but I think he's a bit of music snob too. And the problem with that is the fact that I can't see him having fun and breaking it down to someone like Britney anytime soon (and you know how much I love Britney!). Overall I would give the date a B and he did ask to see me again. I told him that I'm going to be out of town most of next week but he wants to get together when I get back, and I didn't know how to say no. So I guess I'll be seeing him again next week. I guess I"ll give it another shot since nothing too crazy happened on the first date.

With regards to Gage, I have no idea what's going to happen tonight with him. I texted him last night to see if he still wanted to get together because I hadn't heard from him about any plans. His text back was "sure, why not, pick your poison". Hmm, less than enthusiastic in my opinion. I tried to joke back with him and said don't act so excited, you know we could actually have fun! So now I kind of feel like this is a project where I want to prove to him that it can be fun and that meeting up with someone is not as scary or bad as he might think. We'll see what happens!

Dates!

Ok, so I've got two dates lined up and I'm trying to stay positive hence the title of this post "Dates!" with an exclamation point. As you can imagine my expectations are pretty low since my good date to bad date ratio is about 1 to 20. But I'm going to look at these dates the same way I did the first time around, its practice. Since its been awhile since I've been on a date in general, its good just to get out there again and go through the motions of that first date experience. You know, the small talk, the awkward silences, the looking at your watch to see how much longer you have to stay and then finally that awkward goodbye. Do you hug, do you shake hands (which is always weird to me) or do you just stand there and say "It was great to meet you. Talk to you soon" even though you don't want to talk to them ever again? Ugh!!! Ok, I don't want to over think this too much!

Here are the details on the dates. I'm meeting Chris (aka cast0409) for coffee today and then I'm going to meet Gage (aka jachbr) tomorrow for either a happy hour drink or coffee (obviously my preference would be a happy hour drink!). Gage actually called me last night which is always good and bad. Its good because I got to talk to him before we meet and we had pretty good conversation, he seems normal and he has a dry sense of humor. He also seems to loathe this online dating thing as much as me, so we at least have that in common! The bad is, what if we don't have anything to talk about tomorrow? Chris texted me about getting together and I was a little worried at first because I thought that he was going to make me make all the decisions. But in the end he did ok and we're going to meet at a place that looks pretty cool.

So those are the details. I'll let you know how my date today goes later tonight. Wish me luck!

Making the First Move

So there are two guys that I've been emailing back and forth with - cast0409 and jachbr. I have no idea what their profile name means but at least its not something like CourageousLoyal or IntelligenceNWit (and yes, those are actual profile names that have contacted me). Both are my age, seem to be normal and stable and are decent looking guys. Jachbr seems to have a pretty sarcastic sense of humor, which I like, and cast0409 is a music buff that plays something like 8 different instruments. Musical guys aren't usually my cup of tea, but I figure I'll give this guy a chance.

I've been emailing with both them, but after about two emails back and forth I'm bored and am ready to either meet or move on. I'm looking for dates, not a pen pal! So last night, I made the first move with both of them and asked if they would want to meet for coffee or a drink. Cast0409 got back to me first and said that he's definitely up for grabbing coffee, we just need to set up a time. And I haven't heard back from jachbr yet, but I think I will :) So I'll be going on my first match date sometime this week....to be continued!

Profile Stats

So these are the stats on my profile to "date"

Date started: Friday, October 15th
Service: Match.com
Profile: Tried to be equal parts funny and honest. However, I did have in my profile pics a picture from mustache Monday!
Emails received: 17 (trust me its all quantity and not a lot of quality)
Winks received: 16
Emails sent: 8
Winks sent: 2

I had an initial onslaught of a lot of emails and winks. To be honest it was a little overwhelming, but then I actually read some of the emails and I was like "Let the funny stories begin!" One of the first guys that emailed me was a total meat head. Half of his pictures were him taking pictures of himself with his cell phone in the mirror and the other half were pictures of his biceps (with a really bad arm tattoo). And literally, they were just pictures of his biceps. Not going to happen!

Another email came through from a gentleman who is hispanic and, in my assumption, is in a Tejano band. He had several pictures of himself dressed in Mexican/cowboy/Tejano band garb (I don't really know how to explain it, but if you saw it you would understand!) and playing a guitar. In his email he told me that "I looked special and interesting". Well, in the two pictures that I had up I was wearing a fake mustache in one and hold a huge inflatable boombox in the other. So maybe I do look "special and interesting" but its not a good way to start an email!

For some reason, I've also gotten a lot of emails from Indian and Asian men. And although I know that Blythe would like for me to try the Asian flavor :) they're all really short. I'd like to think that I'm openminded about these things, but lets be honest, I need to be able to wear heels!

However, there have been two guys that seem at least half way decent and I've been emailing back and forth with them. More to come on them later, but first I'm going to leave you with a couple of shots of "the bicep".

Coming Back for Round Two

This is going to be my second go round in the online dating world. I have to admit, the first time didn't go so well, but my friends some how have talked me into giving it another shot. So I figured that if I go on as many bad/funny/ridiculous dates this time as I did the first time, I might as well put them all in one place :) It also makes it easier for my friends to be in the know on all the up and downs that I'm inevitably going to encounter. I'm going to try and post regularly and if I have a couple of slow days maybe I'll just rehash some of those awful dates that I went on before (many of them are still fresh in my memory). So check back often, write comments and if you have any dating tips feel free to send them my way!