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!