Top 5 Don'ts of online dating

I'm no expert on online dating. That's for sure. But I have noticed that A LOT of guys do the same exact off-putting, annoying things. So here they are, a little advice for the men out there: My top five don'ts of online dating.

1. Don't acknowledge the awkwardness of the online thing. Don't start your "About me" section with some disclaimer about how you're "not really sure how this online thing works" or "a friend talked me into signing up" or "I've never done the online thing." Yes, it's weird and awkward. We don't need to TALK about how it's weird and awkward. This is how people meet these days. Yes, even good-looking people who aren't completely socially inept. You date people you meet on the interwebs. Just own it. (This, however, does not mean that when you meet my family I won't tell them that we met in a coffee shop.)

2. Don't post pics of yourself with little children. I see the logic here. Men think all women want and love children. Our uteruses will just ache when we see how adorable you are and how good you are with kids. And we will want to date you. But for those of us who don't want/love children, those pics are kind of weird and creepy. If you must post pics of yourself with kids, please specify your relationship to them. Chances are they are your nieces and nephews, but if you don't state that, I might assume they are yours/your kidnapping victims.

3. Don't use exclamation points! Especially multiple exclamation points!!! Exclamation points are overused and under-felt and it just seems like you are screaming!! Either that or you are insane! Seriously, when I see someone use too many exclamation points, I think to myself: That person is crazy.

4. Don't try to be all things to all people. For example: I am very passionate at times, but I can also be laid back. I love to relax at home but I love going out on the town too. I'm a dog person, but I also love their evil arch nemesis: the cat. Something for everyone! Fun for the whole family! You're multi-faceted. No one can pin you down. I get it. But this also makes you sound crazy. Pick just one personality and go with it.

5. Don't beat around the bush. If you aren't suggesting a real-life, face-to-face meeting after oh about the second or third email, I'm going to get bored and ignore you. The point of this thing is to facilitate meetings in real life so I can see if you are indeed as hot as your pics suggest and if I would have sex with you. I do not need to waste any more time than I already do dicking around online so cut to the fucking chase already. Also, I am even less interested in an awkward half-hour phone conversation with a stranger than I am in continuing to send lengthy getting-to-know-you emails. This is not middle school. I don't spend week nights on the phone chit-chatting with pretend boyfriends. The phone is for making plans to meet up. So don't ask for my number unless you are going to use it to that end!!!!!!!!

Boys are gross

Ok so I know that the kiss of death for blogs is infrequent postings... so, sorry loyal followers. Maybe Jacqui has stories of her exciting dating life in NYC she can regale us with? Also, it's hard to post consistent stories of your dating life that are funny, yet tinged with bitterness when you are getting laid... Also, it's summer. You know how it is.

First, an update: So I Facebook friended that guy I was in love with last year who fled my apartment. He accepted my request and now I can cyber stalk him whenever I want. However, reminding him of my existence did not cause him to fall madly in love with me and come crawling back. Weird. Not at all what I expected...

On to the real post: This is actually more of a rant and I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this phenomenon and offer theories on why it happens. It can be both a red flag and a deal breaker. I call it "Boys are disgusting and they have the squalorific living conditions to prove it."

So, I dated this guy once who was really gross.* The first clue was the first time I went over to his apartment and it was in a state of disarray. But I figured since he was in the process of moving, I would cut him some slack. The second clue was when I told a work friend who I was dating, and before she could censor herself, she involuntarily gasped and blurted out, "He's a slob!" The third clue was when I went to his house and the bathroom smelled like a port-a-potty. The fourth (and what should have been final) clue was the first night I stayed over at his house, his bed was dirty. Like sandy. Like there was beach sand in his bed. Like someone dumped a shoe full of beach sand in his bed. Truth. (I mean, if you know that a girl you are dating is likely to stay the night for the first time, and you are presumably going to be having sex in your bed, which you must be aware is full of sand since you sleep in it, and I think this would be a situation you could spot coming from at least a couple of hours away since you were probably the one who did the inviting her over, CHANGE YOUR FUCKING SHEETS in preparation for your night together.) Also, there was mold in his shower. Oh, and he had mice.**

So he moved into his boss's house because his boss was taking his whole family to Alaska for the winter and wanted someone to house sit. After a few months, this place was so trashed, it would have been unrecognizable to the boss. It's like a college frat house. The floors are sticky and there are flies and an unpleasant smell emanating from the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. There are glasses scattered about, half-full of an unidentifiable liquid. This is how you treat a place that's not even yours? And this wasn't a house full of boys living there. There was just one.

I figure if we are going to be hanging out at his house, (he did have a TV, after all) I'm going to need to give it a good once-over so I don't have to feel the need to shower immediately after I leave the place. So I go home and gather up all my cleaning supplies. Then I go to the drug store and buy one of those masks that people use for painting or working with toxic chemicals. Not kidding.

So I get to his house all ready to get down to business and clean the shit out of that place. I ask him where the vacuum is. He says he doesn't know. I'm sorry, what? He had been living there for three months at this point. And he had never seen the need to vacuum? And showing him where it was kept was apparently deemed unimportant in the instructions/grand tour from the homeowners.

Whatever. I move on to the bathroom. After scrubbing for 30 minutes, that bathroom is fucking spotless. I come out, and the boyfriend says, "Hey, did you notice the bathroom kinda smelled like urine?" I'm sorry, what? All this time I had assumed that he had some kind of nasal medical condition that prevented him from noticing that his bathroom smelled like urine, because why would a grown-up knowingly let his bathroom go on smelling like urine if they were aware of it, especially if their own inaccurate aim was probably the cause of said urine smell?

This was simply too much for me. It hurt my brain. I left. But I also left behind the cleaning supplies, as a gesture of goodwill.

So, with the guy I am dating now, I am having flashbacks to that first dirty boyfriend. He's 33 years old and doesn't own a vacuum. And half of his apartment is carpet so it's not like he can sweep. And he's lived there for a year and a half. He says he borrows one when he needs to vacuum, but I can pretty much guarantee that floor has not seen a vacuum in 18 months. Also, (boys take note! write this down!) when your toilet and sink start getting that bright pinkish, orangish mold around the edges, (you know what I'm talking about) it's time to bust out the fucking Soft Scrub.

*Let me just say that I have pretty low standards when it comes to housekeeping. There are often dog fur tumble weeds rolling around the hallways before I will pick up a vacuum. Former roommates can attest to my disregard for neatness. Sometimes my bedroom floor is not visible because of all the clothes in various stages of dirty on the floor. About a week after I moved in with the only boyfriend I have ever lived with, we had dinner with my parents. My dad turned to my boyfriend and said, "So, how do you like living with a slob?" The point is: My standards are so low that to not be able to meet them puts you on a whole 'nother level of disgusting.

**In his defense, everyone had mice. It was a really bad (or good?) year for mice in the ADKs.

Does it make me a bad person if...

During and after a break up, I think most adults try to move on with some (at least outward appearance of) maturity, grace and integrity. They try not to let things get too ugly, try to take the high road, be the bigger person, remain civil. Some even try to be friends. Not me.

When I feel like I've been wronged in a relationship and its aftermath, I get petty. And childish. I resort to name-calling. I actually say out loud everything mean and hurtful thing that I've been thinking. Every midnight confession, dirty little secret, insecurity, secret fear and weird quirk that the ex has allowed me to be privy to over the course of the relationship, I throw in their face. I twist the knife. I say I told you so. I go for the jugular. I burn bridges. I figure, what have I got to lose? I mean, besides my dignity, which by this point is probably long gone anyway...

There is a word, a most beautiful German word that has no English equivalent and that perfectly describes my feelings toward a few exes of mine. Schadenfreude.

So imagine my inner delight when my (very materialistic) ex recently posted on Facebook pictures of a tree that fell on his brand-spanking-new Subaru during a wind storm. Basically destroyed the roof. I smiled a little on the inside. Ok, I smiled a lot. The thought of missing out on the chance to revel in rare instances like this has basically kept me from unfriending him.

I do not think it makes me a bad person to secretly delight in the misfortune of someone who ripped my heart out and then stomped on it. Repeatedly. (This break-up was so bad, I moved across the country rather than deal with it and him in our tiny town.) However, kinda, (sorta) thinking (for a split second) that it was (maybe just) a little bit of a shame that he wasn't actually INSIDE the car when the tree fell? Jury is still out on that one...

Here's how I know God hates me

So I used to have this... let's call him a boyfriend for the sake of argument, who I dated at the end of college. We will call him college boyfriend. I was a senior, weeks away from graduating and he still had a few years left. We had already been friends for years. He was younger than me, shorter than me, smarter than me and I love, love, loved him. I could have been happy with him forever.

But alas, it wasn't meant to be. I moved home and so we lived 2,000 miles away. We still talked and emailed and visited each other here and there for about a year after I graduated, but we never really discussed any specifics, like whether we were actually together or not.* In the end, the distance got the best of us and whatever we had died. Fast forward five years and I have moved to the city where he lives. Unfortunately, he now has a girlfriend.**

So one day a few weeks ago, I notice on Facebook (Facebook: ever the crusher of dreams, the informer of exes loves lives.) that he and the gf are engaged. Engaged! The horror! I send off a few texts lamenting this fact to friends who knew us as a couple, looking for some consolation, or at least assurance and validation that despite not being engaged myself, I'm still a good person, (or at least cooler/better looking than the fiancee.) I was bummed, but it was nothing a little whiskey and a good cry couldn't fix. I go into work the next day feeling much better about the situation. I'm practically over it.

So I'm on my lunch break, reading a magazine on the outdoor 10th-floor balcony of my building when I hear a voice. HIS voice. And I don't mean Jesus. I turned and there he was. What was he doing in my building?! I started sweating. At first I didn't think it was a big deal because people tour my building all the time. I figured he was on one and would soon be leaving. But then I noticed he was sitting down to eat his lunch with a bunch of similarly aged and attired people. I think maybe I can wait him out. But I've got work to do and I'm beginning to get sunburned. I start to search for escape routes, but he's sitting right in front of the only door back inside. Convenient. There's no way I can slip past him without being spotted. There's no avoiding it. I'm going to have to say hi and make awkward small talk.

So I go over and try to act all surprised to see him and pretend like I haven't been fidgeting and panicking for the last 10 minutes. I'm literally shaking. The engagement is the elephant in the room and cannot be ignored. "Congratulations," I say, hoping he will want out of this awkward exchange as quickly as I do. No such luck. He starts gushing all about how he proposed on vacation and how he ordered the nice bottle of wine and then he compared the feeling to skydiving. I had had enough. If he didn't shut up soon, I was going to sky dive myself right off that 10th-floor balcony. I mumbled something about how we should catch up sometime and ran away.

Turns out he's an intern in my building all summer. It's a good thing I like eating lunch at my desk. All I'm saying is when the whole (main) reason it didn't work out for us was because of the distance, and now we spend eight hours a day separated by just two floors, that is not irony or a coincidence. That is the universe shitting on me.

*So the year after college graduation was a pretty bad one for me. I was underemployed, bored, depressed, lonely and living with my parents. I needed something and someone to do. So I kind of started dating this other guy, let's call him K, while the college bf and I were still-together-but-not-really-together. I didn't even like K. No one liked K. He was a douche. Like I said, I was bored. So when the college bf was coming to town, I stopped returning K's phone calls and started blowing him off. This, apparently, was suspect to him.

So one night while the college bf and I are canoodling on the couch at like midnight, the phone rings and it's K. He had apparently driven to my house, peeked in the windows, seen the canoodling, flipped his shit and was now screaming at me on the phone, calling me every name in the book and vowing revenge. (Now, keep in mind, we lived in a very rural area. Cars do not sketchily park on the sides of the roads and their occupants do not prowl around houses at midnight and play peeping tom without someone alerting the residents of the house, most of all the family dog. This was how I figured out our old dog was going deaf. That fucker. Thanks for nothing, fleabag. You've got like one job and you can't even do it right.) I ran to the door and locked it. The only thing that prevented K from busting down the door and getting his revenge was the fact that my 60-year-old parents were asleep upstairs. I had never been so happy to be living with my parents in my entire life.

This little incident more than likely contributed to the demise of both relationships. I was a jerk. Lesson learned: Get a new dog when yours starts going deaf.

**I met his gf a few times at parties and such. I wasn't impressed. At this one party last year, the college bf and his girlfriend were talking about how they had done this 10k race that morning. It's a very well-known and popular race and apparently you have to submit a previous 10k time for them to seed you correctly. You have to prove you have done a 10k in less than an hour and a half.

Well, as usual, I had had a few drinks and since I was pretty sure I, or any person in reasonable health could WALK a 10k in less than an hour and a half without breaking a sweat, (I have gone a 52-minute 10k in a triathlon for chrissakes and I'm no runner) I (loudly) proclaimed that it was insulting to have to prove it to the race directors and if they wanted proof, well here was my proof: I am not 300 pounds nor am I 80 years old. I sat back and waited for the laughs. Turns out the gf clocked in at 1:21 for a 10k.

Ok, I'm an asshole. And she probably wasn't impressed with me either. But, seriously, how do you marry someone who takes 1:21 to do a 10k? That's just embarrassing.

Jennifer Aniston vs. The Oprah

This week the long-running Oprah Winfrey show came to an end. She's on to bigger and better. Many news stories and celebrity "news" stories this week chronicled her success, her rise to fame and riches by overcoming the poverty and abuse of her early years. She's a philanthropist who has done charity work with girls and schools in Africa. Her book club endorsement can make or break an author. She created trends. She gave audience members cars. She has her own magazine and soon-to-be cable network channel. She spawned Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. She ushered in an era of copy cat talk shows and hosts that wanted to follow in her footsteps. She's a media mogul. Earlier this year, Forbes put her net worth at $2.7 billion. Yes, folks, that's a b. She's bigger than Jesus. I like to refer to her as "The Oprah."

And THIS is exactly just how wildly (unattainably) rich, famous, successful and influential women have to be before people, the media and the tabloids will shut the fuck up and stop obsessing about when is she gonna get on the marriage and kiddies train already. Sorry, Jennifer Aniston, you're just not there yet. There is absolutely no hope for the rest of us...

Wedding Season or A Small Pony

It's almost Memorial Day. Summer is upon us. And you know what that means? Wedding season. And I love a good wedding. The dressing up, the drinking, the dancing, the groping randoms on the gold course... love is in the air. I can only hope that this wedding season is as fun as last year's.

I was in a good friend from childhood's wedding last year and found myself the only single girl in the wedding party. Actually, that's not true. There was another single girl, a cousin of the bride, and when I tried to do a little female bonding and jokingly commiserate about our relationship statuses, she told me her boyfriend had recently died of cancer. She wins. I'm an asshole.

Regardless, single is not a good place to be at a wedding, especially when the male half of the wedding party are in relationships/unfuckable. First, I tried hitting on the photographers. I spotted a wedding ring on one. He was out. So I asked the other one what he was into. He said, "Jesus." I said, haha, no, really. He said, "Jesus." Ok, strike two.

So imagine how fortunate I felt when I saw one of our mutual friends, a super cute and sweet guy I knew that I used to work with, E. I hadn't known he was coming to the wedding. The last I knew he had a girlfriend, but I quietly asked around and they apparently broke up. He was flying solo that night and in need of a rebound. That was all I needed to hear.

Several drinks and some dancing later, we are making out behind a tree on the golf course adjacent to the pavilion where the reception was. At the time, I thought we were being really stealthy, but he told me later that there were hoots and applause from some of the guests as we ran out.

After making out against a tree for somewhere between five minutes and an hour, (vodka tends to make you lose all sense of time) I became paranoid that our absence would be noted. I insist we go back inside and act nonchalant.

So I'm busy acting nonchalant when the groom comes over to me (our absence was most definitely noted) and says something to the effect of "You should tap that. E is hung like a small pony." Now I'm just confused. Is that good or bad? Because I thought the expression was "hung like a horse." Can you elaborate? I ask. "E has a really big dick," the groom tells me, winking and nudging like we are in cahoots. The seed has been planted. I HAVE to see for myself.

So I find E, suggest another make-out session and creep not-so-stealthily away again. (It's hard to be sneaky when you're wearing heels and stumbling.) So we are making out and I move my hand a little further south... Wow. Holy crap. The groom wasn't kidding. This thing is huge. This guy won the anatomical lottery. He belongs in Ripley's Believe It or Not. Or at least pornos. Feeling isn't enough, especially through the clothes. This, I have got to SEE with my own EYES.

So I start unzipping his pants. I'm so focused on getting the confounding layers of clothing, zippers, buttons and belts to cooperate with my super dexterous drunk hands so I can get a glimpse of this thing, just to see if it's real, that I don't realize what HIS hands have been up to. The top half of my strapless dress is now down around my waist, yet the bottom is also hiked up to my waist, so the dress effectively covers NOTHING but my waist. It's basically a cummerbund at this point.

It's at this exact, very opportune moment that a fellow guest decides now would be an appropriate time to pull a golf cart around to pick up grandma from the reception and drive her to the parking lot. For a brief second we were illuminated, squinting and frozen in the headlights. Guess we should have picked a bigger (or further) tree. Almost busted. That was a close call. We convince ourselves that they probably didn't see anything, but I'm still freaked out. I decide these antics have gone a bit too far. (I like to keep it classy at weddings.) So we pull ourselves together and go back inside.

Unfortunately, I never did get to find out if that thing was the real deal. You see, there were no hotels to stay at, as the wedding was in the middle of nowhere. He couldn't come to my house because I was staying with my parents and I had a painfully early flight out the next morning. He lived 30 minutes away so I couldn't go to his house. My parents are old. I was being considerate. The embarrassment of me stumbling in at 6 a.m. still in my bridesmaid dress could very well have done us all in. So we parted ways. Sigh.

A few weeks later, my friend the bride asked if E and I had had sex on the golf course the night of the wedding because a cousin or friend or aunt or grandma or someone, I don't remember who, had told her they had seen two naked people. I said, no of course not. We just made out. Which was (mostly) the truth.

So, no, cousin/aunt/friend/grandma/whoever sabotaged the imminent verification that I had indeed just discovered God's gift to women with those perfectly ill-timed golf cart headlights, I WISH we had been having sex. The fact that we DIDN'T have sex may turn out to be the biggest regret of my life. You have quite the imagination, but no, nothing quite that cool happened on the golf course. And I have you to thank.

This is what it's supposed to look like

So for all you women out there trying to wade through and make sense of the confusing does-he-like-me-are-we-dating-or-just-friends quagmire, I have your answer.

Here's what it's supposed to look like: So I met this guy on Match.com and on the third email he quit beating around the bush and asked me out. (Note to internet daters: I do not need another excuse to dick around and waste time online. This website is to facilitate meeting people in REAL LIFE. I don't need cyber boyfriends. So either ask me the fuck out already or stop emailing me twice a day with your ridiculous small talk and emoticons. Thank you.) We went out for tacos and margaritas. Everything went swimmingly (as far as I was concerned), we had great conversation, had a lot in common and I didn't get too drunk, confess wildly inappropriate stories for a first date or do anything else to horribly embarrass myself.

As he WALKED ME TO MY CAR, (get ready, this part is key) BEFORE THE DATE WAS OFFICIALLY OVER, he ASKED IF I WANTED TO HANG OUT AGAIN. I said yes. Then we hugged and he said he would call me. He texted two days later and said he would be busy studying for finals for the next few days but that he had fun with me and wanted to hang out again.

I texted him after his finals to ask how they went and he IMMEDIATELY CALLED ME and asked what I was doing that night. We ended up meeting for drinks that very night. Then, he walked me to my car again and KISSED ME GOODNIGHT. (As an aside: what the kiss symbolized was way more important than the actual kiss. The actual kiss was clumsy because he was wearing a hat and I was wearing spectacles so we had to maneuver around facial obstacles. Also, it was raining, we were standing in the middle of the road and almost got hit by a car. But that's not the point. The kiss moves our relationship from two strangers, who met on the internets, hanging out in a bar, to hey, I might be romantically interested and might think about dating you.) Translation: I think you are cool/attractive enough to want to hang out with again and the thought of maybe possibly getting naked with you sometime in the near future does not make me recoil in horror.

You know what DOESN'T say that? Fleeing my apartment like it's on fire with barely a goodbye and a one-armed hug with a bike between you. Also, rationing sex doesn't say that (more on that later.)

Then, he TEXTED ME THE NEXT DAY and said he had fun again. He said he wanted to hang out again and that he would call me soon.

Now, I have no reason to believe this will end in anything less than a spectacular implosion like so many other dating scenarios that have become the fodder for this blog. And I'm not even sure yet if I really like him. But I don't even care. Even if I never hear from him again, I will be OVERJOYED that this has at least gotten as far as it has and that this guy seems to GET all of the little social cues and nuances of dating and what you are SUPPOSED to do if you might like someone. He's playing by the rules. He's predictable. He makes sense. He does not leave me scratching my head and cursing the confusing boy behavior. I know where I stand after only two dates.

And THAT is what it's supposed to look like. Write that down.