Home, Sweet, Home - Part 2 - Kentucky

Bros before Ho’s. How many times have you heard someone say this? Guys like sticking together, that’s why when a girl is out dancing with her unattractive friend, you need a good Wing Man to go up and keep the other friend busy while you make your move on the girl you like. This is called “taking one for the team.” I’m sure girls do this as well, if they see a guy at a bar chatting with his Designated Ugly Fat Friend (DUFF) then the girl will have a Wing Woman who distracts the busted guy while her friend makes her move on the pretty guy.

On Thursday, I left my friend Georgia and the state itself and headed north to Louisville, Kentucky where I grew up. No, I don’t have a southern accent, so don’t ask. I got in and hungout with some friends and old neighbors of mine that night. One of my oldest friends I’ve known pretty much my entire life, we’ll call him Kenada because he used to love the anime movie “Akira” and that’s a character from that movie, anyway Kenada came out and invited me to his house the next night for a dinner with his new fiance. Friday night I went over to his place and found his very nice fiance was making a home-cooked southern meal from scratch! Because of that, it was going to take a little time to get everything prepared. We head out onto his patio and immediately start drinking some of the rum punch they had made. Delicious, but strong... in a good way. I met some of his friends, everyone is relaxed, laid back, and easy to talk to. Then I meet her: Kentucky. (That’s what I’m calling her anyway) Insanely cute, petite, short dark hair that reminded me of Trinity from the “Matrix” films. She and I start chatting and before I know it, it’s already getting dark outside. Our conversations are only interrupted when she goes into the kitchen to continue helping to make dinner. Each time she’s quick to return to me on the patio and we continue getting to know each other. The conversation never hits the wall, it’s a constant stream of interesting discussion.

We all have dinner outside on a large picnic table under the stars. Afterward, we decide to walk to a bar not far from where they live to continue our night of boozing. Moving out front, the large group of about ten of us begin heading toward the bar. Now, I have no idea where we’re going so I stick to the back of the group to let the others lead. Kentucky drops back to walk beside me. Our conversation continues. She mentions that she’s being eaten alive by the massive amount of mosquitoes that are out, I try to be smooth and say “They like you because you’re so sweet.” My god, could that be any lamer? She giggles as if she feels sorry for me because I used that line, I’m sure she’s heard it before. But still, she giggled. I had been calm, cool, and collected all night, suddenly my mind begins to go into overdrive, as usual I start to over analyze things. I look at our conversations and how they’ve been going. I look at how she dropped back away from everyone else to talk to me. I look at how we’ve made each other laugh. I think this girl is in to me. I’m definitely in to her. Now what? Do I actually make some kind of move? I’m leaving in two days to go back to the other side of the country....but this girl is SOOOO incredibly cute that I just want to grab her and makeout like our plane is going down. I decide to stop over thinking it and just go with the flow. This girl is fun, let’s just see what happens.

Our crew arrives at the bar which is quite substantial, at least more than I had thought it would be. We walk through the first main room where tables are set up for dinner, but are now empty. The second room is filled by a large circular bar with booths against the opposite wall. Behind it all, an all girl band called Warpaint is playing some mad good tunes. As an added bonus, the girls in the band are all smokin’ hot. After grabbing a drink at the bar, we move outside to the enormous patio area which is filled with tables. Our group finds one and takes it over.

Earlier in the day, I had called an old friend of mine, we’ll call him Commercial, he works in local commercials and looks like a guy who would be in one, in a good way. I told him that we would be going to that bar later and that he should come by and meet up with us so we could catch up. I’m sitting out on the patio next to Kentucky when Commercial walks out. We exchange hugs, he grabs a drink, then joins us. Commercial and I hadn’t seen each other in three years so we had a lot to catch up on. We dive into our conversation and before I know it, we’ve been talking for nearly an hour (like I said, a lot to catch up on). Commercial is a great guy and our conversations are interesting, we both work in the same industry, just different aspects of it so we have a lot to talk about. But suddenly I remember Kentucky....
She’s sitting now with her back to me talking to another friend from the group. I’m loosing her. I’ve been so engrossed in catching up with Commercial that I hadn’t said a word to Kentucky in over an hour. Things had been going so great, now she was slipping away. I felt bad because I wanted to catch up more with Commercial, but I also really wanted to talk with Kentucky more. It was quite a dilemma. I mean, what do you do? If you’re only in town for two days and haven’t seen a really good friend of yours in three years, do you ditch him to talk to a girl you just met that night? Or do you risk loosing a connection with a girl who is so easy to talk to and you feel the beginnings of a spark with to catch up with someone you could easily see the next day for lunch or something?

The night begins to wind down and everyone decides to head back to Kenada’s house. I ask Kentucky if she’s going to have another drink once we get back to the house and she says yes. So most of the group heads out as I finish up my conversation with Commercial. After, we head back to Kenada’s house only five minutes behind the rest of the crew. By the time we arrive at the house, to my disappointment, everyone is gone. No one stayed for another drink. Not even Kentucky. I had missed my shot.

The next day, I grabbed lunch with a friend and called my buddy Kenada in hopes of another gathering before I left town. It was my only chance at the possibility of seeing Kentucky again before I left. Alas, there would be no second gathering. No second chance for me.

In the end, I had a great night out with my old friends and enjoyed meeting and chatting with new friends as well. Commercial is a great dude and it was fun exchanging stories and catching up... but still... I feel like I should have spent more time with Kentucky. Yes, I was leaving town and I don’t know when I’d be back again, but we could have had a very memorable night. I can’t help but feel regret for not trying to make a fire out of the spark that was between us.

I need a new game plan. Bros before Ho’s doesn’t seem to be working in my favor. I think it’s time to stop being nice, and start getting some action.

First thing I did when I got back to Atlanta was go shoe shopping.

Home, Sweet, Home - Part One - Georgia

I miss the smell of a woman. That perfect combination of shampoo and body wash. I miss the feel of a woman’s skin. Soft, like silk around the shoulders, pressing your lips against them for a gentle kiss. I miss the passion of love-making. The uncontrollable animal urge that takes over you. Intense, amorous bodies so hot it raises the temperature of the room. The blazing desire coursing through you till the end. I miss laying in bed, post coitus, bedroom window open, the magnesium moonlight shimmering off a woman’s body. My finger tips tenderly running across her tummy area around the bellybutton.

Damn. I need to have sex. Not relationship sex, just passionate, hot, one-night-stand kind of sex. Actually, just anything with a pulse seems pretty good right about now. It’s rough since I’ve been with the same woman for 10 years and never really had to go out and work for sex. I mean, I had to work but it was just like... go take out the trash for a quick rub & tug or something simple like that. Welcome to married life. Ain’t it sexy? I’m not trying to be a male misogynistic pig but we all (men & women) have needs that have to be tended to, am I right?

Recently I went home to visit my parents and some old friends back on the East Coast. I’d love to sit here and tell you about these amazing two women that I met and fell in love with each of them in their respective state, one being in Georgia and the other in Kentucky, but I’m sorry to say, that kind of stuff just doesn’t happen. Well, if it does happen, it just doesn’t happen to ME.

I arrive in Georgia and immediately call the one friend I know in the state. Because I grew up in Kentucky, all my friends are there, luckily I had one friend from college who just so happen to move to Hotlanta after graduation. We’ll called her Georgia. Six months into my marriage, my wife and I separated (I told you it was rocky from the start), during that time I moved in with my friend Georgia. She was a great roommie, funny, extremely fun to drink with, and best of all she was hot. Still is. She’s Brazilian. Enough said. My friends would constantly ask if I had hooked up with her yet. I tried to explain that Georgia was like a sister to me. They said “Well you’re from Kentucky, they bang their sisters there! So get to it!” She and I were too good of friends, we both knew we didn’t want to ruin that. Not to say we didn’t have a few drunken makeout sessions, but that was as far as we let it go.

Georgia takes me out with a couple of her friends to a local bar near her house. Not a bad place, but it’s not exactly hopping with beautiful, southern Bells like I had hoped. No worries, I could just flirt with Georgia all night and be satisfied. However she has a boyfriend now and while he wasn’t there, it still didn’t feel right flirting with her. She apologizes for the lame bar and says we can go somewhere else. I try and play it off telling her that I’m just there to catch up with her so it didn’t matter what the scene was like. I forgot this girl knows me better than I know myself, she sees through my bullshit.

So we head out, searching for a new bar. We end up at what appears to be an abandoned building. Walking through the one door in the center of the wall, we move down a set of wooden steps that shake as if they’re going to collapse at any second. Once reaching the end of the staircase, the room really opens up. The club looked like a massive unfinished basement in someone’s parents house. And I mean this in a good way! It was sick! (yes I’m using the word “sick” as in “cool”) They had different graffiti art all over the walls that would rival any museum across the globe. The bar was lit up from underneath and the dance floor was crowded with an insane amount of hot bodies grinding and sliding all over each other. We moved to the bar and grabbed drinks. From there, we watched the dancers slowly make a circle around a few professional break-dancers. Just when I thought this place couldn’t get any better, I see a girl on the dance floor who looks exactly like Starbuck from the tv series “Battle Star Galactica” (the new one, not the old one where Starbuck was a dude). Being a huge fan of the show, I of course had an insane crush on Starbuck.

One of Georgia’s friends is a guy I’m going to call Mr. Smooth. This guy was a retired professional at The Game. He was once a great player who will become legend, but has since retired due to getting engaged. I turn to Mr. Smooth for advice. He says to go dance. I haven’t had nearly enough drinks for that. Mr. Smooth tries to explain to me that girls want attention wether good or embarrassing, even if I can’t dance I should just overdue it so she’ll think I’m being funny. I’m not buying it, why would a girl want to dance with an idiot? He grabs the fedora off my head and says to “watch and learn, young padawan.” He pushes the breakdancers aside and pulls off some kind of ridiculous move where he drops back onto one hand while throwing several bar napkins into the air, as they rain down like confetti, he spins on his back but it doesn’t really work. He keeps trying ridiculous moves for another few minutes, then gets to his feet with the roaring cheer of the crowd. He was right. It had worked. Immediately, girls from all over are walking up to dance with him, but he’s retired so he tells them he needs a drink after all that “work” on the dance floor. He comes back and tells me to give it a “shot,” but I explain I need more actual alcoholic “shots” first. Mr. Smooth says next time I go to a bar to be sure and not forget my balls at home.
Starbuck moves over to the bar, ordering a drink. Mr. Smooth comes up with Plan B. He’s going to go talk to Starbuck and bring her over to me. Earlier, we had seen Starbuck smoking by the bar (yes, in Atlanta you can still smoke inside some bars), so Mr. Smooth goes up and asks for a light. He doesn’t wait for her to light his smoke, instead he takes the lighter from her hand and does it himself, then he hangs on to the lighter. They exchange a few words that I can’t hear before she eventually, and obviously, asks for her lighter back. He returns it, they exchange a few words, and she walks away. Mr. Smooth returns explaining her boyfriend is one of the muscle-bound meat heads in the group of Jersey Shore wanna-bes that reside in the corner of the room. I ask him about the lighter and he explains that he never lets a girl light his cigarette, if a girl lights his smoke then she can immediately walk away after. Mr. Smooth always takes the lighter and lights his cigarettes himself, then he can hang on to the lighter for a few extra seconds to get a conversation started. If the girl happens to say she doesn’t have a light you simply say “That’s okay, I don’t smoke, I just wanted an excuse to talk to you.” This guy is like butter: F@ckin’ Smooth. He also tells me I need to get new shoes. I had heard this before from The Count, apparently women look at a guy’s shoes? This seems so odd to me, I don’t think I’ve EVER noticed wether a woman was hearing heels or converse before. Who the hell looks at feet? I tend to look, well you know, at their FACE! Weird, right?

I leave the bar with Georgia, her friends, and some new found advice from a retired professional, Mr. Smooth. All in all, it didn’t turn out like I had hoped, but it was still a fun night.

Now I just need to find some new shoes...

...to be continued in “Part 2 - Kentucky”

General Washington & The Dream Girl

Recently I've been getting a lot of emails from friends about my blog. These emails embody the reason I started this project from the beginning: I wanted to speak with people who were going through similar experiences as myself. I honestly love and appreciate all the words that have been sent to me from various people. People send me stories, comments, advice, ect. I enjoy that people can relate to what I'm going through and can share their stories with me. One particular friend had such a great, sad, but interesting story that I asked if it would be okay to post it on the site for others to read. Luckily, he's a really good guy and agreed to let me publish his words here (with the names changed of course). I welcome anyone and everyone to please send me your dating stories, men and women alike. I want to hear from both sides. If you know me, just email me at my regular account, otherwise email me at: divorced.by.30@gmail.com

My friend, we'll call him General Washington, was also Divorced by 30 and sent me this particular story that I am glad I can share with all of you:




Hey Charlie Brown,

I just wanted to let you know...your experience with "Harmony" is honestly the way 90% of my entire dating life has gone.

Her: I think you are great, I really like hanging out with you, I want to talk to you all the time, you rock my world in the sack...etc.

Me: Awesome. I feel the same way!

Her: I'm not interested anymore.



Long story from last Summer:

A female friend of mine from home, we’ll call her Dream Girl, posts on facebook that she is heading to LA for a week for her work. She is one of my favorite people ever. We've been friends for over 10 years and she is the woman who I based my entire concept of what perfect physical female form is. She is 5'6" 110 lb. 29 with the body of a 19 year old. The kind of girl other girls hate because she could eat cheese cake, bacon and loafs of bread all day and never gain weight. And in her face she looks like an elf, very delicate features, big eyes. Just simply the most wonderfully proportioned human being I have ever known. She also is smart, funny and artsy. Masters Degree. Works for a major museum. Only problem is that as long as I have known her, either she had a boyfriend when I was single or I had a girlfriend when she was single. So I email her, we make plans to hang out while she is here. I hear from her the Friday at the end of her trip. She is leaving Sunday, lets hang out on Saturday. Cool.

I pick her up for lunch. Big hug, pick her up and spin her around the hug is so big. Look in each others eyes...it’s there still after all these years. We’re both thrilled to see each other. We go to lunch. Laugh a lot. Catch up. She is single, I am single.

Me, “What are you doing the rest of the day?”.
Her, “Whatever you are.”

I drive her around sight seeing. We go back to my place, she flips out when she sees that I have the entire Magnum P.I. collection. She asks if we can watch some. We do. Legs press against each other on the couch. I am sure you remember from back in the day what this means: she wants to make out with me. We make out. AWESOME. We talk about how we should have done this years ago. But I have two rules:

1- You don't try to date a girl you work with.
2- You don't steal a girl from another guy.

Number 1 because it is too much pressure to be on all the time. If they are not in your department, and you don’t have to see each other all day, I could make an exception for the right girl. Number 2 because it sets a bad precedent. She leaves some dude for you...she'll probably leave you for some other dude in the future.

I explain my rules to her, saying that I couldn’t start something with her by stealing her from someone else. She thinks I am more awesome than ever. We go get dinner. Then back to my place and we get naked. She spends the night and offers to cash in her vacation days and extend her trip for a week and stay with me. Sweet!!!

We have the best time even though I am working during the day. Luckily my job at the time had no direct supervision by my bosses. In fact, they were a couple miles away from the facility where I was stationed. So I take her with me. We hang out, watch movies, talk. She does a bit of work for her job and I do my little bit of work. I drop her off at the beach or the mall if I have to go over to the main office and I fck her brains out on the couch in my office a bunch of time. I love this girl, not only is she gorgeous, smart, fun...but also a total slut in the bedroom!!! Awesome!!! I AM THE LUCKIEST MAN ALIVE!!!

I was seriously ready to quit my job and move back to home so I could spend the rest of my life with this girl. She was talking about trying to find a job in LA because in her words, "If we'd hooked up 10 years ago, we'd have kids by now." So it seems like she is as head over heels in love with me as I am with her! AWESOME!!!

I had written off true love back when I got divorced when I was 29 and moved to LA to live the dream. I don't talk about it much, because unlike your situation with the slow death of your long relationship, the end of my short marriage was about the most traumatic experience you could imagine. A whole bunch of shit, packed into a very short amount of time. I'll talk to you about it one day...not yet though because it is a MAJOR downer.

Part of why I am writing this is to make sure you know that you are in no way an outcast to be Divorced by 30. It’s Hollywood, everyone gets married like five times out here. It just proves you aren’t afraid to take a leap and proves you can invest emotionally in someone else. Most girls won’t care that you were married, especially ones of our generation and age group. Some will, but that is their deficiency, not yours.

Okay back to the story...So things are awesome. She tells me she loves LA and is going to start seeing if she can find a job at one of the great museums out here. She tells me that I am not allowed to give up my dream and move back home for her. She read my mind, because I was really wanting to do just that. This makes me more in love with her.

So Thursday she decides she just wants to chill at my place while I am at work. She is leaving Friday so she can have the weekend to recover from the trip before going back to work. I get home Thursday night and she has made a wonderful dinner for me. This girl is the greatest! We're cleaning up, doing dishes. And I said something to her. I don't remember what, but it was no more than I had said to her at other times that week. She then says, “I don't want you to set yourself up to be disappointed.” Mood change. And I know in that moment...that it is over.

I take her to the airport the next morning. Kiss her goodbye. She says we should try and make the long distance thing work. It is the future, with phones and the internet and such we can do this. But I can see that she doesn't believe what she is saying. I agree with her, but know in my heart that it is over.

We talk on the phone and over email but it is over, it is so obvious. The tension in her voice. The wall you speak of in your posts, huge and covered in sharp spikes, there was no way to climb it. I tried everything I could think of to make this work, sent her creative letters in the mail even, because while I knew it was over, I didn’t want it to be. A couple weeks later we acknowledge it, the elephant in the room. The time difference, our work schedules, etc. It’s not gonna work. It’s over. We both know it, but agree that if we are ever living in the same city...we'll give it a shot again. Then she buys a house the next week. How could someone go from crazy in love, ready to find a job across the country to be with me and then three weeks later makes an offer on a house?!? Women are crazy, man.

But we keep on looking, because there are some women that are less crazy than others and actually want the same kinda things we do. I’ve found a couple in the past and I know there are more out there. Just keep looking and then when you find one, remember how rare they are and don’t be afraid to take the plunge.

Lets take that hill dude,

General Washington

Harmony - Part 2

Recently on EHarmony.com, I was asked by another “match” that if I could have one superpower what would it be. The answer I sent to her was something about being able to stop time because there are so many great moments that pass us by so quickly, it would be nice to freeze time and actually enjoy the moment a little longer. If you were to ask me that same question today, I’d give a completely different answer. There’s a chick-flick out there called “What Women Want” and for those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s basically about how Mel Gibson accidentally electrocutes himself and suddenly has the power to hear what women are thinking. That’s superpower that I want. Forget telepathy, forget walking thru walls, forget wolverine’s claws. I just want to know what the hell women are thinking!

As you may recall we last left off where Harmony had asked me out on a second date. SHE asked ME. We were going to her friends house that Saturday for a wine & cheese tasting. When she told me about this event, I was informed by Jane Goodall that this meant Harmony wanted to test me with her friends. This was a good thing, it meant she liked me and was looking to make the next step. I was fairly excited but nervous to meet Harmony’s friends but most of all I was just happy that I was going to see her again. Also, her asking me out confirmed that she enjoyed spending time with me just as much as I did with her.

So the date was set. Now this was on Sunday. The next day, around 6pm, I receive a text from Harmony just asking how my day was. I write her back and we continued text-chatting for a few hours. We just went back and forth over various subjects, everything seemed great. On Tuesday, around 6pm once again, she texted me asking how my day was. At the time I was next to my computer so I jumped onto Gmail chat and we continued talking for a few hours. Now remember, she asked ME out on Sunday. SHE Facebook friend requested ME. SHE contacted ME and was anxious to talk on both Monday and Tuesday...

...then came Wednesday. I don’t hear from her all day, which is no problem at all, I figure she wants me to now take the initiative and text her. So I wait a little while longer than she had and text her about 8pm. She gets back to me about 9:30pm saying she was out with friends for dinner and drinks. We talked for a half an hour and then she was off to bed. From what she told me, she had a fun night, everything was cool.....

...Thursday. Again, no word from Harmony all day. Again, it’s cool with me, she was the one who started us talking everyday, remember Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday SHE texted ME, I was only following her lead. This time I wait until 9pm to text her. Her response is simply “I’m online if you want to chat.” Okay, no problem, I go online and we talk for about an hour. Her responses have become short. Almost stern. I can tell through the computer that she doesn’t really want to talk. So no worries, I tell her I’m going to go write for a little and say goodnight, but before I sign out, she sends me a message saying she’s feeling a little sick but says she should be feeling better by Saturday....

I know the moment she says this that she’s planting a seed. She’s preparing me for her canceling our second date. I can feel it inside. But hey, maybe I’m overreacting, maybe everything will be fine.

Friday. Nothing. Not a word from her all day. I decide not to text her, the ball is in her court, she can make the next move. 9pm comes... nothing.... 10pm comes... nothing. Oh well, she did say she was sick so maybe she went to bed early. I play it off like everything’s going to be fine, I go to bed excited and antsy to see her the next day...

Saturday. 10:46am. Text. From Harmony. Guess what? She’s sick. Lost her voice. Not going to make it tonight. We have to “reschedule” in her words. It's okay, I kind of saw this coming. She planted the seed on Thursday so that when she said she was too sick on Saturday, she had “proof” because she’d told me she was starting to feel sick two days earlier. She had been prepping her alibi. I’m disappointed but what can I do? I can’t really be mad at her, she might actually be sick. I offer to bring her some soup and a movie if she’d like, but Harmony tells me she just wants me to go out and have fun with my friends. So I do. I went out with my friends and had a good time just relaxing. Throughout the night, I keep getting asked “when’s your date coming over?” Each time I have to explain that she’s sick... some believe it... some don’t... I’m beginning to doubt it myself. But I stay positive and send her a text around 9pm just asking how she’s feeling. She says she’s taken some medicine and asks how my night is going. We chit-chat over a few texts before she informs me that the meds are making her drowsy and she’s heading off to bed. I go back to hanging with my friends, hoping that I’ll be able to see Harmony the next day if she’s feeling better.

Sunday. I wake to find this email in my inbox:

Hey Charlie Brown,
I hope you have had a nice weekend. I have spent most of it on the couch, which has actually felt really good. I know we've been messaging a lot , and I really enjoy chatting with you. I also had a good time hanging out with you. My only concern is that I don't know if I'm in a good place to be dating anyone mostly because I am going to be so unavailable. We are too far away from each other to hang out during the week, and I am gone the next 3 weekends. If you want to, I would like to stay in touch, and maybe later this summer we can see if it gets easier to hang out. Let me know what you think.
-Harmony

Now, I knew she was going out of town the next three weekends, we had discussed it before and I was really excited for her. But when she says she thinks we’re too far apart to get together during the week is bullshit. I was just flabbergasted by this entire email. I mean, what the f@ck!?? Seriously. WHAT. THE. F@CK!? SHE had asked ME out on the second date. SHE sent me an insane amount of texts over the three days after our first date. SHE Facebook friend requested ME. SHE was constantly wanting to talk to ME! What the hell changed? What happened between Tuesday and Wednesday that her attitude flipped so quickly? What had I done wrong? Did I say something? Was I not interesting enough? Not funny enough? It’s hard to tell if someone really "laughs-out-loud" when they type “LOL” but she typed LOL a LOT! So what the hell happened? I just don’t understand. I want someone to tell me just what the hell she is thinking? Why ask me out again just to blow it off and then say she needs to walk away.

I sent her a quick reply back, being nice, and tell her I “understand” although I clearly don’t have any clue what the f@ck she’s talking about. I tell her the ball is in her court and leave it at that. I’m not going to contact her again, I’m not going to check her facebook updates, I won’t make any effort to see this girl again. I’m done. Which sucks because I really liked her. My heart isn’t broken or anything because my heart wasn’t really in it yet, we’d only had one date but talked a LOT. I’m not sad, just disappointed... and confused. This situation will definitely be with me when I start dating someone new. I can no longer trust a woman when she asks me for a second date. I don’t know if I can trust anything a woman says. I don’t know what they’re thinking!

I need to know what goes through a woman’s mind. This is a riddle I will obviously never solve, but maybe, just maybe, I can find some clues as I continue my quest to date again after a 10 year absence.

Only time will tell....

Pretty Boy Goes on a Real Date

“Just be yourself.” The next person who tells me this is going to get a donkey punch to the base of the skull. I’m so tired of hearing that. Do you have any idea how hard it actually is to “be yourself” on a first date? It’s near impossible. You’re always going to be a little more quiet on a first date. A little more reserved. You’ll ask more questions than you would ask if it was just a friend you were with. You’ll be careful with what you say and how you say it. But what causes this nervousness? Is it just hoping the other person likes you? Is it you trying to see if you’re compatible with this other person? Or is it the first kiss factor? The first kiss factor is when you’re incredibly nervous about the END of the date. Because of this, you spend the entire date thinking about whether or not it’ll end with a kiss. You’ll keep contemplating on whether or not you should go for it. This will completely distract you and make you even more reserved if you’re not careful.

I think there should be a Speed Dating service where you kiss or have sex at the end of it. You go in to the room and proceed as normal moving from girl to girl at the sound of the gong and have only one minute to see if you’re compatible or not. But then, at the end, when you’re supposed to simply receive the phone numbers of the girls who like you, that should be a "Hook-Up" list. At that point, the girls should either make-out with the guy briefly or if they’re both into it, they just get down to business immediately. THEN they should date. This would get rid of the “First Kiss Factor.” It will already be out of the way. You’ll have nothing to be nervous about. Then you could actually “be yourself.”

Pretty Boy once had a girl offer to make him Apple Pie at 11:30pm if he’d come by her house. Who the hell bakes Apple Pie at 11:30 at night?? Think that was code for something else? Why can’t this happen to me? It’s craziness! His life is like a porno movie some times. Don’t forget the stories about “Hello Kitty,” “The Mormon Girl,” and “Tinkerbell” just to name a few. Now he might seem cool, confident and collected.... But if you look closely, there’s something in the back of his eyes... pieces of a broken heart. A long time ago, there was a girl who broke Pretty Boy’s heart. Over time, he’s been able to put almost all of it back together... but there are still pieces of it floating around that may never fully heal. He hides it well but I really began to notice it when he came to me one day and said he had a crush on someone he worked with......wait a minute. Pretty Boy doesn’t get “crushes”. Pretty Boy is just supposed to hook up with chicks and then tell me the awesome stories. I live vicariously through his sexcapades. This sounded like madness. But alas, Pretty Boy is human. He did have a crush on a girl at his work. The Accounting Girl. I had never seen Pretty Boy act the way he did as he talked about her. He described how he'd been trying to talk with this Accounting Girl and how nothing seemed to come out right. In her presences, Pretty Boy became very flustered and nervous, this isn’t like him at all. He doesn’t get nervous. Pretty Boy is the guy who seriously went up to two girls at a bar on a bet and said “Send me on a quest for your love.” Suddenly he was nervous, he didn’t want to simply hookup with this girl... he actually wanted (hold on to your butts) to DATE this girl! Crazytalk, right? Well it was true and it was happening. It took him MONTHS to work up the courage to finally ask this girl out. When he did, he managed to mumble a little and just spit out enough words that she understood what he was trying to ask. She said “sure” and they set up a date for a Wednesday night dinner.

Now HIS panic mode set in. It’s nice to see other people have panic modes in their body, it’s not just me. He immediately gets WAY too into his head. He becomes quiet, chews his nails, smokes more cigarettes, legs bouncing. I have to snap my fingers in front of his face just to get him to get out of his head. He’s overthinking it. I had just gone on my date with Harmony the night before when we began to discuss his new first date. I was feeling confident because I had already received the text from Harmony asking for a second date, so when Pretty Boy asked me what he should do, I said with gusto “Just be yourself.” Looking back on it now, I couldn’t believe I actually said that BS line. If I had a time machine, I’d go back and kick myself in the balls right before I said that line.

Pretty Boy went on his dinner date, which must have gone well because it lasted three hours. After, he stopped by my house to discuss how things went. I can sense his nerves the moment he walks in the door...

“I don’t think she’s interested, man.” His legs bouncing. Cigarette smoking from between his fingers. Index finger from his other hand in his mouth as his snaps off little pieces of nail at a time. We discuss exactly how the date went down and it’s actually not as bad as he may have thought. Apparently Accounting Girl is just... quiet. Because of that, Pretty Boy had to lead most of the conversations. There was a moment when apparently he hit the dreaded “Wall” but he conquered it in a unique way. In the moment of silence, he literally laughed saying “Uh oh, we hit the Wall.” Then started a new conversation. He’d broken through The Wall in a way I had never heard of before! Just simply acknowledge what is happening and move on. I’m definitely going to try that....

Anyway, he analyzes the date and goes over every moment again and again in his head. This is interesting to see because Pretty Boy never does this! He doesn’t “date.” And he definitely doesn't analyze a "date." It’s like watching an endangered species walk right through your backyard... all I could do is stare in wonder at the sight before my eyes.

Finally he decides the next day that he’ll send her a text message saying he had a good time. She responds saying she had fun as well and they set up a second date for the following Sunday to hang out in the afternoon. I’ll keep tabs on Pretty Boy & Accounting Girl’s dates and see what happens. For now I’ll just bask in the fact that even the "Players" of the world seem to have a soft side. Even someone who acts like all they want to do is hook-up with the next bar-girl, there are certain women that will bring them to their knees. There are women out there who can make the wildest jungle cat into a scared, shaken little kitten. It’s not that they’re stern or uber hot or demanding or anything like that, there are just those certain girls who... you can’t really explain it.... They just make your stomach turn in knots, your heartbeat quickens, your mind races for the perfect words to say, there are those women out there for each of us....


...we just need to find one....

Harmony

The Wall. It’s the biggest fear of anyone who approaches a girl at a bar or goes on a first date. During a date or when you go up to a girl at a bar, you have to be entertaining. By entertaining I mean you have to keep the conversation going. The Wall is that moment in a date or the conversation at the bar when suddenly everything goes quiet...you both reach for your drink at the same time... suddenly you’ve hit it. The Wall. Now you’re just as plain and boring and everyone else in the room. You’re Magoo. You might as well step back into the crowd and just disappear.

As a part of my blog, I promised that I would give online dating a try. Browsing the different date-sites, I decided to go with EHarmony. I’ve heard that Adult Friend Finder and Match.com are both “hook-up sites” and while that sounds fun, I really just wanted to try a date for the first time in 10 years. After several questionnaires that reminded me of standardized testing in grade school (remember when you had to bubble in the answers with a #2 pencil?) I finally was able to create a Profile Page on EHarmony. I was as honest as possible in my answers, I obviously wanted to find someone who would just be a fun person to hangout with. And finding that person didn’t take long....

For the sake of this blog, let’s call her Harmony. She and I were a match. Well, according to EHarmony.com’s “prescreened 29 Dimensions of Compatibility,” we were a match. We began chatting through the predetermined, multiple choice questions that the website had supplied for us. After a while we got to the point of actually emailing. She was friendly, sweet, and we seemed to be interested in a lot of the same things. Our emails moved into Instant Messages on Gmail chat. Soon we were having some great conversations as we began to learn more and more about each other. Then it came time to take it to the next level. A first date. Because we are both into artsy kind of movies and documentaries, I suggested either “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (because she had also read the book) or “Babies” (a critically acclaimed documentary). She chose the doc because she was waiting to see the other flick with a friend of hers who had also read the book, which is fine with me and completely understandable. Was a movie about babies the best choice for a first date? I don’t know but we went with it.

Saturday at 3:30pm. This would be my first “first-date” in 10 years. Nervous? F@ckin’ right I was! What do I wear? Should I get there early? What if I’m not interesting enough? What if I’m not funny enough? What if I run out of questions to ask or things to say? What if I hit... the Wall??Panic mode set in as usual. But I devised a very clever plan. Or at least I thought it was clever at the time. Reading back on our old emails, I created a list of questions and talking points that I saved into my phone. That way, if the conversation stalled, I could simply excuse myself to the restroom and check my cheat-sheet. Yes, this is extremely lame and probably stupid, but what do I know? I’ve been out of this dating game so long that I barely remember how the game is played. I don’t even remember the rules of the game.

I arrived early of course and hit up the music store beside the theater. Trying to distract myself, I perused the DVD section of the store, but it was no use. Every time I looked at a DVD I just saw “The Wall.” It was just there, always in the back of my mind, like I was trying to psych myself out. The clock was winding down, it was time to go meet my first date in a decade.

Nervous as all hell, I sat outside the theater pretending to look at Facebook on my phone, again trying to distract myself.

“Charlie Brown?” I hear a sweet voice say beside me. I glance up to see her. Harmony. Almond eyes. Caramel hair tucked behind her ears. Tiny dimples in her cheeks as she smiles at me. Light blue blouse, my favorite color. Holy shit. This girl is WAY too cute to be attracted to me.

I give her a hug out of sheer nerves, not sure what else to do, and say it’s great to finally meet her. We chit-chat as I attempted to make a few jokes to get her to show those cute dimples again as she smiles. Not sure if my jokes really landed or if she was just pity smiling to make me feel better. We continue to talk as I get her some popcorn and a soda before the movie. Sitting in the theater, we get to know each other more, discussing simple things, movies, documentaries, a little about family, I manage to keep the conversation at a good pace. The lights dim and I can relax, my legs stop shaking as I can rest a my nerves for at least 90 minutes.

The movie was kind of lame surprisingly, lot of cute baby stuff but it basically amounted to really long home videos of kids. Not all that fascinating. As the movie goes, my mind starts working again, I manage to come up with a few more talking points in my head for after the movie.

The lights raise as do we, leaving my moment of relaxing behind as we exit the theater. I bring up the talking points that I had thought of during the movie, which makes for some interesting conversation. After that, we decide to head to Katsuya for dinner (a very nice sushi place from what I had been told, never actually been there myself). I offer to drive us there so she leaves her car in the parking garage.

Dinner was delicious and the conversation was so pleasant that I completely forgot about my cheat-sheet on my phone. I managed to relax a little and enjoy myself. All in all, I forgot it was a “date.” Which was a great, amazing thing.

We left the restaurant along with a big chunk of my bank account, that shit was $80! But Harmony was worth every penny. We head back to the theater as she tells me I can just drop her off outside the parking structure so I won’t have to enter and pay again. We say our “I had fun, it was great meeting you”s, she gives me a hug and exits my vehicle. As I pull away, I put in my earpiece for my phone and call up The Count. He immediately asks how the date went... My mind begins to race...

How did it go?

...I have no idea...

I wasn’t really paying attention! Of course, I analyze everything about the evening that I can recall. I definitely used the word “fun” waaaaayyyyyy too much. I feel like I talked about my friends a lot, but they’re a big part of my life so it seemed unavoidable. Was I funny enough? Was I interesting enough? Could she tell I was nervous?

Full. Blown. Panic. Mode.

I really liked this girl and I would definitely want to see her again...but did she like me? Did she want to see me again? How long do I wait until I call or text her? Do I wait a day? Two days? How do I know if she’ll even respond? If she doesn’t like me, will she just come out and say it? Or will it be a long drawn out thing where suddenly she’s “busy” all the time?

I hate dating already. It’s driving me crazy. I need to relax so I set up a Man Day with Pretty Boy and Pistol Pete for the next day. We’re going to head to Santa Barbara and try some wine & cheese tasting. Yes, a very girly Man Day, but a Man Day none-the-less.

Then I here a little “bling!” from my phone. It’s Harmony. She says she was nervous but had fun. Relief washes over me. We continue to text until she says that a friend of hers is having a wine & cheese tasting party the following Saturday and asks me to join her. Serendipity that my Man Day was consistent of the same thing? Or just chance? Could she.....

Wait. Did she just ask me out on a Second Date?????

She did! Holy shnikes. Maybe it went better than I expected. Maybe she likes me the way I like her. Maybe I spend too much time asking myself too many questions.

But what am I going to wear? Is it possible to hit The Wall on the second date?

....to be continued.....

The Hockey Girl

I love hockey almost as much as I love women. I’ve played ice and roller hockey most of my life. Recently, The Count has gotten more into hockey and now wants to learn how to skate. Because of this, we started going to the local ice rink so I could help teach him the fundamentals. Too scared to embarrass himself by falling, he hates going when there’s a crowd. Luckily, our local rink has two sheets of ice and on Tuesdays and Thursdays the open skating is on the smaller ice. Since most figure skaters like to have room to do their tricks, no one seems to enjoy the smaller ice, so from 9am until 11:30am we always have the small back ice to ourselves...

...until recently...

The Count and I walk into the rink as normal, feeling the coldness of the rink around us as we head to the small ice tucked away in the back. I tell him about how I want to find a girl who likes hockey as much as I do. Personally, there’s nothing hotter than a girl wearing an ice hockey jersey. As we get closer to the rink, we notice the lights are already on over the rink which is unusual because normally the employees have to turn the lights on for us. Sitting outside the rink, we begin lacing up our skates when I see something strange... there’s someone else on our ice. Not only that, (brace yourselves now) it’s a girl!



Too far to notice what she looks like, I simply see she is wearing hockey pads from the waist down. Above that, she wears a hoodie. Just like The Count, this girl is practicing the fundamentals so they both wear some pads that help ease the fear of falling.

The Count and I hit the ice, skating the counter-clock-wise circle around the rink. We have our conversations about hockey and the basics of skating, as I sneak glances at the girl gliding through the center circle. The Count tells me I should talk to her, what’s the harm? But I keep circling like a fish swimming around it’s bowl when there is clearly food in the middle. Then The Count decides to excuse himself as he heads for the restroom. I’m tempted to follow him into the restroom out of pure fear of being alone with this Hockey Girl. But I decide to play it cool and keep circling. After a while, it becomes almost awkward NOT to say at least SOMETHING to this girl.

I make my move.

“Is it usually this dead on this ice?” I ask as I pretend that I don’t come there every week. To my surprise, she responds with a smile and the conversation begins. She’s super cute with her hair pulled back into a ponytail, a smile showing just the right amount of perfect teeth, and her hoodie seems so warm and comforting just like her personality. We talk skating and hockey for a while, then dive into more personal details about where we’re from and where we work, the usual chit-chat. The Count returns to the ice, keeping his distance at first as to let us have our moments of conversation. Soon, I bring him into the conversation so it doesn’t seem like Hockey Girl and I are on a date, we’re just casual people who happen to be talking while skating. Eventually she says she needs to be at work by 11am, I figure that was her “out” in case I got too boring for her. Glancing at the clock every now and then, I notice we’re getting closer and closer to her exit window. 11am comes. She decides to continue skating, says her bosses will understand if she’s a little late.

Did she just stay a few extra minutes because of me? Did she enjoy talking with me that much that she would be tardy to work? Or did she simply want more time to skate without some asshole (me) bothering her? I immediately begin to analyze what this means.

Eventually she does leave and we finally exchange names. But that's all we exchange. No numbers. No email addresses. Once she’s left, The Count and I discuss her like a math problem we both can’t seem to solve. What do I do now? Do I wait until next Thursday in hopes she returns? Should I have asked her for her number? I’m WAY too new for this!



On the way home, I do the one thing that someone might conceive as cyber stalking.... I “Google” her. Yeah, that’s right, I looked her up. Using her place of employment along with her name, I manage to find her on Facebook. The Count tells me NOT to Facebook friend her! He’s very adamant about this. Apparently I’ve become a “creepy Facebook stalker.” But what the hell else am I supposed to do? Do I really just let this girl go? She was so friendly and sweet and best of all, SHE’S INTO HOCKEY! Do I risk never seeing her again all because I was too lame to work up the courage to ask for her info? I debate this all night into the next day. The Count knows what I’m thinking and again says not to Facebook friend request her.

So I don’t friend request her... but he didn’t say anything about not sending her a message on Facebook. You don’t have to be a “friend” for that. Against my better judgment, and against The Count’s wishes, I send her a message. I keep it short and friendly. I click “send.”

My mind goes into panic mode. Should I have just done that? Will she now see me as the creepy Facebook/hockey guy? She’ll never go skating at that rink again for fear of running into me. This fear plays in my head for hours. Eventually, I receive a message back from her. She’s happy. She was glad I was able to find her (or so she tells me) and sends a playful message back. Maybe Facebooking her wasn’t such a bad idea after all, maybe it’s the 20th century and this is how things are done now. We begin a casual Facebook Messaging friendship, learning more about each other and discussing going skating again that Thursday. Things seem to be going in my favor.

The Hockey Girl and I continued our emails and would continue to see each other skating a few more times. Eventually, I decide to be bold....kind of. Being the chicken-shit that I am, I asked her to drinks with friends over an EMAIL! LAME! But I didn’t seem to have the stones to do it in person. I kept it casual once again, saying I was going drinking with some friends and that she should come joins us and hang out. A few hours later I get her response...

She’s busy but wants to know if I’m going skating again on Thursday. And right there she has defined our “relationship.” I am the guy she hangs out with when she goes skating. Nothing more.

Of course I’m disappointed but I still enjoy our chats skating on the ice and emailing every now and then to discuss hockey playoffs and how our teams are doing. She’s a great girl, I wish her all the best in her endeavors, and hopefully we will remain friends.

But alas, I thought I was close to dating a girl who was just as into hockey as I am. I’ll keep the dream alive but maybe that’s all it is..... just a dream.