proof that it's not JUST internet guys

there's unfortunately no way i'm going to be able to convey the level of fundamental ickiness my girlfriends and i encountered last night, but i feel the need to make an attempt if only to prove that it's not JUST the internet guys who are creeps. this is for everyone who is skeptical of why i go online to meet guys, since obviously all guys who have to resort to finding women online are sketchy losers, right? first off, i've met plenty of (non-sketchy) guys online; secondly, i'd like to introduce you to the kind of man we single ladies have the privilege of meeting in person.

two of my girlfriends and i had been out to dinner at willow last night, and decided to head to the front page for a drink or two afterwards. we were sitting at a corner of the bar, commenting on how cute the guy directly across from us was, when the bartender suddenly came over with shots for each of us, courtesy of the guy across the bar. we all broke into huge grins and followed the bartender's finger.... to the highly doofus-y looking guy sitting NEXT to the cute guy. oh. grins now frozen into rictuses, we air-cheersed the guy and took the shots. well, i pretended to, anyway. i hardly ever do shots, and certainly not an enormous red headed slut on a night when i was not trying to get drunk.

aaaand next thing we know, doofy and his buddy have come over to talk to us. now, due to my upbringing under a rock, i've never seen this show personally, but alyssa says that the two of them seriously reminded her of lenny and squiggy from laverne & shirley.

our squiggy had a very similar hair style, except his (similarly receding) hair was longer - curly and unkempt. he was about 5'6" and wearing a tshirt that was too tight, so that it stretched taut across his belly. he came up waaaay too close to me, smoking, and told me he was trying to get his sister to dress more fashionably, so could i tell him where i got my (completely generic, frayed-edge) shirt? then mentioned, while holding his cigarette so that the smoke wafted directly into my face, that he hoped i didn't mind that he was smoking. (i cannot WAIT for va to go smoke free like dc. PLEASE PASS THAT BILL.)

we started out polite, but we were so very, very not flirty with these guys. when they got weirder and weirder - and wouldn't leave - we stopped being polite and tried to stop interacting. they would not go away, and they would not stop trying to engage us in conversation. squiggy there was so creepy than when my friend liz got up to go to the bathroom, and squiggy wandered off directly behind her, alyssa and i were honestly concerned he followed her into the women's bathroom for.. uh.. bad things. i hopped of my barstool and literally ran to the bathroom to make sure squiggy hadn't cornered her in a stall or something. liz was fine, though, with squiggy nowhere to be seen. turns out he'd circled back and sidled up next to alyssa as soon as she was alone and defenseless at the bar.

it's hard to describe creepy guys like this - telling this story doesn't make them seem that bad, just like your garden-variety loser who gets too drunk and hits on girls at bars. except it was like 8:30 or 9, no one was drunk, and squiggy was.. i don't know, a step above the normal guy who hits on you when you don't want him to. i mean, how many times have you run to the bathroom in a low key, perfectly normal establishment to make sure your girlfriend hadn't been assaulted? it was a first for me. liz was parked about a block and a half away from the metro, but alyssa and i were adamant about walking her all the way there - in BALLSTON, of all places - because we didn't trust these guys not to follow us out, especially if one person separated from the others.

so anyway, my point is: this is what the "real world" has to offer. the creeps and the losers are definitely not confined to just the internet.

more bad internet dates! i do it for YOU, folks. for you.

god, this has been a long week, and it's still only THURSDAY. and it's not even like anything has been going on this week; it's just been long. and boring. these 5 day weeks are inhumane, yo.

in much better news, though, this weekend is looking like it's going to be downright AWESOME. whose theme will be: all-blogger, all the time. tomorrow is the nova blogger meet up; @makarlin arrives from the windy city tonight (!! WHEE!); and the dc bloggers are convening for a night of debauchery on saturday. (pst! local and want to come play but don't have the details? email me!)

so last week, on dcprincess's suggestion, i joined okcupid. i'd quit match a few months ago, and while i'm certainly not regretting that decision, i also.. um... haven't had any dates. and okcupid is free. score!

but, um, let's just say my first experience on there has been.... well. "alarming" comes to mind.

i agreed to meet up with a pretty cute guy last wednesday night. let's call him... sam. there was a whole debacle around him actually showing up for the date, but short version: he got super lost and was nearly an hour and a half late. he was in contact that whole time, though, so it's not like i was sitting there wondering where he was (well, aside from in the very literal sense, since HE didn't know where he was). anyway. he eventually shows up, the date goes fine enough; he's a nice guy but i wasn't getting the sense there was much potential there for an actual relationship.

so we eventually pay up and head back to our cars. once we get to mine, he... well, he pretty much jumps me. on the one hand, i like to make out with boys, and he was pretty cute, so i was not entirely opposed to the idea. on the other hand, diving face first into my cleavage and trying to get hands up my skirt - all while standing in a parking lot - is a bit much for having just met you 2 hours ago, dude. so i laughingly but firmly put an end to the excessive gropage and sent him on his merry way.

two days later, i get a voicemail from sam apologizing for not calling sooner, saying he had a really nice time on the date, and he hopes he didn't "scare me off." i got the vm right as i was walking out the door with a book for some reading in the sun, so i decided to call him back after my read.

an hour and a half later, i get a text message: "i did scare you off, huh? that's ok, it happens...sorry. you're a cool chick. good luck on okc!"

dude. really? i didn't reply for an hour and a half. on a holiday. calm down.

i called him back a little while later and got his vm, leaving a generic message and saying maybe we'd connect later in the weekend. shortly after leaving that, though, i decided i really had no interest in connecting with him at all, so figured i'd just let it go to voicemail again if he called back and that would be the end of things.

fast forward to tuesday, when i'm at my girlfriend alyssa's house for dinner. my phone rings while we were in the middle of a conversation, and when i reached into my purse to silence it, accidentally answered it instead. and of course it was sam. i panicked and hit "end," which yeah, mean, whatever. he called right back and this time i did let it go to voicemail.

a minute after that, my phone chimes to alert me i have a text message - three times in a row. which means he had sent me a THREE PAGE LONG TEXT MESSAGE. three. pages. of how i was fake and i "get what i want" then "have regrets the next day" and ignoring him will only egg him on and he never should have kissed me. THREE PAGES.

so as not to "egg him on," i text him back this (and yeah, white lie, so sue me): "i was on another call before and accidentally answered / hungup trying to send the call to vm. but you're right, you have now officially come on too strong."

upon which my phone rings AGAIN. alyssa is laughing hysterically by this point. i didn't answer, obviously, and then about 2 minutes later - MINUTES! - the phone beeps again to let me know i have voicemail. he had left me a TWO MINUTE VOICEMAIL lamenting the fact that people don't say what they feel and how he was sorry we had misunderstood each other and also i was a really cool girl and he's just so frustrated with people in general, and so he'll talk to me later - or not - and hopes we're cool.

AND THEN SENDS YET ANOTHER (two page) TEXT MESSAGE. about how he's pretty sure he sabotages himself subconsciously and then spends so much time trying to dig himself out of the hole, and also he wants me to know i have a cute nose.

i can see why some women say they'd rather just not date.

NoVa blogger meet up!

where my outside-the-beltway people at?

(hi. i am white. sorry about that.)

this friday evening, the delightful kcinnova has organized a blogger meet up in reston town center. i'll be there, @kcinnova will be there, other sweet-ass nova bloggers will be there. if you're interested in some bloggery goodness, email me or tweet me and i'll give you the details. don't be shy!

because bunion surgery wasn't making me feel enough like an old lady

if you recall, i took a bit of a spill about 3 months ago while playing my weekly frisbee game. (anyone who's seen me in person during those three months is definitely familiar with the large chunk of skin still in the process of regrowing on my shoulder...)

about a month after that, my knee was still giving me a lot of trouble: it still hurt (a LOT) to kneel on it, and it felt like the ligament over the top of the knee was hurt, even though i wasn't actually sure if there WAS a ligament going over the top of the knee. but if i went down into a squat, for example, standing back up put a lot of strain on the meniscus-y area, and would remain sore afterwards. so, i went to my orthopedic guy to get it checked out. because while i recognize that falling flat on my face is supposed to hurt for a while, it seemed like a month was kind of a long time to still be in enough pain that i couldn't kneel down to pet my cats without wincing and needing to use a wall to pull myself back up.

the diagnosis, after a few x-rays to rule out a fractured kneecap (!! eep) was that i'd bruised the bone of my knee, and the continued swelling around the bone was aggravating the ligament on top of it. i was advised to pick up some tiger balm on my way home and to stop playing frisbee on tennis courts.

so, that doctor's visit was two months ago. my knee isn't quite as bad, but it's not.. um.. good. i can "feel it" every time i go running, and it still hurts to kneel on it, and basically it's still just far from right. but it's not getting WORSE, and i know there's no real structural damage, so i did the logical thing: i turned to google.

and guess what i learned? that bad bone bruises can take a long time to heal. like, EIGHT MONTHS! or THREE YEARS! or longer! ha ha! isn't that awesome? and it's not like "oh, after 8 months you can't find any more damage in an mri," no; it's "after 8 months you might not have to ice your knee after every time you use it and the acute pain may recede somewhat."

GAH.

i learned most of this helpful info from sites like extreme mountain biking message boards or snowboarding sites... as in, people who are super active and fall at high speeds onto rocks tend to have these problems. not people who just FALL DOWN. lordy.

so the good news is that i guess it's kind of "normal" to still hurt after all this time, and it's not a sign of having damaged my knee in a more sinister way. and it's completely fine to exercise and use my knee while it heals, because further activity - while painful to me - doesn't further injure the knee itself.

the bad news is that i am a clumsy moron. although this is possibly not "news."

what i'll do for cheese.

last night, i found myself in an interesting situation. i had just been to a pretty intense class at the gym, and whenever i work out that hard i tend to crave very specific things for dinner. last night it was cheese. (there's this new-to-me cheese at whole foods called humboldt fog, which is this delicious goat cheese that's crumbly in the middle and gooey on the outside and... uggglllrrbbll *drool*.) i had some leftover swiss chard at home, already cooked, and with the cheese? and some french bread? and my favorite cheap white wine - also located at whole foods - well. i NEEDED IT.

the only problem was my... um... attire. i was wearing bike shorts - as in, skin tight, short, black, and shiny - and a pretty form-fitting tank top over my sports bra. and because the gym class is dance-ish, i hadn't brought sneakers in my gym bag. usually i have a pair of flip flops living in there, but i guess they hadn't made it back in during the last repack. which meant that all i had to wear were the shoes i'd been wearing at work earlier that day. which were 3" black heels.

so to recap, i was wearing booty shorts and 3" heels. as i wailed to gertrude over the phone, "i can't go into whole foods looking like a hooker! a SWEATY hooker!"

it was an internal battle of epic proportions, i'll tell you what. because the more i thought about my delicious cheese / wine, the crueler it seemed not to be able to have it. but... whole foods. DRESSED LIKE A HOOKER. it's not like running into a 7-11, where it's a small space and i could scoot in and out; it's a large store full of well dressed people. and the cheese counter is alllll the way in the back corner.

ultimately, i pulled into the whole foods parking lot and rummaged through my trunk until i - thankfully - found a pair of old ratty sneakers, and was able to replace the heels. cheese and wine FTW.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

after months of meaning to any never getting around to it, i joined bookmooch.com yesterday. i'm sending out my first 5 books this afternoon! so now i have all these points that i can use to get books sent to me... and... um. well. i was so excited to have any! book! i wanted! sent to me, but now i'm completely paralyzed on what books i want. i've gone though a ton of your (excellent!) suggestions from last year, so now i need your help again: what are some good books you've read recently? or old-time favorites?

cruelty to automobiles

why would anyone do this to a poor, defenseless jeep??

Eff that noise

the interwebs have spoken! the final tally for Should I Give Sir Chump-A-Lot A Second Chance? is a resounding OH HEYYYELL NO.

votes for Eh, Why Not?: 5
votes for Eff That Noise: 19

i got all peeved with myself last night when i noticed a twinge of disappointment at the decision blow this guy off. because the reason i was disappointed, i realized, was that no matter how many terrible, underwhelming, or boring first dates i go on, i still hold out this insane hope that the NEXT one will be Something Special.

and the reason this pisses me off is because i hated the movie "he's just not that into you" and all the characters in it. i thought this caricature of women who don't EVER recognize the signs of lethargy or disinterest in men was completely annoying - and while i'm sure those women exist, i also find THEM annoying, because let's face it, it's NOT THAT HARD to figure out if a guy is stringing you along or not. it's just hard to admit to yourself that it might be the case.

an ex once gave one of my girlfriends one of the best pieces of advice i'd ever heard. she was waffling in a similar situation, trying to decide if she should call a guy / what his last text meant / if she should go out with him again / whatever. he said, very simply, that you will know if a guy is into you or not. any guy worth spending any time on will make it abundantly clear that he is interested, and there's no such thing as being "too busy" to a guy who actually wants to see you, because he will make time for you if he's truly interested.

i'm very good at recognizing this - and cutting my losses and getting the hell out of dodge - when this happens a few dates in, or a few weeks in, or even a few months in. i know what i need in a relationship, and half-assed commitment is not it. so when a guy is all of a sudden "really busy" and "doesn't know when his next free moment will be" (true story from last week!) i don't hold out hope that maybe he really IS busy! and well gosh, he DOES have a lot going on in his life! and i should really be more understanding! nope. i shrug, realize that he's just not that into me (gag), and move on knowing it's no real loss if he's already going down that path.

what i realized last night, though, was that i still DO have that stupid fairy-tale hope for guys i haven't met, yet. i DO still do the "well, friend x's now-husband was 2 hours late to their first date, and look how happy they are now!!!" thing for first dates, apparently. (shannon: i can't even tell you how helpful that jeff comment was to bring me back to reality, because OMG YES. i do remember all that. heh.)

i'm not sure why i'm more willing to forgive a guy i've never met than a guy i've already invested a few dates on. i'd like to think it's optimism - like, refusing to let the cynicism acquired from every freaking lame guy i've ever dated color someone new, and allowing them to prove themselves independent of my experiences with other people. soo... yeah. we'll go with "optimism" :-)