Category Archives: dating

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Me Versus the Dog.

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I am going to admit something most online date prospects find abominable. Actually, most of my friends find it abominable.

I am not much of a dog person.

My feelings about dogs mirror many of my feelings about children. Such as:

“Why do they smell so bad?”

“I do not want to pick up or clean this poop.”

“I want to take a spontaneous weekend trip to Vegas. Who is going to watch the damn dog/child?”

“I kill house plants at an alarming rate. Why would you put a living, breathing organism into my custody?”

This long introduction brings me to Mr. Dog Lover.

I met and dated Mr. Dog Lover 2 summers ago. We met via mutual friends which is a rarity for me since most of my friends/network don’t usually have anyone to introduce to me whether because they are hoarding him or I’m just that despicable of a person to try to set up with.

Mr. Dog Lover and I had some wonderful dates. We laughed, we drank wine, we ate good food. On our 3rd date, we went hiking and he brought Boomerang*. Boomerang was a 50 pound bulldog. I tolerated enjoyed Boomerang’s presence mostly because I wasn’t in charge of picking up Boomerang’s poo. Actually, Boomerang and I were completely on the same page at one point during the hike when he planted himself mid-stride on the mountain and refused to budge for 5 minutes. I was tired too, Boomerang.

On date 5, I went to Mr. Dog Lover’s house where upon we entered his apartment and Boomerang jumped on me. I don’t like it when any being jumps on me (yes, this includes Ryan Gosling shirtless), much less when a 50 pound bulldog jumps on me. Mr. Dog Lover laughed it off because that meant Boomerang really liked me. I was not as amused.

The night progressed and Mr. Dog Lover suggested that I stay the night that warm July evening in his Venice Beach apartment. I happily agreed. He did however caveat that Boomerang was used to sleeping in his room. Not to be a naysayer or seem to be too uptight, I said that was alright.

A few hours later, I woke up sweating and uncomfortable. It was then that I realized Boomerang was asleep on top of me. I tried to move Boomerang to Mr. Dog Lover’s side of the bed but he wouldn’t budge. I whispered, “Boomerang get off me please! I’m very hot and uncomfortable!”

My whisper pleading woke up Mr. Dog Lover and he angrily got up and put Boomerang outside the room. I protested that I wasn’t trying to be rude, I was just not used to ANY animal sleeping on top of me (again, I repeat, I would not even accept shirtless Ryan Gosling asleep on top of me; I’m a very warm sleeper). Mr. Dog Lover grumbled that the dog would insist on sleeping on the bed; the only option was to lock him out.

So then I endured a night next to an angry man and a whimpering dog outside the door.

When the alarm went off at 7 AM, I groggily pushed myself out of bed and into the bathroom. Upon re-entering his bedroom, I came upon a picture that has forever been burned into my mind. Sitting on the bed was Mr. Dog Lover and Boomerang, who both angrily stared me down. It was then that I realized I had created quite the feud: it was me versus the dog.

Except it was not a feud at all. Boomerang was curled happily up in bed and I was the unwelcome stranger in the bedroom. I did my best to politely gather my things and then asked Mr. Dog Lover when he was free to hang out again. He gave me some vague and cold response about him traveling to San Francisco for work and reconnecting when he got back.

I unlocked the front door and walked myself out of the apartment feeling more down about myself and used than I’ve felt in…perhaps ever.

To Mr. Dog Lover’s credit, I did hear from him a week later, once he was “done with his travels.” I declined his offer to meet up. At that point, I had realized that life was too short to try to date someone who made me feel that bad about myself after only 5 dates.

It probably wasn’t about the dog in the end. Mr. Dog Lover was a nice, short guy (with a bad case of morning grumpiness) who I ultimately didn’t click with. If I wrote off all male dog lovers, I’d leave myself with a very small dating pool indeed.

Perhaps it’s about finding the right guy AND the right animal companion in the end.

Until next time,

A.

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* All names on this blog have been changed to protect the innocent. Even innocent animals.

dating

A Tale of Two Teds.

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“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” Mr. Charles Dickens created some very poignant words about the French Revolution and those very words can be applied to relationships.

There have been two important relationships in my life and both men ironically have the same name: Ted. What are the odds…

Back in 2005, I met Ted 1. He was my first college boyfriend and my 2nd love after my high school boyfriend (but don’t we all fall in love at least once in high school?). We were made of the same stuff that all college couples are: both in the Greek system, met via friends, first drunken makeout took place in the 9-0 (don’t know it? Just ask a USC graduate), and we were blissfully happy to always have dates in each other to take to fraternity and sorority invites. In fact, the first time we said “I love you” to each other was during his fraternity weekend formal in Catalina Island, when we were drunkenly screaming and fighting on some Avalon street (sorry neighbors!) about who knows what and one of us said “I’m so angry! But I love you!” and someone responded, “Well…I love you too!”. Poof we made up!

We fell apart as most college couples do. We wound up in different cities after graduation, did the long distance thing for too long, and eventually I had to put an end to it. I realized he was not the man I was meant to be with  and prolonging the inevitable any further was too harsh for both of us. It was a hard break-up, unfortunately done over the phone since neither of us had any money to visit each other (it was the summer of 2008 — the recession was just getting started!). Needless to say, I was pretty wrecked for a long time following the end of a 3-year relationship, leading to much drinking in Pacific Beach and drunken encounters such as the Fake Australian Incident.

I dated a few other men after Ted 1, but mainly focused on my kicking butt on my first major, full-time marketing job. It was the Great Recession after all and I felt lucky to have a paycheck with benefits. Unfortunately, after about 2 years, I was starting to realize just how miserable that job was making me.

So that brings us to Spring 2010. When I met Ted 2.

Ted 2 and I met in a magical bar called Jimmy O’s (of Del Mar, California). I was out because it was Friday night and he was out because he was out celebrating his acceptance to law school in far away Ohio. I was pretty tipsy when I met him but I remember a cute blond guy making me laugh hard. We had our first date a week later and I was smitten.

The 3 months I spent with Ted 2 were to this day the happiest amount of time I spent with any man in the last 5 years. I can’t call it a fling because we both fell too hard too fast despite our best mental intentions to keep it casual. During those 3 months, Ted 2 got accepted to the University of Arkansas Law School with a full scholarship. It was an offer that he couldn’t refuse. And so we said a terrible good-bye in early July 2010.

I made a lot of mistakes with Ted 2. I’ve learned now to avoid men that are knowingly leaving the city you live in (a tactic that played out well with a certain male friend with benefits a few years later). I’ve learned to put up a lot of barriers to not get too close to any man too fast. Yes, this tactic might be biting me in the ass now, but at least I’m not the devastated girl I was 3 years ago.

I also have the gift of retrospect 3 years later.

The thing  that I know now is that I was so unbelievably miserable at my job in mid-2010 (and it didn’t help that I was financially unstable enough that I was still living with my parents) that I latched onto to the one thing that made me happy – which was a man. It also didn’t help that many of my close friends at the time had boyfriends, so I was ecstatic to (sort of) jump on the relationship bandwagon. I was part of a couple for the first time in years! I had a standing date to bring to parties! I didn’t have to sit home alone on Saturday night while everyone else had date night!

Ted 2 was a man that made me laugh but it’s also likely that in my unhappy state, I fabricated him into a much bigger being than he actually was and I latched unto a feeling, not a person.

Plus, he was a man who voluntarily left me (and San Diego) for the state of Arkansas. Ew.

Moving forward, I’ll reference them as T1 and T2. Yes, just like the Terminators, they did a nasty job of breaking me apart.

Suffice it to say, whenever I meet a Ted in a bar, I run far, far away.

dating, douchebags, online dating

Mr. Vegetarian.

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I tried to date a vegetarian who drives a Prius for a few weeks.

It didn’t work out.

Aside from the fact that he would insist on sharing plates whenever we ate dinner (and that made me the carnivorous psychopath in me want to order meat even more), he was one of the Nice Guys. He taught special education to 8th graders. I work in advertising and help deliver you display ads that you don’t want on your webpages, and I am also writing about this nice guy on an anonymous dating blog. There is probably a special place in Heaven for people like him and a special place in Hell for people like me.

But he was also a 31-year-old who “temporarily” lived with his parents because he was “condo-hunting”. He claimed he temporarily lived in the guesthouse. Turned out, he lived in a bedroom above the garage that had a doorway with no door. My friends theorized that perhaps he did something bad and his mom took the door away to punish him.

At the end of the day, don’t trust a male vegetarian. Or do, just stand your ground and order a gosh darn steak because that’s what you really want.

dating, douchebags, online dating

Mr. Terrible.

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Forgive me for my lack of original nickname for this particular doofus but I could not think of a better adjective to associate with him than TERRIBLE.

I met Mr. Terrible on Match.com (blonde, tall, self-employed*) and he suggested meeting for a drink in Venice at 8:00 on a Tuesday night. I arrived fashionably late at 8:05 and had a lovely conversation with the bouncer at the door of The Other Room about Black’s Beach in La Jolla. That was the only lovely conversation I had that evening.

Mr. Terrible was seated at a table with a beer in hand. We had the usual awkward meet-an-online-stranger hug then he said that there wasn’t a waitress so to go to the bar to get a drink. I think I stood there uncertainly for 10 seconds, then marched to the bar and ordered a glass of white wine and put it on my credit card.

I came back with my glass of Rueda (remember when I said I was a bit of a wine snob? Still holds true) and we delved into a sort of awkward but not entirely bad first date conversation. However, 15 minutes in, I knew the guy didn’t like me because he asked me how the weather was today in Santa Monica (it’s LA, dude, it’s 60 degrees and sunny every day in February).

30 minutes into the date (not even halfway through my glass), he took a phone call. In front of me. At the table.

I politely smiled through it and sipped my wine. I have to say, I was taught you never take phone calls at the table. You don’t even text at the table. If it’s really, really that urgent, you excuse yourself briefly. Not only was he yapping on his phone in front of me, I realized he was talking about his plans to meet up with someone else pretty much now. So Mr. Terrible was basically pulling a “Something bad happened” first date move/escaping the date on me.

He hung up and explained since he was on this side of town, he was meeting with a friend he doesn’t see often in Venice. I said, “that’s nice” and somehow made it through another 5 minutes of stunted conversation with him.

At about 8:40, before my wine was even done, he announced it was time for him to leave to meet his friend. I said, “Have fun. I guess I’ll go close my tab. You don’t have to wait for me if you have to get out of here.”

And he took off.

I had to do the walk of shame back to the bar alone and request to close out, even though I’m pretty sure the bartenders watched this pathetic interaction. I’m surprised they didn’t comp my wine out of sheer pity for me.

I exited The Other Room and the aforementioned bouncer called out to me, “Wait, the date is over ALREADY?” I had no words, so I simply shrugged and walked to my car alone (while constantly looking over my shoulder; it was Venice after all. Full of all sorts of crazies and apparently terrible doofuses).

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* Self-employed in LA is a bad, bad sign. “Self-employed” means barely supporting one’s self doing bartending/waiting/barista-ing while you work on your screenplay(s). In Mr. Terrible’s case, he “consulted.”

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The Gentlemen of the South.

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I spent the President’s Day weekend down South — all the way to Nashville, Tennessee.

I like Southern guys. Even despite the fact that when I tell any of them that I live in Los Angeles, they make this face:

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(Let’s be honest – I don’t really blame them for making that face.)

The men of the South are like a completely different species than the men of Southern California. They open the door for you, they pay for drinks, and they have no problem walking right up to you and simply saying hello in a friendly, non-creepy manner (although I am sure at the end of the day, they are trying to get into your pants).  Overall, I enjoyed my time chatting with the unassuming men of the South, even though I had to spend most of it biting my liberal tongue.

My favorite encounter of the weekend was the guy from rural Virginia who told me that he shot squirrels and other things as a living, but that since I was a city girl from LA, I probably wouldn’t understand.

He was right; I didn’t understand.