Communication... or lack thereof

On the heels of my ranting about Big Red and his three strikes, this post comes to us courtesy of Girl, Esq. (you may remember her name from this post a few weeks back).

And after reading this post, I think we need to go out for a drink, girl!! We're dating twins!

(Not that that's anything to brag about. ha ha!)

*****

I'm having a men-are-bad-communicators moment. And while I hate to paint all men with the same brush, there are times when a problem is so rampant and widespread that it's hard not to assume that all men suffer from this affliction. So, in order to be helpful to mankind (or at least to vent), my rules for communicating:

1. You are the man. It is your job to make the first move. I'm sorry, I know this is antiquated. But that's just how it is.

2. Texting, Blackberry Messenger, and Facebook are not really communicating. It's acceptable to use these methods occasionally, for quick check-ins or the like. But you also have to pick up the phone and ask a girl out. E-mail is acceptable, but only if you do not have the phone number of the person in question or you have established an e-mail rapport.

3. If you say you're going to call, call. If you're not interested, that's fine. Then don't say you're going to call. Just be a grown-up and don't lie/equivocate.

4. Be responsive. If I call, text, messenger, e-mail, or Facebook you, it behooves you to respond within a reasonable amount of time. I know you and your Blackberry have a close relationship (you wear it on your belt, but that's not breaking communication rules so much as fashion rules). So, I don't buy it when it takes you 3 days to return an "instant" (haha) message.

5. I get it. You are not a planner. No calendar will tie you down. You like to go wherever life may take you. But if you ever want me to go with you, you have to communicate that to me. More than 5 minutes before you expect me to be there.

6. Salient details, such as, "I invited you to happy hour, but really it's a going away party for my co-worker and my entire office will be there" are important to include in the communication.

7. Occasionally, life gets in the way of being the perfect communicator. At these times, it is important to somehow get the message across (this is an exception to Rule #2, wherein less communicative means are acceptable) that (1) you are genuinely busy, (2) you will resume proper communication soon, and (3) you are still alive, interested, and aware that you are breaking the other rules.

*****

So what do you think? Anything missing?

Three strikes

You may have surmised from a poll I posted last week that there's been a boy who's been playing hardball with me.

Well, I've got news for him... it's three strikes and you're out!

I met Big Red several weeks ago while out with a friend, and we talked for a couple of hours. He asked for my number, I asked if he was going to be one of those guys who gets my number then never calls, he promised he would most definitely NOT be one of those guys, I gave him my number, he never called. *surprise face*

(Sidenote: This guy was so totally *not* my typical type. Beard. Tats. Burly. But I decided to be open to dating someone who didn't fit my typical guy profile -- since THAT'S been working out so well for me, right? He went on and on about how pretty I was, that I seemed smarter than most of the girls he's met, blah blah blahbitty blah. So how could I NOT give him a chance? ha!)

A couple of weeks later, I was out again and guess who walked into the bar? Of course. Big Red. I didn't see him at first, but my friends asked me why there was a guy staring at me. I turned around and saw Big Red looking my way. I immediately walked over and thanked him for not calling (in my best "I'm busting your balls in a cute way, but you better never do that again" manner), to which he apologized profusely.

STRIKE ONE. But I was still open to giving him another shot.

On my way home from that second encounter, he texted and asked when he could take me out. I responded by politely telling him that he wasn't getting off the hook that easily for not calling the first time, and that he should call me that week (not text) to set something up. He agreed.

The following weekend, I got a text from him asking if I was going to be out that nite. (If you're following along closely, you'll note that he neither called nor reached out during the week as he agreed to.) I said yes, told him where we'd likely be, and said to get in touch with me later so we could meet up. Around 12:30, I realized he hadn't texted. So I texted him, calling him out for not following through AGAIN.

(Listen, peeps. I realize that I sound totes bitchy right about now, but c'mon. If you already know you have some making-up to do, don't flake out TWICE.)

He responded and said that his friends had ditched him to go to a bar he didn't want any part of, so he just went home. (Ummm... couldn't he have called me when his friends ditched him so we could meet up? Whatevs.)

STRIKE TWO. But, again, I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, so I didn't write him off completely.

The next weekend, he texted to say he was in Tremont (as was I), and wondered if we could meet up. So we did. We had fun, it was a good conversation, I still found something about him intriguing... but I also felt like he might still be a bit of a flake. Regardless, we set up a date for the following Thursday.

That was on a Saturday nite. No contact Sunday. No contact Monday. No contact Tuesday. No contact Wednesday. (At this point, I would have even welcomed a simple TEXT over a call. Throw me something here, Big Red. Geez.)

At this point, I'm wondering what the hell is wrong with him. (And also why I didn't join a convent several years ago.)

He FINALLY texted late Thursday afternoon -- just a couple of hours before our supposed date -- to see if I still wanted to get together.

Seriously?!? C'mon. I had been giving him the benefit of the doubt to this point, but what. the. hell. dude.

STRIKE THREE.

(In case you're wondering, I told him that since I hadn't heard from him, I'd made other plans. Which I really hadn't, but at that point I was so pissed I knew we'd both be better off if we didn't go.)

Sooooo... there you have it. The story behind last week's poll question.

What do you think? Am I being too hard on this guy, or does he deserve it? Should he get one more at-bat?

The graduate... jerk!

Let's start the weekend off a little early with a guest post from Fastgrl. If you've ever rekindled with someone you went to school with only to find out he should have been voted "Most Undateable," this post is for you!

*****

Remember that movie School For Scoundrels with Billybob Thorton from a couple years ago (if not I recommend watching)? Well after a recent dating experience I think that maybe there really is such a school. A school where men can go to learn to be a first rate jerk.

I had reconnected with a guy that I went to grad school with some years back via good old Facebook. Back when we were in school he was married and I was engaged to be married so the opportunity to be more than friends was not there. We connected as friends on Facebook and decided to grab a harmless coffee together. It really was harmless although he had recently split with his wife and I was on the brink of an overdue breakup myself. After our coffee I received a very sweet text – basically telling me how wonderful I am. Okay I think you can see where this is headed.

So, we had lunch a week later maybe. We laughed and had a good time and I divulged that I was thinking I was going to end my roller-coaster of a relationship. After lunch I got a surprising phone call. It was the graduate telling me he had to let me know that he was mesmerized by me and that he knew it was not fair of him to put that on me considering present circumstances. Blah, blah, blah. I asked him for a couple of weeks to wrap up my loose ends.

Our texts and calls became frequent and within a week of my moving out of my exes we were out to dinner at a very nice place drinking a topshelf bottle of wine. Yep, he laid it on pretty good. The night ended with my giving him a peck on the corner of his lips. More dinners and coffees followed and all seemed to be going well until the dude just disappeared one day and I mean disappeared. No calls, ignored texts. This was a mystery to me since days before this same fellow had expressed to me how amazing I was, how much he cared for me, etc.

After about a week of being ignored I decided to just let this dead dog lie. I moved on and started dating some other people – and in fact found one I rather like. Three weeks later on a weeknight evening I received a few texts from the graduate. He said he knew I probably hated him and he didn’t blame me but he wanted to let me know that I was amazing and he was sorry how he handled everything. Apparently when we had talked about kids and I said I thought I wanted to have more that freaked him out. Apparently he can’t have them. I waited a few weeks myself and texted him back that I did not hate him and that I was glad that he acted like a jerk because I met an amazing guy.

So that’s it. It’s settled and I think he did me a favor. I don’t need another jerk in my life. Oh and it makes for an interesting class reunion I suppose!

The talk of shame

As I continue to navigate this crazy world we call dating, I have discovered that I don't know how to do something that most of my single friends do on a regular basis: sexting.

I can bat my eyelashes with the best of 'em.

Or flip my hair and purse my lips.

I'll even initiate unnecessary physical contact by, say, grabbing a date's arm as I'm listening intently to him talk about his glory days of playing high school sports.

(Newsflash, guys: that was almost 20 years ago.)

But ask me to start getting flirty via text message and I'm about as awkward as a viewing of that Motherlover video in the Cavs locker room.

I'm a 34-year-old woman who doesn't know how to do what most 15-year-old girls do.

If he asks, "What are you wearing?," I'd probably say, "Sweats and a t-shirt." If he says, "How do you like your meat?," I'd probably respond, "Medium rare with a baked potato."

See?!?! I. JUST. DON'T. GET. IT.

Is sexting proficiency really a necessity in the digital age of dating?

(If so, I'm screwed.)

Help?!?!?

Too good to be true?!?

Dear Matt:

I'm here for you, babe. Call me.

xoxo -
AAB

P.S. if you're new here, I'm not a fame whore. I have had a long-standing crush on Mr. Lauer. Or, as he shall now be known, Mr. Future Always a Bridesmaid.

The Boyfriend Box

Today's guest post comes our way courtesy of The Hoarder. I have totally unnecessarily kept stuff from ex-BFs too (e.g., for a while I was on a kick of keeping the first flower any guy ever gave me), so I can feel your pain, babe.

Read on and weigh in on what The Hoarder should do with her boyfriend box(es)!

*****

I'm the type of girl who keeps everything - EVERYTHING. From tickets to sporting events, to old tee shirts from college (and high school), to wine corks from first dates. Just the other day, I found myself five and a half years after meeting the man I thought I was going to marry, and wondering what to do with his "boyfriend box".

We dated for 3 and a half years, so he not only has one box, but three - THREE! They have the stupidest things in them like his chapstick, multiple bar and restaurant receipts, movie tickets, sports tickets, printed e-mails, birthday cards, a room key to the Ritz (ooh la la)...you get the gist. They're filled with junk that was at one time or another symbolic to me and our relationship. I would be embarrassed to show anyone what is really in the boxes, but here's a peek at one... (yes, there is an unopened condom in there - no idea why).

These boxes have been untouched since we broke up two years ago (I did not go through it to take the pic. - promise!). I feel like if I go through the boxes, it will bring back memories - good memories - and will make me miss him. And I feel like if I just throw the boxes and their contents away, I am throwing away a part of me, too.

Even the stupid box itself has meaning to it. In that box came a pair of (waaay too small) Victoria's Secret pajamas - the very first gift he ever gave me. There is still a piece of the Spongebob wrapping paper lurking somewhere in the box (don't even ask!), and the card he gave me with it. See, just talking about the good memories makes me miss him (yuck). I just have to remember that he is a lying, cheating bastard and I deserve better - waaay better!

Of course I have moved on and dated other people (and no, I did not start "boyfriend boxes" for them). I just feel torn. Do I go through them and risk missing him? Do I throw them away untouched? Do I let them be and not do anything with them for now? I'm hoping that I will eventually move in with another boy down the road. Will he think it's weird that I am still hanging onto things from past relationships? I become attached to things and have trouble parting ways with things that were once significant.

Does anyone else have a "boyfriend box"? If so, what did you do with it once you broke up?

Do you have baggage?

(Don't we all?)

But I'm actually talking about the new game show called Baggage hosted by (who else?) Jerry Springer.

The premise of the show is this: a dater comes on and meets three potential dates. Each has a suitcase which reveals his/her "baggage" to the potential dater. Once the dater makes a selection, he/she has to reveal their own baggage, and the person who got picked gets to decide if they want to go out based on the other person's baggage.

Who the hell comes up with this stuff?

Take a look here:



So what's your dating baggage?

(Mine has increasingly become this blog!)

P.S. In case you don't want to watch the whole episode I uploaded, Steve's baggage is (**spoiler alert!!!**) that he slept with a man.

Rev my engine

And here you have it... the long-awaited part 2 to Toyota Girl's guest blog post.

*****

You knew there was a “but”, right?

But he is leaving soon. He is moving away from Cleveland, for school, for a fantastic career opportunity and to a life completely foreign to me. He told me up front that he didn’t want a long distance relationship since his last one crashed and burned after a long and drawn out death rattle. After that statement I didn’t ask again. My own life and career aspirations are marching on as well. I have big choices to make in the next year, and most likely a move to another part of the country. I could try to follow him, but ultimately our career paths would be almost impossibly incompatible. We could be happy and in the same place for 4 or 5 years, but after that it would be insane.

*smack*

4 or 5 years?? I haven’t even been dating this guy for 4 or 5 weeks!

So you’d move to follow him?

Well, not unless I had a ring on my finger…

Who proposes after only a year of dating, especially when the majority of that has been long distance?…

And then what? What happens when he has to move every 2 or 3 years and you want to stay put? What then?…

And that’s pretty much how that conversation went in my mind every time. So I tried to stop having it.

Last night we had The Talk. I needed to. I wanted to. I had to hear him say the words, so I could just KNOW. He is graduating in 3 weeks, and I needed to prepare for what was happening after that.

I asked him when he was moving. “The week of graduation”.

“And… this… thing? With us?” I asked, gesturing at the space between our knees on the couch.
He smiled. And told me what he’d said the first week. That long distance was not something he wanted to do right now, that he loved this time we’d had together, and wished things were different, that this was all an unexpected gift, but he didn’t see how we could make it work. And I finally unloaded all the uncertainties I’d had about the logistics of it all, and how I wasn’t sure it could happen either. It felt good to get it out in the air. Neither of us knew how we could make it work. We both love what we do, and weren’t willing to sacrifice that right now.

We have 3 more weeks together. We have tickets for the orchestra this weekend! I’m going to take him to my favorite brunch place on Sunday morning. Maybe we’ll watch another kung fu movie.

By the way, break up sex is almost as good as, if not better than, make-up sex.

*****

And, with that, I'm officially out of guest posts. Who's next?!? Email me your guest posts at cleve27dresses@yahoo.com.

xoxo -
AAB

Baby, you can drive my car

Welcome to May, peeps! To bring in the week, we've got a two-part guest post courtesy of Toyota Girl.

(Part two will be posted in a couple of days. The suspense!)

Enjoy!

*****

I guess I should thank that other guy for cancelling our date. Or maybe that kid I saw the week before for getting me sick and missing work that Tuesday afternoon. Or my own laziness for letting me procrastinate a couple months before finally getting my oil changed. In any case, about 2 months ago I found myself in the Toyota dealership, waiting for an oil AND filter change thanks to an unfortunate run-in with a mouse. The TV was on The Food Network, I had putzed around on my iPod Touch already, and I didn’t feel like reading the book I had brought. The “freshly baked” cookies that Toyota supplies in order to make you feel better about spending $250 on car maintenance were staring at me from across the room. My swollen tonsils were throbbing and protesting (I told them the sugar would help).

When he walked in I thought “that guy looks kinda young” followed immediately by “and his head is really round… but he’s cute”. He smiled when I half-smiled, and sat down one seat away. He pulled out a book that looked moderately intelligent, and he laughed when I said if Rachel Ray used the words “Green Goddess dressing” one more time I might shoot someone.
I was bored, okay? And not a whole lot had been going on in my life. Heck, someone had cancelled a date without even meeting because “He wasn’t ready yet”. Whatever. So I started talking to him about his book. And so it began.

We ended up talking for almost an hour while waiting for our cars, and then relocated to a local bar for some food. Somehow I managed to choke down a couple bites of pizza without crying. I texted my friend in the bathroom “I’m horribly sick, just spent $250 on car issues including a mouse/filter disaster, and think I just ended up on a date”. [Side note to guys: Yes, when we go to the bathroom there’s a good chance we’re texting a friend to give an update.] When dinner was done (he paid) we exchanged phone numbers. I think his words were “At this point, I think it would be extremely remiss of me to NOT ask for your number”. Better yet, he called.

As my viral illness progressed that week, and so did our dates—a nice Mexican restaurant, drinks at a wine bar, dinner with some friends of his. And that was all by Saturday. On our first real date we both wanted to kiss the other. We said so in his car sitting in the driveway. But my cough was still gross. On our second date we thought, well, we’ve waited this long….maybe I’ll feel better tomorrow. On the third…. He said screw it, virus be damned. I’ll leave the rest of the details of that night out; suffice to say that 2 days later I got a text from him: “you got me sick”.

As HIS viral illness progressed we got to know each other better. Dinners out, dinners in, sleepovers, hikes, movies. I taught him about how food doesn’t have to come out of the freezer, and he taught me about kung fu movies. We met each other’s friends, did each other favors. I finally had someone to DO something with! And for once I had the time to enjoy it. It had been 4 years since I last had what could be considered any sort of boyfriend, and I’d forgotten what it was like to have an automatic partner in crime. I’d forgotten a LOT of the perks of a relationship (*wink*). Things were looking up… We even took a picture together when we were out last weekend. It’s really cute.

But…

*****

Tune in later this week for the conclusion to this post!