And this is how it all began....

Why is it that when become single, you start to notice all the (seemingly) happily married or engaged couples around you?


Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to venture to talk about the trials and tribulations of online dating and dating in today’s wonderful world of single and not so single men.
Herein lies my experiences good and bad, the men I’ve become friends with, the men who seem to disappear into the Bermuda Triangle of online sites, and of course never to be forgotten the men who scared me more than Godzilla himself.

I hope to entertain you, teach you, and help you put out there exactly what you want to come back to you in the world of real and online cyber dating.



How it all started.

It was 2005 and I had just ended my marriage to my husband of 6 yrs. With a young baby at home, I had found out that he had been cyber chatting in inappropriate ways with women off and on over the course of a few years. It was the last straw of many straws, and I ended it for the sake of my child, my sanity and self preservation. With that, I shall go no further in that direction.

I was 33 years old and had not been single since my early 20’s. Boy had things changed. A friend of mine almost immediately introduced me to a free online dating site that she joined that I will refer to from now on as the “Sea of Mud” dating site. She said that it was the newest thing and that I needed to get my profile on there as fast as my fingers could type. I had never heard of it before but apparently many others had. So I logged onto my computer and typed in the website. I filled out all the necessary information to the letter and then created my profile. Now, what to type in the box that says you have to type at least 50 characters? It can’t be that hard, or can it? I will just type that I’m a nice person with goals and a good job. No good, not enough information. And now I’ve received an error message saying that I need to write more. Darn it! Ok think girl think.

How about ‘New mom with 9 month old baby at home needs to find a man to fill the void of losing the wonderful life she had envisioned before her’. That was the truth of it but there was no way that was going to attract any men. Actually, it would attract some men out there (I’m not even kidding), but not the kind I was hoping for. I filled it out as best as I could and then clicked ‘save profile’. I received an email message almost immediately and was a bit startled by it. Ok it was just an email saying welcome to the Sea of Mud dating site and wishing me best of luck with swimming and not sinking.

Next I had to download a photo of myself. That is the scariest part of the entire process. It makes it all real. A whole world of people out there can now see who you are, and report back to friends that they saw you on a dating site. I had to choose a good photo. One that hides my flaws, but still shows the real me and not the me of 10 years ago. I had also just had a baby 9 months earlier and was going through a separation. I had gained some baby and stress weight. I will use a pre-baby photo. Yes, that will work! Uploading…still uploading. Is this thing working?? "Upload Complete". Well, there I am in my photo and all its glory. I am now out there for all to see. Yikes.

I started to look around at all the photos of so many different men. Was I really ready for this? What am I attracted to? I had no clue anymore. My world and life had changed so much in the last 10 years that I really did not know what I was looking for in a man. I guess that was the first step. I had to figure out what I wanted in a man. Tall. He has to be tall. And have a career job and not just a temporary call centre type of job. What else is there? Oh and not a cheater or a liar. Should I have put that in my profile? Maybe not.

On my merry way I went surfing profiles of all different sizes, shapes and colours of the men out there. I was reading profiles of those just out there for bed buddies or FF’s, profiles of men who seemed to be confused about what they wanted and then men who genuinely seemed to want a long term relationship. Genuine! Yes that’s a good one. I need to find someone genuine and not phoney. As I surfed along, little did I realize that each and every time you click on a profile, they are informed on their end that you have viewed their profile.

Let the games begin !!  And oh, did they ever....

Yawn...back to the grind...think anyone would notice if I napped under my desk ??

Well, howdy there y’all. I’m back from my vacation week and I guess that means that I’m back to my blogging.


It’s been a slow week for me so not much to write about on the dating subject. I’ve actually not been on any new dates lately.
Yes, I know that sounds really ho-hum but I needed to take a step back and take a short break from the dating realm. My biggest focus right now is on when the heck I can squeeze in another vacation day or two!

To set the record straight, this blog is about my dating experiences over the course of the last 5 years. It is from my perspective and from experiences of me and my single friends. It is not a ‘how to’ blog or to help you find your soul mate. It’s simply to share my interesting and crazy funny experiences with my friends and others. It’s to make you laugh and to help you realize that you are not alone because it’s happened to the best of us.

With that being said, I will say that the last couple of dates that I had went well. Sometimes that doesn’t leave me much scoop to write about, but at least it lets me know that there still are some nice people out there, even if they never become anything more than just friends. It keeps your hopes up and the dream alive. Until of course, you have another date from hell with some fetish freak that wants to wear your shoes or undies. Yes, that has actually happened to me.
Come to think of it, I’ve actually had one man pet my hair like I was a dog. And yes, he’s still on the dating site so watch out all you single ladies!

I’ve come to the conclusion that a date can go one of three ways:

1. you feel that instant click/butterflies right away

2. you feel that instant NO WAY

3. or you feel left with a sense of confusion as to how you feel, how it went and if you want to bother doing it again.

The ‘hair petter’ date went well up until the point when he freaked me out and then smelled my hair at the local Tim Horton’s.
That was most certainly an instant NO WAY!


Ok, well I will write more soon…have a great week.

I promise to entertain you further with my ‘diary of dating’.



L

The "All About Me" Guy

There seem to be a lot of men out there these days who truly want a relationship. Or do they? A great friend of mine had met a guy on a site and he seemed legit. He was looking for exactly what she was. He had kids, he was handsome and a businessman. He was tired of the dating scene and wanted to meet his soul mate.
Soul mate: a phrase that is thrown out there too much without the true depth of the meaning behind it.

She too had been on countless dates and always had a great time, only to never hear from the guy again. So she contacted Mr Ready-to-B-Yours and they went out. He had kids the same age as her kids, he worked full time, owned his own house and business, and he started to spoil her rotten. Things were good.
But (yes, there’s always a but) they never went out on dates anywhere after their first date. The remaining balance of their dates consisted of watching a movie at his house, dinner at his house, and sleeping over at his house. “He is quite a busy man you know” she’d tell me while making excuses for his behaviour. He would work late at his job at the company he owned, and he had to chauffeur around his kids to various jobs and sports. The longer they dated, the less time he had available for her. Other things kept coming up.  She finally stopped making excuses. She got bumped.
They dated a total of 4 weeks.

These type of men want a girlfriend, and yet they want their freedom. They rant on and on in their profiles about how they are romantic and want to enjoy the company of one loving partner in life. They want to share their feelings, their dogs, and hold hands and cuddle in front of a warm fire on a cold winter’s night. They are poets and romantics. At least, on their profiles they are. But have they just watched one too many chick flicks with ex girlfriends? They think they know what women want, and spoon feed it to all of the discouraged women out there. It’s like bearskin rugs, champagne glasses clinking in the firelight while wearing red satin pajamas and eating grapes. Who ever came up with that cliché imagery?

These busy boys will make a date with you and woo you to no end. Make no mistake, they can be great men and they sure do sweep you off of your feet initially. But soon enough, their priorities will shine through. They have volleyball on Wednesday’s, golf on Saturday’s, football boys night on Sunday’s, and meetings, clubs and anything else they can fit in on their free nights. Mr. Ready will make a date with you a week or two ahead of time, and when that day finally approaches, he will cancel on you (when you email him to confirm that you are still on) because one of his friends broke his ankle and he needs to go fix the guys muffler on his truck for him. Or paint his eaves troughs. Or bathe his Shih Tzu.

You are not a priority. These type of men have made their lives full so as to not feel the void of having no life partner. They have become their own ‘sole mate’.  And you can bet dollars to donuts that as soon as you are gone from their lives, they will be back on the hunt for another woman to woo, spoil, confuse and then bump when things start to get too serious.

In reality, they can fit you in sometime in July of 2011 at 2:13pm for 45 minutes. But only if nothing more important to them comes along.

Picky People Pick Peter Pan Peanut Butter.....

Am I A Picky Dater?



I was recently out with a friend and they told me that I am picky. I’ve never really thought of myself as being picky. I have standards and goals for myself in life, and I also have my deal breakers. I expect to date someone and eventually be with someone who shares some common goals with me. Thus far in my life, I’ve struggled financially as far back as I can remember (before marriage with student loans, during marriage and after marriage).
One of my goals is to be with someone whose combined income with mine can allow us some room to play in the latter half of our lives. Is that being picky?
I’ve worked very hard to hold onto my house, my world and not have to live in an apartment on the wrong side of the tracks. I’ve managed to pay my bills, keep things up to date and I can still have a few extras on the side like a trip to Cuba once a year for my birthday. Sure, I’d love to travel to different places, but Cuba is what I can afford on one income as a single mom. Next year may pose some other financial problems for me but that’s a whole other story. Such is life.

I guess that I’m looking to eventually be with a partner in life who has at least achieved what I’ve achieved so far, or greater than. Someone that will help me to make my dreams and my goals a reality. I don’t think that’s so much to ask at my age. I will be 40 in 2 yrs and 3 ½ months. Wow, that’s an eye opener. I remember my Mom turning 40.  Time rolls on...

So, as far as being picky about the physical aspect. Yes, I can see that I have certain criteria that I tend to be picky about. The top 3 things for me are teeth, noses and height.
A man has to have decent teeth or I’m out.  Oral and dental care is very important to me.
A larger sized nose with crooks and hooks and twists, I cannot do either. I’ve dated 2 men in my life with very large noses and it will not happen again. To feel that 'thing' swiping across my face or poking me in the cheek repulses me.
I can't help that, and a note to all the men with very large noses....it's not an indication of anything below your waistline so please stop making that reference of comparison to your disco stick.  I've done the research amongst my girlfriends and the consensus rules that it does not co-relate.
And the height thing is simply because I’m 5’9 and don’t want to bend down to kiss anyone.

Recently, I had a lunch date with a man who was bald ( I love bald men! ). When we met, he was dressed very trendy. The bald man had just scored one point for having great taste. He was 6’2 which scored him an extra 2 points. Great eyes and teeth! Yes, 2 more points!
And then the subtraction math began. He smelled like those houses that you go into that always smell like stale food. It wasn’t a dirty smell, just a smell like you had your laundry in the kitchen while you were cooking a meal with green curry and chicken. Stale. Minus 1.
And then he kept grabbing my arm and touching me while he was talking. When I don’t know someone and they start pawing at me, I’m not impressed. A gentle nudge or small gesture is fine, but to be stroking my forearm while conversing on a first date was making me very uncomfortable. Minus 2.

And I could not stop staring at his head. It was asymmetrical, pointy and higher on the right then on the left. I kept visualizing The Conehead Family from Saturday Night Live.
Then he began telling me about when he dates someone, he has to see them daily or at least every 2 days. Most people don’t get into that conversation until after a few dates. Actually, when things just feel right, you don’t even need to discuss the schedule of dates and dating. It just flow naturally because you are both on the same page.

Ok, at this point I noted my body language as being closed and leaning away from him. I was definitely done with the math, in the negatives and it was only 25 minutes into the date.

To keep it simple - we ate, he talked, I chewed, he talked, I drank my water, he talked, I leaned as far away as I could, and he crossed his legs on the bar stool??? What man crosses his legs on a bar stool? And then we left.

He asked me out on a 2nd date 40 minutes into this date and I just nodded and smiled…while eating my chicken salad wrap. That was not a yes; it was the avoidance of an answer. I haven’t talked to him since, but yes I have heard from him.  I shall swerve and avoid this one.

So my friends, if that’s called being picky, then so be it.

Signing off,
Laura the Picky Chicky

; )

Can I get a Salad...with the lettuce on the side??

So, a while ago I had a date with a guy that I knew back in highschool. He was actually a friends cousin and very yummy.

The date went well but I had one too many beers, and beers + me = trouble.
It was fun. We laughed, we cried, I bought the tshirt and we did ‘it’.  Mistake # 1.
Yup, it was about a 5 out of 10 on the giddyup scale. Yes, it was fast and furious and I actually got nothing out of it. It was what is known as "jack rabbitting".
I chalked that up to the beer intake factor on both our ends. Ok, so I figured I’d give it a second shot. We talked a lot on the phone, and it went well so we planned an overnighter.

We spent the whole day together and I realized quite quickly that his personality was as dry as trying to swallow a saltine cracker after you had just ran a 10k race without any water breaks.
This man had so much going for him and he matched almost all of my dating criteria:  divorced, one child, good career, own house, various fun motorized vehicles, financially stable, no addictions and so on. However, he was a total stick in the mud. There was zero personality that I could find. It was like spending the day with a robot programmed to spout negative comments and to be antisocial.  He didn't seem to have an ounce of positivity or personality about him.  I was spending the day/night with The Grinch Who Stole 24 Hours of My Life.

After that, I stupidly decided that I wanted to give ‘it’ one more shot and see if he was better round 2. All I can say in hindsight is that I guess I HOPED to get something for the excruciatingly painful time I’d spent listening to him spew facts about how terrible a world we live in.

Round 2, was worse than round 1. By the time it was over, 2.5 minutes later, I wanted to drug myself into a coma until which time he could drop me off at my front door. Things that we didn’t do the first round, were apparently things that he just did not do.
For example; kissing. The man did not kiss. What man does not kiss?!? I attempted to kiss him and it was like kissing a brick wall. No reciprocation and no movement of his lips.
Did I accidentally kiss his forehead?  No, I couldn't have missed.  I couldn’t believe it so I tried again. Nothing. Nada.  Zero.  Was he still breathing or had I killed him?
I finally said “why don’t you kiss back??” to which he answered “I don’t kiss”.
I said “geez, I feel like Richard Gere in Pretty Woman when he tries to get Julia Roberts to kiss him”
|Oh, and the man does not do other things either.
Ladies, you know what I am talking about. If a man will not go downtown for a woman, then he is not worth keeping around.  Men expect every woman to immediately go south for them (and I'm not talking about the Carribbean) but then they will not take make the trip? 
It’s give and take and if there’s no giving, then I am not wasting my time.

The drive home was a nightmare. He did lower than the speed limit the entire drive home and finally I stuck my foot onto his side of the car and rammed that gas pedal to the floor.
Well, ok that was how it played out in my head while I was daydreaming and avoiding having anymore conversations with him.

We both said a fast goodbye at my front door (no kiss of course) and then I slammed it shut and locked it behind me. 
I had just locked myself in my house with my cat – my cat who does kiss me!!