Monday, October 17, 2011

Young Guns Vs. Old Pros

So, back to the hockey game that inspired me to write again.
Last week, I was watching 2 two very opposite ends of the age spectrum play against each other.

Before me were energetic youths in their early to mid teens and on the opposite team were very focused men around 35-45.
Watching them both reminded me of the dating differences in young men versus older men. Now, I don’t mean old men with walkers, canes or other mobility assistance paraphernalia. And I sure as heck don’t mean boys in their teens. That’s just plain silly.
I mean men that are 20 something versus men in their late 30’s to late 40’s.

When you are a woman in your mid to late 30’s, you are bombarded by both ends of the scale when it comes to dating. You have the young guys full of energy and full of ego trying to hook up with you, and then you have men that are older than you just looking for their younger woman to have on their arm. I’ve touched on this before but will go in a different direction this time.

From my research and experiences, the young men are eager and full of beans. They are always on the go, looking for the next party and their next conquest. They have no real debt (because they probably still live with their parents) and they have no real commitments in life. They are living for the moment. They love a challenge, think they are invincible and seem to have no limits. They will accept anything laid before them (no pun intended).
Unless they are very career driven, they probably have no real liabilities or responsibilities. But being career driven can also bring arrogance.
Especially in this age of the new “Playstation i-Everything Generation”, these younger men have become lazy and very self focused. Media has helped them become this way from the time they were exposed to it. They have only ever known MuchMusic (yes, I AM Canadian :)  ) cable (what's an antenna??) and everything handed to them in hyperspeed. Drive thru’s, instant messaging in some form or another, and laptop computers have been around them all of their lives. They are easily distracted, but like to get what they want and move on. They are easily bored and overstimulated by technology.  There are exceptions as with anything and I’m sure there are lovely young men out there, but they’re dating girls in their age range. The ‘boys’ who want a woman 10-15 yrs their senior tend to not be those guys.

However, this newest generation of young men seem to have watched something somewhere (because they don’t read anything other than texts) that let them in on a secret tactic that the older men have perfected.
Put the woman first in the bedroom. It seems that they have decided not to just jump in and hump like Thumper anymore. It’s not a race called gone in 60 seconds. They now seem to want to take care of the woman first. Do they do this with girls their age or are they trying to overachieve to impress us more mature gals?
Not quite sure why, but these young ‘uns have thrown that chip on the table now. One major difference is this: they still rush through it to get to the grand prize being their own gratification. Now they are gone in 120 seconds.

And now for the old pro’s…

They have debt, they have baggage, they have liabilities, they have children, they have divorce(s) under their belts, but these men have some skills. No, unfortunately not all of them can be highly skilled, but boy they sure give it their best effort. And there’s no rushing involved. Some of them don’t even care if they get a turn on the ride. They actually just enjoy the thrill of watching how it all plays out. They listen to what you have to say and are willing to compromise here and there and alter the master plan if it works out better for the both of you.

**Now the married women out there would argue with this theory of mine. They probably have husbands in that age range and feel that they are not meeting their needs at all. That’s for Dr Phils marriage counselling to figure out and not for me to get into.

The key to it all is the men who are not married anymore. They were rejected by former spouses, shot down and egos bruised. And now they have a second chance at the goal. They can show off their skills with nobody guilt tripping them about leaving their dirty socks beside the bed, or forgetting to empty the dishwasher or grab dog food. There’s no performance pressure. They want to get a goal, but they just go out there and enjoy the game too. They aren’t as high strung or hopped up on egos. Maturity has taught these men great things, but the downside is that they have some penalties mixed into their pasts.

With all that being said, it's a personal choice and depends on where you are at in your life and in your head. 
Myself?
Well, I've decided to go with mature and highly skilled, but still a few years my junior.  I have found the best of both worlds!

Now your own game is to find a man, young or old, that meets most of your criteria.
                                                      Game ON !!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Do Not Pass GO, Do Not Collect $200...

So, I was at a hockey game last week and it inspired me to write again. Not quite sure what clicked but I’d long since lost my inspiration to write when I lost my job back in March of this year.
My mother became ill December of 2010 and throughout this year.  Her Lupus finally reared its ugly head and has been fighting with her body.  My moms poor health mixed with my job loss after 10 years caused me major weight gain from stress which was cruelly accompanied by hair loss (yes that’s been a real treat).  The sum of the whole lead me to hang up my keyboard for the last 8 months.


Luckily in the midst of all of this chaos, I met a really nice man. He is not some street vendor knock off; he is genuinely good and kind.  He helps me to smile and assures me that good things are coming.

When my life seemed to be in perfect order with a good career, great income and all else in place, I never seemed to meet a good man. All of them were duds pretending to be someone else and knockoffs masking who they truly were . There were like old pairs of shoes tossed away by previous owners. Shoes that the first women wore down to nothing. Other women came along, found them and polished them up and tried to wear them but they never fit right. So again, they were tossed into the 'Used' bin. And for good reasons!! Those were the toxic category of men that I was meeting when the rest of my life seemed to have all of the right boxes checked.

When my world fell apart in early 2011, I seemed to meet him almost immediately. I tell him all of the time that he met me at a personal low point. He met me when I was jobless.  He met me when  I haven’t weighed this much in years (I'm bursting out of my fat jeans) and I haven’t earned this low of an income in 11 years.
But that night, I saw him online and I messaged him. What the heck did I have left to lose?!?!
I hadn’t thought he would email me back because I assumed he was too hot for me.  Why did I think that negatively?  I guess that's when my self worth was spiralling down the royal throne.

Well, he messaged me back and I’ve been a happy camper ever since. We had our first date 6 months ago. I wish I could've at least met him when I was younger but maybe I would've despised him.  Or I could've thought he was "like, a total dork".  Funny thing is that we have mutual friends in our pasts. We knew some of the same people in high school. I could have met him earlier in time, but that was not fates master plan.

We each had our life lessons to learn to make us who we are now. To make us fit together like puzzle pieces.

Do I know what tomorrow holds? Not really but who does?

I know what I want out of life and I’m struggling daily to get back to where I was in my life at this time last year.  But should I be?  Perhaps I should be setting new future goals because my past goals were not meeting the finish line.
I feel like this is my new start.  I'm working where I started my career 13 years ago.  I've been set back to START but this time with a lot more wisdom, experience and education.

I believe this:
What you put out in life comes back to you. 
Positive thoughts merit positive results (as difficult as it may be to hold onto the positive)
And whatever will be, will be....

But it sure is nice to finally have a best friend and a partner to enjoy the ups and downs with!!!

Monday, March 7, 2011

The Bullies

* I'm starting to post some older experiences that I've previously written, so here one is...

The Bullies


Hey, you pulled my hair! That’s when it all started. Way back when the bullies were young and they thought that being mean to you would get your attention. This may have worked as kids, but it sure works quite the opposite now. As the story goes, I met a guy online. We spoke quite frequently before meeting. I was planning on going one night to see a band with some friends at a local pub and he asked if it was ok if his friends and he went too. Not together, just coincidentally at a busy bar where we all happened to be. I said sure, but warned him that I would be with the girls and may not be too available to talk all night just to him.

He was excited to meet me. He owned his own business and seemed to be a hard working, genuinely nice guy. Not an overly attractive man, but still not too hard on the eyes. I arrived at the pub with friends and saw him come in a couple hours later. My girlfriend noticed him noticing me and subtly hinted to me that he was there. “He’s here!” she yelled after pointing to him and gesturing him over by waving her hands in the air above her. “Gee thanks” I said. She’s married so she hasn’t learned the latest pub scene dating etiquette. He came over and introduced himself very politely.

The pub was standing room only, and you had to push your way through to get anywhere. As he got closer, I noticed he was wearing a wrinkled white button down shirt, with a black dickey underneath. “People still wear those??” was what went through my head.
He had a huge scratch on his face and another underneath his eye like he’d just taken someone down in the parking lot outside. We’d spoken on webcam earlier that night and he was untarnished. Now, a few hours later, he’s a complete wreck on our first meeting. My friend quickly changed her tune and nudged me. It seemed that she had instantly learned the art of subtlety because she quietly whispered a firm NO to me. I agreed. He was acting strangely unlike the man I’d been talking to online. The band was ok but not worth staying for. We decided to bail when he started looking at me like a starving man looks at a steak and potato dinner. He was smiling and staring and kept trying to stroke my hand across our table. Time to head for the hills. Later on that night, I was wide awake and surfing the net. He came online. He told me that he really liked me and wanted to see me again. I told him that I didn’t feel the vibe (famous last words). His alternate and true personality surfaced and he began typing the most vulgar and demeaning words I’ve ever been written still to this day. I was in shock. He was firing off insults and swear words like those were the only words he knew. The bully in him had appeared. He attempted to write me an email to blast me some more but I blocked him and that was the end of that bully.

Since then, I have encountered quite a few bullies online. They are so kind at first, and then they pull your pigtails so hard that it leaves your head spinning. If you don’t appear to like them, they fire off an email assault on you with their guns blazing.
Beware of the bullies.

Rule Number 9 – Objects in webcams are sometimes dirtier than they appear. Bring hand sanitizer.

Monday, January 24, 2011

The Number

The Number


I recently talked with my girlfriends about our numbers. This number is the actual number of men with whom you’ve 'gone all the way' with. This number does not include all of the men you’ve made out with, fooled around with or even just kissed. If it did, I’m sure we’d all have become nuns by 25. This is a sensitive topic for pretty much any woman, but after some probing women will tend to let it slip usually after a few glasses of wine. These conversations always contain a few of these style of comments: “Oops...oh yeah, and him too, I forgot about that one!” My one friend actually had to do a tally sheet and then sent me random messages throughout the following week or so adding the forgotten men to her list.

If your number is too low when approaching your late (late) 30’s, it’s probably because you were married for quite some time or still are. If your number is too high, you’re one of two things: a 'career girl' with an hourly red light special, or you’ve been single off and on since the 80’s.
There’s a fine line between too high of a number and too low of a number. Apparently, men lie about their numbers more than women. We’ve all heard the math “when a guy tells you he’s been with 10 women, add 5 and multiply it by 2” Is this true for women as well? I think as women we tend to negotiate our numbers with ourselves a bit. We say things like “he doesn’t count because it was only 2 minutes from start to finish” or “I was too drunk to remember that so it doesn’t count”. We’ve all said those types of things in an effort to forget our regrets or those bad moments in time of which we’d rather just wipe out of our minds.

I’m quite aware of my number and I can recall all of their names (given some time and a couple of drinks). Ok, that was a joke. Yes, I know who they all were and I have only 1 regret in the list. I can rest easy in the fact that I’ve been accountable for my actions and never did anything I knew I’d regret. Except that one ridiculous time. Actually, I bumped into my one regret about 3 weeks ago at a local pub. That was a tad bit uncomfy to say the least. He was staring at me across the room and I was trying to avoid making eye contact. I subtly pointed him out to my friends who also noted his eye darts in my direction. He’s attempted another shot at the gold a few times over the last few years, but I have shot him down and foiled all of his attempts. Poor guy, in a strange way I sort of felt sorry for him.  The fact is that it was clumsy, bad and awkward but for some reason his memory of the evening varies greatly from mine.

I don’t go backwards. I keep my head up and focus on the end result while moving forward.
I will say though, that when you leave the single digits and move into the double digit numbers, you definitely start to ponder your past, present and your future. Some girls move into the double digits when they are still way too young to even know what life’s about. That is just a sad fact.
I was not one of those girls. I respected myself enough because I have a wonderful mother who was open & approachable about these things.  I also had amazing friends in highschool (yes, Charlene you kept me safe many times over!) and they would always tell me to wait until I was in love.
And a sidenote to all of my friends from back then, I did wait until I was in love. Another thing I do not regret.

So now here I am at 38 years old, and my closest friends are also single women. Some have been married, some have not; some have children, some do not. It doesn’t matter much really; we are all in the same situation and we are together. No matter how many men we’ve slept with, no matter how many men we’ve dated, we are all looking for the same thing. We are all looking to find someone to share with, laugh with, party with, cuddle with and all of the other amazing and fun things that go along with a close friendship and partnership in life. Friendship is the key that opens many doors. 
Live long and prosper !

Monday, January 3, 2011

Two Eyes: Sunny Side Up

Two Eyes Sunny Side Up


So once upon at time, I made a date. It was not the first blind date I had from the dating site, but it was certainly one of my most memorable.

We spoke on instant messaging for a long time which equals about 3 months in the cyber dating world. I was randomly dating here and there, and so was he. The time finally came when both of us were ready to actually meet each other. We had talked so often, that even his kids spoke to me in cyber space and wanted us to meet. That was a bit too much for my liking, but I had no control over that. Believe it or not, some men actually feel the need to push their kids onto women they meet almost immediately. I will touch more on that subject later.

We decided to meet at a local popular chain restaurant in town. It was not too expensive and very casual so it would work well. He asked if he could pick me up and I agreed to let him know where I lived due to the lengthy conversations that we had. I saw no harm in that (BIG mistake).

He arrived in a car that I’m sure was top of the line in 1985, but had long ago lost all sense of cleanliness and more importantly safety. I let it slide as I’m not a material girl by any standards. It’s what is in the heart that matters. He had told me that he weighed anywhere up to 220lbs which was a bonus because I like bigger and broader men.  The man before me could not have been more than 140lbs soaking wet. The second big red flag was when I spotted the fanny pack, which may as well have been a neon pink polka dot scrunchie on his head.  Yes girls...a fanny pack.

In my head, I heard air raid sirens going off. We sat down and ordered drinks and dinner. I noticed that he was extremely fidgety and nervous and strangely enough sounded exactly like Al Pacino.  Every time I looked down at the table in order to avoid being overly friendly, I had to look up to confirm that he was indeed not Al Pacino.

We spoke and made very limited eye contact due to first date jitters. The food came. At this point I did not feel the butterflies, the vibe, the happy feeling, or the spark that you we are always hoping for, but I was there and there was nothing I could do but ride it out. I felt nothing.

All of the sudden and out of nowhere, I noticed "it" staring at me.  How had I missed it?!?
He was eating his dinner and when he would look down, "it" would keep looking at me. "It" was his right eye. I tried not to look at it but it was like the more I tried, the more I would look. This behaviour of course made him think he was charming the pants off of me.

So why was it looking at me when he was looking downwards at his food? I could no longer hear the words coming out of his mouth.  I could only focus on my thoughts of "It".
Did it have a mind of its own? Was it stalking me with its gaze or was it like a magic 8 ball eye which could predict my fortune? Did it possess super powers like x-ray vision?
I had to get out of there. I had already noted all the emergency exits and had my one hand on my purse. Oh Crap!!! He drove.
I ate my pasta as fast as I could possibly eat it, and then gave up and said I was going to doggie bag the rest. Beep Beep. My cell phone went off with a text message from a friend. It was not planned, but she may have just saved me from the Super Stalker 8 Ball Eyeball. I told him that she was fighting with her husband, and was on her way to my house to cry on my shoulder. I asked him if he’d mind leaving immediately and taking me home to meet her. I lied.  I should've won an Oscar for my performance.
After he dropped me off, I let him and the eye roll off into the sunset and we never saw each other again.

Rule Number 3: always bring your own escape plan or car.