Adventures With Dating

I am unsure what to do with this site from this point on. In the next months I will need to either renew it, or let it switch off. If I let the account expire I will lose my quirky accounts of dates in 2008, but I am not sure I want to start dating again merely for blog fodder so I will probably let it go.

Here is an update of all things CremelloQuarterPony:

1.) I am on week two of surgery recovery and feel FANTASTIC. The post surgery pain is less than the pain I was having pre surgery so it was a brilliant move on my part. Some of the people around me were alarmed that I had decided to get a hysterectomy without first battling for years with other holistic/medicative alternatives but my family medical history combined with not wanting kids of my own made it a no-brainer.

2.) I want to get back into the shape I was last summer but I am still dealing with bloating post surgery so I feel… less than pretty. I am on limited physical activity for the next four weeks until I am 100% healed so a hard push with fitness to get my shape back will be slightly postponed… which of course means dating is postponed because there is no sense trying to find Mr. Right when I don’t feel attractive.

3.) There has been no contact with any of my dates from last summer which is fine. They were all Mr. Wrongs in multiple ways so I don’t regret never hearing from them again (yes, even The Rockstar, his inability to communicate makes him a big giant NO!).

There you have it. I am unsure where I am going with this website from here so it may or may not be around in a few months.

It has been fun, but perhaps it is time to quit playing at dating and start looking in earnest.

I am joking of course… well for the most part. It would be great though if I could sell my unneeded womb to someone who wants it more than me. It is unused in the respect that I have never had children but it is not without complications (and the reason I would like to have it removed).

I will spare you the extremely gory details of my health woes of late. I hate to be a statistic, but my body has succumbed to the standard affliction to occur to women approaching their 40’s and all the complications of it has made dating the last thing on my mind.

At this point I am crossing my fingers for a hysterectomy. How will this affect my dating? Well, I can’t be sure until I reach that point but I would sure like that new challenge instead of more of this same pain and suffering.

A funny thing happened on the way to the laundromat last night… Ok, actually it was while I was doing laundry yesterday evening, but I digress…

I was out-thought by a cute guy.

The quirky thing about me is, I prefer a clever interaction to small talk, so being out-thought is a plus in my book. In fact, you have to “out-think” me in order to get me engaged in conversation at all. My reaction to comments about it being hot/cold out, or other references to something blatantly obvious in the surroundings, get you a fake smile and an internal eye roll. If you try and break the ice with me using standard small talk about the weather or environment I will have crossed you off the list before you finished the sentence.

My apartment complex is very old so the individual units do not have washer/dryer capabilities, instead tenets have a large laundry room on the first floor. Two to three times a week I schlep a load or two from my dwelling to the coin operated jungle of the laundry room.

Another quirky thing about me is that I don’t actively look for interactions with people just because they are sharing space with me. My family calls me introverted, but I think that label misses the mark. I am not shy because I fear interaction, I just don’t think that the environment HAS to be filled with words because you have a mouth and vocal cords. I like to observe, think, dream as I go about my day and sometimes people are just obstacles to be walked around instead of connected with at every opportunity.

Case in point: Recently when I was doing laundry I was deep in thought in a complex storyline as I collected my clothes from the dryer. So involved in my own head was I that it wasn’t until I was back in my own apartment that I realized that two young, potentially cute (as observed from the corner of my eye), guys had each said hello to me while I was tending my clothes.

WHOOPS. Yes, CremelloQuarterPony needs an assistant who follows her around to shake her and yell, “CUTE GUY 10′ O CLOCK!” in my ear so I will stop treating people like poles to weave around on an obstacle course and remember to pay attention to new potential dating victims.

So yesterday evening, as I was removing clothes from the dryer, the cute guy next to me lays his trap. He starts asking me questions. Questions cannot be replied to with a fake smile and an internal eye roll, he has engaged my brain and like a tap to the knee I respond automatically. Before I even realize it, we have stumbled into a conversation about the benefits and drawbacks of our apartment complex. The complex is obvious small talk fodder, since it is something we both share, but he has snuck around my small talk alarm system with his inquiring questions.

Before I knew it I was chatting away and I felt a twinge of sadness when he wished me a good evening and walked off. THEN, as I was putting away clothes in my apartment, it struck me… He completely out-thought me.

1.) He got my brain engaged by asking questions right off the bat.

2.) He asked questions in a logical pattern (Did I like living here, what floor did I live on, how much was my rent, was that for a 2-bedroom?) that kept me answering before I could stop to think about them.

3.) He walked away just as I was starting to really notice that he was cute, which left me with that twinge of wishing he didn’t leave.

I grinned like an idiot as I tucked socks into my dresser because with just a few carefully placed questions he had discovered I lived alone and where in the building I was. He had out-thought me, and that is not something I come across everyday.

———————————————–
Other Updates: In my last post I mentioned the guy from my high school… nice guy but not the one for me. I am still targeting early Summer to start my dating search in earnest (again).

Single Awareness Day (aka Valentine’s Day) is almost upon us and it reminds me that I vowed to return to the dating arena come this Spring.

In all honesty it is a little hard to forget that I vowed to start dating again in the Spring because my “friends” keep badgering me to do so. My vulture friends friends just want new funny stories of the dates I endure, but… who can blame them… the stories amuse me too so I can’t complain too much about the process.

The one hiccup to this plan is that I have developed a fierce crush on a high school classmate and it is difficult to think about generating a new Craigslist ad for dating victims when I spend a portion of my day pondering how we might be as a couple.

He fits all of my criteria in a guy and he comes with a huge bonus, he already has kids.

I have never felt the pull to have kids of my own. I believe there must be an alteration in my DNA because the drive to be a mother has never been within me, although I have enjoyed being in the surrogate aunt role for my friend’s kids.

I have often thought it would be wonderful to meet a guy who already has kids so the pressure would be off me. He has procreated, his genetically encoded drive to reproduce has been met. Assuming that the mother is still in the picture this would allow me to move into a supporting role. I don’t have to be a mother because they already have one, I could carve out my own unique relationship with them based on the family dynamic of all involved.

Where was I?

Dating. Right. So I think I am going to wait a little longer on seeking out new dating victims. [Sarcasm] Although I will really miss dating more idiots like the GrayTennesseWalker, Grade Appy or the Saddlebred… [End Sarcasm] I would like to see where things go with my current crush first.

Oh and for Single Awareness Day? I sent cards and chocolates to a couple of my girlfriends. That will be good enough for this year.

(The above picture is Craig Kelly, who shall always remain the World Champion of Snowboarding no matter what year the calendar says it is.)

This entry is actually about my ex-boyfriend who I usually call Cheater or Cheater ExBoyfriend when I write in online journals; but that is short sighted of me, I am not allowing that after so many years he might have grown and changed his ways. So I will use a snowboarder picture for him and call him the Snowboarding Cheater ExBoyfriend.

Anyway… Cheater SnowboardingCheater sent me an email a week or so back. He said he was coming into town over Christmas and wanted to “hook up.”

I am not joking, he actually wrote the words “hook up” as if asking for an encounter that could be viewed as a proposition if someone was reading between the lines (although when dealing with Cheater you have to remember he is insecure enough–or used to be anyway–that if you ever called him on something like that he would deny it).

A million years ago when Cheater and I dated we had a stormy love life. It was the typical young love… I love you with undying passion, OMG did you just look at that girl/guy? You belong to me, you aren’t allowed to do that! We had passion and fire towards each other that mutated into suspicion, jealousy, tears and arguing.

Although I had said I Love You to men before Cheater, I first really felt it with him. (Of course it was that strangling, possessive restrictive young love, but a form of love all the same.)

The intensity of passion in our relationship made the break up difficult on me. My fierce pride has always kept me from going back to him (in situations where that door was left ajar for me) because I was not going to settle for anything less than a record-breaking feat of him showering me with take-me-back-I-beg-you gifts and groveling on my doorstep. Over the years we would find ourselves in social situations together–we share several old friends to this day–but some inner resolve would not settle for hooking up with him when the option was there.

Cheater tends to be on the shy, insecure side so his preferred tactic with women is to look for sex when he is in a relationship because the fear of rejection is lessened when there is always the girlfriend/wife to fallback on. (I was just the girlfriend, but one of the girls he cheated on me with he married years later… then he cheated on her. )

I didn’t find out about all the cheating until we broke up but it was then that my eyes were opened to this fallback habit he had and it is the reason why I never hooked up with him anytime after that… because no matter what my broken heart wanted, my head was smart enough to realize his intentions towards me were not what I was seeking.

I need a bigger love than that, and a stronger/better man to go with it.

Which brings me back to his request to “hook up” over Christmas. I gave him my number to call me when he got into town but have remained ambivalent if he actually calls or not. I make him nervous and his shyness shows every time I have seen him since we broke up… sometimes he drinks to excess and occasionally passes out from it… you can see how that might keep him low on the attraction meter for me.

I got a call last night sometime after 10 PM but let it go to voicemail because I did not recognize the number which I do sometimes because I am annoying like that. No message was left. Hmmm. Well, Cheater if that was you, you are going to have to grow a pair and actually leave me a message next time. There was a time when I played silly love-struck games with you, but I am a grown up CremelloQuarterPony now and the only games we like to play involve a PC and an Amazon chick with a bow (Diablo II, Titan Quest).

I might be mean and keep letting unknown numbers go to voicemail to test if he wants to see me bad enough to leave a message. It is evil of me, but unfortunately I just don’t care whether we “hook up” or not.

Things have (obviously) really slowed down in my social life.

No news about The Rockstar. I have traded a few emails with him but have not seen him in a month and at this point what future–if any–we have together is impossible to predict.

The free online dating sites (PlentyOfFish.com and etc.) are a bust for me so far, I have gotten a few emails here and there but no one that I am interested in. I deleted my profiles at all but PlentyOfFish (OkCupid was too confusing to navigate and there were no cute local guys on there) and I am not sure how much longer I will keep that one up.

The motivation to find Mr. Right is still there, but my motivation to have to sort through more Mr. Wrongs while I wait for him is waning.

I hope to meet some hotties that I want to date but there are never any certainties with that… and so until then, my story is TO BE CONTINUED…

For a while now I have been wondering if I have exhausted the online dating options for my town.

I do not mean that to sound overly pessimistic, but for the city where I live (population ~150,000) it does seem quite possible to reach the bottom of the dating barrel in the short term UNLESS you search in new barrels, which is what I have been trying to do with PlentyOfFish.com and OKCupid.com.

What I have determined so far is that Craigslist is a great dating net for immediate results (i.e., 30 email responses within four days) but the websites like PlentyOfFish and OkCupid with posted profiles are more of a long term investment. PlentyOfFish has netted me ~6 emails from guys over the past week but unfortunately no one that I was interested in enough to try a first date with.

So the question is, where else do I look?

Occasionally you come across profiles on Internet dating websites where the user writes, “I have tried the bar scene, now I am trying this.” Their comments seem to suggest that everyone tries to meet people at a bar FIRST and when that doesn’t work they try the Internet SECOND.

But I tend to go against the norm. I have tried Internet dating time and time and time again since the invention of the Internet BUT I have never purposefully gone to a bar with the mindset to meet new people. The inquisitive scientist part of my personality would like to do research on this subject because with Internet dating my first hurdle has always been the picture exchange. I want to know what they look like because I don’t want to waste my time if attraction isn’t there.

Wouldn’t that just be easier if I could go to a place where they were all in a room and I could chose to go talk to the ones I was attracted to?

That seems logical to me. So I have been searching out new girlfriends who desire a nightlife. My current girlfriends are either: married, moved away, or are online-only friends who live around the world. In my search for new nightlife-seeking girlfriends I returned to Craigslist. I have started checking the “strictly platonic” category for women who want to PAR-TAY!

One of my guy friends sent me this saying, “I am not insinuating you do this, it is just funny.”

Just a short while ago I was returning from my lunch break and I walked by my city’s public library. Walking towards me was The Actor (aka Mammoth Jack). His look is unmistakable and I did what anyone would do after they make an obvious excuse to run away from someone on a first date, I kept my eyes focused forward and DID NOT LOOK in his direction again.

But I could see in my peripheral vision that he was angling his trajectory in my direction. Eeeeeek! I really did not want to have a conversation with this horrible first date.

As he got closer I noticed the clipboard. OH CRAP, he took a job as a political advocate and is going to ask me if I am registered to vote.

I didn’t hear all the words he said, just something about including “medical marijuana” something something on the ballot.

I muttered “no thank you” as quietly and quickly as I could so he would not have a chance to recognize me and I walked away.

This gives a WHOLE NEW level to uncomfortable with dating.

I signed up for PlentyOfFish.com. Three guys have emailed me, unfortunately I am not interested in any of them. I emailed four guys, three have read my messages but didn’t respond and the forth hasn’t been online for six months so I think that one is a lost cause.

I also signed up with OkCupid.com. I have sent emails to two guys, no replies yet. One of the guys had a MySpace page so I actually sent the message through my MySpace account and he requested to friend me, so I did, but he didn’t reply to my message. WEIRD. I sent a second message today, we will see if he answers.

I also signed up for Date.com which is sort of free (or at least I thought it was free?) and my profile and pictures were approved and all that but my profile does not display any of the pictures I uploaded and the site is confusing to navigate so after three days of that I gave up. I deleted my profile and we are moving on…

I haven’t posted a new ad on Craigslist yet but I have been browsing through the men’s ads. (It must be my area Cindy because all the men’s ads are tame. I don’t have any of the scary stuff you deal with.) Nothing has sparked my interest yet but there is always tomorrow.

First impressions are a tricky thing. As I pointed out in this post here I am not a huge fan of being called “pet names” (sweetie, hun, etc.) before a guy gets to know me. It comes across as superficial and tacky.

I also think some things are better shown by example than spoken, like a guy’s “sweet” factor.

Take our latest dating candidate for example. He looks old enough to be my dad and signed his PlentyOfFish.com email as: Sweet William.

Really? Am I really supposed to write back to him as: Dear Sweet William… ? I was rolling my eyes at the corniness of this, but I thought maybe he was trying to be funny so I asked him about it in my reply.

He wrote back saying: Actually i go by Bill… Over time you would be finding me sweet hence the sweet William …

I think I just threw up in my mouth.

In my NOT humble opinion, the sweet factor should be shown by actions, not told as an ice breaker.

Mr. Overly-Sweet-And-Looks-Old-Enough-To-Be-My-Dad is getting the veto from excessive use of cheesiness.

I don’t mean to sound overly snarky… ok, more snarky than usual anyway, but honestly which is it?

I am always so upfront with the type of guy I am attracted to, because I am old enough that I know myself and I don’t see the point in wasting my time or theirs.

My PlentyOfFish.com profile mentions my top three attraction needs regarding men: tall, slenderish, and cute face.

And while I SO appreciate the sweet message saying how PonyBoy#1 is attracted to me, it is still annoying to get the he is only 5′9″ and why don’t I give him a shot anyway next line.

This is not my first entry on this subject, so which is it? Are men illiterate, overconfident or JUST PLAIN crazy?

If I could find a “dating fail” picture in Google I would include it here. I mean that purely sarcastically of course, but since yesterday it occurred to me that I am going about dating a little backwards in that last night’s date was entered into with the forethought of just being fodder for this website.

I wasn’t excited about the Saddlebred from his initial email or picture, I was rolling my eyes at his foaming-at-the-mouth-to-talk-to-me actions, and yesterday I went to my date with all the excitement of house cleaning day. That wasn’t fair to the Saddlebred and so I am labeling myself as a dating fail and regrouping from here.

My date yesterday lasted a whole 45 minutes. I chugged down my wine and hurried out of there before it had even been an hour. I wasn’t attracted to him and I couldn’t find any shared interests between us or a personality that captivated me. Add to all that the fact that when I walked over to the guy pacing around the front door I gave him a smile and asked, “Are you [Name He Has Been Writing To Me With]?” he nodded and we sat down, and then he told me the long winded story of his online dating experiences and the punch line was that his name was actually something else.

OH GOOD LORD. What is the deal that I can’t seem to find guys who are 100% truthful with me lately? It was bad timing on his part. My nerves are a little shot about people not being open and honest with me as of late and whatever willpower I had to try on this date was knocked out the window when I found that out.

Yes, great, we all need to be “careful” with Internet dating but I guess I am just the exception that I am brave enough to tell people the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth when it comes to me.

Dating shouldn’t be a chore; even if I LOVE writing about my experiences on this website, the experience itself shouldn’t be entered into with all the excitement of going to the dentist. I am going to put off placing a profile on PlentyOfFish.com (or ones like that) until I can get the spring back in my step.

Now it could be that I am the common denominator, I could be unconsciously picking guys who share these traits, or it could be a factor of Craigslist but I have noticed a few strange similarities with all my first dates.

1.) Every single guy I have dated thus far (through my Craigslist ads) has been a great conversationalist. I can ask them a few questions and they will launch into stories about their lives. I like how easy it is but there is a flip side to it… I rarely–if ever–get asked questions about myself. I will usually jump in and take the conversation baton from them to share snippets of my own stories but I cannot remember it ever being offered to me in the form of questions asked, at least not on the first date.

When I analyze this situation I can see that these guys are dealing with nervousness and when their brain is engaged in telling me a story they feel comfortable and in control. I can get some level of eye contact from them (it varies per guy), but when I launch into stories of my own the guys have more time to think and notice and it makes them more nervous. I only get fleeting eye contact in those moments.

First dates are stressful so I cut guys a LOT of slack but if that behavior were to continue on second and third dates I would know they weren’t the ones for me. CremelloQuarterPonies need strong, take charge men BUT they have to be focused on us enough to want to actively listen to what is in our heads.

2.) If I don’t initiate contact (email/text) after the first date I never hear from them again. Now it has only been two days since my date with the BayCrabbetArabian so he *may* still contact me in the near future but something makes me doubt that he will.

Perhaps this is a case of me being the ad poster and they being the responders so the first date is viewed as an “audition” that they wait for a callback on whether they passed or not. This pattern does make me wonder… if I would have waited for the RockStar to email/text first, would I have heard from him again, or would he have slipped into the post-dating mist like all the others?

Does this insecurity (or whatever it is) about not making the first move to say, “That was great! Let’s do it again!” go hand in hand with the patterns of nervousness shown in conversations and eye contact on the first date? And does this track back even further, can it be said that (for my area at least) are all the men who USE Craigslist afraid/nervous about dating and unable to obtain dates through any of the other “conventional” ways?

Perhaps I should use my love of writing to write myself up a grant proposal to request government funds to further research these mysteries.

(I am telling the story out of order using labels about story structure from here.)

Dénouement
After my date last night I sent three texts while invoked with the spirits of Pinot Noir. One was a sappy text to the RockStar, another was to my close guy friend about how I missed the RockStar, and the third was to my cute East Coast girlfriend about how my date made me miss the RockStar.

::sigh::

Exposition
I need to tell you about my first date with the BayCrabbetArabian. First, let me state that I was mislead into thinking he was another rockstar because he was in a band. LOL, I need to wait until I have all the facts before I jump to those conclusions. Let’s compare.

RockStar: His band has two members that the RockStar would call “professional” but I would just call “Hey! I know that band! They used to be in that?” They just finished recording their debut album with plans to promote and get airtime on the radio. The band practices once a week and the RockStar has more than one drum kit.

BayCrabbetArabian: Used to play locally but the lead guitarist moved away to pursue a career as a chef. They practice once every few months. BayCrabbetArabian owns a 1/3 share of a drum kit that is at the bass guitarist’s house.

Rising Action
(His horse label explanation is coming, be patient.) I met the BayCrabbetArabian for a drink at a bar I like. I have met three different guys at this bar over the months, I wonder if the waitstaff recognizes me by now.

I ordered my wine at the bar and searched the place for him. He was busy reading the local entertainment magazine but luckily he looked exactly like his picture so even from his bent head I could pick him out. It wasn’t the warmest of welcomes to have him buried in a newspaper but whatever…

Like all the other guys I have dated so far, he was a good talker. I much prefer someone who can talk over a mute and I am well versed in providing EXCELLENT listening feedback. I am all smiles and supporting snippet comments and happy laughter. It is important to me that my dating victims feel comfortable so I give out the most happy, upbeat vibe I can muster.

Horse Label Explanation
I used to own a Crabbet Arabian. The horse was GORGEOUS, everyone who saw him always commented on his looks. He was also sweet and good hearted and outwardly mellow for an Arabian.

What does outwardly mellow mean?

Arabians are hotblooded horses and many are very reactive to outside stimulus. I have ridden Arabians that you can feel quivering under the saddle in highest levels of ready-to-flight energy. Those nervous vibes usually alert you that the horse is about to spook at something and you better hang on or you might fall off.

My Crabbet Arabian was outwardly mellow. You would NEVER know he was going to spook… until he did… and then like so many times before it I would find myself hanging midair just moments from hitting the ground.

This guy gave me that impression. Outwardly he seemed calm and collected. If he was talking he could stay focused and give me occasional eye contact, but if I started telling a story he would visibly squirm and couldn’t meet my eye.

(I was reminded of a former actor I knew at an old job. If he had a “script” [aka a planned speech to give to the employees] he was a commanding presence, but get him one and one and you could smell his nervousness.)

The BayCrabbetArabian was calm and cool when his brain was engaged telling me a story, but when he switched his focus to quietly thinking I could pick up the nervous vibe from him.

Climax (Turning Point)
The turning point for me in the date was when he told the very detailed story of how he got his jaw broken.

He got jumped but a drunk Fight-Club-wannabe at a bar that resulted in breaking his jaw to the effect of… the right half of his jaw was hanging several inches lower than his left. He pointed to all the places he now has metal plates (forehead, cheek, jaw, chin) and then pulled out his phone to show me a picture of himself after it happened.

I am not normally squeamish, but for some reason that story horrified me. No matter how good looking he is I could NOT IMAGINE kissing him after that, the broken jaw story was just too graphic to erase.

Falling Action
I left the date torn about what I want to do from here. On the one hand he is nice to look at, but on the other I literally won’t be able to kiss him after that story. I don’t know why I feel that way, that was just a really yucky story to hear.

I have decided that I am not going to text/email him first because I want to do a test and see if the guy always waits for feedback first. I gave him nothing but positive vibes during the date and when I walked away I said, “Talk to you soon” so everything was left on a good note.

We will see I guess.

GradeAppy just answered my Craiglist ad.

In my ad I mentioned four local bars that I like because including local landmarks helps guys to tell which ads are real and which are SPAM posts (if you reply to the ad the poster will write back with a URL to their pay porn site).

His message: So I think I fit the bill that you are looking for, but I think [bar we went to where he picked a table for us outside in 100+ degree weather and I could hardly concentrate on what he was saying because I was sweating so much] would be better!

My reply for the website: Even though the temperature is cooler outside, don’t be such a self-centered bastard. A word of advice, stop thinking about yourself so much or I might not be the only one leaving early and never talking to you again after dates!

My Craigslist ad specified I was looking for men that were 6′ tall or taller. I believe I may have explained about this quirk before but let me reiterate that height is a layer of attraction for me.

For example, the fact that the actor Matthew Lillard is so tall is one of the things that I find sexy about him. If he swapped heights with Seth Green my interest would swap as well.

I know myself. Height is a thing with me.

Recent email reply:
I’m not 6′ but taller than you and no one has complained once they meet me, cute, fun and lots of personality. If you can get over that I might be your dream guy.

Response for website:
Are you sure? I can complain A LOT at times. Kudos to you for thinking highly of yourself, but my dream guy? Honestly? Did you not read my ad at all? Did it not sound like a feisty blond who knows what she wants out of life?

Do you look like this:

Because THAT is a dream guy for CremelloQuarterPonies.

I also have a weakness for this:

But I think that is more related to our weak-in-the-knees moments of watching Green Arrow on Smallville.

Background information: Most of the Saddlebred horses I have ever known are hotblooded (lots of OMG! OMG! OMG!! LET’S GO! energy).

So this new guy emails me. He is not as cute as the RockStar, but he is cute enough so I email back with my pics.

He writes back with, “Your pictures are very pleasing to the eye!! WOW”
Awww! (Go Me!)

We email back and forth to figure out the place and time for first date. He gives me his cellphone number so I give him mine.

HE CALLS ME 5 SECONDS LATER.

Oh good lord. He’s a hotblood.

I don’t answer the phone so he emails me. I reply to his email saying, “I saw that you called. How about we wait and see how [day we are meeting for first date] goes?”

Then a few hours later he texts me, asking when I usually get off work. Oh geez, I can see where this is going but I decide not to be presumptuous so I tell him. He asks if he can call me so we can get to know each other better.

I reply, “Can we wait and see how [day we are meeting for first date] goes?”

He so reminds me of a hotblood Saddlebred, whinnying and can’t stand still with sweaty foam rolling off him.

I like men to be interested, but not to the point that I feel like if I extended my leg they would hump it.

Cindy asked me about encountering the same people with online dating. Yes, it happens.

In the past four months of my Dating Adventures I have posted at least five Craiglist ads (maybe six or seven, I lose track). With each new ad the process begins again, you have to weed out the ones you aren’t interested in until you have a manageable amount of men to try out for a first date (usually 3-5 per ad).

Sometimes you get lucky and you can spot the men you weeded out previously based on a familiar name, email address or picture, but occasionally you might slip up with the ones who don’t send their picture in the first email.

This has happened to me twice so far. Some men, for whatever reason, don’t include their picture in the first email so in the past I sent my picture FIRST and asked for theirs. Twice now it has bitten me in the ass when I didn’t recognize their name or email and after I sent my picture with a “your turn” email they wrote back to say, “We have talked before. Last time I sent you my picture I never heard from you again.”

Ok, now what am I supposed to say in those situations?

I have tried writing back to men when I wasn’t interested but then I sometimes get the ones who want to lobby for their case, like I am going to change my mind on their attractiveness level based on how well they fight for a chance. That was annoying so I stopped trying that.

My latest tactic is to just cease contact (no more emails) which avoids the uncomfortable lobby for a date, but if I accidentally contact one that I rejected in a previous round I get the obviously cranky rejected email of “…never heard from you again!”

So now I am getting nervous about sending my pictures first because I don’t know how to tactfully say, “Sorry I didn’t think you were cute enough for me to date. If you would have sent your picture in the first email I would have just ignored you and we could have avoided this altogether.”

I posted a new Craigslist ad.

The GrayTennesseWalker answered it. On the surface, no big deal… I have posted ads since I dated him and he has answered them before (I just ignore his emails since I don’t need my leg humped)…

Ok, this time? He gave me a DIFFERENT first name. WTF?

The picture is definitely the GrayTennesseWalker, no doubt about it… WHY OH WHY did he change his name?

I am suddenly grateful I never went on a second date with him, I don’t know what games that one is playing.