A Letter To The Love Of My Life

Dearest Love of My Life,





Hey you. It's been a crazy year, and I just thought, you know, when we actually meet, if I go ahead and give you the specs of my dating life in 2008, we can just skip that conversation all together when getting to know each other.





So, we'll just not waste any time and start at the beginning of this insane year!! I know you're excited, darling...





First, there was the BIG one...the Sergeant. Oh, wasn't he just lovely! After a few months of blissful coupledom, sadly, he went completely crazy. And it hit me that it actually costs quite a bit of money to constantly commute two and a half hours for a weekend visit to see your sweetheart...and it really cleans out your bank account when you're doing this while already sinking slowly but surely into over 10,000 dollars of fabulous credit card debt. Ah, good times.



It ended badly. In fact, this was the first time in my 22 years of insane dating experience that I actually had my heart smashed--just a little. With the loving support of man-hating friends and biased family members (wink wink ;) ), I made it through this rough period of life verrrry quickly. Hell, let's be honest. Maybe I just got over things so quick because I really am a cold-hearted scorpion woman. You be the judge...



At the end of March, there was a guest staying at the hotel. He wasn't particularly good-looking, but he was nice and he jumped out of airplanes into forest fires for a living, so that was kind of cool. Well, we had a date, it was boring, I wasn't interested, yada yada yada.

Well, he decided, a week later, when I wasn't responding to his phone calls like I should, that he would send me a picture of himself in just a towel.

Really?



When he couldn't reach me on the phone after this incident, he became somewhat of what we 21st century women like to refer to as a "creeper" and called me at work. I proceeded to scold him like a middle-aged mother and his entire group stopped staying at our hotel after that.

I mean really. What are you men thinking?



Let's move on to April of 2008, shall we? Only four months into the year and I agree to be a date to a military ball with another -- GASP-- military man. Aw, they're not so bad and I'm not one to learn my lesson the first time, so let's go for it! After a few dates, I realized this guy, too, was a crazy asshole that thankfully moved across the country before I could do anything remotely damaging to his car out of womanly spite. Oh, and on a side note, I was also seeing his friend who I'd met at this military ball as well...oops, that was wrong of me. But he ended up also being mentally weird and was shortly shipped off far far away. Whew. Got me out of that mess before it got too crazy....



Ah, but let's give the military man ONE more chance, shall we? Okay, here comes May of 2008. We'll pick....hmmmm....let's see....oh I know! The army man who was in a special unit for a year in the middle east who did such unspeakable things that he officially, medically is so mentally unstable that it's a guaranteed roller coaster ride going out with him! Woo, let's do it!

This charming match lasted, oh, let's say a month? I did get furniture moved out of my apartment though, so we'll just say the month of utter, incomprehendable insanity was worth it not to have to hire moving guys or rent a UHAUL.



Oh, love of my life, this is only the beginning. June 2008 was a pretty steady month for me, darling, but it wasn't to last long. Oooohhhh noooo....after several casual here and there one-time "we'll call them dates" with various firefighters and paramedics, I'd sworn off wasting my time with these well-known heroes who you have to respect but would be completely out of your mind to date. Ah, but there was a sweet one who seemed so intelligent that begged and begged and begged me to go out with him. He was six years older than me and seemed to have a level, morally sound head on his shoulders...So, finally, I gave in.



It was a charming first date...if you don't take into account that he talked about his whorish ex-wife the whole time, hated any and everything southern, which made the cute cowgirl boots I was wearing seem a little ridiculous, and when we got to the Mexican restaurant for dinner, wanted to order a salad.



Really? A salad? This was a joke right? It's a Mexican restaurant, not a rabbit food store in California.

What's even better: we didn't even get a cheese dip. WHAT THE HELL? WHO GOES TO A MEXICAN RESTAURANT AND DOESN'T GET CHEESE DIP?? IS THIS EVEN LEGAL?

And you know what I had to get for my beverage on that fine summer evening? Not the marguerita I was so desperately craving, oh no. I had a water, no lemon. That would've been too much color for his personality, which coincidentally resembled that of a wet mop.

Did I mention he went to jail for growing and selling illegal drugs and on top of that, didn't really know or care who was running for presidential office. He was just planning on voting for the one that smoked weed, if he voted at all.

Has your laughter subsided yet, my love?



All right, moving on.



At this point, the experience with this "dude" was sooooo horrible, I was ready to go on a dating fast for a couple months. Oh, but my dear old friends wouldn't let me do that. They all knew this GREAT older guy who was great looking, smart, in shape, shaved head because he was confident in his own skin, and worked a second job not because he had to, but because he loved to bike and this second job was a bike store that provided him all his outdoorsey needs.



Yes, this is exactly how my dearest friends described him to me. They pushed and pushed and pushed me to go out with this man. I'd never been on a blind date and I wasn't gung-ho for it by any means, but finally, I caved in. What the hell, he sounded great. Maybe this would be the start of someone I could just have a good time with.



I show up at the resaurant where I'm supposed to meet him. Incidentally, it is the same Mexican restaurant I'd gone on a date with Pothead to, but this time I was more than determined to get my marguerita.



So I call him once I arrive and he says he's walking across the parking lot towards me and he's wearing a blue shirt. I get out of my car and see a tall, incredibly good-looking man with a shaved head, blue shirt, talking on a cell phone. Immediately, I break into a huge grin, thinking this might actually be a good dating experience. Suddenly, the man gets off his cell phone and goes to a car. Behind him, is a short man with a shaved head in a blue shirt--still on the cell phone with me.

I begin to feel naseous.

He comes up to me with a smile, flashing teeth that are grayed from either a.)years of smoking/dipping or b.)just not having good dental hygiene.

Good. The naseousness is getting worse.

He is the same height as me and the heels I am wearing only lift me up to about 5'5".

I'm feeling lightheaded.

His head is shaved, not because he's confident enough to act like he's the Rock, but because he is balding. Also, he's four years older than I was told--34. Have I mentioned I am an immature 22 and my parents are just 40? Yeah. Feeling dizzy now...

He is wearing an old man blue bowling shirt with chest hair that eerily resembles 1970's shag carpet creeping out of the top of it and slowly crawling up his skinny neck. His voice is about as squeaky as a child molestor's, which considering the age difference, I feel like he might just be that kind of guy.

I'm so sick I feel like I'm about to throw up all over him, or myself, and then go after my friends that set me up with a large ax.

The date didn't last long. After two Texas Margueritas, I was still dead sober and made up an excuse that I had to leave. Despite the fact that there was absolutely NO chemistry, this guy still wanted to go out again. I almost just told him I was a lesbian so he wouldn't call. I refrained from being that dramatic, though.



Not only did my friends make me feel like I was the ugliest, least desirable female on the planet Earth, but they also completely severed our trust. Never again.



Keep in mind, it's still only, oh, August? Yes, August. Still 4 months to go in this oh so wonderful year of 2008.



I begin to attend more fraternity parties since my best friends new boyfriend is the president of a fraternity. It's fun and I am meeting all kinds of cool guys.

I seem to forget they are FRAT GUYS.

We start with the guy who likes to get everybody pregnant and won't quit pestering me to the guy who, at first glance is very cute, but then breaks out techno music and glowsticks, and then moving on to the handful of frat boys who are quite a bit younger than yours truly, yet seem to temporarily gain my fancy because they just seem so darn cute and fun.

Oh, I got over that stage REALLLLL quick. Leave me alone young boys. You have nothing to offer and I don't have time to facebook you every other hour of every day. Yeesh.

Just when I decide that this is really really really really IT--THE END for the year...I mean, it is November at this point and I just want the endless awkward dating cycle to be OVER.

Oh but that would be too easy now wouldn't it? Now here comes the regular guest at the hotel. He seems nice enough. Perfect actually. Very handsome, suave, witty, intelligent, sincere....oh, but guess what? He's still just a 22 year old man. Which makes him the enemy.

We spend hours with each other, just talking, getting to know each other. Finally, I think, "Hey, this one might be semi-normal and a perfectly acceptable possibility to hang out with. Right?"

So we have a date set up, he'll come to the Christmas Party for work with me. Oh, wait, no, that won't happen because after no call and then an awkward night meeting at a bar (I will spare you the details, sweetheart.), the day before the Christmas party, I get a text informing me that he's banging some chick and can't bare to be the bad guy and keep his date with me.

Sigh.

It is December. Finally. New Year's Eve arrives and........GASP! I am completely single and stress free of MEN!!!! YESS!

I didn't mention any of the hospital or hotel creepers that followed me, cornered me in an elevator, or tried to get a kiss out of me in a dark corner. Those are just minor details in my awkward track record this year....

Now, it's 2009 and the beginning of a new Era--a new ME! No more awkward dates, no more wasting time, no more boyfriend! I am on a fast from the male species and I am loving it completely. No, I am not a lesbian, I just am a single female who is getting stuff done and saving a lot of money by being single. Really, during the holidays, it's a lot cheaper to be on your own.

However, I do face one dilemma: Just because I stay away from them, doesn't mean men will stay away from me. I still have that invisible ASSHOLE PSYCHO CREEPER neon sign on my forehead that I just can't seem to get rid of. It's like a magnet in my bones.

Damn. I'm like the Magneto of the dating world. All dangerous shiny objects stick to me ruthlessly in an unavoidable fashion.

Ah. Happy 2009 begins.

I love being stood up over text messaging.

"Hey. So, I don't think I'll be able to make it to the xmas party tomorrow night. I'm really sorry. Don't be pissed at me. I started talking to another girl and I just don't think I should go. I'm sorry."

This is the text message -- that's right, TEXT MESSAGE...not even courtesy phone call--that I wake up to this afternoon.

Here is the timeline for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about.

In regards to the guy that I was referring to in the last blog I wrote:

On a Tuesday, we hung out, talked for hours, liked each other, it was just perfect. We have it all set up to go to this xmas party together, fabulous. A couple of days go by, don't hear too much from him, however, why worry? I know better than anyone what it's like to have a busy busy lifestyle.
Friday rolls around, hang out a little more, though not too much, and I begin to see a slight sign of a possible different (jerkish) kind of side to this fellow. But hey, he's been drinking. We'll cut him some slack.
Saturday morning -- "Oh, yeah, Tabitha, I'm gonna go buy me some nice khaki pants to dress up for this party. See you on Monday!"

Monday morning = the "I am standing you up and don't even have the balls for a courtesy call" text message.

Yes. The empty seat next to me at the party (because it's reserved for a date) and everyone's expectations that I'm bringing this guy. Luckily, it won't be too embarrassing, because I work with some awesome, wonderful ppl who could care less and love me even when I'm Bridget Jones Dateless.

But I'm just so disappointed. I can't figure it out. What happened to the cool guy that I hung out with less than a week ago? I didn't do anything wrong. How could he turn out to be such a deushbag when he seemed so great and fun?

And how am I supposed to act now when I see him at work, since he is a guest at the hotel? When he says hello or whatever, am I supposed to be all cordial and just say hey like nothing happened. I suppose that'd be the thing to do....to act like it doesn't bother or irritate me.

Sometimes I just get really tired of people wasting my time. Even if it is only a week of my time, that's a week in which I put good thoughts into someone that turned out to not be worth it.

Say What You Mean.

I know, I know. It's been a while.

Wouldn't it be great if we could just say what we mean? Most of the time, we can with our families or our best friends...but never the opposite sex, really, when dating is introduced into the picture. Even if a serious relationship isn't what you're looking for, there is still an amount of wishy-washiness involved. One moment, it's "Oh, I like you and I'll call you" and the next minute, you're wondering why your phone hasn't rang for a week. What is the deal? Why do we enjoy playing these games?

Is it always this way, I wonder? Even when you get older, is an amount of discreteness required? Why is it so unnacceptable for us to just come out and say either , "Hey, let's just hang out, see where it goes." Or, "Hey, I like you, and I want this to go somewhere important." Either way, serious or not serious, why don't we make our intentions known? Is it because we're afraid the other person won't have those same intentions? Or is it just because we have fun with these games we play with each other?

Well, it's just dumb.

Honesty never killed anybody. I don't understand why honesty scares ppl away from each other. Let me tell you, if I'm not interested in someone, or if I have different intentions than he does, I won't be a bitch about it, but I will be honest. Making someone have false expectations of you is just plain wrong.

I know this sounds like I am having these problems myself, but I assure you, it's not to this bad of an extreme. Yeah, there's a guy I know that I like to hang out with, but that's all I think of him for now. He, for some reason, is a little wishy-washy with things, and I suppose isn't quite sure what he wants. He's a pretty cool person, so this back and forth thing within a week of hanging out with him is a little annoying to say the least. Especially when I've been hanging back, just chilling, cause I am too busy to make a big deal out of anything. .. So, does this not being honest, wishy-washy thing that ppl do make these ppl deushbags, or are they really good ppl that like to be up one minute and down the next?

And you know, I know plenty of ppl who played these types of games with each other when they first met and they're now happily married or happily dating for a while. But when I think about it, if I'm gonna put my time into committing to someone, do I want this person to be all up and down? Is it always this way, even with the love of your life.

Not that I am looking for the love of my life, cause I definitely do NOT want to finish up that chapter of my life at the moment, but still....

Chill out dude, I just wanna hang out once in a while cause I think you're cool and you think I'm cool.

But can I say that? Oh no. That's not following the rules of the game. I've gotta sit back and play it cool with hopes that my frustrations and his wishy-washiness will simmer down enough to have a good time.

But this doesn't just apply to relationships, I don't think. It's everything. Work and school, daily life-to-life. Saving face never solved any problems, so why do we do this? As I get older, I don't. I cherish honesty with ppl. Ppl will always respect you -- even if they don't necessarily like you-- if they always know where they stand with you.

There is a reason for everything, and I guess that includes non-honesty, beating around the bush things. But still, it makes you wonder, WHY? it's such a waste of time to beat around the bush, you know?