Lesson 7: Connections (this took me 2.5 hours and six pages of Word writing)

I have mostly stayed off the dating apps since last summer when it became apparent that anyone I was interested in was not really into going out because Pandemic, and the people that were interested in going out turned out to be recently released felons with neck tattoos.  I may have engaged in some banter, some online flirting, maybe some sexting but mostly I just enjoyed the freedom of being able to say "oh well, can't date right now because Pandemic" and having a perfectly acceptable reason to hunker down and develop a deep relationship with my couch.

(That is going to be my shorthand grammatically incorrect gesture for the rest of time.  Pandemic.  Or *pandemic*  or pandemic.)

Sometime around my first Moderna vaccine I pried open the now rusty OKCupid app.  It had been so long that I was essentially de-activated, as they had warned that they would take me off the market and I would receive no more likes!  Which was fine for me at the time, but meant that I had to get to work and start swiping right or left.  Sometimes I forget and swipe the wrong way and then have to quickly unmatch a goober.  Dating really is a video game.  Even when you do match with someone there is a little standoff to see who will message first, sometimes never, sometimes I send an unanswered hello, sometimes I delete them because I decide their hello feels too effortless.

Long story short, I matched early in the week with a guy who was cute and dorky and we actually had a good email exchange conversation all week long.  Thank god for working from home, right?  Friday he asked if we should switch to text or meet up so I gave him my number and away the texting went.  

By the next night we were having a zoom date after his daughter went to bed.  It was awkward because he looked different from his profile pics -- he had his long quarantine hair and had shaved and his profile photos were short dad hair and beard scruff.  He teaches from home so he had the dojo privacy screen in the background and wore a headset mic.  I started laughing because he looked like one of the online coaches in that awful at home weight loss program my health insurance made me take.  I think he was annoyed that I was just using my computer mic but I didn't care because I had wine and was witty and charming.

There were some awkward moments and I could tell that he was either super nervous or maybe a little on the spectrum?  I never got that vibe from his texts, but even I am more eloquent when writing than I am in person.  Turns out he has drank in his life and even smoked pot and made out with a girlfriend in high school.  He has his daughter full time, the mother is a state away, so absent but calls.  He asked if I wanted kids and I said well I don't know that it's possible anymore and he said, oh IVF is only like fifteen grand so my ears perked up at that.  Oh yeah, get this, he's a college sociology teacher, maybe a professor?  I think he has TAs and at least a masters, possibly a phd.  

So I forgive the few awkward moments because he actually has his shit together and is smart.  Smarter than me!  But I make a few jokes about my loser exes, I think to put him on a pedestal and let him know he might be saving me.  That's a thing, right?  Even if they don't know it, they need to feel like The Knight in Shining Armor.  He asks if I want to get together, he could make me dinner and then we could watch The Princess Bride since he mentioned it as one of his favorite movies and I think I seen it once as a kid.  He wants me to come soon, like Sunday or Monday night, and I tamper his eagerness with a reminder that I work early and he says, "well you don't have to stay the night" and I'm like "oh I KNOW" and that was super awkward.  

A date to watch a children's movie and hug and kiss was then scheduled for Friday, but got bumped to Saturday when his friends had made plans.  I was fine with it because Friday meant I'd have to rush around after work and traffic and I made an appointment to get my hair cut on Saturday and hoped he would too.  One night when we were texting about our plans he said something about needing a raincoat.  At that point I realized hugging & kissing might not be as wholesome as I imagined, I was like ummmm maybe just some golashes.

The hairdresser whom it was my first time seeing was appalled that I was going to his house.  "Well, it's an apartment," I explained "so if I scream the neighbors will hear."

"What if he chloroforms you first?" she pointed out, obviously a fellow Murderino.  "I know people who've been killed in apartments."

"You do?"

"I mean, I've heard of it."

We laughed.  "I was going to say you don't know them anymore! Besides, I already asked him if he was going to murder me.  I told him he had to tell me.  It's the law."

It was funny, you had to be there.  She was going to watch for me on the news.  I said it would be at least Monday before anyone realized I was missing.

Now, on to the actual date.  He lives where I have just moved from so it was a 45 minute drive and I decided to stop at Target to pee because I had been slamming a Frosé Rosé energy drink on my way there, and also I had lost my mascara, and also I did not have diarrhea but thought I should take an Immodium pre-emptively because Chinese Food (he decided to order take out instead of cooking).   

A mile from his house my dashboard started flashing all kinds of lights.  Service traction!  Traction error!  Engine disabled!  I coasted into a nearby gas station with a sinking feeling.  Oh God, I’m going to have to call my dad, I’m going to have to tell him I have a date, or do I have the guy come pick me up and call my dad tomorrow and explain that I had a date last night?  Do I get a tow?  I got out, opened the hood, checked the oil because I never check the oil.  Coolant appeared to be full.  Nothing was steaming.  Got back in, started right back up.  I had the a/c on to squelch my nervous sweat but switched it off and was on my merry little way.

I arrived shaken up and he opened the door in all his ponytailed glory, looking the same as he had on our zoom call.  Tall, but I knew that, collared shirt tucked in.  The Chinese food had already arrived since I was, of course, late.  A coffee creamer that I had stuck in my pocket when I was cleaning my car out had exploded and was slowly leaking onto my leg so the first thing I asked for was the garbage. 

“Not usually the first stop on the tour, but right here.” 

I made a joke about how if I smelled like sour milk later, this would be why, and we sat at this tiny makeshift table to the lo mein and crab Rangoon I had requested and some shrimp fried rice that is his favorite.  I didn’t eat much because the sweet and sour sauce was not the right kind and because I was trying to be dainty.  I did not recognize a look of disappointment in him about my body but also did not want to chance looking like a pig. 

Did I mention that he does not have a TV and is proud of that fact?  The living room was an array of desks for him and his daughter and a giant bean bag chair in which we both sat to watch the movie on one of the many computer monitors.  So it’s not that he doesn’t really watch TV, it’s a technicality because he has Netflix and watches things on his computer as does the daughter.  And there’s no room for a sofa.

Right away he had his arms around me and was doing all the caressing and touchy stuff while I was trying to get into The Princess Bride.  It’s very 80s.  So he’s getting all touchy and despite having my hand on his knee, I figured I should give him a little more to work with so I turned to look up at him to kiss him and the makeout session was on.  Does the princess end up getting saved?  I’ll never know.  (I actually have the dvd myself because it’s a “should” watch and I have probably had it for ten years without taking it out of the plastic.)

I managed to ask him to go to the bedroom because let’s face it, a couple of forty-somethings making out in a bean bag chair while watching an 80s movie on a computer monitor feels more like mom and dad getting frisky on parents weekend in the dorm instead of romantic first date.  He did at least have a bed!  On a frame!

It took a long time.  We stopped and talked a little in various states of undress and he had to take a break to call his daughter and say good night.  I asked if that was going to kill the mood and he said he is good at compartmentalizing.  She only knows about or meets women he’s dating if it’s really serious.  He asked if I was seeing or talking to anybody else and I said no.  Apparently he had been seeing someone in 2019, they took a break and she’s come back around, but they are not exclusive so he wasn’t cheating.  He only offered this up during the “how long has it been” conversation and he said “not that long”.  Oh gross, what if had been the night before?

We had sex, but not for long.  He thinks consent is sexy, so once we’re down to me completely naked being fingered I had to be like, “please”.  I know I was breaking the rule, but I figured if anything at least the seal had been broken on my quarantine virginity.  I told him it had been since last February, but in all blog honesty I had an extremely terrible embarrassing encounter the day before Thanksgiving that even I did not want to admit to. 

So while we were laying naked he asked if I’d ever been in love and I said I suppose so.  He says twice, with his high school girlfriend and his ex-wife who started referring to him as her first husband on their honeymoon.  We had all sorts of pillow talk and somehow I ended up telling my tall bar tales like the time I almost got a drunk driving.  I got up to put on my underwear to go pee (my belly does not need to be seen in the afterglow) and he got up and fully dressed as well. 

It’s hard to say, but there was a definite shift afterwards and while he offered to let me spend the night, it didn’t feel like he wanted me to and I wanted to avoid the awkwardness of the morning after.  We talked some more in his kitchen, a little more distant now, he told me his attachment style is usually avoidant but he worked on it and is better now.  I never would have guessed up to that point. I told him how I used to think I was a love addict but it might have been the ADHD and we kind of got into therapy talk and I feel like I shared too much about my family.  I’m starting to think that my memoir could be called, “Stories That Shouldn’t Be Told On a First Date”.  But once I get into confessional mode, it all comes pouring out.  Vomited vulnerability, post-coitus style.

He also asked me if I wanted kids again, so apparently he didn’t remember batting an eye at the cost of IVF? He also has a framed photo of himself at his masters graduation and commented on how handsome he was.  And at the beginning of our make out session he breathily asked if I wanted to kiss him as soon as I saw him and since I did not, I breathily laughed and kissed him more so I wouldn’t have to lie.  I told him about graduating from alcoholics to narcissists and then asked if he was a narcissist and he said no, but *that is exactly what a narcissist would say.*

Still, as I made the move to leave, he was already making plans for next weekend.  I said since my car is being iffy, maybe he could come to me.  He promised to come rescue me if said car did not make it and asked me to text him when I got home.  I made it just fine, except for the judgmental cats yelling at me for being out until midnight.

Since he had said something about how I could text him in the mornings (it was usually him initiating the morning’s conversation), I sent him a meme on Sunday morning.  He was kind of quiet most of the day which is typical for the day after, especially since his daughter had been gone for two nights, and he was having a birthday lunch at his mom’s and yadda yadda. 

Sunday night I could not get to sleep.  I seem to be having these nights more and more often where I’m dozing in and out of consciousness, can not fully get under though I am somewhere in between lands.  It was 2:30am and I was awake yet again and I opened my meditation app to find a sleepy time track when all of a sudden I get a text from him and more dots that indicate more texts are coming in …

He goes:

Hello beautiful.  I’m sorry to say that my real life is crashing in on this party of ours.

While I enjoyed kissing you, I’m afraid to say that I have some real world things to attend to …

Let’s still plan on me coming to you but I don’t know if I can promise anything long-term.

I promise I will make our time together happy.

I interrupted at this point, “are you drunk?”

He apologized for waking me and said he should probably go to bed.  I agreed that was a good idea.  If only I didn’t lay there until 4am pissed off at him for being a pussy and trying to break up with me in the middle of the night and who said anything about long-term, I was the one who gets to choose, I don’t need a consolation prize, I should just tell him to go fuck himself.

I did none of those things.  I ruminated in the morning and sent a screen shot to one of my Kellys who was the only one who even knew I went on a date.

“I don’t even know what this means,” she said.

“Me neither,” I said.

I finally text him Monday and he said he was up late, he was sorry but he didn’t offer further explanation.  I said he could still come but only if he wanted to, and I promised I would only talk about boring middle aged stuff like soffits and the cost of lumber.  He picked up on the lumber and turned it into a conversation about nothing.

Without an explanation from him, I am turning it into I did something wrong.  I did not pass the “bonus mom” test since he ultimately is looking for a life partner that can help raise his daughter.  A good woman who can help nurture a gifted child.  I might just be a fun time.  Not high brow enough, too bowling alley.  Or he is interested in other people, his green dot is frequently showing in okcupid all the time.  Or whatever other girl he wasn’t cheating on.  Maybe he is not a nice guy nerd.  Maybe he is a fucking narcissist.  I am slowly thinking of red flags.  This is real time ahas right here.  He asked me a question once and he said, “that’s exactly what I would say, you are me in a female body.”  He wants himself.  He wants a mirror.

The last few days have gone back and forth with who texts first.  Yesterday was him, today it was me, though he has the ball.  Plans for this weekend have not been solidified but he has a job interview that I think he is going to say he “needs to study for.” I feel like I got tricked into being the wanter instead of the wantee.  I am the one who is “not sure”.  I wasn’t sure but figured I’d give it a few dates to see if we click.  I don’t want to force anything but I was excited by the idea of someone intelligent with their shit together, possibly an instant family.  Maybe I needed a nice nerdy down to earth guy.

I guess I’ll let it fade out if that’s what it’s meant to do.  Narcissists hate when you stop paying attention to them.