A Big Snooze

After some e-mailing back and forth and texting, I spent some quality time with Ivy Boy...and his lacrosse buddies from college and his little sister. Seriously.

Remember how I thought he was a little boring and serious when I met him? Oh yeah I take that all back now because I know for a fact now that he's incredibly boring and not at all serious.

In fact, he and his friends are all totally idiotic meatheads. The whole lot of them all played lacrosse in college and sat there for THREE HOURS recounting stories of the parties they had and the drugs they took back when they were athletes. This, of course, was when they weren't making fun of each other for "being a homo" and talking about cleveland steamers and rusty trombones (if you don't already know, don't ask - trust me, you don't want to know).

To begin with, my idea of physical activity is walking down the block to the grocery store instead of having Fresh Direct deliver it to my doorstep, so I didn't exactly fit in with his crowd. Nor do I find homosexual insults and explicit sexual remarks that funny when they're outside of a Judd Apatow movie. I felt as if I had to read a textbook or watch a documentary after hanging out with them to replace the brain cells that I had just lost en masse.

Needless to say, I don't think I will be hanging out with Ivy Boy ever again.

Feeling Ambivalent

Last night I went out with some friends for drinks when Celebrity Connections Boy texted me to see what I was up to and I invited him to come meet up with us.

I had liked him immensely when I met him so I was looking forward to seeing him and getting to know him better. He's a great guy, very good on paper in addition to being a genuinely nice, friendly person.

We had a good time and I was thinking I might actually be interested in him until...well, until he decided to tell me exactly how he feels about me.

It started out innocently enough. He told me the night we had met, he had seen me in the bar before we started talking and that he had thought I was very pretty but had no idea how to approach me. Then, while I was occupied with St. Paddy's Day Boy, my girlfriend B had started talking to his group about the hockey game that was on. When I found B and joined in their conversation, to quote him, "I couldn't believe my luck that you were friends with her and you would talk to me."

He then proceeded to tell me how "awesome" he thought I was and how much he liked me. He used the word "perfect" to describe me at some point, and that was really the last straw.

Ok I know this is going to sound a little crazy, but one of the best parts of dating is not knowing exactly how the other person feels about you and that "does he like me?" excitement. So when someone spells it out for you on the very first date, when they barely know you, it kind of ruins all the fun. And if you're me, it freaks you out completely and gives you the urge to run for the hills and change your phone number and locks.

Before you think I am completely insane, please keep in mind that I was (and am) still trying to sort through whether I would have to throw him into the friend zone, or if it could be something more. I don't even know if I'm really attracted to the guy and he's already decided that I'm the girl for him.

Then today, while I was still semi-freaked out from last night, I received a text from him saying "I had a great time last night. I would love to take you out this week if you're free." Yes, folks, he L-bombed me. Already. I am buying a taser tomorrow.

The Beginning of Something, Maybe

I am starting to feel like the girl that cried wolf when it comes to saying that I've "met someone special that might actually turn into something" since I am aware that I was mistaken about that in the past a few times (Slingarm, Client Boy just to name a few). Therefore, I refuse to say anything remotely to that effect about my first date with AGA last night.

He called me yesterday in the afternoon to tell me that he had to go out of town this weekend, but he would call me if he was out and about in the nighttime. I was having a drink and catching up with St. Paddy's Day Boy (who btw I am almost positive knows he is in the friend zone now) when AGA called to see if I wanted to meet up with him.

We had a fantastic time and this will go down in history as one of the greatest first dates of all time, complete with more mind-blowing kissing. He conveyed to me that he would like to see me again, soon, and he'd give me a call today so that we could make plans.

After not hearing from him all day, I was starting to lose faith when I received a text that said, "I'm sorry, I had a busy day and just got home. Can I call you tomorrow?"

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Let's back up for a second. I am used to guys that, well, just plain don't call or even worse, pull a Logan Boy, i.e. make plans and then totally stand me up with no explanation. (Side Note: The honor of this title almost went to Client Boy, but alas, Logan Boy came first and his actions were way more heinous. Sorry Client Boy, next time...) I thought a guy was considerate and awesome if he even texted me "Sorry, I will call you tomorrow". It's unheard of to be asked if it's ok.

All in all, I am pretty amazed and overwhelmed by AGA. In a good way.

Oh, and PS - If you were wondering at all, the picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post. I just thought it was cute...kind of like AGA...

A Very Eventful Wednesday Night

If I am anything, it's a multi-tasker. And that even comes to my dating and meeting boys. On Wednesday night, I had a networking event that I had to attend, but I agreed to meet B at our bar for drinks beforehand.

St. Paddy's Boy had written me earlier that day that he would be at the same bar B and I frequent, so I agreed to have one beer with him before I left for my event. It was good to see him, but I am still thinking that I'm not that interested in him romantically.

Then, right before B and I were getting ready to leave for the event, we ended up talking to a group of hilarious, young guys. I hit it off with one of them (Celebrity Connections Boy), and we ended up talking for a while and making plans for the weekend. Way before I made any movements to leave, he asked for my phone number. He's very cute, funny, in good shape, AND friends with a very hot TV star, which is always a plus.

B and I finally made it over to the event, very fashionably late, and I made the rounds to say hi to my friends. Then I bumped into a guy that I did business with (no, like actual business, get your mind out of the gutter) many years ago and haven't seen since (we are going to call him AGA, short for Almost Got Away).

When we had originally met, I had thought he was cute, but knew that he had a serious girlfriend at the time. I was still with my boyfriend, so the whole thing was pretty moot. Last night, AGA told me that he had asked one of my coworkers about me because he had thought I was cute. He joked to me, "Think of the lost love connection we almost made!"

"Well, you had a girlfriend anyway," I pointed out.

"Yes, but we broke up. I'm single now."

"Realllllllllly...."

"But you must still be with your boyfriend, right?"

And that was the beginning of the conversation where I told him I was now single as well. We talked for the remainder of the night. And yes, I will finally end the suspense and confirm that AGA was the guy with whom I had the amazing kiss from last night. I know it was really eating away at you.

All in all, it was quite a successful night. I managed to squeeze in a brief date (St. Paddy's Day Boy), meet a new prospect (Celebrity Connections Boy), and reconnect with AGA. Not bad at all for a Wednesday night.

A Reflection on the Kiss

I'd like to pause here and get a little sappy and possibly medical, so my readers who cannot tolerate this should stop reading this post right now.

A good kiss is always nice, but a really great kiss is a totally different ballgame. Why is that and why does it feel so damn good?

According to Helen Fisher on WebMD: "The receptors on the lips are incredible...I've heard hookers say they would rather copulate with somebody than kiss them because the intensity of kissing somebody is so meaningful. There's tremendous intimacy. ... Even the genitals do not have the sensitivity that the lips have."

Wowsers. First of all, I think that's the first time I've ever used the word "genitals" in my blog. Secondly, that isn't the first time I've heard mention that kissing is a more intimate action than sex, and not just in the Pretty Woman hooker world. I have guy friends that will sleep with girls but think kissing them would be weird because it's that much more serious than sex.

Oh and that wonderful weak-in-the-knees dizzy feeling after a kiss? Kissing prompts the brain to release dopamine and norepinephrine, which spur on feelings of giddiness, euphoria, lust, attachment, and sensations similar to the ones you experience when in love.

Why am I looking up biological facts on kissing in the middle of the night? I have been fortunate enough to have a few fantastic, memorable first kisses in my life. Off of the top of my head, I can recall four. Some women say they can tell if a guy is "the one" from that very first kiss. While I find this to be a load of bullshit, nor do I believe in "the one," I cannot deny that after those first kisses, I knew that there was a special spark and that guy was going to be important in my life in some way.

And without setting any expectations or getting carried away, about two hours ago I just had memorable first kiss number five. Thus, now I am trying to rationalize why this one, brief kiss could mean so much to me.

More details on the guy later, but I will leave you with an excerpt from my in-the-works novel:

There are first kisses and then there are first kisses. There are times when there is so much chemistry and lust that when you kiss, you just think to yourself, “My god, why haven’t we been doing this my entire life?” Needless to say, this was one of those.

One Party, Lots of Inappropriate

Last night I took my girlfriend S to an event a hot new club that was being hosted by Sketchy McSketcherson. Not only did I meet his barely legal girlfriend, he informed that she recently moved in with him and then promptly asked me if I would like to go back to their place for a threesome.

No joke.

I politely declined, as politely as you can decline a 40-year old's invitation to have a threesome with him and his 20-year old girlfiend, but he kept on insisting until I eventually left.

As if that wasn't enough, Sketchy McSketcherson introduced me to a cute guy that I was chatting with. He was nice, smart, interesting, but slightly ADD. He wandered off at some point to "go to the bathroom" and my girlfriend S had hit it off with his friend, so I was feeling like the third wheel and went to the bar to get a drink.

And there, I found him hitting on another girl and within moments dancing with her on the dance floor and making out like there was no tomorrow. I'm not kidding, guys, this was like full on grinding-on-the-dance-floor-sex-with-clothes-on-in-the-middle-of-a-crowded-club making out the likes of which haven't been seen since high school homecoming.

Let's just say all this inappropriateness plus an open bar equals an enormous hangover and a mysterious bruise I found on my knee this morning that is this incredible shade of green/purple/red/brown that I have never seen before and didn't previously know existed in nature.

To sum it all up in one word: Ouch.

Just Another Monday Night...

So I was feeling kind of down last night, so B and I went out to our local bar for some Monday night drinking. I noticed a cute guy sitting by himself at a table in the front, so I sat myself down at his table and asked what he was doing.

Turns out in addition to being cute, he is great on paper: Ivy League graduate (thus, the name Ivy Boy), played sports in college, works in Private Equity, lives in a nice area in Manhattan, etc, etc. He's slightly boring, though, as the good-on-paper guys seem to be, and very intense, but I managed to make him crack some smiles with my witty banter.

The end of the night resulted in a hug, kiss on the cheek, him giving me his business card, and inviting me and B to a Sunday Irish breakfast. Therefore, I wasn't entirely sure if he was interested in me at all until one of his friends called. Ivy Boy was trying to convince said friend to come meet us at Reservoir, so he put me on the phone. We started chatting and the friend asked, "Well, are you cute?"

I laughed and handed the phone back to Ivy Boy. "He wants to know if I'm cute, so I thought I'd let you handle this one."

Ivy Boy took the phone back and said, "Not only is she cute, but she is smoking hot and smart."

Not bad for a Monday night.

I sent him a casual e-mail today just saying hi and that it was nice to meet him last night, so we will see.

To Be Utterly Fair....

For probably the past five years, my friend J has been my prime consultant for boy issues, and reciprocally, he has come to me for girl advice. He is always on the lookout for my best interests, gives me the male perspective on my questions, and is the appropriate level of outraged when someone screws me over. I, in turn, listen to his girl woes, guide him on how to proceed when he meets someone he likes, and am the appropriate level of outraged when someone screws him over.

Needless to say, we do a lot of bitching about the opposite sex, and he recently pointed out to me that I don't make guys look so good in this blog, but I never give the other side of the story. Since my romantic liaisons are with males, I don't have (many) anecdotes involving dating and the fairer sex, but J was right.

Girls can be just as bad, if not worse, as guys when it comes to disappearing, dropping off the face of the earth, being rude and mean, what have you. J was hot and heavy with a girl for three months recently and one day she just stopped responding to his text messages and calls and he hasn't heard from her since. It sounds remarkably like my story with Logan Boy, which goes to show you that both guys and girls can pull this shit.

I don't really understand why people (please note the gender-neutral term usage here) do this; it's not even a dating thing, it's just common decency not to completely ignore someone that you have spent some time with. I have been going off the assumption that guys are immature and cannot deal with confrontation, which is why they choose to completely avoid the issue and disappear (yes, I'm looking at you NJ Boy), but girls do this too.

Yes, it might be briefly uncomfortable to tell someone you don't want to see them anymore, and then possibly lie about it, but we're all grownups. Suck it up and do it. Or you can do what I do, which is break up with him over instant messenger and then post the conversation verbatim to your blog.

Moving Forward

I saw Client Boy briefly last night for the first time in a week. He was away on business over the weekend and then busy with work during the beginning of the week, but made a point of telling me that he was working on clearing his schedule so that he could spend some time with me.

It's been exactly a month since we started seeing each other, which of course makes me want to step back and evaluate if I'm wasting my time. Yes, there was the standing up incident, which was heinous, but since my confrontation, he has not pulled anything remotely similar. He has been on the ball with calling me, returning my calls, just being around.

Thus, I do feel like we're moving forward and I like him and enjoy spending time with him; however I can also feel my interest waning and myself wondering if I really do want to get more serious with him. I have been spending far too much time analyzing myself and came to the conclusion that this is just commitmentphobia rearing its ugly head again, and I'm just afraid to get hurt.

I think I just need to relax and see where it goes. Soooo much easier said than done.

Letting Him Down Easy

Last night, I was sitting around waiting for my food delivery, so I picked up my phone immediately to an unknown number. It turned out to be Lawyer Boy who I met the other night bowling.

I was kind of taken aback, but we chatted for a little while before he asked if he could see me later this week. I told him that I'm busy, which I am, with various friend dinners and events, but I'd let him know if something opens up. I am hoping that he read between the lines and knows that I was trying to let him down because I'm not that interested in going out with him.

I've figured out that saying you're "busy" is usually a euphemism for "not interested." Yes, I am busy this coming week and have plans, but nothing that important and nothing that I wouldn't reschedule for a guy that I really liked. I bet this goes both ways too, and the guys that have been too "busy" to see me just didn't want to make the extra effort.

More Roommate Drama

Once NJ Boy was out of the picture, and his roommate seemed to have disappeared with him, I assumed my roommate drama was all behind me. As usual, I was mistaken.

I decided to lay low after the extreme craziness and drunkenness that was last week. However, I was feeling slightly antsy last night and wanted to go out for A beer, so when Slingarm's Roommate called me out of nowhere and invited me out, I couldn't think of any reason not to go.

We've been friends for a while, mostly because he has always been on my side and when Slingarm was being a total asshole to me, his roommate would always defend me and tell Slingarm to be nice to me.

We caught up over a beer and I know I should've anticipated this sooner, but honestly sometimes I can be so naive it's ridiculous, then Slingarm's Roommate told me he'd always liked me and he had been jealous of Slingarm while we were seeing each other. He went on to tell me that he had wanted to ask me out when we first met, but Slingarm had gotten to me first, and he'd always regretted it, but he thought we should give it a chance now.

I mumbled out excuses about friends and Slingarm and whatnot and thought I had made it clear to him that I thought we should just be friends when he actually made a move on me. I pulled an evasive maneuver and then got myself the hell outta there.

Ok, ok, I really know that I should've seen this coming, but I really didn't. I am going to try to be smarter about this from now on. I swear, maybe I'm giving off a scent or something, because I have been attracting a helluva lot of inappropriate advances lately.

Striking Out!

Last night I went bowling with my friends, and by bowling I mean, I refused to bowl and we sat around for three hours waiting for a lane to open up anyway. So what do a group of adults do when there are hours to kill? That's right - drink! And drink we did. We started ordering beer towers and taking shots and pretty much didn't stop for the rest of the night, which meant that I woke up with the world's worst hangover this morning.

So what do I do when there are hours to kill and I am hanging out with a bunch of my coupled-up friends? Yep, I hit on random guys. So the Senior Manager of the bowling alley (that's right folks, I'm aiming high) was trying to help us get a lane sooner, and he turned out to be pretty cute, so of course I put my flirting face on and proceeded to hit on him until his shift was over. When we tried to give him my number, though, we found out that he is engaged (!) AND he doesn't drink alcohol. Like ever. Which means that relationship was doomed to fail way before it even began.

When the bowling finally commenced, we were all good and trashed, and had a great time dancing around the lanes and trash-talking each other. People had been trickling in and out all night and when someone's brother showed up, I found my drunk self being pushed towards him and informed "He is single and a successful lawyer!" That is the moment I realized I had become the token single girlfriend of my friends and I was in for a life of being set up. Lawyer Boy seemed nice and cute, but I was far too drunk to be making any real evaluations or non-gibberish conversation for that matter. And yet, my friends kept throwing us together for the remainder of the evening.

At some point my girlfriend W came up to me and said, "Girl, you have an easy life." Why? "He's already in love with you and you didn't even have to say anything. He told his sister he thinks you're beautiful."

The rest of the night was somewhat of a blur. As I put my jacket on to leave, he came over to me and asked if we could go out sometime. In kind of a bind since I was surrounded by the pals that were rooting for us, I gave him my number. Problem is I'm not really very interested in him (what I can remember of him at least).

Hmmm...

After my confrontation the other night, I didn't expect to see Client Boy until next week because he was going out of town for business. Thus, I was surprised to get an invitation to hang out last night. Being very wary of the situation, but still liking him, I decided to give him a chance.

We had a great time, and it only deepened my affection for him, but I am still very worried about his emotional maturity and frankly, his mental stability, especially after the stunt he pulled when he stood me up.

It's very difficult to approach a relationship with one foot out the door. I'm constantly worried that I'm not giving guys a fair chance because I am so worried about my own emotions and what might happen. Recently one of my friends told me that I am giving out an "I'm single and I don't want you to be my boyfriend" vibe, which worried me because that's not the kind of vibe that I want to be giving out, and I hope that Client Boy isn't getting that.

I will have to work on my vibing I guess. Any suggestions?

Being a Grown-Up Is Lame

So last night I had a fun-filled night of awkwardness. I was invited to an event by a friend from high school that I haven't seen in about eight years, so I invited St. Paddy's Day Boy to come with me.

It turned out to be a melee of people that I haven't seen since I graduated from high school, except for the odd random meeting at the local mall. Luckily, being able to legally drink seemed to cut a lot of the tension and we all had a good time catching up. It's funny because in my head I still picture a lot of us, gawky and awkward at 15, trying to sneak beer cans into the high school dances. And yet, here we were, all grown up an drinking beer at a bar with jobs and whatnot. Crazy.

Being around the people I used to drink beer and giggle with when I was in braces made me feel insanely old suddenly, as it hit me that we were really adults now, and high school was a decade ago. Making it worse was the fact that St. Paddy's Day Boy is a little bit younger than me, and I found myself feeling exasperated and slightly condescending when he complained about how hard it is to be working (he has only been working for like eight months in the real world). Puh-lease.

I dropped him off in the cab at the end of the night, and there was a peck good-night but nothing more. He's a really nice, fun, cute guy, but I think far too young for me to take seriously. I would like to stay friends with him, but pretty soon I will have to make it clear to him that we are not pursuing a romantic relationship.

Confrontation Is Always Fun

After a seemingly interminable winter, it seems that spring has finally descended onto Manhattan, complete with April storms galore.

This, of course, includes my own thundering into the ear of Client Boy after his heinous behavior on Sunday. I went to see him yesterday and told him that his actions were not to be tolerated and in the future if he wanted to have any sort of relationship/friendship with me, I'd expect some sort of common decency. He promised that if he is having a bad day again and needs to cancel plans with me, he'll let me know.

I'm not entirely sure I believe him, but it's up to him now to prove himself. Before you go and think I'm stupid for giving him another chance, hear my reasoning behind it. I do think he's a nice guy, just very selfish and self-absorbed, which he admits to and knows he needs to work on. And after this, I know that he no longer has any serious long-term potential, because he's a child, but I still do enjoy spending time with him.

We ended on a good note and I'm, at the very least, curious to see how things proceed from now on. I'm also proud that I told him exactly what I was thinking and gave him a (sort of) ultimatum so that he knows where he stands with me and there are behaviors that I will not tolerate if he wants to be in my life to an extent.