The Love Chronicles

I deleted the OKCupid app from my phone the other day. I was getting lots of messages that were uninspiring. Perhaps I should have known this because of my previous experiences. Shame on me! It's absolutely depressing how poorly some people write. Your, you're, you are, u r, ur, u'r. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? Go back to school or PUH-LEEEEZ give a shit, guys! If you don't know how to write you have no chance with me! Apparently you missed my WHOLE PROFILE if you decided to write a message like: hey, your beautiful. First of all, thanks I know. And second of all, really? "Your beautiful"??? Your beautiful what? Your beautiful photos inspired me to write you a message? That would be more like it. But alas, I get the "your beautiful" variety.  So I've decided to cool it with OKCupid. I haven't deleted my profile, but the app? At least I won't get bombarded with utter crap anymore.

Life is hard when you don't know how to proceed. Feeling stuck or suffocated is something I cannot handle in any capacity. Life is too short to waste time on negativity, unhappiness and confusion. Although one could argue, that is what makes life so dynamic. Nothing can be perfect. Nothing goes the way you expect. Nothing worth having is easy. This is why finding someone who is "right" for you is so difficult. And this is why I'm beginning to think that online dating, while highly amusing and ofttimes hilarious, is not really the way things should work for me. I'm a bright, pretty, outgoing woman of considerable charm and personality. I'm a communicator and not exactly what you would call shy. I can meet people anywhere I go if I want to. I'm not expecting to be swept off my feet like with my previous relationship (I honestly never thought that could happen), but in meeting someone you can tell very quickly if anything will come of it or not. I feel so...

Since rejoining (sigh) the world of OKCupid, I took a very passive approach. Let the fine gentlemen message me first, signaling their biological interest to find an attractive mate. Being a woman, this is infinitely easier to collect messages and then select which ones are deemed worthy of a response. However, in my gap year, if you will, of membership, I noticed that after a while, I was receiving messages from gentlemen that messaged me over a year ago. This tends to leave a less than positive impact on me. I know I am no better, since I am once again on the site, but it always makes me wonder, has the guy been on there the whole time? One gentlemen claimed he was in the same situation as me. He was in a relationship for a while and then rejoined. Another, very unsavory fellow messaged me and I completely ignored him. He made it clear very quickly he wanted a young girl to fool around with. I wish guys like that would just write "sex" in every single field on their profile....

I love being harassed and insulted as much as the next guy, but I can handle it if it's coming from someone I know really well. You know the person and feel comfortable enough with them to able to joke around. You can dish it back without hesitating. If I don't know you, how am I really sure of your intentions? Maybe you're really aggressive. Maybe you overdo it with the sarcasm. Maybe you really are a jerk. But I won't know these things until I actually get to know you. So don't text me for a few days and not ask me out and then basically harangue me into meeting you. If you drop the ball, you have to try that much harder to make things work out. Further insults and brow beating is, unfortunately, not attractive to me. Luckily I have good friends who try to spare me the frustration. I was at the movies and had the perfect excuse to ignore the loser trying to salvage basically nothing. I didn't owe him anything and if a guy is nice and normal (whatever that me...

Today's post features a message I received on OKCupid from a 21-year-old guy who decided to be clever...I think. "I would hug a cactus then swim through shark infested salt water to the arctic to do battle with an angry mother polar bear on a 2x2 foot iceberg for the chance to share a spaghetti dinner with you on a webcam over a dial up connection!!!" This is totally amazing, albeit silly. I think if a man really loves a woman (or a man loves a man, a woman loves a woman, a man loves a goat, etc.), this statement absolutely should ring true. I do not want to settle for anything less. I really am an amazing individual - it's true, everyone says so - and I have so much going for me. As my dear mother would say, the world is my oyster. Why shouldn't I expect a man to traverse the world, fight with all sorts of creatures and put himself in ridiculous peril at my expense? Aren't I worth it? I guess it all depends on the guy. You can't pick who you fall for ...

How would you react if a guy you've never met asks you to video chat? Afraid? Creeped out? Turned on? Apprehensive? Willing? I think I was mostly skeptical but figured what the hell? His argument was "you can always turn the camera off". Sense of humor? Check. However, I had just gotten out of the shower and was still in a towel. Yikes! Throwing caution to the wind, I quickly dressed and fired up Skype. His profile was particularly spartan - an unclear, artsy picture (and just the one, might I add), minimal personal info, kind of nonsensical stuff. Wasn't really sure what to think. It looked like he put zero effort into his profile. Or perhaps he put a lot of effort into it, making it look like he doesn't care. Regardless, I was pleasantly surprised by what awaited me on the other side of the camera. He was fully clothed (although he joked at the end that he had his pants off the whole time), cute, glasses, nice smile, had a dry wit and seemed intelligent. Takin...

Does it make me shallow to not respond to people based on their profile picture? NOPE! Everyone does it. I actually remember on Match.com about a year and a half ago, rather than just doing the usual ignore the message thing, a guy sent an "I'm not interested" canned message that you can send through Match. Wow. Really? If a guy does that he's...if a guy does that I don't know...scratch that. I'm at a loss for written words.  Here's what the canned message says: english_gent_US appreciates your taking the time to let him know you're interested, but doesn't think you're a good match for him. Don't be discouraged. Magic happens when you least expect it. With millions of singles on Match.com, you could be just one click away from finding someone who's right for you. I guess I could have thanked him for sparing my time but I'm obviously not a good match. So I just laughed and went on to the next. Sometimes it is really hard t...

Men are more insecure than women, I tend to believe. Although right now I'm feeling pretty insecure, but I rarely ever seem to show it. I love when a guy sends you a message and you do the usual thing and just ignore it because for whatever reason you don't want to respond (he's unattractive, you have nothing in common, he can't write a sentence if his life depended on it, has a half naked picture of himself posted...the list is endless), yet he doesn't take the hint. A non-response in the cyber dating world is actually a polite but firm "sorry, dude". If you respond but aren't interested, you give them hope and wind up bruising a lot of egos by turning them down. And sometimes they flip out if you reject them because they think you're being a bitch. Sorry, that's the way it goes. First impressions are huge, even if it's a profile online. And especially if a guy flips out, that's super scary, psycho kind of stuff anyway so see what I me...

Timing is everything. If you're an oboe player, a baseball pitcher, a bus driver (in Germany), an author, a designer, an investor - it doesn't matter who you are or what you do. It's all about being in the right place in the right time for good things to happen. This naturally applies to the dating world. There are plenty of fish in the sea, as they say. However, if the wrong fish are swimming in your pond, you will throw back every single catch. Sometimes you find the right fish for you, but the feeling is unfortunately not mutual. One could argue that they weren't the right fish and you just need to keep searching. Or, there are rare occasions where you find a fish that is the closest thing to the right one for you and the feeling IS mutual. You hit it off, the chemistry is there and everything is going swimmingly until the boat runs out of gas (to continue the fishy theme). There is nowhere else to go. In my case, I found an awesome fish, the boat was sailing alo...

I should have known better. Mill Avenue all day for St. Patty's Day? Probably not a good idea. I was out with an awesome group of friends (German Nick, Matthew, the Balls, Rob and his friend) and then left the party to take my friend to the airport. I should have just stayed home after that. I went back to the original bar, which was insanely crowded. Ran into a few people. Had one drink. Was just not feeling it. Some other friends took me to another bar which turned out to be better. More interesting people to observe, more room to move around and better conversation. But I felt so down. The first part of the day was great, the second part sucked. Perhaps I wasn't drunk enough. Perhaps my self esteem just took a dump. No idea why. There was actually a guy I was interested in, he was with me and my friends (and his group merged with mine) the whole night. He walked me to the light rail and gives me a hug. He stands there looking sheepish and I asked him if he was going to ask m...

Funny how a dive bar can really be a happenin' place. My friend and I had quite a day yesterday. We went to a Cubs spring training game with this guy I met on OKCupid. We got sunburned and ate a bunch of crap and didn't pay attention much to the game. That was fun. We then went to the "lake" and walked around. I wanted to take him to Casey's but they wouldn't let him in. They apparently only accept passports for foreigners. Boo. We walked back to ze Auto and went home to fetch the passport but instead of going back to Mill, we wound up at my old stomping grounds, the Draw 10. Convenient because it's located next door to my complex and cheap. Usually filled with shady characters. Total bonus. A real slice of Americana for my German visitor. We had a few drinks. Nothing special. Until we went to the patio. Two young guys were out there. Shortly thereafter a group of very rowdy, obnoxious dudes joined us and all of a sudden we were arguing about sports (...

Oh boy. Back on OKCupid. Sometimes I get really depressed. Is this what I am reduced to? Scrolling through pictures of uninspiring dudes? Giving out my number to people I have never met? Frankly, it's frightening. And I'm learning that women have these crazy rules about guys. "He has to be at least 6'0" tall" or "He's too young" or "I won't date a divorced guy" or "He should have a college degree and a job". So many requirements. The rules are ridiculously superfluous. You can't pick who you fall for or are attracted to you. I am the QUEEN of picking the wrong guys or having them pick me, rather. Too young, too old, divorced, kids, crazy, sloppy, boring, arrogant, perverted - all I know is, NOT the right one. This guy I met out here a while ago actually made me believe in love at first sight (or something incredibly close to it). I broke a lot of rules. He was still married, did not want to have kids and I went home ...

A guy who puts in NO effort at all should not expect anything in return. If you don't even ask a woman out on a real date, do you expect her to just jump into bed with you? Maybe some women will do that and that's fine. But I have too much self respect and confidence to let any guy who shows a little interest into my pants. I think all women should behave the way I do because then men wouldn't get away with half of the ridiculous things they do in the pursuit of "tail". Honestly, what would you do in my situation? You meet a guy, you dance with him all night (and it's at a dance class, not in a club), he asks for your number, texts and calls you, tries to sort of ask you out. You happen to go to the same place on a Friday night but the only reason he hangs out with you is because YOU take the initiative. Then he asks you to leave the club with him? Excuse me? Am I missing something here? I have no time for bull. If you want to "hit it and quit it",...