No news

No real news on the dating front. Had beers with AB last night. She was a wreck! Not my fault, of course... Except the waitress/server/restaurant employee was really cute and I think she thought I was, too. Except that I think that she thought that I was breaking up with AB. I'll have to go back!

Dating in SLC really does suck. We were at Fiddler's last night; not that I was studying the crowd the whole time, but I don't think I saw a single person introduce themselves to another person. By single, of course, I mean not one, not even a married guy hitting on young girls.

What is normal?

Ok, so I've been separated since mid-June. I'd been on several medications before that, but June's when the real fun began. So now it's a few months later... I don't feel happy, I don't feel recovered. And I still take my medications. It occurred to me the other day I take FOUR fairly strongly psychoactive drugs on a daily or near-daily basis. Plus caffeine. I can't tell when I'm feeling blue if it's because I'm tired, or if it's something external, or something internal I'm not catching, or it's too many drugs, or not enough. I don't know where the bottom is. I can't tell what "normal" is... if I do experience it, it's so fleeting that I wouldn't know it... my moods don't last long these days. I wish more of them were positive, however.

I tried to sleep without Ambien the other night. Right after dinner I took 3 chlortrimetons. And 1 benedryl. And then at around 11:00, I took a rozarem. I was up 'til 3:00. And I don't think I felt tired at all.

It's not like it used to be--I'd be tired, but I'd start "churning" and I couldn't stop my mind. Now, I just don't get tired. I want to just click my heels three times and have the ambien kick in.

FF has pretty much disappeared. AB is still a pal, but nothing's going to happen. MM, well, she's on vacation and we've had no contact. I dont know how I feel about that. And R, I miss R. I want to cry when I think about her. Not to be overdramatic about it, but I really don't think I can live without her right now. I think that's one of the reasons I want a stable relationship, so I have that daily contact. Like I said to AB today in reference to MM, I'd rather have an hour a day with her, than nothing all week and a big friday or saturday date.

Anti-social drinking

So I had a date last night with MM. Went ok, like I said. But now it's Saturday, 5:55. I'm drinking alone.

Starting with some white wine. Nothing like an anti-social aperitif. Bitter, bitter, bitter. How can I spend a day essentially having no communications?

So here is the complete census of my interactions with humans...
1. Ordered some tea.
2. Talked to my ex. She was crying, I had to talk her down. Now that I'm alone, of course, here I am, talking to you.
3. Slight interaction with someone at Tea Grotto who asked out loud about free wireless (they have it.)
4. Does buying a plane ticket online count?
5. Paid for my tea. (I should point out they have a new cute girl working there.)
6. Bought something at PetCo or PetSmart.
7. Received a message from MM. Returned it. That was very nearly 1.5 hours ago.

Seven. Seven stinking interactions?

Oh, sent and received a total of 5 text messages between myself and AB and FF.

Wow. And I'm drinking???

There's a Doctor Who marathon on, that ends in 53 minutes. And then BBC has a new Robin Hood show. Which looks bad, but, you know, what the hell else am I going to do? I still have probably 2 glasses of white wine. And then probably 3 more of red. And I'm going to drink that, too. Because, again, what the hell else am I going to do?

I'm looking at this beautiful sunset and it's doing very little for me. I don't like being alone. I don't really care if drinking 5 glasses of wine is bad for me or not at this point. At least it's not crappy wine!

Wow. A month.

I procrastinate, what can I say. I had a hard time being objective, got kind of sucked in. But here's the update:
AB: Still friends.
AM: Nutjob. Totally fucking crazy. When we met, she was really bitter about her ex, who was dating someone else in her office. I began to suspect her nuttiness, and lost track. One day I checked her Myspace page, and she's engaged to him again. She wanted to kill him six weeks ago.
MM: We are seeing each other, I'll probably have to give a longer update. Still not often enough.
FF: We met for the first time this week. She's got her doubts (and so do I).

Not sure there's anyone else on the horizon. Well, I met a friend of a friend who might work for hook-ups. But we'll see.

The third wave was a complete failure. Only one response, and she was just nice enough to write me to tell me she had met someone that she was going to see exclusively.

I haven't tried again. I generally get four or five contacts a week from Yahoo! but none of them are really interesting and most are, frankly, beneath me.

Sunday Sunday Sunday

Weather (outside): sunny and cold.
Weather (inside): A bit of haze.

Well, here we are. Update time. Not too many updates, really. Did some high level flirting with AB. We've clearly decided we aren't going to date, but we seem to have agreed to have sex. Not to be blunt in any way. I like the attitude... I'm still not super attracted to her, she needs to drop about 15-20 pounds. It's kind of a spare tire, too. Not to be mean. But she seems to want to and I decided early on that when a woman wants to come over, have a bottle of wine, screw, and then she'll leave, well, it's hard not to agree to that.

ML is gone. It's disappointing, but that's how it goes. Even though I think we could have had fun, I guess that we aren't going to. And if she reacted like that, there's something else--I can't have a relationship with someone with that kind of attitude about relationships.

HG... Well, saw HG on Thursday night. Had a really good time. We talked Saturday. I'm trying to figure it out. She's really easy for me to be with. She seems to find it easy to be with me. We have good kisses. She has her own life, which is good, but I'm not sure how I can fit into it. If my experiences over the last few months have taught me anything, I need to include my "special someone" into my life, and me into theirs. Not every day. Not all the time. I'm not 100% sure how to describe it--I want to be the default option? Not that I won't be with her... but I'm not now. I haven't been on Match in several days, I don't really want to, I think I could date just her, but only seeing her once a week isn't going to cut it for me.

But I also don't want to push her. It's still her life. With a kid and a very hard job, I expect she can't just incorporate me, even if she wanted to.

Yeah, and the irony of what I just said about AB isn't lost. I don't feel like I need the sex. But it would be fun. And I like the idea of being exclusive with HG. Can I be strong enough to do that, just for myself? I'm fairly certain she's not sleeping with anyone else, so should I pay her that respect and keep myself clean? Er, so to speak.

It's interesting who I've liked and who I haven't. At the same time, it's been interesting who has liked me and who hasn't. HG doesn't really fulfill my list of objective criteria--if I made a composite of "my type" she doesn't fall into those parameters. She doesn't fall very far outside them, however. When it gets down to it, I just feel comfortable with her. Our first kiss was nice but not too dramatic. I'm sexually attracted to her without lusting after her. We touch each other easily. We'll see if we can entertain each other for longer.

It's hard, I don't look at her and think "she's the one" in the way I thought I would. I don't know if it's because I've grown up, or she isn't. But if she's not, what is she?

Arrg.

Chicken Soup for Your Hole

Just met up with AB briefly. Can't decide what she's thinking... are we friends with some benefits are is she trying for more? And if I say anything about it, does it create some kind of Heisenberg-ian warping, that by talking, I mess it up. Sometimes people like not facing things, and letting them be. Sometimes a good policy, sometimes not.

It's strange, I get friendly on email pretty fast--I figure that by the time we've emailed a few times, there is some kind of interest in meeting. I mean, if the goal is just chatting and not meeting someone, join a chatroom. These are dating sites! The goal is to date, not to get people's email addresses. Am I nuts for thinking that? I can understand one or two emails, but meeting for a cup of coffee or a beer is pretty easy and safe--not much of a commitment or a cost, financially or chronologically.

I think if you look at the cost/utility ratio, just emailing eventually drops off pretty quickly as a means of screening a potential date. The cost of email (in terms of some kind of objective utility) is minimal, and the gain is very high in that you can get the preliminaries out of the way. But eventually, email doesn't give you what's most important--chemistry. And so I feel like email is more of a negative checkoff than a positive.

Let's take this from the top, looking at it as a negative checkoff system, as opposed to a positive selection system (and I believe that's what Match is--a process of getting a list of people and slowly narrowing them down).

First, you go in, put in your criteria, and do a search. That eliminates whatever percent of the original population. Wants kids, doesn't want kids, too short, won't share heroin, whatever. You eliminate the others, or the system essentially does it for you.

Then, presumably, you go through the list that Match gives you. At this point, I, at least, go through the list and eliminate those who slipped through or are obviously not a possibility... for me, those generally include people who want a partner who has never been married, or are ultra-conservative, or misspell basic words. So that gets rid of maybe 10-25% of the original list...which is less than half the population on Match to being with.

Ok, having eliminated the No-Ways, I think you go through and select the "favorites," a list of those who you presumably wouldn't mind sending email to. This is sort of a positive checkoff, I suppose. But I have many more favorites than people I've emailed. Some seemed appealing, but now aren't and I have taken them off. Others just sort of sit there. I email a few at a time.

Then they go through the same process using the emails they've received: kill, maybe, respond.

I think the big problem is that Match doesn't allow for any kind of maybe.

More later

Thursday night is party night

It was last night anyway.

Weather (outside): Sunny but surprisingly cold and windy.
Weather (inside): Sun's breaking through. No temperature to report.

AB came over. We drank an 11-year old Spanish wine that totally rocked. We talked a lot and drank and fooled around again. Still same feeling about the lack of feeling. She's cool and I like her, but even when we're kissing I'm vaguely wondering why.

In other news, it's been pretty up and down on my dating/Match front.

The "new wave" was a complete failure... Not a single response. I was pretty disenheartened. However, for some unknown reason, I emailed someone I'd emailed when I was first starting and she emailed back and we seem to be hitting it off. It really came in the nick of time, I was beginning to despair. We can call her AM. It turns out we know someone in common, so that might be interesting.

So what else have we learned? Lots of people of both genders cut off their searches at 35. Being a year or two older than that, I end up writing lots of people who aren't technically looking for me. I can drink, run, or whatever most 30 year olds, so I don't know why I should get cut out, but life's like that, right?

More random thoughts.

So I consider myself a patient person. But I'm not really, but I am. I don't like things not under my control. Waiting for someone in that "new wave" to respond, even if it's a get lost.

Oh, another idea... Maybe the system could tell you what happened to your email. If it was deleted, that tells you something. I know you can pay extra to see when someone has opened the email, but that's not the same thing, even if it was for free.

Just a thought.

I'm seeing someone tomorrow night... AB. She and I have been out a few times, drank some wine. Actually rather a lot. We kissed, the most success I've had so far, if that's how you measure it. Is it bad to say, she's a bad kisser? She brought new meaning to the expression "Putting your tongue down someone's throat." And in terms of real success, well, I guess that would be some kind of chemistry or longing or butterflies. I don't have those with her, which is too bad. I don't know what she feels. Anyway, she had a birthday recently and I kind of promised her last week that I'd give her a special bottle of wine. And I'm keeping the promise. Not that she's bad to hang out with, she's fun. Like I said, not much chemistry.

It's funny, when I like someone and feel the chemistry and they don't, I have a hard time getting it. I mean, can't she feel it, too??? She's crazy! She's not open to feeling it!!! This is a generic "she" at this point. But on the other end, I can't explain it. It's not quite a reaction to her physically. It's not quite a reaction to her emotionally or intellectually, she's by far the smartest person I've met through this process. It's just not clicking for me. I hope she doesn't say the things that I think when I'm in her boat. A good lesson for me.