Lying, revisited

Well, not really revisited. Just thought I'd talk about it. And spin. And selling yourself online. Selling figuratively, anyway.

The thing with these online systems is that they turn romance, chemistry, and the search for love into a game, and into a selling opportunity. Because you (ok, I mean, I) don't want to "lose," I cast my net wide and try to avoid saying things that might turn someone away from me. Which isn't what I'd want to do "in real life." I have my standards, and I have a personality that doesn't appeal to everyone, and someone who wants someone who does, say, country line dancing is not going to be a good match for me.

Maybe I should re-write my profile in a way that makes me seem more definitive. Rather than trying to not turn off women across the whole spectrum of acceptability, I could try to be bold and find someone who says "Holy Shit! This person is cool!" Screw everyone else, right?

So I'm not really talking about lying I guess. Just the choice of how to sell ourselves. My old rule of don't lie about anything I can verify on your profile or the first date is more important than I realized. It's not just hiding stuff. It's also positively reinforcing what it is that we want. I find myself, for example, pretending not to care how smart my potential dates are. But I do. And yet I find myself interacting with people who don't match that standard because I'm afraid to eliminate them. I would want them to do the same with me... wouldn't I? Unless they want to just hook up. But there's no box to check for that, so I can't ask.... "if you're dumb, it's ok as long as we screw. Otherwise, leave me alone."

The damn fear of rejection thing. Some people have fear of abandonment. I have fear of rejection. It's amazing what I'll go through just to avoid rejection from someone that I would reject if I didn't think they were going to reject me. That makes no sense.

Back to dating...

Weather report: Cold, partly sunny, but warmer than yesterday.
Mood: A little warmer than that, even.

So I told a friend about my theory of meeting people in SLC and she said that in some places, she actually gets approached by men. So maybe I'm just ugly. Or people in SLC are old-fashioned. There's an insight for me.

I had a date with someone the other week who had a rape fantasy. Really. I was hammered but didn't oblige. Not sure how one's supposed to handle that. She also talked dirty and said she hadn't had sex for two years. And she had had a child about 10 years ago with a player on the Jazz. So, overall, kind of a strange night. In hindsight, she also paid for drinks. Kind of a win/win. But not really. She hasn't re-contacted me and I can't say that I'm too heartbroken.

What should I drink tonight? Red? I had a beer last night, MM had to cancel. I bought a bottle of very cheap Zin last week ($3.95) so maybe I should try it. If it's halfway decent, I can buy more. If it sucks, it's not like it was going to get better with age!

Troop Levels

I did a little research and although I am still looking, here's the deal, which won't surprise anyone (except him): There were lots and lots of trained Iraqis. And the definition of "trained" varied a lot. But the level stayed around 100,000 men for a long time. But, somehow, it had always increased to 100,000. Interestingly, the number of "fully trained batallions" went down over the course of a year, but each time was reported as a step forward by the knee-pad wearing press.

By the way, if you Yahoo! "bush liar idiot" the first link is to the White House. Google is somewhat more intuitive, and gives us something about his approval falling to 33%.

Dating in SLC

Yahoo Personals is useless. It's a lower class of people than Match. I can't speak to other services, but there is a clear level of difference between the women on each site. I'd love to hear what folks think about that. Maybe I'll figure out some objective way of measuring it, though it would require some kind of subjective measure (i.e., can I put in some search criteria and see who "pops out"?)

Anyway, I let that service lapse. I will probably let Match lapse, but I'm not 100% yet.

What can I say about dating in Salt Lake?

* It's impossible to meet people
* Half of those you do meet are Mormon (not that there's anything wrong with that.)
* Apparently, almost half of the remainder are crazy, too. (no comment on the relative sanity of Mormons)
* No club/bar/place seems to exist for people over the age of 30 to meet people, or even interact. (Fiddler's Elbow, the Bayou are both great, but no one actually talks to people they don't know, do they?).

Here is what Citysearch lists under "Date" and Salt Lake City:
Zanzibar
The Bayou
Burt's Tiki Lounge
Port O' Call Social Club
Downtown Underground / Safari Club
Club Bambara
The Aerie Lounge (in Snowbird, good for dates, can't meet anyone there)
Circle Lounge
Paper Moon (gay club, probably good for meeting people)
Lumpy's (Reallly???)
Tavernacle Social Club
Area 51
Leprechaun Inn (DIVE)
Tap Room (DIVE 2)
Troll Hallen Lounge (Deer Valley???)

Soni

Oh yeah, Soni. She's nuts. Is everyone f-ing crazy?

One of the two guys she was dating (in addition to me) literally moved his shit over to her house and moved in. And she let him.

Don Imus

I don't know why I'm writing about him/this. Why do we have such a hard time balancing the fact that he's not necessarily racist... just an old-fashioned shit-head? I don't know if he's really a racist, but in this world, there are people who think bad things on a superficial level without thinking evil things. I don't know... I can categorically say that I am not racist, but I've caught myself thinking things I wouldn't want my minority friends to hear... I don't even agree with those things. I mean, I think some jokes are funny, some that are arguably racist or sexist. But I don't agree with them. I think some Jewish jokes are funny.

Someone just said something good on TV. To be a racist you have to hate black people. And he doesn't hate them. So, I don't know. I just don't want him to turn into a martyr or somesuch.

I'm smarter than you

That's right, I said it. I am. I won both my NCAA pools. I haven't lost at trivial pursuit in more than 15 years. I remember minor details about people I know--enough that I've had to learn to not mention them for fear the other person will think I have an unhealthy interest in them.

I can talk at a high level about politics, history, science. I read Wikipedia for fun. I can do the Sunday Times crossword.

So why am I mentioning this? I don't know, ironically. I think it's odd that I self edit and don't mention things that I know, or even pretend I never knew them. A few weeks ago, I was talking to a college friend who mentioned that she'd gone to private high school in Pennsylvania. What I didn't tell her was that I knew that. I knew the name of the school. Oddly, though, I don't know her birthday. Uh, that's not true, either. It's in August. So that's that. Another friend was mentioning to me her college room mate, who I'd met once, 17 years ago. I remembered her name. I don't have photographic memory or anything, things just stick with me.

Of course, I can't concentrate worth a damn and my hands shake and I can't sleep and I'm lonely and all that.

Lying

Lies and the lying liars... I haven't done any research on this, but I have a better memory than most people, and this is what I remember:
In 2004, Presnint Bush told us in several speeches and debates that there were already more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers trained and ready to go. And when Kerry said otherwise, the Presnint chided him for being anti-American. And then we heard again that there were 100,000. And then again. Why hasn't someone (and maybe that should be me) put this into a timeline, with each time that he said it and effectively contradicted himself. Aren't those lies? Even if it was an error at some point, when he keeps reciting the number, shouldn't he have just enough brain cells to remember that he just told us the same thing and therefore it wasn't right the first time?

Just asking.

OK, Now what?

Now what do I do? So, I haven't met anyone new in some time. MM got back from vacation late last week and I'm seeing her tonight for the first time in almost two weeks. I'm really not all that excited about it. It's really more something to do. I'm still in love with my wife. I don't know what to do about that. She clearly still has something for me, but she won't allow it to be love... So who the Hell knows?

Weather: Cold, windy.
Mood: Cold, windy.

Wine for the night: Sturdy, red.

What else is there?

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.