Catch 22

I have this tendency to always find amazing guys to date that don't live in my area. I've done it a few times and its never fun. Even if you try the long distance dating thing, what kind of relationship is that if you've never actually been able to spend any significant time together?

Anyway, this time I thought I would be smart and nip it in the bud before it began, but now I'm having second thoughts. I met this incredible guy at a wedding on Sunday, he live a few hundred miles away and I didn't bother to get a number or an email and kind of discouraged him from trying either, but now I can't stop thinking about him.

I can't seem to get this right just yet...

Open Letter

I have long thought the world would be a better place if we instituted the practice of exit interviews in the the ritual of dating. I know that I have often left a relationship confused about what exactly happened and wished I had some neutral outlet in which to gain some insight and possibly dole out a little myself. We could get some unbiased HR type to sit down with both parties separately to examine the date/relationship/marriage and give the participants open and honest feedback as to their strengths and weaknesses. For me, I believe this would make me a much smarter dater or at the very least expose patterns of behavior that I might be able to avoid in the future. I think this could really catch on.

In the spirit of productive sharing, I present an open letter to my last date:

New Matt:

To understand what transpired in the course of the last week, I would appreciate some feedback on a few things. It seems we had two very different versions of events though as far as I can tell, we were actually in the same interactions. First and foremost, you should know that your approach was brilliant, you were nothing but endearing on our date, and you are an incredibly good kisser. You should definitely keep that up for future dates. The kissing still gives me butterflies.

On the down side (and these are things you might want to work on), your crippling self doubt blackens everything good about you. It seems to have led you to believe that because I didn't want to hang out immediately the day after our date and the fact that I was offended by being stood up by you for our second date, that somehow that makes me dramatic. I admit, I didn't get the hint. I guess that sitting alone on my couch on a Friday night should have spoken loud and clear as to the type of person you were, but in my naivete, I actually believed that something might have happened to you and therefore was honestly concerned about your well being. Silly me. (Though I should point out, in the spirit of being helpful as well as critical, this only lends more credence to my claim that you exude sincerity in ways uncommon to your gender. It makes you endearing to women, but you need to back it up with ACTUAL sincerity for this to work in relationships).

Secondly, and again, my fault for not recognizing this as the red flag it was, you seem to still have a lot of residual issues with your parents' divorce. Obviously, this is a painful event in your life, but your death grip on security as your only goal in life is a sad waste of whatever talents you may have (I apologize, but I never did get to know what those may be, with the exception of the kissing). You sit on the side lines and watch your sister and brother pursue their passion, though more importantly, they are passing you by. You are given passion in your life for a reason, follow it.

Lastly, you need to learn that you never know what is going on in someone else's life that your actions could affect. The last two weeks of my life have been a little on the strenuous side, what with thinking I have cancer and all, which you had no way of knowing nor should you have. But can you imagine how much more painful being stood up was when I had spent the day at the doctor's office being poked and prodded? Next time you are going to leave a girl sitting on her couch in her pretty dress to watch Law and Order all night, at least have the courtesy to tell her that. A little respect can go a long way.

Overall, you get points for persistence, but you fail miserably in the follow through. I'm saddened that I will never kiss you again, but recognize now that I'd rather know all of this in the beginning then have to endure it in the future.

Best of luck in future endeavours.
Me

Return of the Inevitable

I had abandoned this blog for a long while, partially because I was in grad school and my life was more consumed with homework then dating, but mostly because the idea of chronicling my Sienfeld-esque romantic life was just a little bit depressing. I mean honestly, the amount of time I spent writing these blogs started to feel self-defeating, like putting it out there for the world to see made it all too real that this is how my love life worked. However, in the year and a half since we last spoke I have dated, much to the same outcomes as we had seen before. But it was lonelier, like now that all my friends are in relationships, my dating fiascoes were no longer funny, but pitiful (they always had a strong hint of the pitiful, but whatever). In the past, my friends were always laughing along with me because most of them could relate in some way, but now that they are all inching closer to marriage and I am still no closer then I was at birth, they use my unfortunate stories as reassurance that whatever may be wrong in their relationship, its better then being SINGLE. Which brings me back here. Whoever may actually stumble upon this accidentally can read it and judge me however they like, but at least I don't have to grin and bare it like I do with most of my friends.

To catch you up, I have since finished my graduate degree and moved to Chicago in hopes that being closer to my family would do me some good. The jury is still out on that. I adore being closer to my family and I love my job which is more then I could say in LA, though socially, Chicago is a very different monster. There is something about the Midwest that makes people want to be couples. Everywhere you turn, there are dysfunctional relationships holding on for dear life because the alternative seems too bleak and sad a state of affairs. I have never been wired like this. Even in the midst of all these horrendous dating adventures, I have never thought that something was better then nothing. To me, being alone and content with life was better then being in a relationship that made me want to pull my hair out. That has put me in a precarious position as one of the few single people I actually know in this city. To make matters more frustrating, even though my friends are all in relationships, even the most amazing boyfriends have no friends to speak of that are even half way interesting to me. Which means that to hang out with my friends I am always the odd wheel. That gets old pretty quickly.

Of my few single friends, I have some fantastic life support. Witty, fun, wonderful women that make me rethink heterosexuality on a regular basis because life would be so much easier if we could just have beautiful little commitment ceremonies and adopt Asian babies. But alas, I would miss penis and boy smell and all those other things that make me inexplicably attracted to men. Therefore I continue to date and fall on my face over and over again like those birds that continually fly into windows because they don't understand the concept of glass. Maybe some day I will knock myself unconscious and wake up a functional dater, but for now, I'll just continue to bless you with the shortcomings of my love life in what I hope is equal parts humorous and cathartic.