Slummin'

I do a lot of embarrassing things. Frankly, online dating is the biggest thing. I mean, when you break it apart, I’m basically advertising myself on the internet, pictures and all, in the hopes of meeting someone interesting enough to date, have a relationship with, etc. If you’ve been reading for a while, you know that I come out with a lot of interesting stories but no real match.

To break things up, I’ll post on Craigslist once in a while just to see what I get. I basically steal my Match profile and post it on CL with no picture and add a couple of sentences on stats. For the most part, I get a lot of babies and a lot of old men. I guess men don’t know how to read considering I state my preferences about age, height and nationality right in the ad. Disappointing…the state of men is incredibly dismal…at least in the SF Bay Area, it is.

So imagine my surprise when one day I got an email in my inbox that basically says “Is your name Valerie? You sound like an old friend of mine that I lost contact with.” Actually, I was shocked. Nowhere in my ad do I state my name, where I live, what I do or anything that can truly tie me to my *real* identity. I like hiding behind my computer until someone intrigues me enough to come out into the open. The guy who sent me the email was actually an old friend. Old as in I’ve known him for a number of years but have played this disappearing act on each other a couple of times now. The last time I talked to him was four years ago! It was nice to hear from him, albeit a little embarrassing considering how he found me. Great…finding me through the personals. Totally embarrassing!!

That initial email was about a month ago. Obviously, I’m behind on my blogging! Since then *K* and I have hung out and emailed back and forth a few times. After four years, it feels like there is a lot to catch up on. We work opposite schedules with me working days and him working nights so conversation and communication is a little difficult especially considering I’m an email person and he’s a phone person. Phones…eewwwww!!!

So I guess that’s a lesson that Craigslist isn’t a complete cesspool if it can re-unite you with old friends.

Halloween Fairy

I am in *craft madness* mode. It's either feast or famine with me. I can juggle 5 projects simultaneously or I don't look at one crafty thing in months. Right now, I'm in the midst of knitting a baby hat and a pair of socks. Let me tell you...socks are damn hard!

Stitching is my passion though and you'll probably be hearing me talking about fairies for the next few months because I just received *Halloween Fairy* in the mail yesterday and was all giddy and excited to start so start I did...last night. She will be my small project. I am still waiting for supplies for *Fairy Moon* which is this monstrous and challenging task. A little daunting with lots of beads but she is pretty and when...or shall I say if...I finish her, she'll probably get framed up really nice for my bedroom. I'll unveil her when I actually start.

For now, this is what *Halloween Fairy* will look like when I'm done. Obviously, since I JUST started, it doesn't look like much of anything right now.

The Most Boring-est Guy Ever

In my life, I’ve met a lot of guys. Frankly, more guys than I could ever have kept track of and I know that labels me as a serial dater but I don’t care. In the beginning, I was really good about remembering who I’ve met. I finally realized that I am now bad at that when I saw a guy’s Match profile last week and thought he looked familiar but he was one of those guys with just one photo posted. I hate that…I mean, is that the best photo they have taken in all their life and they don’t want to admit what they really look like? People usually have more than one photo they can post on a site they are trying to attract women in which to date. He emailed me and I realized that not only had we emailed before…we had gone on a date. Gah! Not a very good date either. I was not impressed and I remember now that he was super late, talked only about real estate and thought that girls with tattoos in the small of their back were great because it made “the sex even hotter”. Yea, I don’t really see the correlation there since there is only one position out there that allows the guys to see the small of a girl’s back while doing the nasty. Hellow! Oh yea…well that was a rant right there. That wasn’t the purpose of this post.

*****

So, I’ve met a lot of guys. Some fun, witty, intelligent, engrossing and truly a pleasure to spend time with whether it be on the phone or in person. Others, dull, boring, conceited and cocky whom I never, ever waste more time on again. I have standards and I feel that if I am witty, fun, charming and nice, then the guys I spend time with should be too. That’s pretty simple. I was surprised a couple of weeks ago when I was contacted on Match by this guy who I can only describe as model-cute. I don’t attract model-cute guys. I attract nerdy, tech guys who border on being teddy bear-ish. There’s nothing wrong with that but I do like hot guys with a bit of a bad-boy edge. I realize that hasn’t really worked for me in the past but I can’t help it…that’s what I like. I do, I do, I just do! So this guy is model cute and I figure that I can at least see what he’s all about. We emailed a couple of times and decided to talk. First a little background about the guy before I go into the conversation we had. He was 39, a consultant, lived in the bay area for the last 8 years and seemed nice. But once we got on the phone, he was the most inarticulate, hypocritical, talkative and incredibly boring! So boring, I could have done anything to shut him up. Never in my life have I heard anyone use *ummm*, *you know*, *sucks* and *like* as much as this guy and he’s 39 years old! You would think that his vocabulary would be much, much better considering his age and that he’s a consultant. I don’t get how he obtains clients when he can’t even construct a full sentence without at least one of the above words scattered within it. That doesn’t seem very professional to me. He basically told me that I was lucky to have the family situation that I have even though he has one that is similar and completely distances himself from his own family. How is it that I am lucky and don’t appreciate what I have but he doesn’t. Hypocritical jerk!

Like that wasn’t enough…then he went on to say that the Bay Area is so expensive and starts capping on the city. Bud, if you don’t like the city…get the hell out! We don’t like people like you living in the city anyways! Yet, he’s lived here 8 years. The city isn’t keeping him here. He’s a self-employed consultant and he can basically work anywhere. Then he proceeds to tell me that he could never be a teacher in the Bay Area because teachers get paid poorly and the cost of living is too high to survive as a teacher. He has a friend that lives in Florida who’s a teacher and she owns a home and lives very well on a teacher’s salary. My response to that was *yea, but that’s in Florida*. And you know what he said? He called me a snob!! Whatever buddy…it’s the truth! That is in Florida. Who wants to live in a state that is so hot and humid all the time and has hurricanes every year?! If you want to be a teacher and own a home, I guess Florida is the state to do it in but I’d rather not deal with intense heat, humidity and my home being damaged every year because of damn hurricanes! But I don’t deserve to be called a snob for pointing out the truth.

So not only am I irritated by his lack of conversation skills, I’m pissed that he basically insulted me and keeps bringing up these heavy topics when I am trying to get to know him but frankly, he was boring me to death. I would have excused myself 15 minutes into the conversation if he would have stopped talking and let me say something...anything! Instead, I was stuck on the phone with this nimrod for an hour!! An hour of my life I would love to get back! But I guess I should be happy that I didn’t skip the formality of the *get to know you* phone call before actually meeting him because if I met him personally first, I’d have had to run out of the coffee shop screaming. I doubt that would have done either of us any good. But I seriously think he takes the cake for the most boring-est guy ever!!

Lesson learned…looks aren’t everything. Model cute can mean the guy is a nimrod, boring jerk. At least that’s what it meant in this situation.