Did you get the bill?

Meeting and paying.
Two of the most awkward moments on dates. Over the past few months I have gone on numerous blind/online/set-up dates and let me tell you, no matter how much easier I find them now, those continue to be the two moments when I feel my palms sweat.
When I first started this online dating saga I used to get so nervous before meeting the next mystery man. I think back to my first date and almost chuckle at how far I have come. Now I wouldn't call myself a pro (just wait till november) but I have gone on enough to know that I can confidently carry a conversation for a good length of the date if need be. Maybe its my charm, maybe its my hilarious jokes (im still single so clearly they can't be THAT funny), but there are rarely moments that I find myself at a complete standstill.
Except for this one time.

Meet Mr. Outdoorsy. I was SO excited to meet him (first mistake). We met online and then our schedules didn't work out so we continued to text for about a week. First lesson I learned from this date: texting chemistry and real life chemistry are VERY different. Here I was, all week, texting with Mr. Outdoorsy and laughing at all of the hilarious jokes he was making. Turns out that all of his jokes that I thought were 'sarcastic one-liners' turned out to be not jokes at all. When we met in real life I came to quickly realize that he actually means everything that he says. Normally I would just throw back a couple beers and call it a night but this was mistake number two. We went for dinner AND we only ordered water.

Another lesson: never go for dinner on a blind date and regardless of what my fellow dater is doing, if I want a drink, I should order one.

So our version of 'the last supper' continued and throughout it I was constantly being shocked by what he was saying. He had story after story about all of his outdoorsy adventures and how women just wouldn't be able to keep up. He talked about how women are nurturers and therefore should only have nurturing jobs...and basically, how women are much lower in society than men.
Now, I think all of my friends would agree that I am a very easy going person. I also don't like to get into arguments, especially on a blind date. So when I am having to say "I don't think of myself as a hardcore feminist, but I completely disagree with you"....you know this date is going very bad.

Cue to the end of the very long, sober dinner.

After drinking copious amounts of water (both to avoid talking to him and keep myself from marching out the door) I take a trip to the ladies room. When I come back I see the plates all cleared away and a black book with the bill inside is sitting in the middle of the table. I sit down and begin to talk when he completely cuts me off and says "I got the bill."
"wow, thank you" I say --completely surprised at this gesture from him.
 And that is when he says the clincher of the evening.

"oh, no, I didn't pay for it. I just got the waitress to bring it over"

Cue red face and embarrassment.

Looking back at that moment, maybe I jumped to conclusion, maybe its the 'woman' in me as I am sure he would say to assume that 'I got the bill' translates to 'I paid for the bill'... but all that I know is that I got one funny story and I laughed all the way home. 

Houston, we have a problem.

In preparation for my upcoming 'yes' november, I decided that I should probably get a head start and begin signing myself up for every dating site I can think of. Subsequently,  I am now a proud member of Okcupid, Match, Plenty of Fish and Tinder. I have come to realize very quickly that dating via online is very much like having a second job. I am getting update after update of every wink, nudge, like, message that comes across my path...and let me just tell you, there is a lot of 'interesting' men to sift through.
So as I was starting to feel a bit discouraged I came across a guy that I thought looked half decent and with no apparent warning signs in his write up. Being the 'new november' dating girl that I have become, I decided to do something out of the ordinary and send him a message first. Well, low and behold I get a response and we begin to message back and forth. It was flirty, it was sweet, it was everything a girl could hope for except for when he dropped the line "I'm actually in Houston right now on a business trip till next Saturday." Very innocent. I decided to be the patient woman I am and thought, maybe this is it?! What a coincidence that he gets back into Vancouver the day my november challenge begins, what a way to kick off the month...fate right?!
Nope. Not fate.
It is then I receive the next message..."do you have skype?"
Now, there is something I need to clarify. As a girl who has been single for a good portion of life I have now learned that this line does not actually mean 'lets have a nice chat over skype and get to know eachother'. This is just the virtual equivalent of a dick pic, and quite frankly at this point in my life my eyes have been violated enough.
I could be wrong...maybe he is a very nice guy who is ACTUALLY in Houston, Texas. But I highly doubt that is the case. So when I respond with a "no I don't, how about we meet up when you get back?" and never heard from him again, I believe I know the answer to my question. That there is a very high probability that this is a man, sitting at home in some basement, thousands of miles away from Texas.
Regardless, every smart single girl knows...it's not ALL bigger in Texas.

Goodbye October, Hello November

Last night I was out with friends and we got talking about my blog. My friends decided, what if I turned the next month into a challenge?
Now, you should know that November is probably my least favourite month to be single. It's the time of the ever so popular 'Mo'vember. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge supporter and advocator for prostate cancer research, but in terms of dating, I don't usually gravitate to the men with mustaches. But what if for the month of November I completely flipped my dating rules upside down? What if November now became my 'yes' month?
Instead of cringing at the latest mustache wearing man who asks me out, what if I say yes instead? I have decided that in order to make the most of this month I need to fully commit to this task and now have joined up with all the popular dating sites (oh dear god) and enlisted the help of friends to get some 'dates' set up. Starting November 1st I will commit myself to going out on a limb and saying yes to dates from people I wouldn't normally say yes to.
What's going to come of this you ask?
Well, hopefully I come out with some great stories, new friends, a new found love of facial hair and a realization that maybe my 'must have' list needs to be revamped.

Now, the rules. As any of you who have gone online know, I simply cannot say 'yes' to every single man that contacts me on those sites (I may not come back from those dates alive) but I am going to force myself to message back people I wouldn't normally. I am determined that at least one of my dates in November will come from someone I meet in a non-drinking setting (grocery store, coffee shop, etc) and without losing my sanity or my job, blog about each date I go on.

So get ready November, here I come.

In the words of Aziz Ansari

The dating world:

"It's pretty much, a lot of times like you're a secretary for a really shoddy organization, scheduling the dumbest shit, with the flakiest people ever"--Aziz Ansari

I want my bottle of wine back

Break-ups. They happen to the best of us. Hopefully most of us can come out of them unscathed but no matter what, each is unique in their own way.
Lets call my latest, Mr. Twitter.
Now Mr. Twitter very much suits his name. While most men put up walls and emotional baggage as a way to keep a woman at an arms length, I was always coming in second..behind twitter. Never having used twitter myself, I never quite got it. Why would someone want to chat online to a group of strangers and tell them about their day, when a real human being was a foot away from them? Yes, I do realize that I am currently writing a blog, so therefore aren't I doing the exact same thing? Well I like to think of myself as also socially adept and that someone will snap me out of it if I start writing a blog post before sharing that same story over a bottle of wine with my girlfriends.

Back to Mr. Twitter.

So here we are, I am at home getting ready for our next date and my phone lights up. A text. But not just any kind of text. A break-up text.
I don't know if you have ever gotten one of these but let me tell you, this is probably the most ridiculous way to end a relationship. After date 1,2 or 3, sure, a text is acceptable. After a few months of dating....are you kidding me? Well, that is exactly what I said. I called him up (surprise, he didn't pick up--not till a short while later I got the 'just got out of the shower, can you call again' text) and while most women leave clothes, cd's, jewelery at a man's house, I leave my most prized possession...wine. Normally I would have just let this slide and deemed it as collateral damage. But this time I thought what the heck, if this guy is so into romancing technology that he gets it to do his dirty work in his 'real life' relationships, I want my bottle of wine back.
So, 2 hours later on the rainiest night in Vancouver, I see Mr. Twitter one last time and guess what...he brought the wrong bottle of wine.

I guess I should have tweeted him.

What's more intimate than a phone call?

Texting.

The seemingly perfect tool for dating. It's quick, none threatening, immediate responses, causal. So many good qualities that I can't imagine a world without it, let alone a dating world without it. And yet, as I was debriefing my girl friends on the last guy that was giving me the run around, my friend came out with the most shocking sentence, "Why don't you just call him?"
Call him? I suddenly started to get nervous. I couldn't call him, we hadn't reached THAT point in our relationship yet.
Confused, my friend who has been in a relationship for the last 10 years, suddenly made a statement that I just can't seem to get out of my head. "You are comfortable enough to sleep with a guy, but you can't call him?"
I was stumped. Since when did a simple phone call become such a scary and bold move?
I remember back to my high school days where calling was the only way to get a hold of a friend/boy friend. It didn't seem so scary then, so why as a grown confident woman in my late 20s does that seem like the most terrifying dating act? How has talking on the phone become a milestone like meeting the parents or saying I love you? I wonder if I can break this cycle. All it really takes is one person to start, right? So this is my goal: the next man I date, I try calling him. Lets see how fast I scare off all of mankind ;)

Didn't we have a date?

Boy meets girl. Boy asks girl on date. Boy drops off the face of the earth.

I don't think that is how the rhyme is suppose to go but for some reason it is on constant repeat in my dating life. Now, before you start thinking I am some wacko that must smell or have some man repellent quality, you must know that I consider myself quite normal. I have friends that can vouch, promise.

So in my single girl weekday nights as I start to drift off to sleep, I like to play a fun little game on my phone called Tinder. Yes, I know its a horribly shallow game, but it is the new 'hot or not', and well, way too addictive not to join in. As it turns out I happen to start chatting with a cute guy who shockingly doesn't come off too strong or ask me what I am wearing. Bonus right?! Or that is what I think, so reluctantly I give this guy my number and he continues to text me over the next few days. Within those days jokes ensue and then comes the ever so causal line...'we should get a drink this Saturday afternoon'. At this point it is ever so hard for me not to be jaded by past dating and getting my hopes up, but something feels a bit different so I happily accept.
Well days go by, I send a text, no reply and here I am...sitting in my living room on Saturday afternoon, wondering what happened? Why would you ask someone out if you have no intention of ever meeting them? --something I continue to ask myself every time this happens. What a waste of time. Fortunately, they have never met me so its hard to feel rejected when the person doesnt even know what your voice sounds like but it really does get a girl thinking. Are all of these dating apps and websites just a complete waste of time? Is it just a facade that men (and women) can hide behind who don't actually want to date but just get a confidence boost that someone actually said yes?

You always hear all of these stories about that friend of a friend who met their husband, fiance, boyfriend online....but at this point I call bullshit. Sure I have dated men off of these sites and it hasn't been a complete waste of time, but no matter how many of these dates/non dates I get, it still floors me every time.

And so, as I get ready to leave my computer seat and get out in the real world, drink date or not, it makes me wonder...do I call this guy on his bullshit non-date...or act like I didn't even notice that this supposed 'Saturday drinks' never happened?