40% is a lot...

Over the past two weeks of my dating bonanza I have learned a pretty shocking tidbit about dating in this day an age. People LOVE to cancel.

40% of the men I have set up dates with have canceled on the day of. To me, that is a surprisingly large number. Now some have told me their 'legitimate' reasons while others have simply said 'something's come up' but regardless of what they write, being the fact that we have never met, I immediately just take it as most likely BS. Also, if you caught the fact that I put 'write' instead of 'say' that is because the flaking ALWAYS comes in the form of text or message...never a phone call.

Ok, so maybe I am jumping to a lot of conclusions but going on this journey I am also discovering what manners are deal breakers for me. I don't care about the opening of my door, I don't care about walking me home, I don't care about answering my texts or calls right away. But what I do care about is when you plan something with me and I arrange my other social commitments around it, cancelling is a deal breaker.

So far in my entire online dating history I have never cancelled on someone. I might have discovered that I double booked something so then days before I ask them to switch the day, but never on the day of do I ever write "sorry, something's come up and I can't make it to meet you today."

I wonder, out of the 40% that have cancelled on me, would they have still cancelled on me if our original meeting was 'in-person' rather than messages exchanged online? Does meeting people online allow others to not view you as a real person but rather an avatar? I feel like technology is really messing dating and socializing up. It is allowing people to forget that manners and feelings still exist. If you don't respond to me after we arranged somewhere to be, my natural instinct SHOULD be that you are dead, but instead its, 'I guess he met somebody else'...or would rather play video games...

To the guy on Wednesday night: I hope you are in fact not dead but instead, cozy somewhere, playing video games. Keeping your world virtual, eh?

Goodbye amusement park guys

Typical date for pre-November girl: Meet a guy who comes across as cocky. Play the cat and mouse game of number exchange...interested but not appearing TOO interested. Go on the date and impress each other with what cool people we are. And then either never hear from him again or date for a few months realizing that all we ever had was a love of the confidence in the other person.

Its hard when you get into a pattern. I feel like when I was going on dates I was always looking for something particular or for them to make me feel a particular way. But recently after starting this extreme dating November I have come to wonder...should I write a guy off if I dont feel that crazy spark right away? Is it possible to grow into a spark?

Men in my past have all repeated the same story. I go on a first date with them, we talk for hours about anything and everything, totally infactuated and then we begin a rollercoaster relationship what never lets you off nicely like the rides at PNE...no, these ones always crash and burn. So why do I always keep going to these 'amusement park' type guys?

To break the cycle I decided to go on a date with Mr. Artist. This one was found with the help of my secretary (roommate). While scouring the internet for me she came across this guy and shot him a message. He's someone that prior to the message I had probably continually passed over because something about him didn't just grab me. Well, thank goodness my roommate gives a variety of men chances and I ended up going on a date with him. And you know what, it actually turned out to be a way better date than I was expecting. He didn't create that initial spark for me but what he did do was introduce me to a type of guy who is incredibly kind and sincere. Something I so often pass right by. So it surprised me that while on the date he asked if I would like to go on a second date to the art gallery with him and I found myself saying yes. Maybe dating him will work out, or maybe it won't, but what I do know is that I have to give my old type a rest and try something new.

Tinderella

A Tuesday treat.

Hey, wait up!

Last week I joined a running club. Now, I joined for many of the obvious reasons, like getting better at running, it gives me a reason to get my butt out the door on a rainy vancouver night, but also for the fact that maybe, just maybe, there will be single men there too. Because to be honest, I have no idea where SINGLE men are these days. I put the exaggeration on "single" because I know where all the married, taken, unavailable men are. I meet those all the time. Those ones are at my work, friend's parties, the only people that seem to talk to me at coffee shops (I am still waiting for that confident single guy to strike up a conversation). I think back to university days and how much easier it was to meet people, heck they even had pub nights that were practically designed to meet your future or just for the moment dream guy. Fortunately I am no longer in university, but I begin to wonder, did I miss the mark? Did I miss the window of opportunity in life where you are suppose to meet 'the one' and lock that shit down?

Well I didn't meet 'the one' (clearly).  So now that brings me to run club. I drag a friend along and am secretly hoping that maybe I hit the jackpot and there will be a few athletic men ready to strike up a conversation. I was wrong. So very wrong. Instead what I got was a room full of middle aged women who as soon as the run begins either takes off in a sprint or starts walking. So there leaves my friend and I running along the seawall by ourselves. While I am sure my friend could have run and caught up with the bionic speedy women, running is still something I am trying to convince myself to like hence why my pace resembles that of a snail's. So when I get back to the meeting point I am expecting the leader to comment on the fact that she literally left her newest members in the dust or at least ask how the run went, but nope...nothing. So based on the fact that there were NO single men there and just a bunch of energizer bunny women who would rather talk about their 15 year old children than talk to a single-no children-young woman (that's me by the way). My friend and I decide to ditch the Running Room and just run by ourselves every Wednesday from now on.

So men, if you are out there, please come out of hiding on Wednesday nights and keep an eye out for a girl who is huffing and puffing her way around the seawall. Thank you, in advance.

Show me the money, honey

I should have known.
I knew it the second he started his emails off by complaining about expensive halloween costumes and expensive covers to bars on halloween--according to him, $15 was just TOO much to pay. But being that it is November and my mantra is to date men I wouldn't normally date, there I was last night, sitting across from Mr. Cheap.
I feel like this would have been the perfect date for me....7 years ago. He is attractive and nice, funny, works in a retail store but he doesn't have any aspirations for furthering his carreer. Back in my days of university I would have thought, no real job goals? Well maybe he just doesn't know what he wants to be and doesn't mind being broke for a while? But now jump to me in my late 20s/early 30s and I just can't do it. I am very passionate about my job that I wonder if I could be with someone who is not at all passionate about theirs.  So when the bill came around and he asked for them to be separate I immediately thought ok, this guy is definitely not into me. I finished my drink off, completely destroyed the bar's debit machine by dropping it on the floor (yes, I can be very embarrassing on dates) and hugged him goodbye as he got ready to bike home...in the pouring rain might I add. Walking home I thought to myself, I live comfortably and happy with an average paying job (I mean, who wouldn't want to make more money, right?), so it's not that I NEED some rich man or someone to treat me. But when I want to do something or show someone I am interested I choose to spend my money in those circumstances. So I just couldn't help but wonder, if a guy doesn't buy a girl a drink on the first date does that mean he's not interested? And further, if he is interested, do I enter a relationship where someone is much more frugal than I, which would get in the way of us doing enjoyable activites? When dating, should everything be on 'separate bills'? 

So low and behold I did get a "want to go for dinner sometime?" text from Mr. Cheap today....I think one separate bill was enough, thank you very much.

Am I making the plan, again?

What I have quickly come to realize is, I need a secretary. Multiple dating sites, setting up times, exchanging phone numbers...It's become my second job. Luckily my roommate has basically become my 'recruiter' and scours the internet to find potential matches (don't worry, I pay her in cookies). This really is a more than one person job and while she helps in those early stages, there is still the whole aspect of setting the date up. The actual going on dates is the easy part. I can be shiny. I can be funny (I laugh at myself at least). But it's wading through all of the steps beforehand that's exhausting and repetitive. One of the things that I have found in the early stages of dating is that there are two types of guys:

Ones that will plan the night and ones that will ask you to.

My pre-november self would have decided right then and there that if the guy wasn't putting much effort in he therefore doesn't care, so why should I? As is probably pretty evident with my last statement I typically only date the confident, take charge guys. Clearly my 'type' has not worked out in the past, so maybe it's time to branch out. Why should the guy have to do all the work? On a blind date isn't the playing field even?

Over the past few weeks I have started to get in this new mindset, maybe I need to work a little harder? I started to doubt everything that provided me security beforehand, have I been too hard on all my previous guys? Have I set some sort of unattainable standard? And then tonight brought me right back to reality. I was out running with a friend and I explained to her about my latest annoyances of passive guys and she said to me "What?! Why would you go on a date with them if you are already doing all the work?" That is what I needed. A sane confident girl to snap me right back. Why am I working so hard?

Will I still ask men out? Absolutely
Will I plan the date if they ask? Absolutely
Will I drive to the end of the earth to meet them? No
Will I put in all the effort? No

Maybe this is a crazy standard, maybe its prissy or controlling or whatever other people would view it as. But for me, this is who I am and I can't change that. I may have dropped a lot of walls down this November but I have to stay true to myself and not lose my values along the way. Sure I will meet lots of men in November but come December there's only one person who is going to be there at the end of all this, and that's me. So I better like her.

Flaky, Flaky, Flaky

'Yes November' update:

Well, the words of Aziz Ansari couldn't be any truer, I have been trying to set up dates with men online but surprise surpirse I am dealing with some very flaky people. So while it has taken longer than I thought, my first one is set up for Thursday and then I have two more guys sitting in the wings, ready to follow. Hopefully this momentum continues.
Stay tuned for Thursday's adventure....