First Date Fever

With me, when it rains, it pours.  After years of an intense drought as far as men go, this week I have too many to handle!  Looking back, the quick exit of Mr. Saturday may have been a blessing in disguise, because quite honestly, he would have lost out to my options this week on almost every level anyway. 

After several email communications and a few days of text messaging, Mr. Braves Fan is quite interested in meeting up for dinner or drinks after work.  He seems very impressed with me, unlike Mr. Saturday, and was crazy considerate and friendly, for as much as you can tell via messages limited to 160 characters on a handheld communication device.  And, after literally months of on-again-off-again communication, Mr. Dalton is also asking for a few minutes of my time to get to know me better.  Mr. Dalton was a match during another "I'm fed up with my life, what am I going to do about it?" stage when I was willing to pay almost $60 a month to change it and became a member on eHarmony about eight or nine months ago.  We were matched right at the completion of both of our memberships and then caught up through facebook.  The communication slowly dwindled, but he popped back up in my matches this go-round, and I guess he also thought it was too coincidental to overlook.  Mr. Banderas, named such for his Antonio-like good looks, has been emailing and very chatty, but we haven't conversed about taking it to the in-person stage just yet...but I think I can see it in the very near future.  Whew!  And keeping them all straight has not been easy!  Half the reason for this blog posting is so that I can try to get a mental handle on all these details...

One thing that I've come across in my electronic journey to coupledom is the different ways that people are comfortable communicating.  I've decided, despite any male protestations to the contrary, to utilize the female's prerogative and not actually speak on the phone with any of my potential matches until we've met face-to-face.  Weird? Yeah, probably.  Especially considering that I was a communications major in college and should be able to handle such basic interactions. But, I've noticed something especially fascinating about myself.  I'm a such an old fashioned girl.  Although I'm literally forcing myself into this strange social sphere of internet friend-raising, mentally, I'm staying true to the way I want things to be deep down:  The Old Fashioned Way.  Sure, I'll find out you exist on this planet by reading your "About Me" section of a webpage, but I want to meet you in person before I'm expected to carry on a conversation on the phone longer than "Can you meet at 7:00 pm on Saturday?"  Talking to someone I don't know at all on the phone is awkward.  And an awkward beginning, to me, leaves a lasting impression.  I'm so much better in person than I am on the phone, that I don't want to jeopardize what could turn out to be a wonderful time with a bad phone call full of awkward pauses, probably due to the other person glancing back to my online profile to find something to ask me about to generate conversation. 

Do I deserve this new found attention? Heck yes! Can I handle it? Uh...I don't know! I love the fact that I have some irons in the fire but am a little bit scared as to whether or not I might get burned by all this. These new guys are all very different, which I know is good because it makes the playing field level. They all have equal opportunity to impress me with their own individuality, and I have the chance to say "Wow, I really like this guy for X quality," having never known that was something that interested me since I was cooped up in my little single world for so long. Options are good. What are the rules though? Should I just be focused on one of my new matches at a time?  Or should I keep the mix and be fun, single Melanie for once?  We'll see how much of those communications classes stayed in my long-term memory and whether or not that memory is good enough to keep all these guys straight, because I'm going with Fun, Single Melanie and throwing myself into this game, whole-heartedly.

Rejected. Maybe. Probably.

So, it's official. I think. Five days after Date #1 with Mr. Saturday and not so much as a "thanks, but no thanks" response. I even took the advice of many of you and emailed him on Tuesday, long after the 48-hour usual window of follow-up communication. Nada.


My email on Tuesday was meant to just reopen the lines of communication. I told him that I had a good time and hoped he did too, leaving the door open for him to (be the man...did I say that out loud?) ask me if I'd like to go out again. Before we met on Saturday, I had been the one "driving the bus," initiating the conversation and single-handedly coordinated our meeting/date. I thought, eh, maybe he's shy, and surely he wouldn't be on board with meeting someone he had absolutely no interest in. So, when he accepted my invitation to meet, (Red Flag #1: he insisted without saying it outright that I be the one to drive the hour distance between our cities of residence) I thought, "Success!" Red Flag #2: But, he could not commit to a restaurant or location...in his own hometown. I shared that I wasn't familiar with that area and basically had to just say "You tell me where to be." But, I was going with the whole "shy around new people" thing. Stuck with that. Alllllllll through the drive there.

At dinner, he was polite and courteous. His apparel left a little to be desired, but sometimes you have to let things like that slide. Even though I was in cute peep-toe heels that had been pinching my toes for the (yup, I'm going to mention it again) entire hour drive to the restaurant and he was in torn-up birkenstocks, I let it go. Red Flag #3: The difference in our appearances immediately proved that I was much more invested in this meeting that he was. As we got a bit more comfortable with the situation, we started chatting about life, love and the pursuit of happiness. Just kidding. He talked, while I interjected a few times, mostly about celebrities, reality television, primetime television, cable television, TMZ, and most energetically about Bret Michaels. Bret Michaels, the aging rock-star, who, to his credit, has made an amazing career comeback over the last year or so. But, it was insisted upon that I realize Mr. Saturday was a fan long before "Rock of Love." He almost fell out of his seat with excitement as he explained to me the chronology of Mr. Michaels' love affairs, who exactly was with him at the time of his recent medical misfortune and then looked at me as if I were the most uncultured person he'd ever met when I didn't know who he was talking about when referring to the other members of Poison by their first names. Uh, Red Flag #4: Anyone who shares upon first meeting that he recently spent an entire weekend watching whole series of shows on his DVR and can quote lines from any VH1 "reality" show, spends entirely too much time in front of the television. I watch a lot of television, but not that much.

So, at first, I was slightly disappointed when I hadn't heard from Mr. Saturday. The more I thought about the meeting/date and talked about it with people, the more I realized that maybe not hearing from him wasn't such a bad thing. Maybe I wanted it to be successful because it was my first such attempt and, let's be honest, I'm not used to failure. Although, the part that bugs me most is his own words on the online dating rejection process. In his profile, he says how much he values someone who is straightforward, that even if he's not interested in someone, he always writes them back if they email him, just as common courtesy. Big words, but meaningless when not put into action. He's logged onto Match several times in the last few days, so he's aware of my communication, just ignoring it. Unfortunately, Match.com doesn't let you close a match, except to block them from viewing you. That's one of the perks of eHarmony, (if you're comparison shopping online dating sites) you can have the satisfaction of officially closing the match and stating your reason why. Of course, they're all politically correct, but one of them is "This match never responded to my communication." In other words, "You're RUDE!"

Don't worry about me. I'll bounce back. I already have. You might want to sign up for Google alerts of new posts. This is going to get interesting really quickly...