Up Date

Because Scarlet is hooked on the sordid tales of my nonexistent love life... because Savannah lives vicariously through my adventures in Datingdom, because Jimmy and Map seem confused about the male species here across the pond, I am going to give you all a (hopefully) brief synopsis of the events of the past week.

I cruise through the profiles on the dating website... looking... reading... briefly assessing potential. I have almost (but not) completely given up on initiating first contact because it just doesn't seem to amount to much. A few brief emails, often rather cryptic in nature, and then it all fizzles out to nothing.

Sometimes, a guy will send me an email. I will then go read their profile and make a decision on whether or not a positive response is appropriate. Sometimes, it is a thanks for the email but no bloody way! Other times, it is a little email conversation... On rare occasions, it results in a 'meet and greet'. More often than not, that meet and greet is the first and last contact. On even rarer occasions, that meet and greet will result in a couple more 'dates'.

I did have what seemed like a promising 'meet and greet' a while back that did result in a few more dates. Nice guy, we seemed to hit it off but when things got a little snuggly on the last date, something happened (or maybe didn't?) and he was never seen nor heard from again. Whatever...

I had an email conversation with a guy a couple weeks back. I initiated it. He'd been to my profile (the website is set to show that if you want others to see your visits - you can be invisible in your cruising as well, if you want to lurk) so I read his profile, thought he sounded interesting, so I sent him a 'hi, how are you?' I always try to make some kind of a comment that relates in some way to something he put in his profile.

He emailed back something about being out on a limb, big changes looming, and that he was sick. Alrighty, then.... I wished him well in the changes and hoped he get better soon and left it at that. He went back and forth a few times with little bits of sentences, separated by many ...s, with little substance and a 'maybe soon we could meet for a coffee'. Then a couple days later, a 'maybe next week, we could meet cuz I'm still in the midst of those big changes'. Then nothing. No bother. I have a very strong feeling (I'm terribly perceptive, you know) that he's a loon and I don't want to have anything to do with him.

Just a couple of nights ago, a guy emailed me. Started with 'Are you there?' Um... hello... You can see that I am logged in... So I emailed back and said hi... after I read his profile. Had to comment on the no photos aspect of it.

I really do prefer to see who I am talking to. Because I have had the experience of emailing back and forth with someone who came across as bright and witty, but when he emailed me a photo (after I asked several times), I was looking at a giant troll! Egads it was scary! I was looking at a man who was 6'5", easily well over 350 lbs, with unruly black hair that was in dire need of a trim, and with a giant black caterpillar crawling across his forehead. A nose that could reel in a 20 lb. trout and lips that probably quivered with each word, they looked so much like raw liver, I rolled my chair back from the computer monitor! I could certainly see why he didn't post a photo on his profile. I had to politely back pedal out of that one because no matter who nice someone is, there isn't a hope in hell I could see myself with someone who looked like that.

Now, I am not so superficial to think that looks are everything... they are not. I am as equally concerned with what exists in a man's head and heart as what his exterior looks like. It has to be a package deal. Most of us meet someone and are attracted to them physically first, before we get to know them personally. It is the personal side that determines if any kind of a relationship is going to develop.

So... back to the guy from a couple of nights ago. (Okay, so this isn't so brief... ) In the course of our little email conversation, he kept saying "you'll like what you see", "you won't be disappointed". Well, wasn't he just full of himself??? Yes, he was a good looking guy... and he's a pilot (I didn't tell him I get airsick in small planes...) and he travels lots. He wants someone to travel with him. I'd love to travel. But not with someone who has the attitude that he's god's gift to women. That's a little too much ego for me thankyouverymuch.

Remember a while back, I blogged about Mr. I live too far away to be spontaneous but still like you and want to get to know you? We're still in contact, although it has been quite sporadic. And at one point, we were talking on the phone and he was asking a lot of stuff that I felt was a little too personal for someone I'd spent all of about 3 hours with and had talked to four times. I got a little testy, we hung up and I figured that was the end of it. Oh well, I thought, too bad because he really was a hottie and had been great fun to talk to and spend a bit of time with. But I figured, given the distance and that phone call, it was over and done with.

So imagine my surprise when he called the other day and asked when I next have some time off. Remember, he's a 'land baron', which in all reality means he sold a huge chunk of his farm and is no longer actively farming and has time on his hands. And he's 47... Not bad, eh? I'm taking this at face value, because of course, I have no way to actually verify that, although (being the internet sleuth that I am) I can verify that in the spring he did indeed have an unreserved auction of farm equipment. So that lends credence to what he has told me so far. He's kept 640 acres that he leases out, so someone else farms it and pays him for the use of the land.

Mr. Land Baron (which is soooo much easier to type out than Mr. I live too far away to be spontaneous but still like you and want to get to know you) is still interested even after I basically told him I was uncomfortable with what he was asking and cut the phone call short. I thought about the situation myself, of course, and decided that I would not, absolutely would not, call him. If anything was going to happen, he would have to think about the situation and decide if he'd been too forward and if he wanted to do something about it. It appears he did. We didn't talk about that in the last phone call, but he did ask when I was free. He initially asked me if I could come to where he is, but I said unless I could bring the dog, no I couldn't. 'Ah... the dog... I forgot about the dog.' he said. Yup. The dog is a part of my life and cannot be ignored. (No one in my family will dogsit for me because she's a drooler. She's the sweetest, quietest, most effortless dog to have in the house, but it's the drool that kills it. I do supply the towels...) So I told him that I am off Nov. 20 - 22. That's it. If he wants to see me, he's got to make the effort to come into town to see me. I let him tell me he'd make that effort. We'll see. Nothing concrete has been set but he did say he'd probably see me then...

Monday evening, I was reading some of the newest profiles online. There was a brief one, no photos, that twigged something in my brain. Seemed familiar. Not anything in the details but just the feel of it, the jist of it... I just looked and left it at that. The next day, after I get home and go online, I have an email that I have a message on the dating site. So I log in and look... and I was right! (yes, that was a previous post just the other day) So we ended up emailing back and forth. Nothing more than that, but a brief rekindling of the friendship we started a year ago. Again, I will not be the one to pursue contact. I will not push it. That doesn't work. I have learned that the hard way and won't do it again. If someone wants to see me, and I am interested, I will leave that up to him to initiate. This one, I would would like very much to have contact me to get together. I don't know if that will ever happen. But one can hope, right?

So that, in a nutshell (yes, I know... it is a very large nutshell), is what's been happening in the Dating Life and Times of Ponita in the vast hinterland of the Canadian Prairies. Now just how exciting is that!