Blog Followers

So a few of you have asked how you will receive notifications that there is a new post, well, I just discovered at the end of the page a link that says "Subscribe" and it should then send you emails whenever new posts are made.  I have now moved it to the top of the page to help you out! :)  Done and done!

Just a tidbit of information!

A date with a stranger

So I had an eharmony date on Monday night. I was really looking forward to it. He seemed funny and smart and cute, not in the stop you in the street type of way, more in the sweet kind of way.

Anyway, he invited me to meet him at a nice restaurant, Americas on Post Oak. I could definitely do that. He was texting me throughout the day making sure the time was right and twice mentioned he wasn't sure I would be able to find him. It was a Monday night, how crowded could the bar be? I told him, I look just like my picture and as long as he did as well we shouldn't have a problem. Ah-hem. He sent me one last text, after arriving there 15 minutes early (I was still at home having string cheese) to tell me exactly where he was sitting. Okay. So I arrive to find him not even an inch off from where he said he was, however what was off was, well...guess.

He looked absolutely nothing like his picture, except that he had dark hair, what was left of it.  I have no problem with male patterned baldness.  My ex had barely any peach fuzz on his head.  And though I spent the better part of my childhood being blamed for my father's baldness (don't worry dad, we've worked through it in therapy and I'm 100% over it! :)) and I think my dad is handsome, so there is no issue with me and bald.  However, if you are bald or nearly there, putting a picture of you with a full head of hair and I'm talking there is no mistaking it, then you should not take your date completely by surprise when they go to meet you for the first time and you are missing a big chunk of what took up your picture (that is unless you put a picture up of your bigger days and you have lost all the weigh.

Well Bupesh (thank you mother for the name) said he was 30 on his profile. When we were talking, I noticed he looked older than his picture, clearly, but I still think that's all that wasn't true and then he mentions no less than three times that he is "old". I finally said "well how old are you?" because I was thinking I remembered wrong. Now, don't forget, he looked way older than his picture, but still. His answer was "umm, 30 or 31 I guess, I think". "You guess??" Bupesh, you must first figure out which age you are going to give your date and stick with it, otherwise...this is just embarrassing.

He seemed funny and smart, I am not certain love is imminent, but probably at least a second date. I mean if I can't date a liar who can stick with an age, what kind of liar can I date, right?

Latest Matches

So I have been matched up with some new people lately.  eHarmony has reached back into the bottom of the barrel for me again.  I mean there are quite a few with whom I don't have much in common.  So I thought I would share the 2 latest who's profiles made me laugh out loud:

Here we have Ryan:

The one thing Ryan is Most Passionate about:  

I enjoy hanging out with close friends and spending time with family. I really like smaller groups over large groups of people. I'd rather be out riding dirt bikes with my friends than sitting at a bar drinking.

And on how much he drinks: A few times a week

My assumption is either: he doesn't have any friends who dirt bike or his friends would rather drink with him than ride dirt bikes.  Either way, lose lose.  Oh, and he has a daughter.  Bye Ryan!

The Next guy is Anthony.  Now, he's a father of 2, so clearly I closed him. He's also one of the best spellers I have ever been matched up with, now I know I'm not a great speller, but he basically has word play here and I think it is worth sharing:

The one thing Anthony is most passionate about:

Life as a whole is what makes me passionate. I believe you need to work hard and play harder. Play time for me includes spending time with family and friends, riding the Harley, anything outdoors. My quite times includes watching movies, romatic evenings with that special someone, wheather that is snuggling on the couch watching a movie, or dressed up hitting the town. I enjoy participating in everything from concerts to the theater. Any of these qualities sound like what ur looking for? Then send me a message. We will never know if we never try. Look forward to hearing from u!

*footnote: I understand using "u" and "ur" in a text message, but I don't think it is that difficult to write out "you" and "you are" in an eharmony profile.

The most important thing Anthony is looking for in a person is:

Above all I am looking for loyalty. I also am looking for a woman who respects herself, she should be confident yet able to be papered.

The first thing people notice about Anthony is: 

I tend to be able to stike a conversation with just about anyone. Wheather faced with VIPs at a Galla or sitting in a neighborhood pub.

Ahhh, Anthony.

Oh, just so you know, I'm not the only one who closes for ridiculous reasons.  Jason, 31 closed me after my schmalentine's posting on Sunday and the reason he chose was:  I think the difference in age between us is too great.

I'll be 31 in July.

Happy Thursday!

Valentine's Day Schmalentine's Day

No this isn't the rant of a single gal about Valentine's Day and the over emphasis of love and relationships and what I don't have and I'm single...blah, blah, blah.  This is the rant:


I have gotten "matched up" on eharmony to so many guys in the past couple of days. I thought maybe it was because I loosened my "priorities" a bit.  Ummm, I just saw a commercial which was saying there are only 2 days left of the 5 free days eharmony has been offering to people since Thursday.  AWESOME!  It costs $19.95 a month and I just got set up with all the guys who are trying the free trial.  Super duper.  I look forward to our relationships.  :)


Anyway, today 7 guys "closed" me...SEVEN!  This isn't an issue with me, I close guys too.  I do it if I don't find them attractive, if they have kids (I'm a stickler about not being a stepmom at 30 to 15 year olds) or (and there are quite a few of these out there if you can believe it) if all they talk about in their profile is their love of God and Christ and they live a pure life and want a wife to also and they drink several times a week and smoke a few times a year...I'm not crazy about contradictions.  I'm not saying a Christian can't drink, helloooo...., but I am saying I don't want our entire relationship to be us drunk and talking about Christ's love all the time.  I digress...back to my point:


Why these seven different guys who I got matched up with 3 days ago chose Valentine's day to "cyber dump" me is laughable.  I am already on a dating website which means I'm not so lucky in face to face love and then on this day of love and chocolate and flowers, they chose it was the right day to "close" me. AMAZING!  Okay, not a big deal...HOWEVER, when you do close someone on eharmony you have to choose from about 20 different reasons why you are closing this match.  These run from "not interested based on statements in their profile" to "pursuing another relationship" to "other".  6 out of the 7 guys today chose "other".  Simple enough, nothing for me to care about.  Well to you, Jason, 35, VP of Sales who chose "pursing another relationship", here's a news flash for your girlfriend. If the first thing your bf does on Valentine's morning is check matches on eharmony because he hasn't turned off his match settings - I'm quite certain this means there's some trouble in paradise.  I'm assuming they haven't had the DTR (determining the relationship talk), do you still do that as an adult? I'm sometimes questioning my "adultness".  Anyway, thank you Jason for not saying it was because of based on statements in my profile, but seriously, first thing VDay morning?? C'mon buddy...


I spent the night in Austin last night with one of the few "single" girl friends I have left in this world.  We discussed how when you have single friends, you hold on to them for dear life, wish them well when they leave Singleville for Relationshiptown, but know until they make that move, life is full of laughter and ironies together. When we were eating queso for breakfast this morning and watching Opera's special on eating right followed by last week's episode of The Biggest Loser, there was an epiphany.  This is not a coincidence that I'm on eharmony and getting closed on Valentine's day, this is my laughable fate!


Happy Schmalentine's Day Friends!  I hope you are spending it with someone who makes you laugh!

My on again off again relationship with eHarmony.com

Okay, you may be thinking it is ridiculous to say I have any type of relationship at all with a website, but I do.  We've been on and off for 3 years, I believe that is considered overtime on a dating website, but I could be considered to be an over achiever.

I gave match.com a try, just once, and found myself having a drink with a guy who yelled everything at me (mind you, not to me, AT me) and who walked his cat on a leash and found dogs irritating.  Needless to say I terminated my one month account with match.com that night.  One night a year later, when I was 27, I thought I would see what eharmony.com was all about.

I found that I was going to have to answer a lot of questions, so I opened up a bottle of pinot grigio and got answering.  Well, I finished the bottle of wine before I finished the questions.  So in typical fashion, I closed my computer and left finding love up to chance.  Fast forward about 8 months on another night and I wondered if those questions I started to answer 8 months before were saved.  I signed in and found I had finished 60% of the Q&A.  I figured since I didn't remember the first 60% of the questions, I should pop open another bottle of wine to finish the last 40% and not remember those.  Not the wiser of choices.

Here's where my relationship with eharmony started to become rocky.  I joined with a 3 month membership (you know, join for multiple months and save multiple 3's of dollars) and I started getting set up left and right.  After I met a boy I got into a relationship with, I cancelled eharmony, it had done its job.  Well, after a 3 month summer romance with this guy, we broke up over the phone.  I decided not only was he dead to me but so was eharmony.  Clearly blame had to be placed, so it was totally the fault of eharmony.

After I'd turned 29 and 30 and been on some unsuccessful set-up dates and had stayed away from eharmony, I decided to give the old "frienemy"another shot.  I logged in and paid for another three months (hey, no reason to throw away money) and went in with an open mind.  After three months of many not fun, but funny dates, I decided to end my membership.  However, when I started to end it I kept getting "matched up" with someone who was intriguing, and so I keep finding myself getting sucked back in.  This relationship is unhealthy, I know.

The issue with answering a billion questions over multiple bottles of wine and over multiple months and never having the option to answer or see those questions again is you risk your match settings with no option for change.  So my choice in men has either drastically changed from when I was 27 until now, which could be true, or my answers were plucked in by a chicken at random.  For some reason I keep getting set up with multiple youth ministers, accountants, fathers (in the literal sense) and tattooed bikers.  What may I ask can one person answer in any one of those questions that can get you a gamut of set ups like this?  Well, get ready, because my next eharmony date is monday!  (sneak peak, he's an auditor/missionary and finds material objects to be subjects evil)...

A Lesson in Blind Dating

So the whole thing that prompted me starting this blog when I did was a recent blind date I had.  I love when my friends think of me to set me up. There is such excitement in meeting new people, there is thrill of what to wear, what to discuss, what not to discuss, what to drink, how much to drink and then the curiosity about what will happen at the end of the date.    A couple of friends have set me up with some interesting characters in the past.  I am always flattered they think of me.  However, I have wondered, now are these set ups because we are really meant to be or are these set ups because we are the last two single people they know and so surely we have something in common.  Kind of like every gay man I meet I say I have the perfect guy friend of mine for them, because, well, he's gay.  Now I get it, since I have seen it thrust upon those of us still living the ever forbidden... SINGLE LIFE!

So the first blind date, let's call him Jeff.  Jeff was 38, older than anyone I have gone out with, but I'm not holding this against him. I was told he is good at wake boarding and skiing, two skills I lack entirely, but I recognize them as active and athletic, so I was intrigued.  After a few straight to the point emails with no personal information exchanged, we agree on a time and of course, on the place.  He suggested the Tasting Room, great bar for a wine night with your girlfriends, but inevitable for bad dates with me (I'm at 0 for 7 at this point).  "Maybe this guy will break the mold" I think to myself.  I put on a cute black sweater, I flip my hair, reapply the much needed under eye concealer and I head my merry way.  I meet him there, of course I am 5 minutes late, I never show up to a blind date early...I cringe at the idea of waiting alone for someone (I did this once before and he pretended not to see me at the bar, I was the only one at the bar... that was our only date).  So I walk in and Jeff introduces himself to me.  He's cute, he's kind of short, but so am I so there is no problem here.  He's a young looking 38.  We get a bottle of wine, my choice.  We sit down and the conversation centers around our recent international travels.  Clearly we are stretched here, but I literally knew nothing about this guy.  I tell him about my trip to the middle east, south america and my impending trip to Europe.  I think the date is getting better, but then again, so is the wine.  See I am trying to acquire a taste for red wine.  I had suggested a Pinot Noir that night, I took one look at him and knew white was not going to cut it.  As the wine started going down easier, so did our conversation.  But about 5 minutes after that bottle was done, so was our date.  

He walked me to the car, but not quite.  He gave me a side hug, and thanked me for a fun evening.  It was at this point I knew, that was the last I was going to see of Jeff.  But I was curious as to what went wrong?  Was it the fact I chose a new style that night? Long sleeved shirt under short sleeved sweater?  Was it because I was 5 minutes late? Could it be that I drank too slow or too fast or the fact I suggested the bottle instead of by the glass?  I was eager to learn what it was all about.  What had I done to not get "Let's do it again soon" or "I'll call you this weekend"??  Rest assured, I hadn't fallen for Jeff that night, but I hadn't shuttered at the idea him either.  Then I learned after about 2 weeks of knowing it wasn't going to happen, but still questioning the reason.  Dear ol' Jeff had a girlfriend.  Yep. To appease his sister in law and her friend, my friend, he agreed to take out a stranger on a blind wine date (what I like to call a blind drink) because he hadn't yet told them about so called girlfriend.

Now there are two scenarios here... one, he wasn't sure about his feelings for this girlfriend. or Two, this was the only excuse that could be created to let me down easy.  But in the end, if they had only figured out in the very beginning that all this time, dear Jeff wore Ed Hardy T-shirts, we could have avoided this situation altogether.

So, here's a lesson that should have been learned by both friends and myself.  One, ask if they are single before forcing them into a date.  Two, when the conversation only centers around travel and nobody is actually asking the other person questions, there isn't a connection.  Three, they say you can change a man's wardrobe but you can't change a man.  It is a different type of man that includes Ed Hardy in their wardrobe and rest assured, that man is not for me.

First Edition

So for years I have been threatening to write a book, I had great ideas.  A book about my friends from college, our uniqueness that brought us together or one would be about all the weddings I have been in as a bridesmaid.  However, my friends from college and I moved to different cities, finding new relationships, starting careers and for some, beginning families.  Our story of endless conversations about grammar and late night debaucheries at college frat houses no longer seemed appropriate as we started growing up.  They started finding their better halves, they started settling, and yet I found myself moving further away from settling down than I ever imagined.  Then as weddings started happening and I was getting the honor of acting as a bridesmaid in so many dear friends and sisters' weddings, I thought, this, this is from where my story will come.  However, I realized it wasn't my story, it was the story of my experiences at their weddings.  Now these have humor in them none the less, and without a date story here and there I might share some of those with you.  However, until then, I have found that having been a bridesmaid 14 times, that book already got written...into a movie, called 27 Dresses (by the way, I totally had that story first!).

So I decided to start a blog, to share some of the tales I have as a serial first dater.  I have more first dates than I have actual relationships and more second dates than I have thirds...so you can see where this is going.  But let me preference this with the facts that I have been burned and broken hearted and forgotten and I have done the same, so this isn't to bash every man I go out with.  It is just a little life lesson on finding the signs, or a lesson on not seeing them before it's too late.

I went to the dog park yesterday, wondering in the back of my mind how would I begin this blog.  Which story would I start with?  Should I name any names?  Should I embellish these stories like I did as a stand-up comedian for the laugh?  Just then I looked up to spot my dog on the back of another dog exploring the love between himself, a large black lab and a tall curly haired white poodle.  As I stood up to get him off this poodle, I noticed something about the park that day.  It wasn't just a beautiful day to take your dog to the park, but it was also a beautiful day to take your significant other as well.  Here I was, enjoying a peaceful quiet saturday and having to get my sexually frustrated neutered dog off of another male dog and seeing I was being studied by no less than 8 couples at the park.  Did they feel pity for me?  Were they laughing at the sheer humor that my dog weighs more than half my weight and I was having to pull him off dog after dog?  What did they wonder about me?  Where was my better half to help me get him off?  Finally I couldn't take the embarrassment of my dog's humping problem and I left, tripping into the fence on my way out.  Then I realized, no embellishment is needed in this blog, this is my life, you can't make my story up.

I'm just a simple girl with a few delicate tastes in both men, food and wine and here's a way for me to share them all with you.  After the last bad date I went on, I decided it was time to start sharing these stories.  They make me laugh and my friends laugh and I am certain I will have plenty more experiences to share with you.  This blog is called The Plural of Me because I am not alone in my life, the people who have come in and gone and come in and stayed make up the multiple stories I have throughout the many stages of my life.  They make up the plural version of myself.  Enjoy...