Awesomosity and Algae

So the guy with the ferret in his profile picture (refer to #8 on the list from “Why Choose Coleslaw?”) came up as one of my “matches” today. Why am I paying for this? If I wanted a weird ferret guy I could just go to Petsmart’s rodent section. 

I do feel like I’m scraping the bottom of the match.com barrel. Out of my 7 daily matches, I have typically already looked at or dated at least three. But I am going to squeeze every bit of dating juice that I can out of my membership before I join another site. I have two new dates tentatively set for next week. One is a tall tech-company co-owner that likes to run and is planning to travel around the world. The other is in grad school. He is holding parrots in his picture and has a charmingly cute smile. You’ll never believe what he’s studying...algae. I immediately thought of Chaco’s algae discussions. Really? Two algae studiers? Evidently “algal ecology” is all the rage these days. But maybe he’s a fungi, so I’ll give him a chance (I am so, so sorry, Reader, that you had to endure that joke). 

The Comedian wrote me an email saying that he thought we had potential for “awesomosity.” Damn, he broke out superpowers of word creation. That always works on me. Every time. He said he had something adventurous that he wanted to do for a third date. I have no idea what that may be. This is a guy who ran away from bats crying “They’re in my hair!” 

I’m sad to say that Chaco and I have fizzled. He said a couple of comments that seemed like he was frustrated with me dating other guys and not “knowing what we were doing.” I think he was too cool for me anyways. I should have known when he said that flash mobs were “so over” that it wasn’t going to work out. I really have no idea (nor do I care) what is “over” or not. I know what is fun...to me... and that’s really all that matters. He needs to find someone more self-conscious. 

We went to dinner after our dance lessons. We had an amicable discussion, but when we walked to our cars we kind of just waved and said good-bye from ten feet away. No kiss. We have one more dance lesson left next week. I won’t mind going but I won’t mind when it’s over, either. I’m ready to turn a new page in this story and meet some new gentlemen prospects. 

I’m going to The Hunter’s house tonight to roast marshmallows. We have officially reached the casual-hang-out stage. I know, you don’t have to tell me this is a bad idea. I almost didn’t write about it because I fear the judgements you will most certainly make (you will be right); but I feel my friends, acquaintances, and the three people in Malaysia who read this deserve to know. 

Dance it Out

Have you ever been so happy you had to dance it out? Like you just had to turn your music up and flail like a crazy person? Well it’s been a while, but tonight is definitely one of those nights for me. Chaco and I went to our first west coast swing dance lesson. It was interesting, adventurous, and a lot of fun. 

Our lesson was a little strange-- we were the only couple and had the instructor to ourselves, but there was an adolescent hip hop class going on at the same time on the other side of the room. We were listening to Brittany Spears... or Rihanna... or something that the hip hop class was using, but trying to do west coast swing to it. The instructor was good, but had very bad teeth. These teeth were mesmerizingly bad-- I couldn’t look away. 

Chaco’s naturally nerdy personality had the potential to make this a super uncomfortable situation. Surprisingly, it was fun. He did in fact touch me. He did not wear his Chacos; he wore shoes that would be born if a bedroom slipper, a moccasin, and a business loafer mated. I realized I don’t care about shoes. We held hands. We totally messed up and laughed about it. We went for a beer afterwards and talked about his thesis, which involves blue-green algae and nitrogen and phosphorous. We “accidentally” touched feet. I didn’t cough this time. 

At one point he suggested I write a blog about teaching. He he he. It was pretty ironic and I almost told him about Try Twenty-Five. Don’t worry-- I didn’t. I wouldn't sacrafice the top-secret mission. At the end of the evening he asked when he could see me again and he worked up the courage to kiss me. The kiss was not spectacular; but I feel like that could be remedied with some more alcohol. It needed some more liquid wild abandon. 

Really, I have had great dates with Chaco, The Hunter, and The Archeologist. When I take a step back and stop analyzing everything, I have fun and feel like I can be myself. Regardless of where this goes, I left the evening feeling very lucky to have met so many genuinely cool people on my internet dating voyage. In fact I felt so lucky that I had to put Phoenix in the cd player, crank it up until the whole neighborhood could hear it, and do some ferocious shimmy-shakin’ and whirling dervish twirling with my dog. Sometimes dancing definitely beats analyzing.

Too Comfortable for Comfort

I suck at this game-- and it’s my own game. I went out with The Hunter for the fourth time. Four is way too many. I’m beginning to get comfortable. Not comfortable like I would burp in front of him, but comfortable like when I see something funny on TV or have my car die in the middle of a parking lot (I hate you, Pathfinder), one of my first thoughts is to text him and tell him. 

The problem is that once I get comfortable with one guy, it gives him a completely unfair advantage over the rest. I will be comparing each of the next nineteen dates to him without even being conscious of it. This “comfortable” thing is just a sneaky form of settling that I didn’t see coming. I don’t want to stop seeing him, and I can’t undo “comfortable”. I can’t be like “Oops, sorry. This really nice, relaxed thing we have going here is just not what I’m looking for. Will you take your flowers back?” 

I’m going to have to come up with some sort of solution for my inner turmoil. Maybe I’ll tell him I have multiple personality disorder to scare him away. At least it would be a guilt-free, clean break.

On the Chaco front, things are looking up. He looked up a few dance studios and emailed me their schedules. The only time that worked for both of us was Saturday evenings, which will seriously interfere with the overall goal of The Mission. But I love to dance. I love to dance like Nathaniel loves to dance (if you did not get that joke you need to youtube “Nathaniel loves to dance” immediately). So I’m going to spend four Saturday evenings learning to west coast swing with Chaco. I wonder if he’ll wear the sandals to dance class. That would be epic. I might step on his naked Chaco toes. Here’s another interesting factor: we have not touched... at all. I hope Chaco knows that you have to actually touch your dance partner. 

My date prospects are waning. I’ve been sick and have let a couple of emails and texts fall through. I’ve decided that today I’ll be a little more proactive and try to add a couple of new dates to the calendar. Tonight I’m going to sushi with The Archeologist. You remember, the one that used to look like Shawn from Boy Meets World? Sushi is a tricky date. The more I think about it the more I realize it’s a bad idea. If I eat as much sushi as I can, I risk scaring him. If I eat too little, I appear incapable. I’m hoping I decide I don’t like him. Then I can eat six orders of upside-down shrimp, get sauce all over my face, and not give a shit.

Self-Supremacy and Antiseptic

Chaco and I went on a second date. It was horrible. Not because of him-- because of my stupid cough that I have. The whole time I was either coughing, or wanting to cough. He was justifiably grossed-out and it was hard for me to even contribute to the conversation. And there was no touching. We could have been on a school field trip. We stayed at antiseptic distance through a thai food dinner and two beers.

Needless to say, this second date was not as promising as the first. It wasn’t entirely the cough, though. The night started off with him pointing out the tan line on his feet from his Chacos (see? The name totally fits). The kid IS his shoes. Then there were little points in the conversation where he seemed like a self-supremacist. This is a term I use for people who think their opinions and insights are superior and more worthy than the opinions and insights of others. These are the type of people that would argue something like “mixed berry muffins are better than blueberry muffins” and be truly devoted to the belief that their opinion is the all-knowing truth. I’ve been guilty of this on occasion, but I find it irritating even in myself. Chaco wasn’t that bad, either. He had just a hint of self-supremacy-- a sprinkling, if you will. 

So the night was not awesome. But we still managed to talk and get to know each other better. At one point we had talked about taking some dance lessons. When he walked away at antiseptic distance towards his car, he said he would look into it and give me a call. I’ll have to try not to cough into the receiver when he does. 

Chacos Say it All

This date was with my sister’s favorite from match.com. I’ll call him “Chaco” because that’s what he wore on our date. I’m actually not sure I need to write any more description of him than that-- the Chacos say it all. They are environmentally friendly sandals you can wear in a stream or hiking up a mountain. You may be picturing Tevas, but don’t confuse the two; Chacos are much more modern-cool-hipster than the Tevas of decades past.  I'm hoping this advertisement from the Chaco website is true:

                             

I met Chaco at the same bar as I met the Biologist the day before (thankfully it was a different bartender). It has an outdoor seating area overlooking the Truckee River. The conversation was easy and free-flowing. We talked about traveling and music and television shows and corn (he’s from Iowa, hence the corn). Chaco is very liberal and opinionated and animated. He’s also intelligent and has pretty eyes that remind me of ice. My favorite thing about him was how, by the end of the night, we had four or five inside jokes that we both weaved into the conversation. It made me feel like we knew each other well. At the end of the evening we squished his bike (yes, he rode a bike-- I know-- he’s very environmental) into my car and I drove him home. I was a little disappointed with our non-romantic, friendly goodbye. I’m hoping I get a second date to see if he can be as flirty as he is funny.