GHOST-BUSTING

Casper was a friendly ghost, wasn’t he? I’ve never thought of ghosts as spooky or mean or much of anything really. But, right now, I’m feeling like I’m gonna call Ghostbusters. Not on my behalf but for all the earnestly hopeful single folks, wishing for a date, a connection and maybe something more. 

 

God knows, I lingered in the dating pool long enough to feel my already fragile self-esteem elbowed, kicked and otherwise roughed up.

 

“You’re nice but…no.”

 

“Not into redheads.”

 

“No fireworks.” (It was coffee. At three in the afternoon.)

 

My mother, and presumably everyone’s mother, instilled in me from a young age, If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’d like to think that, with an obvious exception for siblings at least through the teen years, I’ve done a good job of sticking to that maxim. But I’m going to add another exception: dating apps.

 

Whoa, now. Hear me out. I’m not advocating for people to get ugly, to lash out and to coddle their own declining self-esteem by spouting some cheap digs against another dude that dared to woo. Here is where I’d offer some freebie slams about hygiene, ripped jeans and people named Gene. (Surely he’s got a middle name.[1]) But, nope. Not going to aid and abet. I still ascribe to the general rule of saying nothing In lieu of meanness.[2]

 

In this world where everything is boiled down to black and white, especially on social media—Swiftie or hater; guns or none; manscaper or bear—I continue to believe in gray/grey[3] zones. I don’t think it’s necessary to engage in all dating app prompts. I suppose it’s okay not to respond to someone who sends the first message. Sure, you created a profile and you might even pay to be on the app, but we all know that there are impossibly good looking bots with sculpted abs[4] and people from foreign countries looking to jump the immigration queue by lurking on dating sites. A quick delete is permitted. Bots and wannabe citizens will message on, undaunted. 

 

There are other unsolicited messages that may arrive as well. I remember glancing a new message, clicking on the person’s profile and feeling horrible. Dammit, this person put himself out there and messaged me, of all people. For whatever reason or, more likely, reasons, I know this is not a match. 

I’m never going to click with someone who calls himself PokemonJoe. Nor with someone who has tufts of hair sprouting from his ears in his profile photo. And every other photo. (Not making that one up. His profile name referred to himself as a faun. Some things from years on dating sites are especially memorable.) Initially, I replied to most of these messages. Hey. Thanks for the message. I looked over your profile and I don’t see a match, but all the best to you. I stopped when people shot back another message, needing the last word. Sometimes the f-word was tossed in, but it certainly had nothing to do with sex. 

 

So, yeah. You’re not a terrible person if you delete a message that you’d never specifically asked for. Maybe it’s the entrenched introvert in me, but no one has to be forced into a conversation, online or, heaven forbid, in person.[5]  

 

I take issue, however, with disappearing acts that occur after you start a conversation or respond to a message. Ghosting is the easy out, but it’s rude. On Grindr or some other app that’s primarily about hooking up, ghosting may be common. Exchanges are transactional. Maybe there’s an urge and then it’s gone. Urge met in some other way, I presume. On sites that purport to be about actual dating, however, manners matter.

 

A couple of Evan’s closest friends are single and looking for one thing or another. One is perfectly content to Grind away. Lots of stories, short, never even a novella. His choice. The other friend is not averse to Grindr opportunities but also has an account on OkCupid, the dating site where Evan and I met. Last week, as we talked, he mentioned some early messaging with one guy but then said, “He unmatched me.” I’d heard him use the same phrase the week before.

 

Huh? From what I recall of that site, people are matched based on answers to questions they answer. Basic things like, “Do you smoke?”, “Do you like dogs?” and “Do you vote regularly?” There are other more specific (random?) questions with multiple choice answers: “Could you date a messy person?”, “Is it okay to lie?” and “If you were offered a slot to live the rest of your life on Mars, what would you do?” (Would someone decline to have coffee with a person because they might hypothetically move to another planet?) The dating site computes your match percentage. 

 

How does someone then un-match? I’m gathering that unmatching is a new option for app users, disabling someone’s ability to message that person again. It seems harsh. It feels like an out for someone who doesn’t want to put on his big boy pants. I hated that the titular wizard in The Wizard of Oz hid behind a curtain and I don’t like the thought of someone ducking out of an ongoing conversation by hiding behind a button.

 

You start (or engage in) a conversation, you see it through. You may be communicating virtually, but you’re not a ghost. 

 

Your mamma presumably taught you more nuanced etiquette beyond If you can’t say anything nice. 

 

Sometimes you still have to say something. An exchange of messages, whether one or several, is a conversation. Do people ghost IRL while in the same physical space? The thought has occurred to me a couple of times. I could say I was going to the bathroom and just leave, through the window or, heck, through the main entrance. What’s the guy going to do? Chase me down? 

 

“Hey, you forgot something: our conversation.” 

 

Yeah, that would be awkward. Ballsy by him. It almost warrants a high five.

 

It's never come to that because I’ve never done the dash. I’ve sat through the conversation, politely sipping from my already empty coffee cup, nodding my head as it searches for a way to wrap things up. I’m polite to a fault. I’ve remained in a seat that should never have gone warm, but I’ve told myself that, if nothing else, there’s a story in every experience. Maybe something to tell a friend next time we grab a pizza, maybe something to blog, maybe an anecdote to keep to myself until it fades from memory. 

 

That’s right. Take the slow fade over the quick disappearance. Either that or announce your exit. That goes for real life and it goes for online dating apps you willingly joined. Ghosting should never have become a common term. And, just because it’s out there, doesn’t mean it’s a dignified option. There are all sorts of other common terms—assault, spitting, alternative facts—that one should never adopt. 

 

I’m sure some online-savvy folks think I’m out of touch.[6] Etiquette is so 20^th century, if not 19^th. Let Emily Post, Miss Manners and me step aside a moment as I refer to a January 7, 2024 New York Times article entitled “Here’s How to Declutter Your Dating Life.” Under the subheading BEWARE OF GHOSTING, Nick Fager, a licensed mental health counselor, notes that ghosting may be necessary if something dishonest or dangerous arises in messaging but otherwise believes that “closing the circle, when you are able to, can be restorative for both of you…The lack of closure can be emotionally exhausting on all sides.” 

 

Think of when you’ve exchanged a few messages and then awaited the next reply only to never hear anything again. For a while, there’s still an anticipation, another quick log-in to check messages. Alas, none. What happened? Hit by a bus? Kidnapped? Had to act quickly to get that standby ticket to Mars? No. Another frickin’ Casper.

 

I know what the comeback is. You do the right thing and let someone down, respectfully saying you’re not sensing a connection or vaguely saying you don’t think this is moving forward (Fager suggests saying, “This doesn’t feel like a match” or just “Goodbye”). Then, the person messages some vitriolic reply, throwing insults at you and saying the equivalent to “You can’t fire me; I quit.” That’s possible but, in my experience it was rare. (Two times, I think.) That’s on them. You did the right thing. You can only control what you do and say. And, sure, that’s when you can go ahead and block, un-match or ghost Mr. Vitriol. Chances are he already did that immediately after sending the tirade. By then it doesn’t matter. Just be glad it never got to grabbing a coffee.

 

Please, take the high road. Save the ghosting for Halloween haunted houses. With the right person, maybe met online, that could be a fun date.

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[1] No offense, Genes of the world. It’s a fine name. Keep it. Use it. I was just trying to work in a triple “gene” thread in an attempt to be funny. It fell flat, didn’t it? That’s karma for me bashing guys named Gene.

[2] I assume Trump had a mom. She must be rolling in her grave.

[3] I know either spelling is acceptable yet I continue to feel that picking one over the other will offend 40-60% of readers. Cue Alanis Morissette—Isn’t it ironic that people see things in black or white, even with the spelling of the color/colour that falls in between?

[4] That was a bot that messaged me in 2016, wasn’t it? People like Matt Bomer and Ryan Gosling don’t exist in real life and certainly don’t pine for guys like me. That’s not low self-esteem chiming in; that’s just having a solid sense of self.

[5] I’m 90% certain they created grimacing face emoji just for me. 

[6] Case in point: my use of folks. I revised the sentence once already to replace fuddy-duddy with a reference to me being out of touch, but I didn’t want to give any false impression that I was hip.

  

MAKE ME LAUGH

Funny guy.

 

Makes a damn good first impression. I’d forgotten that. Heck, thanks to COVID, I’d forgotten any kind of first impressions. 

 

I’d spotted Evan’s profile on a dating site—no, not this one—in December after expanding my search range since there was a paucity[1] of men from Vancouver with profiles. Evan lives in Seattle. Doable. The city, I mean.

 

So often guys fail to elicit any interest in their profiles due to a lack of photos. Posting a single shot is suspect. Like maybe he had one good day in 2008 and the photo turned out to be spectacular. It doesn’t even look like me! (Not even back in 2008.) Other times, a guy will post a photo of a mountain or a pyramid. (Vegas? Giza? In this case, does it matter? I don’t fantasize about dating a mummy.) Sometimes, the guy is actually in the shot. Tiny. Size of an ant. It was really important to get the whole mountain in frame. I could go on and on about guys’ profile pics. Bottom line: do better, dudes.

 

Evan was not photo-challenged. Nine pics, himself the main subject of each one. 

 

Evan’s photo gallery showed personality. A true character. Evan in cowboy gear. Evan in leather (not kinky, but another version of a western look). Evan on a hike. Evan on an Alaskan glacier. Evan flashing an impish grin. Evan at the beach, shirtless. (It’s the beach after all and, yes, it’s a nice look.) Every shot was arty. The man knew how to present himself. I’m not one for leather—my standard line is, “I’m a vegetarian”—and I fled Texas after eleven years, needing distance from All Things Cowboy, but to each his own. What struck me was this guy oozed style and after so many dates with guys showing up in a Batman t-shirt or sweaty gear after coming from the gym, style warranted a message.

 

The next day I had eleven messages from Evan. Okay, I realize that can sound creepy, but it wasn’t. Evan, like my friend Katrina, is one of those people who presses Send after every separate thought. In this context, Evan’s flurry of messages was a stand-out. A man willing to express eleven thoughts at the outset. This goes so far beyond the standard “Hey man” or “Thanx 4 the msg how r u”.

 

We exchanged messages off and on over the next three and a half months and, as COVID numbers started to go down again, I decided a road trip was in order. Meeting Evan was a catalyst, but I’d been missing the Oregon Coast as well as craving more time in my old haunts in Seattle and Portland so all the better. After booking places to stay, I let Evan know of my upcoming two days in Seattle.

 

He’d be in New York for work.

 

Work sucks.

 

What happened to all that working from home business?

 

Still, since this trip had very little nothing to do with Evan, I opted not to postpone plans by a week and had a truly amazing time. I’m someone who needs to travel. 

 

All was not lost on the Evan front. I would have to drive through Seattle again as I returned from Portland. We agreed to meet for a drink. Perhaps it was inauspicious that I showed up a couple of minutes early and the bar was closed for a private event…someone’s memorial. That felt like the gods were making a point of going beyond spilled salt, broken mirrors and walks under ladders. I might have to chug my drink and flee, saying something about long border waits as I pushed the toddler standing between me and the exit.

 

Evan showed up, wearing denim and a stressed caramel leather jacket, flashing his grin and within thirty seconds I was laughing. It wasn’t even a block to the change-of-plans margarita destination—chugging and fleeing would not be very responsible—but I filled most of that space of time continuing to laugh. It was an easy back and forth. I’d like to think my banter was as breezy and amusing as his. 

 

In arranging where to meet, I’d suggested coffee, but Evan had indicated he’d need a drink because he’d be nervous. I’d texted back, duly lowering his expectations, saying I don’t make people nervous. It’s not even possible. True, but perhaps a self-sabotage in the realm of self-promotion. All my in-person giddiness led Evan to comment that I was the nervous one. Nope. When I get the giggles, they stick around. Rather than nervous, I was instantly at ease with Evan. (He still thinks I was nervous.) 

 

It’s entirely possible that Evan could say something mundane like “Today I saw a bird with wings,” then punctuate it with a grin and I’d crack up. I have no idea if others find Evan funny, but he’s hysterical to me. Let me be his laugh track.

 

The quick drink lasted five and a half hours. Yes, lots of laughs, but also plenty of serious conversation as well. We clicked. 

 

I don’t know what, if anything, will come of us. Last week I officially abandoned my ten-year quest to move back to the United States. Seattle’s a three-hour drive on a good day, five on the not-so-good (and more typical) days—a tunnel, a border wait and ridiculous Seattle traffic lie between us. I saw a couple of red flags regarding Evan. Then again, I don’t think there is a single gay man in his fifties who doesn’t have a few fiery banners flapping in the wind behind him. I openly shared several of mine as well. Not something I’d do on a first date with a local boy but, with the distance between us, why not put everything on the table? If I’m too much, I’ll at least save myself a couple of trips. Gas ain’t cheap these days.

 

It’s two days later and the feeling of joy remains. We’re still texting so the red flags aren’t death knells (yet).

 

Funny guy. 

 

Maybe we have wings, too.

 

 

 

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[1] Ooh, I’d forgotten how much I love this word. Haven’t used it in ages but it just popped up. Welcome back.

BONJOUR, MONTRÉAL!

Well, here’s a surprise [Quelle surprise!]:

 

I’m moving to Québec. 

 

It seems I must. If I want to find love, or at least go out for a coffee with a guy who decides my profile pic is decent enough for him to be seen in public with—the bar keeps getting lower—I must pack my things and find an apartment in Beloeil or Vaudreuil-Dorion or Prévost. These are the places where the guys are. 

 

Guys who (presumably) aren’t married.

 

Guys who are my age-ish.

 

Guys whom Silver Singles has decided are my matches. One-third of my sixty-three matches thus far live in La Belle Province. Only eleven live within a two-hour drive of me. (To clarify, I live 4,550 kilometres from Montréal and 4,800 kilometres from Québec City.) 

 

Au revoir, Vancouver.

 

I don’t speak French. It may be reputed to be the language of love, but I have a hunch it’s a barrier when one is not doing love-y things. How many times am I allowed to say, “Ooh la la,” before a guy shows me la sortie? 

 

I realize that most French-speaking residents of Québec can also communicate fluently in English, but there’s a measure of respect that comes with speaking the language that is the mother tongue for a majority of citizens in the particular province where you live. Plus, I want to be able to eavesdrop on what my guy is saying about me on the phone or across the table to his friends and Maman. 

 

The sad thing is that I’ve spent many years purportedly learning French. My level plateaued in ninth grade. (This comes after only beginning French studies in sixth grade.) My family moved to Texas during the summer before I started grade ten where most students learned Spanish as their foreign language. My level of French was “advanced” by East Texas standards. This was not high praise in a place where English sometimes seemed to be a foreign language. My father required us to act as interpreters whenever a server took our order at a restaurant. (He’s since adapted to the drawl, even adopted some of it.) My classmates thought my Canadian “accent” was British. Needless to say, I was never going to read Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables in its original language. (At 1,462 pages, it’s doubtful I’ll read the English translation either.)

 

I’ve been learning French on Duolingo. I’m on a 930-day streak. That’s something, right? 

 

Apparently not much. I recently decided I need to take an intensive French course, something more immersive than twenty-item exercises from a green owl (une chouette verte). I took an online test through Vancouver’s Alliance Française and then attempted to engage in a brief conversation on Zoom with an instructor. My French level was assessed as B1 which basically means I can use my skills to order poutine, complain about the weather and identify the colors on the Pride flag. It also means that if someone actually attempts to engage me in a real conversation in French, I’ll put my head down and cry. 

 

Maybe Frenchmen in Québec find communication issues and crying attractive. Maybe my go-to “ooh la la” will never cease to be amusing and sexy in a Je ne sais quoi kind of way.

 

Pierre: Regardez. Un bus.

Moi:    Ooh la la!

Pierre: Aimez-vous les beignets?

Moi:    Ooh la la!

Pierre: Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?

Moi:    Ooh la la!

 

Maybe I should have moved to Montréal long ago!

Ah, but then again, maybe not. Maybe Silver Singles will just have to do better in the matchmaking biz.    

 

 

 

  

FISHING FOR GHOSTS

It’s happened again. I got a message from the dating site Plenty of Fish yesterday: “Ray123 likes you!” I cringe every time I get one of these notifications. I have enough familiarity with dating sites to know that most matches are mismatches. Inevitably, I won’t like the person who likes me. In turn, if I press the little heart beside BrainyStud’s profile to indicate I like him, it’s a sure bet I’ve created an unwanted wrinkle in his morning. It’s a maxim of human nature that we want what we can’t have. 

 

Usually, I wait until I have a few likes before I log in and brace to read the profiles. (I know, I know…“bracing” doesn’t sound like the right state of mind. It’s a reflex now, an online dating tic.) Sometimes, sadly, it’s the photos that tell me there won’t be a coffee date in the works. I hate that. It makes me feel dismissive and shallow. But just like BrainyStud may not like my red hair, I’m not drawn to the guy with pronounced chipmunk cheeks or the guy who’s a dead ringer for a ’60s hippie. It’s intentional. His profile name includes the word hippie. I might dig someone’s groovy tie-dye, like the one modeled in his profile pic, but not a closetful. 

 

I even pass on the guy who wears a baseball cap in every single photo. If you’re bald, own it. I love a good head of hair, but baldness can be sexy too. I don’t want to date a guy who wears a hat to Chipotle, to the fancy Indian restaurant I love, to the opera, to bed. (Although the damn cap might be my opt-out card for the opera. “If you’re going to wear that stupid hat, I’m not going.” Ha! Figaro yourself.) 

 

It’s possible I’m too hasty, but these profiles are first impressions, presumably created after some thought and some browsing of one’s selfies. Maybe the guy with the collection of John Deere hats is the one that got away. I make bad decisions with football pools and stocks, too. 

 

I’ve gotten to saying “sorry” out loud when I come across a like or a message from a guy who’s just not my type. I know how hard it is to put yourself out there and face rejection, even if it comes from pressing a silly button.

 

Sometimes I’m on the fence until I read what, if anything, the guy has written in the profile. When it’s a shell of a profile, I pass. If a guy can’t put in a little effort, why should I bother? Moreover, as I’ve noted many times before, I struggle to get past poor grammar and spelling in a profile. For anyone who’s challenged in that regard, for god’s sake, get a friend to proofread your writing or pay attention to the colored lines that appear under intrested and serfer. (You have no idea how hard it is for me to intentionally mistype something and move on. Three deep breaths and counting backwards from ten don’t help at all. Side note: How passionate is someone about surfing when he can’t spell it? If I think Dostoevsky is the world’s greatest novelist but always stumble with writing his name, I’d probably mention Stephen King or, even easier, H.G. Wells instead.) 

 

There are times when it’s just clear we won’t hit it off. I’m not going to waste time with a hunter who loves monster truck shows. Same for the guy who is passionate about Voltaire and loves extended oboe solos. They say there’s someone for everyone. Best wishes and all that.

 

This will be a quick browse today. I’m skipping over hippies, hunters and ball cap models. My mission: find Ray123 who apparently likes me in that low key, button-pressing-in-lieu-of-sending-a-message kind of way. 

 

Logged in and bracing, I click the search button to update the standard search for my area with a reasonable age range, my age roughly in the middle. Scroll, scroll. Can’t find a Ray123. Profiles are listed based on most recent log-ins. If he “liked” me yesterday, his profile should show up early in the search. Scroll, scroll. It comes to a point where I’m in ancient territory, people whose profiles are in the same order as always, having not logged in presumably for months. 

 

There is no Ray123.

 

If I were a paying member of Plenty of Fish, I think I could just type in the profile name and Ray123 would pop up. I don’t know how that would make a material difference. There are three possibilities, none of which are match-worthy: (1) Ray lives in my area but is outside my age range (i.e., younger than 40 and older than 70 (I’m 57)); (2) Ray may are may not be in my age range but lives in Bolivia, Bermuda, Bulgaria or Botswana…or some other faraway place that doesn’t begin with B and end in A (so many possibilities); (3) Ray opted to delete his account upon realizing he accidentally “liked” my profile and couldn’t undo it (Sorry about that, Ray.); or (4) Ray123 never ever existed. Maybe the dating site wanted me to keep my account by offering a shred of hope. Maybe the site wanted to goad me into switching to a paid membership to try to uncover, at last, the enigmatic Ray123. 

 

Silly me. A reputable dating site would not stoop to such tactics, right? They’re primarily interested in my finding my forever partner. If they make a little money through ads and the odd paid membership, well, that’s just good karma coming back for caring so earnestly about my love life.

 

I suppose I should just let it be. Somewhere out there—sing it Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville—Ray123 likes me. I’ll always have that. Nothing about monster trucks or oboes shall shatter an unblemished like.

 

Thank you, Ray123. I might have liked you, too.

 

 

 

SHAKING THE DUST OFF OF DATING

I’ve joked many times that I’ve met so many guys for coffee from online dating sites, that I might have to switch to tea. At what point does coffee leave such a bitter aftertaste that it can’t be sweetened by a dozen packets of sugar? (Or stevia, if that’s your thing.)

 

I’ve gone on two post-vaccination meet-and-greets with guys from Plenty of Fish. No coffee. For the first one, everything was perfectly pleasant, but I knew we weren’t a match, not as boyfriends, not as friends. 

 

On Friday evening, I met John under a strange art installation that looks to me like a bicycle seat. (Vancouver’s public art is hit and miss, mostly miss.) If nothing else, the thing offered shelter. It had poured rain all day and things hadn’t let up by 6 p.m. The plan had been to maybe grab a drink—John had suggested tea—and walk part of the seawall. What Vancouver lacks in art, it more than makes up for in natural beauty. There was a café still open right by the bike seat thingy, plenty of covered outdoor seating. John didn’t want to sit or grab a drink. Instead, we would walk in the rain. All good. I had my umbrella, my Rains jacket and my waterproof Vessa shoes. (No, I’m not getting paid for product placement.) John’s shoes were definitely not water resistant, but he said he was fine. His mother would not have been pleased but okey dokey.

 

This was a date I knew we’d both been looking forward to. Sometimes you just get a good sense of things through the messages exchanged leading up to meeting. His profile had full paragraphs. (That’s not so hard, guys. Make the effort!) He’d included a quote above his profile and said, “Bonus points if you can identify its source.” In the Google world, that seemed too easy. I felt it was more fun to go old-school and use my imagination so my guess was Grover from “Sesame Street” and, if not him, then his Muppet colleague, Animal.

 

I should mention that John’s profile also mentioned he was an elementary school teacher and one of his photos was a crayon portrait drawn by a student.

 

John LOVED my reference. Incidentally, the quote was from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” a 1953 movie starring Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. I know I’m supposed to have seen this flick since it’s the one in which Marilyn sings “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” that’s scene Madonna pays homage to in “Material Girl.” I’m a bad gay. Lance Bass and a drag queen named Benny Boop just came to my door and took away my Pride flag. (What? You really think Lance had anything else to do? He was very apologetic—a gig’s a gig—and politely asked that I sign the online petition for an NSYNC reunion.)

 

I figured John and I would have plenty to talk about since we’d both spent many years working in elementary schools. With the school year just starting, he would have some amusing and precious stories about the kids and I could be a sympathetic ear to listen about how exhausted he felt getting back into it. (The first month is always rewarding but also somewhat painful as the pace is so sloooow, introducing all the routines and fielding kids’ questions about whether they can use their brand-new back-to-school purple pens and glitter glue for all assignments.)

 

We walked. We talked. Both of us had our jeans soaked through from below the knee. John’s shoes reached that sad level of sogginess unbecoming to even an abandoned bowl of Cheerios.

 

Nothing connected. 

 

He’d ask a question. I’d answer. I’d ask a question. He’d answer. There were obvious follow-up questions, but neither of us went there. There was nothing terrible about it. No friction. No coldness. Altogether, it was a forty-five-minute shrug. 

 

Maybe caffeine matters.

 

I had a very nice coffee the next morning. No bitterness, no sugar added. My drink of choice remains unspoiled, my favorite cafés remain unharmed. 

 

I’m hoping that, on my next meet-and-greet, I feel something…like when I view that giant bicycle seat (or whatever it is) art piece. Feeling good would be great, but bad wouldn’t be so awful at this point. Something needs to register or why bother? 

 

Maybe some of us are rusty at the dating game after all those months masked and locked down. Maybe that long, long pause offered new perspective. Maybe we realized that dating isn’t that much of a need anymore.  

 

I just logged in again to Plenty of Fish. No message from John. (Whew. That would have been awkward.) I noticed there’s a guy with “bomber” in his profile name—um, what?—and I have a message from chase_booty (Full text: “Hello Handsom”). 

 

Yeah, lockdown wasn’t all that bad.

 

 

THE IN-BETWEENERS: What to Do after a Middling First Date

Bad first dates make for easy decisions. No thanks. Never again. Have a nice life. Sometimes I’ve meant that last part; sometimes I’ve thought he doesn’t deserve the sentiment.

 

A bad date is not a total loss. It makes for a story to tell my friend Ron when we meet next for pizza. (Poor Ron.) He professes to have zero interest in dating but has politely listened for years to my dating adventures--usually too dull to be true “adventures”. I tell myself that sharing a bad episode is his reward for sitting through talk about all the others. (I’m thinking I need to pay for his pizza next time. That might be a better reward.) 

 

Bad dates also make for fun blog posts, my one-sided smears of a perhaps misunderstood man becoming a distracting read for three or four people who might say to themselves, “Thank god he got away from that one.” No need to probe whether the “he” in that thought is me or the other guy.

 

Good dates also have predictable follow-ups. Of course, I’m going to send another message…unless he, fingers crossed, messages me first, preferably before I even get home. Eagerness is sexy when it arises in the context of mutual interest. Sometimes the good date leads to a second date; other times--sigh--it leads to nothing. No reply. Checking my inbox on the dating site dozens of times doesn’t change the result. Mr. Right becomes Mr. Out of Sight.

 

Sometimes I share this unfortunate episode with Ron, but often we just talk about the pizza crust. Ron is a foodie and can talk at length about crusts. I listen as intently as I can. I owe him that for having his ear when I unload about a bad date. I also often blog the good first dates that lead to nothing. I tell myself that stories laced with dejection, anguish, bewilderment and resentment make for a good read. Maybe it’s a pick-me-up for them. “Well, at least I’m not him!”

 

As for the good dates that lead to an encore, I share some and keep mum about others. The ones I’m tight-lipped about tend to be those I think might lead to something longer term. I don’t want to jinx things. I also don’t want there to be a trail for my 💖Future Husband💖 to read three years later. “What do you mean you didn’t like my flannel shirt? And what’s the big deal if I ate three-fourths of your scone after I asked if I could have a taste? The wedding’s off!” I get no credit for mentioning his puppy-dog brown eyes.

 

The hardest first dates to walk away from are the in-betweeners. Nothing bad about the occasion. The guy made an effort in picking a shirt without a ketchup stain (or is that blood…his or someone else’s?). He didn’t talk about his top five Trump rallies he’d attended in the past year. (Not even one!) Alas, a nice shirt and no professed affinity for a certain election loser do not suffice to constitute a match. 

 

When I mention one of these dates to Ron, he just keeps eating his pizza. He doesn’t ask, “Why don’t you go out again?” He doesn’t say, “I’ve had to listen to so many of these stories. Maybe you’re too picky.” He also knows not to say, “Perhaps you should look elsewhere for a relationship. Pizza will never let you down.” It would be a compelling argument. Bad pizza is better than most good dates.

 

Enter Mr. Saturday Night. (Technically, Mr. Saturday Afternoon.)

 

Our coffee meet-and-greet extended for ninety minutes. We laughed, he looked fine, he was nice. I really, really wanted to like him in that Carly Rae Jepsen kind of way. As I walked him to his car, the goodbye got cut off. Had this not been the COVID era, I might have hugged him but, even though we were both vaccinated, it just didn’t seem the thing to do. He stood in the bike lane, turned toward me, saying, “That was fun. I’d be into--”

 

I cut him off. “Biker coming!” I swear I didn’t plan that. He stepped toward me instead of toward his car, but the moment was gone. Further pleasantries were cordial but nothing more. “Thanks for driving out this way.” “Ride your bike safely home.” “Have a great evening.” “Take care.”

 

Pedaling home, I figured I’d message him. Nice guys--as I believe both of us are--deserve a second date. But my mind kept asking, Why?

 

I knew I wasn’t interested in him in a dating sense. He’s more like the type of guy I’d meet at a backyard barbecue, the spouse of a co-worker or a new boyfriend of a friend of mine. We’d chat for ten minutes and I would walk away to get a bit more potato salad, feeling very happy for my co-worker/friend. They found a good guy. And that’s the thing…I don’t tend to want to date other people’s spouse or boyfriend. Thumbs-up does not mean, let’s date if your current gig doesn’t work out. I can be happy for them, even happy for myself that I made it through a conversation with a stranger and it seemed to go well for both of us. We can chat again at next year’s barbecue. 

 

After a couple of hours, I logged onto the dating site. By then, it was clear to me. I was hoping there wouldn’t be a message. There wasn’t. Relief. The guy’s not gaga. (I quickly quashed feeling a tad insulted.) Next morning, no message. Twenty-four hours later, no message…not from him, not to him. Sometimes, after a middling date, this is the best kind of match. 

 

Nice enough…but not enough.

 

HERE I GO AGAIN--Part Two (Glass Half Full)

Okay, so logging in to online dating sites wasn’t all bad. I just needed to get what has always bugged me out of the way. I get frustrated because there are guys who, to be blunt, don’t give a shit. 

 

I’m single, I’m looking. I spent three minutes creating a 

clever name: HotGuy69j. Go figure that nine other dudes 

already thought as clever as me.

 

Well, I’m done. Just waiting ‘round for all the messages

to pour in. Love when guys send stuff like ‘how r u’. 

Again, so clever.

 

All right, I’ll move on. I assure you, I look away from literal train wrecks. Need to work on transferring the skill to the figurative world.

 

There were some decent profiles. Four or five caught my eye. Because the good ones are relatively few, I tend to feel a sense of urgency when I see one. Must message immediately! He’ll be taken by Tuesday, married by October! “Cheers to the happy couple!” And then I’ll have to cross my fingers for a quickie divorce. 

 

One of the guys lives about fifty miles away. Not normally an issue. I’ve had a long-distance relationship with a guy in Portland, Oregon (320 miles away). Right now though, it is an issue. My car is in another part of the province, waiting for a part to arrive from a place that is apparently the most remote spot on the planet, suffering terribly with no Amazon delivery service and a state-run postal system still operated by stagecoach, all of which are currently out of service, parts pending from the second most remote location, on a different continent, of course. I’ll spare you the car story. As you may surmise, it’s a LOOOONG one.

 

I’m too old to hitchhike. And too old to be picked up. I hereby forfeit my chances with fifty-mile-away guy.

 

Another guy lives about thirty miles from me. I could walk it, but I don’t like the idea of lugging a tent on my back. I like even less the prospect of putting up the tent on the first night of my trek. I know my challenges. It won’t transform into a tent and will only serve as a tarp to lay on a bench so I’ve something between me and crusty bird poop. Ixnay thirty-mile guy, too. 

 

This is all good. It narrows things down and improves the likelihood that Guy 1 and Guy 2 will be scooped up by other suburban gays. Let this be my sacrifice to allow more people in smaller towns to have a personal connection to gay marriage, sitting on either side of the aisle.

 

To put things in perspective, I’m more bummed that my car is being held hostage by a posse of conniving rural mechanics than about the fact I lost out on two men who were clearly marriage material. It would have been embarrassing if I were in a wedding anyway, having no one sitting on my side of the aisle. (“Really, Mom, how good is that symphony orchestra in your neighboring East Texas community of 10,000? And there will be other mah-jongg tournaments.”)

 

Bright side to everything, folks. 

 

Over the next few days of reactivating my Plenty of Fish account, several people pressed a heart button in the corner of my profile. Bing. New email! “HotGuy69c likes you!” Ick. Good thing nineteen other guys got button-happy, too.

 

This kind of action is slightly better than that whole secret crush phase from junior high or, for me, my twenties. Like, heart, woof, wink…it’s bland and easy, but it is, technically, doing something. 

 

Over to me then. Gee, thanks. I wasn’t feeling so invested just yet. Presumably, I was still getting over losing two Mr. Rights living only a %@$*!6# car ride away.

 

The minimal response to a like/heart/woof/wink is to do the same thing in return. So I did. Two or three times.

 

Ha! Your move, RicoSuave2! 

 

This was progress!

 

A day later, I decided to be bolder. I would send a message to one of the guys to whom I’d sent like/heart/woof/wink.

 

I see you and I raise you.

 

This could actually lead to a coffee BEFORE I get my car back.

 

Even before opening my laptop, I’d decided the person I would message: an accountant in one of Vancouver’s closer suburbs. I could bike it or take Skytrain, our quickest form of mass transit. 

 

You may be thinking, An accountant? Aren’t there any professional surfers or lion tamers or helicopter pilots? Where’s the excitement? What about self-made billionaires or wildly successful physicians? A free meal might be nice, right? 

 

Really, an accountant seemed right in my lane. Aware of stereotypes, he promised in his profile that he had a personality. He even led with a joke, a decent one even. He posted three reasonably photographed pics, smiling in each. Like it or not, Calculator_Wiz was getting a message from me.

 

I logged in and had a message waiting for me. A first. Someone had dared to communicate beyond a like/heart/woof/wink. 

 

Calculator_Wiz.

 

I braced as I always do before opening a message. I had to prepare myself for facing blatant grammatical errors and incomplete sentences, if there were, in fact, more than three words in the message. Sometimes it’s just “hey,” a slightly more attention grabbing version of a like/heart/woof/wink, but always a stunt that backfires. Really? That’s the message?! 

 

Calm and ready for worst-case scenarios, I opened the message. I glanced at a standard salutation and then words. Plenty of words. Enough to make sentences, each correctly punctuated. I swear I wasn’t getting aroused, but I did let go of the tension in my neck and shoulders. 

 

By god, there were paragraphs. In the right places! I may have been a tad excited…not like winning the lottery, more like being informed I got a free bonus play because two out of seven of my numbers showed up on the Wednesday draw.

 

That’s what I seem to aim for now. Two out of seven is a good day. It beats nothing matching at all.

 

Calculator_Wiz hadn’t written me a dissertation and he hadn’t dazzled me with wit and Pulitzer-quality prose, but he’d communicated. Clearly. Properly. 

 

I messaged right back. Never mind that old game where you’re supposed to wait XX period of time to reply. Calculator_Wiz seemed of similar mindset. And so now it’s set. Coffee. I can bike to the spot, maybe make it a long walk. 

 

Ready or not, dating world, here I come.