My potential next boyfriend?

Thought I'd sign up for a free online dating site called OK Cupid. Normally I believe that you get what you pay for, but I dunno! Check out the message I received this week from a potential love match:

Hello, my age 40.Height 180cm
Show the young. Looks 30 years old。I am seriously looking for love。We hope you can accept。
I am in China shandong jinan. Confucius's hometown. Where are you from? Chinese men know

love, respect for women
I email：lkjhpoiuy123692010@hotmail.com
Wish happy
I am faithful,You and I are well-matched

Draft E-mail Message to G.

Dear G,

Just curious, were you ever planning to apologize to me? For what? I can picture you thinking. Well, I waited for you - by myself - last Saturday night at the bar for FORTY MINUTES. 40 minutes in which you didn't think to contact me and let me know that you and your friends went to another bar instead. No. You did not think. That is the problem. Meanwhile, I was sitting at the bar at Shady Lady BY MYSELF on a Saturday night waiting for you to show up. When I finally left the bar at 10:40 pm, I was not happy. I felt like a total idiot that I waited there for you. I felt really stupid for expecting that you would show up. I wanted to cry, but didn't allow it. Know why? Because you're not worth it. I'm not going to waste my tears on some 28-year-old guy who I barely know.

I went home, put on my sweats, and climbed into bed. I checked my phone and saw a text message from you. (That's another thing - why can't you ever make a simple phone call instead of texting??). You wrote that you and your friends stopped for a drink at Hangar 17 and could I meet you there? And if not, you would "see me soon". Uh, no. Because you know what? I was at home. In bed. You might understand now why I did not bother replying to that message.

While I'm at it, I'm going to give you some unsolicited advice. From your behavior, it seems like you don't have a lot of experience with women. I find this surprising, given that you're an attractive, 28-year-old guy who has gone to college and no doubt had many opportunities with women. However, I recommend that in the future, you CALL instead of text, and if you say you're going to show up somewhere, do it and don't leave a girl sitting by herself in a crowded bar on a Saturday night. A couple of things can happen. First of all, she's going to be super pissed at you. Secondly, some other dude could pick up on her. In my case, a very nice guy started talking to me. He happened to be the assistant manager at the Sunglass Hut in the Roseville Galleria Mall, for your information. He wasn't my type, but that's beside the point.

It's been...interesting, I suppose, knowing you. I wish you the best of luck and I'm sorry that you decided to be so flaky, because if there's one thing I have zero patience for, it's flakiness.

Happy Thanksgiving!

- M.

Parking Garage/Bus Station Employee

I started my new job this week and I'm ready to look for another new job. Seriously. On Monday and Tuesday, I had to drive to Walnut Creek (approx. 75 mi.) and pick up two co-workers in Sacramento on the way there. Total pain in the ass. I don't even want to get into the annoying details. Let's just say I was late on my first day of work and I was not happy. I hate driving, by the way. I especially hate driving 165 miles in one day, for two days in a row. On Wednesday, my commute was shorter and I only had to drive to Fairfield, which is about 45 miles away. Hate. It. Driving, that is.

Get this. My new office is in a parking garage. Literally, it is a little office that is part of a parking garage. It is a nice parking garage, but still. I work in a parking garage. At least my car is only steps away. Ha ha. Too bad I can't laugh about this now. Just kidding. My co-workers and I laughed our asses off when we saw the office for the first time and came to the realization that we work.in.a.parking.garage!!!!


Not only do we work in a parking garage, but the parking garage is part of the Fairfield Transit Center. Which is the main commuter bus depot in town. Someone came to the office yesterday afternoon and asked me if I had bus information. This is my life now.

I almost forgot to mention the bathroom situation. The first thing I asked when I walked into the office was "where is the bathroom?" If you walk outside of the office, you'll find public restrooms around the corner. Public, as in, for anyone who walks in off the street, such as transients. Hmmm. Luckily, there is a nice bathroom option too. But that is a farther walk. There is a nice office building a couple hundred yards away and we can use their bathroom. In fact, they encourage us to use their bathroom. But, not between 12 and 1, because they are closed for lunch. And not after 5, when they close. Other than that, great!

There is also zero privacy in the office. It is just an open space with several desks. The room is about 2o by 25 feet.

I'm so tired every night by the time I get home. I think it's because of the driving, because I'm not waking up that much earlier than before.

I've also been working on a job application every night this week. I finally finished it tonight - which was also the deadline. It's a foreign service job with the U.S. Dept. of Commerce. I've applied for the job before, in 2005, when I was about to finish my year in Germany. I got denied. They've changed the application, but it's still very challenging. I would be very surprised if I was contacted for an interview. But it was worth a shot. The department only opens this recruitment once every two years.

SF Day

I scheduled a day of meetings in SF because I wanted to see this guy Adam who I have a huge crush on. Once I knew he was available for happy hour, I arranged to meet with a number of other people, starting at lunchtime. It worked out well. I had lunch with my friend from Taiwan, coffee with my friend from Canada, and an interesting bubbly (non-alchoholic) beverage with my friend from Germany. Adam asked me to meet him at a bar called House of Shields. I got there early and noted it was very loud, dark and crowded. He walked in and gave me a hug (yay!). He asked if I wanted to go somewhere else, somewhere quieter. Yes, yes I did. We walked around and checked out no fewer than 4 other bars before finally finding someplace where we would get a table at the bar. He ordered beer and I had a glass of zin. We shared calamari. He was very friendly and asked me a lot of questions. About halfway into our conversation, I detected that he had a girlfriend. Darn it. I was disappointed. But still had a good time. He lives in the Berkeley Hills and commutes to SF for work. He surfs and drives a VW Jetta station wagon (probably good to accomodate his surfboard). He grew up in Miami but never went to Disney World. Interesting guy, someone I'd like to spend more time and get to know, but alas he has a g-friend. Lucky girl. It goes without saying that I hate her. He downed two beers pretty quickly. He paid the bill. We walked to BART and took the train together to North Berkeley, his stop. That was another half hour of conversation, which was nice. I continued on to Richmond, end of the line, where my car was parked. Overall, a nice evening, but could have been much better.

Ambiguity

My sister described G. as "ambiguous" because he is this guy I've been spending time with and I can't figure out whether he likes me as more than a friend. So now I call him "Mr. Ambiguity". Very fitting. We saw each other on Sunday and Monday. Sunday, he joined me and my friends for wine tasting and a picnic. He baked brownies. And he looked gorgeous, as usual. But I got nothing from him - no signal regarding how he thinks of me. So frustrating. Monday night, he met me at a bar (the bar where we met, actually). I started a conversation about past relationships, and it went pretty well. I found out something important: he dates women. Yay! That's a good starting point. He told me that he was dating someone two months ago. That wasn't long before we met. It sounded like she dumped him and he was pretty bummed about it. He said they dated for a month and a half. He asked me about my last relationship and I told him a little bit about why things didn't work out between Rob and me. For each of the reasons, he would make a statement indicating that he wasn't like that. Hm, interesting. We left and he drove me home. He came inside to change into his running clothes - he was going to the park for a 3-mile run. He left and said "see ya later" or something non-committal. I couldn't stand it anymore, and I walked outside as he was putting his clothes in his trunk. I said, "I want to ask you something before you go running." I said I was sorry to put him on the spot but that I wondered what he thought of me - whether he liked me as just a friend or ?? And he said that he absolutely likes me as a friend, and he is trying to figure out whether it can be something more. I was disappointed but at least it wasn't a total failure. He said that he is attracted to me, so that was a highlight. However, he said that he still thinks about that girl who dumped him. He said he really enjoys spending time with me. We agreed that we would keep hanging out and just see what happens. It was an awkward conversation but I'm glad it happened, because I don't enjoy not knowing. So what did I learn? That he does feel ambiguous - about me.

Tired of Texting

One of the (many) problems with dating - or trying to date - younger men is that they prefer to communicate via text messaging. Or maybe it's not age-related, I don't know. But most of the guys I get involved with "talk" to me via text and sometimes (if I'm lucky) via e-mail.

Take G., for example. He's 28 and I don't think he knows how old I am. It hasn't come up in conversation, but I'm sure he knows I'm older. If I don't step in and call him, or specifically request that he call me, our conversations would be 100% text. Not OK. I don't mind using text messaging in some instances, but you can't have an actual conversation. Then again, this guy has other issues. For example, we went out last Friday and he dropped me off at home. He asked me if he could stay over because he was too tired to drive home. I said yes but felt it was somewhat awkward, since we hadn't even kissed or exchanged any sort of affectionate moments. He said he wanted to sleep in my bed with me. And that's what he did. No good night kiss, nothing. He offered to cuddle if I got cold. Huh. I was really confused. Then he wanted to go to breakfast in the morning. I continued to be confused. I'm supposed to see him in a couple of days, but only because I invited him to meet me somewhere, and because we had a phone conversation requested by me. At least he can follow instructions, and he called me when I asked him to.

The day before my boss's election, I got a mysterious text message from a (619) number - that's San Diego. It said "good luck tomorrow!" I had no idea who it was from and I don't have many friends in SD. I forgot about it until Wednesday, when I received another message from the same number saying "congrats". Finally I replied and said "thanks, who is this?" And got a message back saying "Lovell. Ha." That's this guy, J., who I met in August at a friend's birthday party. We went out once and had a great time. We drank two bottles of wine and made out for a few minutes. We exchanged a couple of text messages (of course) the following week, and then all communication ceased because I never heard back from him. Another one of those dating mysteries. Oh well. I pretty much forgot about it. This one is only 26, by the way. So I wrote him back "I wondered what happened to you" and he said "Tell me about it. I was in trial for 5 weeks." He is an attorney. O-K. Still annoyed. I wrote him back today (why?? I don't know) and said "let me know if you want to get together again sometime" and what response did I get? None. Figures.

The third guy is N., in San Francisco. He doesn't really call me either, but he'll respond to my e-mails very quickly. I saw him two weeks ago and thought things went extremely well, but I haven't heard from him since. Wonder if I have to e-mail him? Ugh. It's so much work, for so little in return.

Finally - my crush. I know, I have many. But really, this is the guy I've been crazy about for more than two years, ever since I first saw him in July 2007. I saw him at the trade show in Anaheim and I'm still in love. He doesn't have a clue, as far as I know. I invited him to our party but he didn't show. However, he had sent me an e-mail asking me if I was still at the party, knowing I would get it on my Blackberry. But I didn't get it, I left the phone in my hotel room. Grr. I didn't write back. He sent me another message the next morning, asking how the party was and saying he was sorry he couldn't make it. I wrote him back a few days later and said I was going to be in SF next week, and did he want to meet for happy hour? He does. Yessss. I'm making plans to head over there next Tuesday and we are all set to meet at 6 pm at some bar in the Fin Dist. I am ridiculously excited. I have liked him for so long. Maybe, just maybe, he likes me too? Given my luck, totally unlikely. But still I try.

Guys, please - call a woman if you want to talk to her. Stop sending text messages!

Update - "Younger Man"

Re: http://adventuresinthe916.blogspot.com/2009/08/younger-man.html

Yeah. That was a no-go. He never called me. I sent him a text the next week saying I hoped he was having a great weekend in Vegas (Labor Day Weekend). He wrote me back saying "I hate Vegas". I wrote him saying "Care to elaborate?" and never heard back.

Kind of bizarre. But, whatever.