The Grass Is Always Greener…

16 Jan 2014 2 Comments

by CoJo in dating, life Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

… Always.

A friend posted an article on Facebook today called:  20 Ways Married Women Betray Our Single Girlfriends.  It was written by someone who was married, as sort of eye-opener, and an apology to her single girlfriends.  There are a few things I agree with, a few I don’t, a few that made me laugh, but as a whole, it made me think about how no matter what our relationship status, there are always things we envy of those on the other side of the fence.

Being in my early 30’s (ew, a;ldksfjadlfkja), the majority of my closest girlfriends are married… some have been for years.  Many have children.  I can honestly say that in my early 20’s, I thought I’d be one of the first.  I had been in the longest, most serious relationship of any of my friends, and I didn’t see any path other than the one that led us down the aisle into happily ever after.  I’d like to take my 23-year-old self and give her a swift kick in the ass.  I didn’t know what I was doing when I was 23.  I had no business living in a high-rise overlooking the Manhattan skyline with my college boyfriend, when our combined salaries barely paid the rent, and we basically pulled the couch cushions up about once a week to look for change for dinner.  No business.  But that’s what I chose to do.  And I thought it made me happy.  And I thought I was a grown-up and knew all there was to know.

That relationship ran its course.  The boyfriend moved to California for work, and my job wouldn’t allow me to go with him.  We tried to make it work for a while, but when push came to shove, I guess it just wasn’t right.  That one took me a long time to get over.  A lot of ups and downs, and “did we do the right thing?” and visits, and relapses, until one of us entered into a relationship with someone else, and things were finally really over.  It wasn’t until my next serious relationship that I realized how big of a dumbass I would have been to get married in my early 20’s.  I had no idea who I was. I had no idea what a real, grown-up relationship looked like.  I didn’t know that passion wasn’t enough to have a healthy relationship.   That following one taught me a lot.  It taught me I could truly trust a person.  It showed me that a higher level connection was possible, and it taught me that the person I want to be with is one I can sit on a front porch with until I’m 90 and not run out of things to talk about.  It also taught me that two people’s priorities and goals need to align in order for a relationship to work.  Which, in this case, they did not.

What has taught me the most, though, is the past two years.  The ones I spent alone.  I spent my entire 20’s in serious relationships, thinking every step of the way that marriage was the goal, and what was going to come next.  I failed to look around, and see that there’s more going on outside of my little box than creating the perfect relationship, and wondering what the stupid ring would look like on my stupid fat finger.  Like really?  Who CARES?!  Come to think of it, I’d like to give my entire 20’s-self a swift kick in the ass…  For not really getting to know who I was alone.  For caring about crap that really didn’t matter at all… And for not really opening my eyes and turning from side to side.

The past two years have been liberating.  Lonely at times?  Yeah, of course.  Missing having a significant other to love sometimes?  Yeah.  But very much-needed.  I don’t think as women, we always put enough stock in ourselves as individuals.  It’s all about the chase for the perfect relationship, settling down with a house and kids, but what about our relationships with ourselves?  Do we know ourselves without “another half?”  Maybe some do.  Maybe some were way farther along than I was in my early 20’s.  But I sure as hell had no clue what I was doing, and I probably still have a lot to learn.

The article above hammers the point home.  As much as some of us feel we should be looking for marriage and should be starting to have children, maybe we should look around and see what we do have.  Maybe we should realize that even if the husband and kids are the end goal, there ARE things about single life we will surely miss.  As dreadful and awkward as many first dates are, as much as we’d like someone to cuddle up and watch a movie with sometimes, just take a moment and really think… think about when we’re married with little kids running around… how much we’re going to remember those nights at the bar with our other single girlfriends bitching about whatever meathead there was to bitch about at the time.  And laughing about the awful dates and the weird things we accidentally said.  And as much as I know I want the family life eventually… at some point, I do realize, I may mutter the words, “I miss Tinder.”

Peace out, muffins.

xoxo

Gossip Girl

The Triathlete

14 Nov 2013 1 Comment

by CoJo in dating, fun, life Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I went on a first date last night.  Come to think of it, it’s the first-first date I’ve been on in quite a while.  That’s not counting the random guys from Tinder who have come to meet up at a bar with our groups of friends, talking for 10 minutes, and then dismissing each other.   I mean an actual first date: the kind where someone invites you out for a specific time and place, you meet them there alone wondering if you’re going to get murdered,  you send your friends your location on Google Maps once you get there, and then are stuck with that person for an  amount of time you both deem appropriate without being  rude.  That’s the kind of first date I went on last night.

The guy was from Tinder.  He had the perfect amount of pictures to see his face at different angles, mouth smiling, teeth showing, no hat, no sunglasses, and his full-body… without the photos being obnoxious, inappropriate or God-forbid:  selfies.  There was also a link to his Instagram page which I obviously stalked beforehand.  I decided there was no way this guy wasn’t hot.  Like hot, hot.  Like I felt insecure going to meet him hot, because he was out of my league, hot.  The only red-flag off the bat was that during my stalkage I discovered he’s a triathlete.  Not that there’s anything wrong with those, but from my experience they just seem to have obsessive personalities.  Like obsessive about what they eat, when they eat it, how they work out, etc etc, and have no room in their brains for anything else.  Am I generalizing?  Yes, obviously.  But that seemed to be the only possible flag, besides his hottness factor seeming way higher than mine.

In any case, we were texting while I was on my way back from Palm Springs yesterday for work.  He mentioned he was in North Park, which is supposedly a pretty cool neighborhood of San Diego.  I said:

“I haven’t been to North Park yet.”

He texted, “What are you doing tonight?”

Me:  “No plans.”

Him:  “North Park?”

Me:  “Ok.”

That was easy.  He asked if I liked beer, and I obviously responded “yes,” and he asked me to meet him at a new brewery.  We arrived around the same time, parked and texted our locations.  I told him I’d wait outside since I had gotten a spot right out front.  He informed me he’d be the one in the navy chucks.  I told him I was wearing grey.

As I stood waiting, staring at everyone’s feet, I finally spotted his.  My eyes traveled upwards… to his face… and…. ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  I got catfished.  Okay, no that’s mean.  I didn’t get completely catfished… but MANNNNN did this guy know how to choose his photos appropriately!!!!  It was obviously him, yet a skinnier version.  Even his face was skinnier.  His eyes were REALLY bloodshot and watery, and he had tiny little wrinkles under both of his eyes that sort of made him look like a drug addict (I know he doesn’t do drugs, as he made a point to bring up that fact during a previous conversation).  He’s 33, but I thought he looked about 10 years older than all of his photos.

I decided not to dwell on his less-hot-than-expected appearance.  I hoped he didn’t notice my disappointment.  Everything started out fine;  he was a talker, so there were no awkward silences, and he was really into craft beer, so I got a lesson on the different types… including the difference between using CO2 vs. Nitro [don’t care, don’t care, don’t care…but at least now I know?]

When dating here, two of my major red-flags are:

1.  Only children

2.  San Diego natives

Strike one… strike two.

I literally talked to myself in my head several times, telling myself to keep an open mind, not to generalize, and focus on the good.  I talked myself into enjoying my time with him, even though he wasn’t exactly what I expected.  We had some interesting conversations, and I didn’t realize how funny the date really was, until my sister stopped by this morning before work to pick something up, and asked how my date was.  After I explained some of the conversations, and we both started laughing so hard, I said I didn’t even realize how douchey much of the evening was until I actually was repeating it out loud.  To summarize, here were just a few of the things that came out of his mouth.

Him:  I have really nice thighs.

Me:  They look skinny.

Him:  No, they’re really nice… especially for a triathlete.

——————

Him:  I have REALLY nice calves.  I wore pants tonight to be more formal for you, but they look great in shorts.

——————

Him:  I’m in my fat cycle.  I’ve been trying to get really fat.

Me:  Yeah, you’re huge.

Him:  This weekend I ate:  [lists like 45 nasty foods], and I was really excited, because I gained a quarter of a pound!

Me:  A QUARTER of a pound??  I could gain more than that sniffing a chicken nugget.

Him:  Where would you get a chicken nugget??

Me:  I don’t know….?  McDonalds?

Him:   Ew.  Thats disgusting.

——————-

Him:  I have a freakishly large wingspan.

Me:  How are your nail-beds?

Him:  I don’t know about my nail-beds, but my fingers are reallllly long.

Me:  Cool

———————

Him:  There’s this really awesome picture of me outside the Guinness factory in Ireland.  I’m facing away from the camera with my arms outstretched like THIS, and since my wingspan is so huge, it looks awesome… and then there was this beam of light shining perfectly down on me.  Hold on, let me try to find it.  [Goes through phone for 5 minutes].  Can’t find it.  But there’s the SAME picture of me doing the SAME pose in the mountains in Colorado.  Awesome.

Me:  Cool.

———————-

Him:  I have a really good butt.

Me:  Let me see.  [He turns around, I squeeze it].  It’s really small.

Him:  It’s a biker’s butt.  It’s really good.

————————-

Him:  [while turned away from me]  I have a really skinny waist but veryyyyy broad shoulders.

Me:  That’s really, really great.

————————-

Are we seeing a pattern here?  I tried to distract him from conversation surrounding his body parts by challenging him to darts.  First of all, he didn’t know what Cricket was.  Secondly, I beat him by two bulls-eyes.  And I’m not good enough for that to be acceptable.  But I think it took him down a notch.

This date wasn’t too awful, really.  I highlighted the douchey parts, obviously.  It just wasn’t any sort of real connection.  When we left a bit later, I asked him if he wanted a ride to his car because he had parked several blocks away.  He accepted my offer.  I plugged my phone in, as always, and drove him around the block 4 times because he forgot where his car was (really, dude?  you had like 2.5 beers).  As he was about to get out, he heard the song that was playing and asked,

“Who is this?”

I stared for a second, wondering if he was joking and replied, “Meatloaf.”

“Oh, I don’t know them.”

Well… that was it, right there.  Deal.Breaker.  Please get out of my car.

We exchanged a few post-date friendly texts, but I’m thinking that will be all of him.

Tata for now….

xoxo Gossip Girl

The Architect … A Bit of Nostalgia

13 Nov 2013 2 Comments

by CoJo in dating, fun, life Tags: , , , , , ,

The Architect is old news.  So old, in fact, that none of his stories can be found on this blog.  You’d have to refer back to my original blog posts, which are now, unfortunately, gone forever.  Unlike my old blog, The Architect is not gone forever.  When I refer to him ever being “in the picture,”  he never really was… in a dating sense.  He was just one of those lingering guys from my Hoboken days that continued to keep my attention… most likely because he was not giving me enough attention.

Guys… don’t take lessons from this.  It’s not a winning move.  Women nearing (and God-forbid OVER) the age of thirty, are not looking for a chase or a game.  They’re looking for a real man who has real morals and values and actually wants to pursue a real, mature relationship.  “The chase”  is no longer appealing to most of us once we have neared our thirties.  But one thing The Architect had going for him, is that he kinda stepped it up, in a sense, right before I moved across the country.

The question here is obvious:  Did I finally begin having these feelings for him because I actually had feelings for him, or was it because I knew I was leaving and I couldn’t have him even if I really wanted him?  I’m not completely sure what the answer is.  Before I left, we started spending a lot more time together… cramming it in.  Like “holy crap I may never see you again; let’s hang out as much as possible.”  Before that last month, we would see each other here and there… whatever.  But once it was almost go-time, it seemed to be a little more…. “one last time out… one last, ‘can you fix my sink?’,  and one last ‘goodbye’ after my car was packed and we were standing outside my apartment hugging while my sister was screaming out the window that I needed to come back in and lock up…”  Did that mean anything?  No, probably not.

But then I got to California.  And being the one that left, I should have been the one who didn’t care anymore.  I should have been the one to be excited to experience new things and meet new people, and forget the ones that never really amounted to anything… which… don’t get me wrong… I was.  I was SO excited.  And I met amazing people, ones who have even exceeded my expectations as friends, and I’ve been having the time of my life.  The problem is, I continued to think about The Architect.   And the other problem is, The Architect got a girlfriend.  Does he like her that much?  I don’t know.  Yeah, I guess so.   He says he does.  I’m not sure how much I believe him.  I believe they have a ton in common… because facts are facts… they do have a ton in common.  They went to the same schools, they have the same profession, and the same hobbies… but do I get the sense that she’s the end-all-be-all?  No.  But could he be hiding that fact from me for my sake?  Because he probably knows I still think about him?  Obviously.  I’m not stupid.

The Architect and I don’t have much in common.  He’s really logical, I’m not.  He’s good at math, I’m not.  He’s reserved, I’m not.  He over-thinks things; I under-think them.   He wouldn’t buy a mattress off the side of the road… I would.  But would I refrain from buying a mattress off the side of the road if he asked me to?  Yeah, probably.  …Maybe.

Point of this post is… well… I don’t really have one.  Just one of those honest moments when my laptop is within reach and I have no one around to entertain me… so I type…when I probably shouldn’t type… But I do… So you, my friends, get my thoughts for the hour.

Love you, muffins.  ❤

xoxo Gossip Girl

Tinder, Tigers and Car-Ports, Oh My!

11 Nov 2013 Leave a comment

by CoJo in dating, fun, life, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , ,

Apologies for my recent lack of blog posts.  My only real excuse can be that I’ve been busy searching for photos of tigers on Tinder.  In an attempt to keep you in the loop, I should update you on the fact that although Erin, our random couch-dweller has since moved on to bigger and better things, we now have a NEW couch-dweller, who we shall call Breezy.  Breezy, unlike Erin, was not a random from the start, but a friend.  She had a bit of a “falling out,” let’s call it, with her “roommate,” let’s call him, and decided to move out, so she needed a place to stay for a few weeks.  Our home’s renovated car-port, now a den has transformed into Breezy’s new abode, complete with a dresser, a queen-sized aero-bed, and a private entrance…

So that brings us back to Tinder (it always comes back to Tinder).  New to the single scene, Breezy has already become quite familiar with the app, and now three of us living in this house have been in full swiping-mode.  V and I realized a while back, that there’s an odd amount of guys with photos of themselves with tigers.  It’s become somewhat of a joke, and much of our time spent playing Tinder is solely as a “Tiger Hunt.”  During downtime at work, at home, at the gym, at the beach, and in local watering holes, as our fingers swipe away, we have been saving tiger photos and sending them to our group chat…. Just to prove the point of how overused they are.   Like where are all of these guys finding tigers?  Have they all gone to Asia?  Have VIP passes to the zoo?? Our roommate, T, who is in a relationship, therefore not on Tinder,  inadvertently gets thrown into these conversations on a regular basis as we’re all on the couch talking about tigers, and passing our phones down the line.  She commented yesterday,

“I wish there was a picture of one of these guys getting mauled by a tiger.”

Hmmm… that would at least spice it up a bit.  Along our tiger hunting journeys, we’ve also found some additional random gems that we’ve shared with each other.

If nothing else, our recent adventures on Tinder have been bringing humor to our otherwise routine work days.  I’m using this post just to share some of our most recent favs:

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And the non-tiger Hall Of Fame:

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Over and out for now, pumpkins.

xoxo… Gossip Girl

 

Advice From Aunt Di

25 Oct 2013 5 Comments

by CoJo in dating, fun, life Tags: , , ,

Gotta love her random messages of comments and advice…

Here’s the latest:

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[It’s obviously too late for that. He’s met me for more than 5 minutes.]

And sorry, Aunt Di, but Tara and Sam now know you’re butting in. Xoxo

Gossip Girl

Slimey-Poo

22 Oct 2013 1 Comment

by CoJo in dating, fun, life Tags: , , , , , , ,

I’ve decided I really need to stop creating unflattering nicknames for guys I meet. I don’t just refer to them by their nicknames in my blog posts… it translates into real life. My friends start calling them by their nicknames because they can’t remember their real names, then it turns into me actually forgetting what their real names are (especially since I either don’t save their names in my phone, or enter their contact info with their nicknames). I’ve created awkward situations for myself with the nicknaming; I need to reevaluate this method.

In any case, we are going to rewind back to “Soulmate” (this post), because he is still lingering, and after learning his last name, I accidentally started referring to him as “Slimey.” For the record, that’s not his actual last name…. But last Wednesday he asked me to meet up for a couple of beers. Since the first time we met was in a pretty big group-situation, this was the first time we sat down and really chatted one-on-one. My original assessment of him seemed to be accurate… quietly witty and sarcastic, midwestern values and accent, head on his shoulders. Short. His sarcastic attitude makes me wonder how he is with his patients. I asked if he’s nice to them, he said he is… but then followed it up with a story involving pissing off an elderly woman, and her requesting a switch to another doctor the previous day…. soooo… ??
Our date was short and sweet, as he had a work obligation that night (or so he says). The next night (Thursday), Carissa was working on the traveling sausage truck she does part-time. She somehow duped me into coming to where the truck was parked after work, telling me it was at a “cool event.” I believed her because she has been at some pretty cool locations based on her past descriptions. It was at some apartment complex downtown. That’s the only info she gave me. For some reason I trusted that this “event” was going to be “cool,” so I decided to head down there… on my favorite form of transportation: the bus. Slimey texted when I was getting ready to leave my house and asked what I was doing that night. I told him I was going to some event my sister was working at downtown. He said he was actually going downtown too, to watch the football game at his buddy’s place. I told him he should take the bus with me. I called it an “adventure” to entice him. He said no, and offered me a ride. He wasn’t ready to leave yet. And then I said no. I didn’t want to go in a car. As I’m almost at my bus stop where the “cool event” is, Slimey texts and asks where downtown I’m heading. I give him the crossroads of the stop I’m getting off at, and he says, “That’s where my buddy’s place is.”
At first I thought he was joking, or exaggerating… like “oh yeah, it’s in that part of town.” But he convinced me he was being serious, and asked if I’d be at the Vantage Point complex. I said I had no idea. I really had no idea. I also had no idea that this “cool event” I was going to was literally a sausage truck sitting in a circular driveway outside the lobby of a fancy apartment complex called Vantage Point. FML.
First, I yell at Carissa for luring me downtown on a bus to watch her serve sausages to rich pricks. Then I realize that this is the exact place Slimey is coming. Literally, he walks up to the front door about 10 minutes later. Like, come on…. what are the chances of this? And what must he think of me telling him I’m going to a “cool event,” and then lurking outside an apartment complex with a big sausage truck? I introduced him to my sister, and as she hugged him I heard her say, “It’s nice to meet you, Slimey!” I threw a super dirty look her way; he didn’t know I called him Slimey. alsfdkjldasfjadls;kfja;ldkfjsa
He brought beer, so we sat outside on the curb by the truck and had a one together. Then he invited me in to hang out with his friends. At first, I declined, so he headed up alone, but a while later when I realized there was no bathroom in the lobby of this building, I asked him to come get me.
NERD ALERT!!!!! I went up to his friend’s apartment, used the restroom, then sat on the couch with the nerdiest group of guys I’ve met in a while. They were his doctor friends. I was in nerd heaven. If I had known them better, I would have interjected into their conversations several times with my own two cents, but as the semi-uninvited token female in a room full of guys watching football, I was a quiet observer for the most part. I didn’t stay long, Carissa was ready to leave a little bit later, so I thanked them for the hospitality and left with her. I was surprised that Slimey had such dorky friends. It made me like him a little more I think.
The next night, Friday, was my birthday. I went out with Carissa and the girl who used to live on my couch (Erin)… We started at a dive bar and played every Meatloaf song the jukebox could handle. Slimey met us out for a bit but didn’t stay long because he was working super early shifts over the weekend. I think he gets shorter every time I see him. Or maybe my shoes get taller? Or maybe both. He still has my interest, but I don’t know how much longer that will last. We have a PSU/OSU rivalry game this weekend which I think we might watch together… we’ll see.
In other news… well, there’s other news. But I’ll save that for another post, because I’m pretty sure I’ve already hit my limit on this one [hashtag: sleeping yet?]
xoxo
Gossip Girl

 

A Friday Night Out… Enter: Soulmate

07 Oct 2013 1 Comment

by CoJo in dating, fun, life Tags: , , , , , ,

A couple of weeks ago, I took this photo from Tinder and posted it on my Facebook page, announcing that I had found my soulmate, based on his tagline alone.

soulmate

Each time I referred to this guy with my friends, it would be “my soulmate” this, or “my soulmate” that, and everyone knew who I was talking about.  I hadn’t met the guy yet, and really, hadn’t even spoken to him.  A few days after I right-swiped him, he reached out, and we began chatting a little.  He seemed kinda funny and quirky.  And he lives in PB which is nice, because everyone who doesn’t live in PB seems to hate on it and never wants to come here.

“Oh… I won’t go out in PB anymore…”  [eye roll]

or

“PB?!  I haven’t been there in like 3 years….”

or

“I’m too ollldddd to go out in PB…”

You get the idea.  People who used to live here are now way too good for it.   Or are afraid of fun.  Not people I feel like hanging around anyway.

So Friday morning started with V on the couch watching TV (she works Sundays through Thursdays), and me getting ready for work.  As I’m procrastinating around the house, V says,

“Would you just leave already, so you can come back??”

I say, “The only reason I’m leaving is so I can come back.”

It made sense in my head.  It was a warm, sunny day, and there were some baseball games on… the people without regular jobs were all going out to the bars to watch.  So I carried along with my day, with friendly reminders from V every once in a while to hurry up, and when I was content with my progress, I ran home to shower for happy hour.  We got on our bikes, with plenty of hours of daylight ahead and began our evening.

At the first bar, we met up with a few guy friends who all had something to say about “the cowboy,” and wanted to know how that was going.  I informed them that I’d been speaking to him but haven’t seen him since the first awkward coffee date.  They were confused as to WHY I would want to see him again, and the best way I could explain it was to say I just really want to get to the bottom of what the hell is wrong with him.  Because there is something very wrong with him.

As we’re sitting around the table, with my phone in the middle, it lights up with a very blatent Tinder message notification.  Andy points to it and laughs.  I pick it up and read it.  It’s my soulmate inquiring about my plans for the night.  Yeeehhhawwwwwwww…. I wanna meet this dude!  I tell V  that he might meet up later after he gets out of work and goes to the gym.

Since it was still sunny out, V and I grabbed our bikes and headed to our next destination, Lahaina’s… which is basically a big deck on the beach.  It’s always hopping, but apparently less-so after the summer is over and tourists are gone, so we were able to secure a good spot with a table.  At some point during my text convo with Soulmate, he barked and then I meowed, and V said, “Maybe you are actually soulmates.”

Soulmate messages to say he’s leaving the gym and going to stop by Lahaina’s on his way home.

“ON HIS WAY HOME??? That’s so lame… he’s going to come here all sweaty from the gym??”

V suggests, “Maybe he’s trying to feel you out before committing to hanging out?”

“Good point.”

He shows up in his gym attire.  Definitely cute, but shorter than I thought.  (I know, I know… I’m short.. yada yada)  He is quietly witty.  And he can handle V and me, in our giggly sarcastic moods.  So I’m digging his vibes.  He’s a doctor, but not a stuffy doctor.  We bonded sharing medical stories and useful info such as how to get a mouse into the bladder, and what happens if you stick a turkey baster full of tequila up your ass (he’s witnessed the aftermath).

Then something happens.  We ask his last name.  His last name comes out of his mouth and V LOSES IT.  Like full-out starts laughing so hard she can’t breathe.  Then the tears start flowing, and she gets out, “is that your real name??”

It really wasn’t THAT funny… but V is crying, and now so am I.  It’s the kinda thing where you’re not supposed to be laughing, but someone else is, so you just can’t stop.  Soulmate is taking it okay, and can’t help laughing a little, but I don’t think he really knew what he was laughing at.  Just as we were composing ourselves, V says,

“So if they need to find you in the hospital do they say, “Paging Doctor _______??”

“Yeah.”

She loses it again.   After a good 10 minutes we were able to move to another topic of conversation.  Then our former couch-dweller, Erin shows up, and we have to share his last name all over again.

Despite our obnoxious behavior, when the sun went down and it was time to hit up the next place, instead of parting ways for the night, Soulmate said he was going to run home and shower and then come meet back up with us, which he did.  We somehow passed the post-gym test with flying colors, because he was back to meet us at Open Bar in no time.  And then followed to Reds, where we danced like idiots to country music, with some of Erin’s dance moves taking place from the floor, lying on her back and kicking her legs in the air to the beat.  Not really sure how we pulled off that place without getting kicked out.  But we did.

Soulmate went home, V went to frolic on the beach with String Bean Ween, I have no idea where Erin went, and then JR randomly texted saying he was at the place next door.  Showing the bad decision-making skills I’m known to have, I stopped in there instead of just GOING HOME like a normal person would have.  Of course, he’s hammered and so super-duper ducky excited to see me like I’m his long-lost lover (REMINDER…  he didn’t want to date ME)… He was like jumping up and down and trying to dance with this big goofy smile on his face, when I pulled out my iPhone, clicked on the “Lyft” app [awesome new cab service], and requested a car at the click of a button.  It said my car would be there in 3 minutes, so I hightailed it awayyyy from JR’s hideous dance moves, and bolted out the front door.  He followed.   As the mustache Lyft car pulled up, I said goodbye and hopped in… only to have JR immediately text me 300 times.  SO.OVER.IT.

I finally get home and in bed, when V comes through the door explaining that she was just at the beach doing “normal sand activities,” while standing over my bed and shaking out her clothes.   I’m still trying to get sand out of my sheets.  And still trying to figure out what “normal sand activities” are.

After the doozy of a Friday night, we used Saturday as a relaxation day at the beach watching surf competitions and lounging by a pool, followed by a movie night in with Thai food.

Soulmate texted and asked if he’ll see me again.  When I asked if he wanted to, he said “Duh.”

So, I’m waiting for his move, and will try not to think about his last name next time I see him…

‘Til next time, love bugs….

xoxo Gossip Girl

The Bi-Polar Cowboy

24 Sep 2013 5 Comments

by CoJo in dating, fun, life Tags: , , , , , ,

I don’t really know where to start with this one… and I also don’t know how mean I should be, because I have plans to see him again, and I’ve found being mean about someone is hard to come back from if I decide to change my mind.

So let’s start with this… His match.com profile pic was him in a cowboy hat.  I’m a sucker for cowboys.  Especially blue-eyed cowboys with dark hair… who have jobs… and seem normal.  “Seem” normal.

I saw him originally, read through his whole profile, and swooned.  Really, really good-looking.  Sounded like we would get along really well.  He sent me the original message, and I promptly replied.  No messing around when it comes to sexual cowboys with jobs.  Our chatter was brief before we exchanged numbers and he asked if I’d be interested in meeting him, to which I obviously replied yes.

This was about a week ago?  He had plans late last week to go on a rafting trip (which later got canceled due to the fact that he found himself having to work all weekend), so he asked if I wanted to meet for coffee on Monday (yesterday).  I’ve come to learn that although I had never been on a first date for coffee, it’s pretty common, and normal.  I don’t find any sort of date normal that doesn’t involve alcohol, but I decided to grow up and embrace the coffee date.  The strange thing was that he wanted to meet at a really awkward time, in Del Mar, which is in between where we both live.  He suggested 4pm, which I thought was really weird.  I do have a pretty flexible work schedule, but he didn’t know that.  How many people can meet in a random town at 4pm on a Monday??  I told him I couldn’t guarantee the time, as I had to see how late my meeting lasted which was about a half hour away.

THEN… he friend requested me on Facebook.  Ummmm…. no?  I texted him and said I had a policy about accepting FB friends before I even met someone.  He said he, unfortunately had the opposite policy, and promised himself he wouldn’t meet anyone in person again without being Facebook friends first, because he has learned his lesson (??), and he understood if I didn’t feel comfortable with it, but we’d have to cancel our date.  Wait… what?

I wasn’t ready to give up on the sexual cowboy yet, so I strategically accepted him, blocking him from most of my tagged photos and posts (including my blogs, obvi).  He was starting to seem very business-like and by-the-book, which was off-putting.  What was also off-putting is when he immediately DE-FRIENDED me on Saturday evening when he said something obnoxious about being “too old” to go out in PB (which is the town I live in), and I came back at him with a sarcastic response.  Of course, I called him out on de-friending me, and he said since I didn’t “seem interested,” he deleted me, because he likes to “keep his Facebook clean.”

WHAT DUDE???

Carissa was here for this entire conversation and she was like, “You are NOT meeting him.  I hate him.”

But I obviously didn’t listen to her.

We brushed off our texting disagreement, and he asked if I was still interested in meeting him Monday, and I said “No harm in coffee.”

So coffee it was.

As I’m nearing the Starbucks yesterday late afternoon, I texted V:  “I’m about to go on a sober first date.  I don’t think I’ve ever done this before.”

She asked, “Are you nervous??”

“Yeah!!  I’ve never been on a coffee date.  Fear of the unknown.  Kinda like a new gym.”

“Ugh I hate a new gym.”   …A social awkwardness we share.

So I pull up and he’s sitting outside with an iced tea or something (I’m late… good excuse though, I swear).  He’s on the phone.  I walk right up and mouth a silent hello.  He gives me the one minute sign, and tells whoever is on the other end of the phone to hold on a second.  Then he turns to me (still sitting… not even getting up to say hi), “Do you want to go in and get a drink?  I’ll be off the phone in one minute… sorry.”

I’m like, “Yeah, sure…”

And I walk into Starbucks.  At this point I’m already feeling awkward.  I literally feel like I’m going on an interview.  Not a date interview… a business interview.  I wait in line by myself to get my coffee, thinking… this is not a date.

I go back out, and sit across from him.  He is off the phone now, but still shows no interest in hugging hello (is it weird that my natural reaction would be to hug hello??)  We immediately get to talking about work, because we are obviously still mid-workday.  Cowboy launches into a full account of not only his job, but the specific deals that are in the works right now with specific investors, and how the contracts are being drawn up.  I’m like wwwwwttttttffffffff.

In between one of his first lectures on private equity or some sh*t, he pauses, and says, “You look really pretty.”  At which point I awkwardly giggled like a 12-year-old because it was out of the blue and I didn’t know how else to react.  I’m 30, I should have my act together at this point, having been on 3200 first dates, but no, I apparently do not.

The conversation evolves, and not only do I know exactly which jobs HE has had in the past 10 years, but I am fully briefed on his dad’s fashion business, and the way Walmart buys clothing.  My head is spinning.  I was not an economics major and I wasn’t prepared for such an in-depth conversation about the economic status of the world.  He’s easy to talk to but the conversation feels very business-like.  Could I hold the conversation?  Yeah.  Did I WANT to hold this conversation the first time meeting someone?  No.

He interjected just a tad of personal talk into his business rants, and I asked if these things were always swirling around in his brain and he said yes.  I think I could recite all the names of the attorneys he has worked with on deals in the past 8 years, as well as their children’s’ hobbies and hair color.  Holy CRAP…. I needed a nap.

So after a really non-stop, packed out conversation, he looks at his watch a little before 6, and says, “Should we get going?” and before I could even grab my purse he was out of his seat and halfway into the parking lot.  I literally thought he was going to just walk straight to his car without saying goodbye.  My head was spinning and I was really confused.  I stopped and said,

“Well my car is this way.”  And I just stood in the middle of the parking lot.  Like DUDE, give me a hug or at least a handshake.  He stopped, turned around and gave me sort of half hug, half pat and said it was nice meeting me.

I got in my car with my head spinning… confused if I was just on an interview to be a business partner or if it was actually, a date.  He didn’t like my one business idea I proposed, because he said I had a really “east-coast mindset,” so I’m assuming he didn’t want to continue into business together.

I wasn’t expecting to hear from him again, because whatever it was he wanted to get out of that meeting, I don’t think he got it.  But the most confusing thing was trying to figure out WHAT he wanted to come of that meeting.  Mid-day, outside a Starbucks.  I don’t think either one of us got to really know anything about the other’s actual personality… unless his personality IS work, and ONLY work… which I tend to doubt, and it didn’t match up with what he had to say about himself on his profile.

Maybe he just had a lot on his mind?  Maybe he was socially awkward??

He texted me about 2 hours later:  “Thx for meeting me”

Oh really??  Like you could get anymore business.  You can’t even spell out the word “thanks?”

I wrote back, “No prob.  Good meeting you”

Thinking this was the end, he then says, “Let me know if you would like to go out again”

Wait WHAT???  That is not you asking me out.  What does that even mean?  And you gave me no signs during our first interaction that you even would WANT to see me again.  Which obviously means I DO want to go out again.  But I’m not going to make it completely easy.  So,

“Would that be implying you’d like to go out again?”

“Yes please”

I said I would, and he suggested a pool day Saturday (he apparently has a pool), or something for football Sunday.  I told him I couldn’t commit yet for this weekend because it’s my sister’s birthday weekend so I wanted to see what she wanted to do first.  He said to just keep him posted and I said ok.

Then…. Mr. Business ends the conversation.  The final text of the night.

He typed, “xo”

I literally LOLed.  I think he is bi-polar.  I really don’t know what’s wrong with him.  I told Carissa, “Maybe I’ll marry him for money.”

She said, “Don’t invite me to the wedding… unless I get half.”

Bitch.

This one is confusing.  I really need to meet him again.  Stay tuned.

xoxo Gossip Girl

Hump Day Happy Hour and The Girl on our Couch

18 Sep 2013 3 Comments

by CoJo in dating, fun, life Tags: , , , , , ,

So I’m putting a kibosh to the poetry.  Apparently it was boring to everyone besides myself.  But for the record, the last one was about a PENIS.  So how about you just go back and read it again with THAT in mind, and then tell me it’s not really funny.

Anyway, I’m driving around today, as any other day, and I decided I was in the mood to be social tonight.  More specifically, I was in the mood to go out… with girls… and only girls… and get hit on by men.  I knew Carissa had class at 6:30pm, so she wouldn’t be down for happy hour.  I texted V, my only other single friend, and shared my thoughts.  She didn’t answer.

Let’s rewind here for a minute.  I live in a house with two other girls.  V & T.  They’re both amazing and fun and we all mesh really well.  What I haven’t mentioned yet, is that for the past couple of weeks we have had another girl living on our couch Mondays through Thursdays.  Not our main living room couch… we have another large room, a step down from our main floor, with a huge wrap around couch.  It’s a room nobody ever goes into… a den, if you will… and now there’s a random girl living there.  Well, she was random.  A friend of a friend asked V if someone could rent out our couch for a few weeks while she was in town on business.  We’re all the types that don’t really care… as long as the girl wasn’t going to murder us or do anything weird, so we agreed.  At first, I thought the girl probably WOULD murder us, but after a few days, I realized she was not only harmless, but actually very entertaining… and now even my Facebook friend… which is big moves.  In any case, she’s barely around, and sort of stealth-like, in the way that I don’t usually know that she’s home unless she purposely makes herself known.

So I get home from work today to what I thought was an empty house, until I hear Erin yell, “hello!” from her secret room.  I yelled “hello!” back, and continued on with my business.  Carissa called while I was sitting on the couch, and I started explaining how I’d like to go out and socialize and have men hit on me, but V never answered and that I knew that Carissa had to go to class.

“I’ll drive you out, and watch you drink beer ’til I have to leave?”  she offered.   What a good sister.  I passed on that offer.  Then I hear a shout from the secret room downstairs,

“I’LL GO TO HAPPY HOUR!”

The girl on the couch emerged.  “Ok!” I shout back.

Two minutes later, V responds and says she’s down for HH as well.  I texted T and Brie also, but they were both busy.  2.5 happy hour friends.  Good.  Carissa says she’ll be over in a few to get us, so Erin and I quickly get ready, and I attempt to make myself look at least somewhat cute since my main goal for the evening is to socialize with the opposite sex and get hit on (you’d think, being single, this would usually be my goal, but I get so caught up with who I’m out with, that I tend to forget to look around).

We go out to PB Cantina, where they have a 2-for-one special, and fall into the usual pattern of talking each other’s ears off and not really looking around.  Carissa’s sipping water, and in my opinion, not looking that cute.  I mean she’s cute, whatever… but she didn’t look THAT cute.  Anyway, after about 45 minutes she gets up and says she has to head out to her class.  We all say goodbye and she leaves.

A couple of minutes later, some guy walks up to our table, and comes straight up to me.

“Oh great,” I’m thinking… “this guy’s about to hit on me and he’s not even that attractive… ugh…”

He starts out with: “I’m really sorry if this is weird, but…”

[In my head:  “Herreeee we go…. let’s get on with it…. hit on me, why don’t ya?”]

He continues… “Well … My name is Darl.”

“DARL?…. Like with an ‘L’ at the end?”

“Yes.”

“Ok…. Hi Darl…”

“Your friend that just left… I’m kinda really into her… Is she going to be coming back?”

WTF!!!!!  Are you KIDDING me right now???

I ask him, “How old are you?”

“32.”

“Well she’s not my friend, she’s my sister… and you’re too old for her… and no, she’s not coming back.  But I will certainly let her know, and I’m sure she will be very flattered.”

He just stands there and stares at me with sad puppy dog eyes.  And the girls stare at him.  And then he finally looks down, defeated, and walks away.

V goes, “WHY DOES THAT ALWAYS HAPPEN TO CARISSA????  Everyone says we look alike but nobody EVER hits on ME!!!”

I’m mad.  “I WAS THE ONE THAT CAME HERE TO GET HIT ON!!!!  I’m mad.  And offended.  This is not fair.”  I’m probably pouting at this point.

V says, “She’s young and fresh.”

Ugh.  So annoying.  That damn Carissa.  Can’t bring her anywhere.  So the night continues.  And it turns out that the girl on the couch,  [Erin], although 31 and also single, has never heard of Tinder… wait… WHAT?!  V and I make her download the app, and give her a quick tutorial.  In no time at all, she’s swiping away and completely enthralled.  She had several matches right off the bat, and in about 5 minutes, got her first message.

She freaked a little, and didn’t know what to say, so I took her phone out of her hand and responded to the sexual man who told her she was beautiful.  It was a group effort, and within 20 minutes we made her plans to meet a 26-year-old down at the beach.  V had her car, so we told her we’d drop her off.

On the way, we stopped at a liquor store so she could pick up a bottle of twist off wine to bring with her.  V and I sat in the car… all of a sudden I said,

“We created a monster…. is this a bad idea?”

V says, “Maybe?  Are we horrible people?”

“I think we are.”

Erin gets back in the car and says, “The guy in there tried to rip me off, but luckily I speak Arabic, so I got my money back.”

“You speak ARABIC??”

“Well, not real Arabic… I only know how to say ‘I’m from the streets.'”

Oh… well in that case….

So we drive her down to the end of the road.  We don’t see the guy, so we get out of the car and look down below at the sand.  There’s some kind of scrimmage going on in the dark.

beach

Then we see him as he walks towards us.  Erin says, “Oh, are you who I’m meeting?”

I immediately get my phone out and start taking pictures of him, because now I’m convinced he’s just going to take her down to the beach and murder her.

I go up and give him a hug and then ask, “Are you going to kill her?”

He responds with, “Well…. it is a full-moon tonight, so you never know.”

Apparently that was a good enough answer for me?  We said goodbye and left her there.  I felt ok, because I got a full-on shot of his face, flash on and all.  Now V and I are driving home and I say, “Did we just drop Erin off to get murdered?”

V says, AGAIN… “I think we are horrible people.”

We get home and text her.  She says she’s still alive, and that the guy speaks Spanish.  So I guess that’s a plus?  At least she’s still alive.  Are we horrible people??  Maybe.  Fingers crossed she makes it back to the couch in one piece….

xoxo

Gossip Girl

JR = Done… & Poems for Christian

17 Sep 2013 1 Comment

by CoJo in dating, fun, life Tags: , , , ,

JR went back to Amsterdam and forgot about me… on purpose.  What?!  You ask?  I asked the same thing.

He went from: “all up my ass,” if you will… to silence.  Knowing me, you’d know I don’t just take hints.  I need to GET TO THE BOTTOM OF IT.  So of course, after a week of radio silence, I straight out asked him what the H was going on.  He informed me that he stopped talking to me on purpose, because he wanted to see how he would feel without talking to me, to figure out if we were right for each other.

Well first of all, WTF, dude.  We’ve known each other for like 3 weeks.  Do you think you’re going to cry yourself to sleep every night in the absence of talking to me?  I don’t really think it works that way.  And secondly, that’s just RUDE.  If you decide you want to not speak to someone you’ve been seeing regularly, to see how you’re feeling, it would probably be the nice thing to do to INFORM ME beforehand that this is the tactic you’re taking, without me having to flat-out ask.

In any case, I let that whole thing linger for a couple of days because I was in Philly taking part in the wedding weekend extravaganza of the year and ain’t nobody got time fo’ that.   He could sit around and ponder all he wanted.

Then I got back to San Diego, and was like, that’s just absolutely ridiculous.  When you first meet someone you should WANT to talk to them, if it’s ever going to go anywhere…and THIS is the problem with online dating.  It’s all so backwards.  You question everything right off the bat, instead of trying to pursue each other because you LIKE each other.

So I wrote him a nice long message telling him basically that I’d make the decision easier for everyone, and say we’re probably not right for each other, so stop your long hard thinking, and we will both move on.  I ALSO told him, that he is approaching finding a wife like a business deal, and he needs to stop over-analyzing and just relax and let things happen if he ever wants to be in a real relationship.  I told him what he was doing was exhausting and backwards, and off-putting.  I also told him his tactic of ignoring me instead of communicating what he was doing was a dick move.  He agreed on all accounts.  So to make this extremely long story short (or is it too late for that?)… ON TO THE NEXT ONE.

Which was last night, and so boring and awful that I’m not even going to talk about him.

Also, I woke up this morning and wrote that Tinder guy a weird poem that didn’t make any sense:

Questions still hanging, blowing in the air
Running, ducking, crouching behind the tree
The old woman still breathes,
The children outside shout with glee
The cat purrs in rhythm with the ticking
Of the old mans pocket watch
As he watches his wife struggle for air
The trees have turned red, and orange and brown
Burnt colors of autumn, but the man just stares
At the memory of a woman once filled with joy
She now has not even a tear
The cat shuts his eyes, thinks of the boy
Who once kept the woman laughing in the chair
No laughter, no more
The pocket watch ticks and ticks and ticks

Instead of him responding to my poem with another poem, he wrote:

“Not sure what this is about, but I like the poem.”

I then responded:  ” You’re supposed to reply with one.  Isn’t that how this works?”

Then I got this:

“Is what we do normal
is it so informal
That in my life
I go unrecognized
By the sounds of vally
I here now testify
That I will not live a lie
Fear will never draw me shy
It’s going to be alright
Give it everything, fight.
Sing to to highlands
Dance to seasons
Show your passions
Lay your foundation
Bring our town
To a new recognition
Sing to the highlands
Dance to the seasons
Give me me 4 reasons to sing this song”

 

 

and…. “I wrote this for my buddies band. “
Well that’s not really fair.  I wrote mine on the fly.  But whatever.  Then he wrote:
“It’s been a lil while since we spoke. Sorry. I’m totally
game to pursue what I said before. Thanks for the very nice poem. Ill
keep sending more. Looking forward to this :)”
I started out on the conservative side I guess.  I also don’t know how to write poems.   So he doesn’t think I’m weird yet?  Maybe I’ll stick to short stories…  I think that was one of the options he gave me in his last message….
I suppose I should wrap this up.  It’s almost time to start my trek down to Mexico.  Well, the border.  Ugh.  It’s so HOT there.  Catch ya on the flip side 😉
xoxo Gossip Girl

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