this article is somewhat interesting

It's what your favorite color says about you. Personally, I'm a fan of purple.

http://yahoo.match.com/y/article.aspx?articleid=6130&526103&BannerID=706376

someone for right now

I've been thinking a lot about the "right now" men. The men you date for a little while when there's nothing else going on, and you really need to go on a date. And I've been thinking about how you meet these men. Apparently it can be as easy as going to the neighborhood bar and sitting down to talk to your bartender friend and listen to some open mic performances, and in walks your guy, reeking of cigarettes and eventually, alcohol. The next day he calls you and 5 days later, he's quit smoking. It's sort of a dream scenario, really. I still can't believe it myself. He is *perfect* for right now.

old man walks into a bar...

Your first thought is, that's so nice, his granddaughters are taking him out on the town. Then an hour passes, and they're trying to dance badly on the "dance floor" of some seedy Village bar, and you realize he's wearing a ring. THEN you notice his hand is groping ever so nonchalantly at the woman's ass area. and you notice she almost falls down several times. Your friend's boyfriend asks awkwardly if it's the appropriate moment to "step in," since the girl's friend seems to have gone MIA and you worry for Drunk Girl's decision making at this point. Does she not realize he's 80 years old and married? Does she know he is secretly worth a billion dollars? Is he really her grandfather and they just don't frown upon incest since they're not from The City? These scenarios bring more questions than actual fun having at the bar, because now you're involved in the action. Even if it's super old action, where the super old are taking advantage of obviously very, very drunk younger women who CANNOT be his wife. Unless they got married when she was 5 years old.

You start to wonder if you can go to a bar anymore and not analyze the situation of every other patron there. It becomes less fun when you're wrapped up in your own drama rather than enjoying whatever top 40 rap some seems to be getting people to dance these days.

speed dating fail

so girl has shit lunch date with ex who she discovers has live-in girlfriend, girl goes to bar to drown sorrows since drinking at home and crying where roommate can hear is lame, proceeds to bar for impromptu speedating ritual that she is late for. has two "dates" with extremely illegitimate bachelors who are single FOR A REASON, the latter of which ends in tears on her part and him saying he needs a drink and hopes she won't still be waiting at the table for him when he returns...

in which case she says YEAH, DONT COUNT ON IT, storms off, and is ambushed by the unfortunate couple who had overheard about 5 minutes of her "terror date" with the Douche Bag from Hell and felt like they really needed to buy the poor girl a drink... thus I join them in their booth, the happy couple who had wandered into "speedating night", had another bourbon ginger and regaled them with my Shitty Wednesday story of having lunch with the ex, having to go to law class, fake having read case studies of whoever v. so and so, and then want to drown her sorrows in beer followed by Nerd #1 and Douche #2...

Turns out I have a friend in common with the girl, who is from Southern California as well, and we become fast friends, all the while her boyfriend reassures me that finding the right guy is just around the corner. Douche #1 actually has the balls to come over, find me, and lean precipitously over the railing of the booth to ASK ME FOR MY NUMBER and proceed to terrorize me, whilst my new friend is like, "dude wtf, ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" and eventually as I'm TEARING UP AND TELLING HIM TO GET FUCKING LOST IN THE FUCKING UNIVERSE, he leaves. His friends remain at the bar and looked at me later as I left. Because obviously they're not also creepy, having associated with the master of creepy himself.

I left to hit another bar for a pizza and some familiar company: the blond hipster girl who bartends nights. Met a birthday boy, his friends, and a smoker while trying to cut my losses. Decide it's not the bar for me. Moving on, calling a couple friends to tell about my situation, and then find the next bar...

proceed to make fast friends, acquire a backmassage from 2 men, make a musician friend named Jamie, a Mexican friend who plays piano, and then dove across the bar to have the chance at pouring my own Guinness, the Guinness the bartender drank, and then an awful concoction I created called "Shitty Wednesday": Fernet, port, lemon and lime juice, soda water, grapefruit juice, cherries. Pretty vile. I was "fired" from my post behind the bar. I did pour a decent Guinness, however. And I didn't have the key lime and Skyy vodka to make my lime signature drink, or the nutmeg ingredients to make a rum punch... but I did make an Irish bartender friend, musician friends, a massage friend who gave me his email (?!), and was serenaded at the piano...

The night significantly improved since bar (and drink) #1.
I'm going to go cry into my pillow and empty bed right now. 'xuse me, g'nite.

and outside an elevator, there's no spark

We didn't survive a week of making out and innocent sleepovers because I realized there was a huge problem with Most Recent Guy. I guess I'll just come out and say it, since there's really no nice way to put it: he smells. He's a Smelly Guy. He doesn't shower after coming back from the gym, and it's like pulling teeth to get him to change a shirt before he wants to cuddle up for the night. That's a huge problem for me. Huge. I really don't want to be woken up in the middle of the night because of the odor emanating from the pores of the person sleeping next to me. It's not pleasant at all. And after a couple nights, becomes an even bigger problem that even deodorant can't solve (and which I'm positive he's never used in his life). There was so much potential! Or not, in the end. Next.

Last night was the first time since April that I've slept next to someone I found interesting and attractive. Needless to say, it was hard to actually get any sleep. I found myself watching him breathe, and then I'd check the time again, and listen to some more Sigur Ros, and then rub his back. He has a girlfriend, of course. But that didn't stop him from not minding that most of the time on the couch my leg was pressed up against his leg, and that the playful pokes in the arm and shoulder massages were returned in kind. It was all very wonderful and playful, and he doesn't even live in this state. He's just visiting a friend of mine for the weekend, and I ended up crashing at her place when it got too late to try to go home... not that I minded claiming the futon and pushing him to decide whether he'd go for uncomfortable air mattress or just suck it up and hope I didn't bite while he slept on the futon too. So, I've got a crush. I can only see it going badly, and me being further crushed by the crush. Funny how you can predict your own impending heartbreak...

I really need to get some friends to set me up or something.

the adventure all started in an elevator

Or rather, right before the elevator full of my peers who had gathered for a wine and cheese reception...

I made some new friends. We planned to hit a bar after the reception broke up, and while on the elevator, this strange guy pulls a hat off the girl near me (who I'd just gotten to know this evening and had talked to a bit), and does a funny dance and starts rapping with an Indian/Rasta accent? Everyone on the elevator was definitely paying attention to this really extroverted guy pulling weird stunts in a crowded elevator. Down on street level, I see him and Hat Girl batting each other on the arm and then what I thought was a kiss on the lips. I turn away for a second to see what some other guys I'd met had decided for our next location, and when I turn back, everyone else is gawking at Stunt Guy and Hat Girl completely going at it, tongues, hands, inappropriate touching, sprawling on the hood of a parked car. So basically, the guy went from unknown zero to face sucking a girl in less than 5 minutes. They took off running down the street together, she running after her hat (and the guy--mostly the guy, forget the hat at this point...).

Stunned, I wondered, was it really that easy? I thought, YES, I could get someone random to make out with me before the night was over. That's easy peasy.

Fast forward to having made a bet with one of the guys I'd met at the reception, being stuck in a lame Hipster bar somewhere deep in Hipster land, and being rejected by guy after guy. I realized something that night: there is an inherent difference between laid-back California guys and uptight, suspicious New Yorkers, and the lack of New Yorkers willing to make out with strangers is just one, yet crucial, difference between them. Never before have people pulled back saying "Whoaaa," hitting the breaks on me before. Granted, I was a stranger, but girls have to have better luck than I did at this one lame bar, because some people in this city are allegedly getting laid. I suppose had I been a bartender this experiment would have gone better. Then again, losing the bet was a blow to my ego.

Fast forward a few days and the guy I made the bet with doesn't want me trying to make out with anyone but him. Go figure.

men who are afraid to pick up the phone

It's a problem when men refuse to call you. Asking someone out over email, texting, fax, or carrier pigeon (actually, those last two are sort of unique--I wouldn't rule them out) is sort of inappropriate. Before the advent of texting, what did people have to do? CALL THE GIRL. How did everyone before 2008 deal with dating? Logically! At least by normal standards. What guy really thinks someone is going to answer a "date me" text message from a stranger? It's cute (but aggravating--mostly aggravating) if someone you're dating wants to communicate with you by text messaging all the time when you don't have a text message plan, and he knows it's costing you money, but then offers to give you a dollar. At least you know the person and said person's annoying habits. But being aggravated with someone before you're even really going out... is just aggravating. Are you supposed to reject them via text message? Can I send an IM: "No sorry dude found other date who made phone contact. Hate texting btw c u l8"? A text message? REALLY? I'm still in shock over it. Is this guy in 8th grade? Do I break up with him on a post it?

the week of calling ex's

Because apparently I like to suffer a lot. Because I like walking around in the graveyard of the ghosts from the past. Because there's not enough happening so I need to stir shit up to feel like I'm still breathing. Tequila wasn't enough Wednesday, I had to complicate my life some more, keep myself up till 5am, and accomplish nothing. What part of "don't call, don't text, don't contact me anymore" isn't clear? Emailing counts as contacting. Stop thinking about me! It makes me think about you in return, which is what I don't want to be doing!!

Boys are so aggravating.
You break up with them for a reason.
Then you attack the next innocent victim and the process can start anew. Oh, when will I learn?

38 and a waiter

So, even if you can make tons of money on tips working on your feet in some fancy place, one would hope you have more aspirations in life than waiting tables when you're almost 40. When I think about turning 30, turning 40, I'd like to have something to *show* for my life's struggle, you know? Because when you're hitting on a girl in a bar and the things you reveal are: my parents are dead, my brother is dead, I have no one, and I'm a waiter at 38, you start to wonder that there are reasons he's still single. Meanwhile, with women being single it's never as straightforward. While there are plenty of single women in this city, for one reason or another, who are still out there, the general consensus on single men over 30 seems to be "they're freaks." Saddening fact.

Really, how anyone finds anyone to love is a mystery to me.
I have also realized that there are perhaps many more women in general here than men. So it follows that the single men aren't in a relationship for various reasons, probably pertaining to their sanity.
At least L isn't announcing she's getting married any time soon and leaving me to my singlehood...