Passive Aggressive Dating

Spring has finally sprung! It's a gorgeous 70 degree evening in New York City tonight. The sun is shining and the air is warm. You ask, why are inside on such a lovely day? To which I respond, screw you, mind your own business. NO! I say, this is the first evening that I could go home right after work - and work is cra-zay at the moment - and I'm trying to write whenever I can. Even on warm sunny days. It's all for you!

My bff recently sent me a new handy dandy dating-type website thingy called "Subway Crush". It is very similar to the "Missed Connections" section of Craigslist, except it is set up by subway, giving the subway line in the appropriate colored bubble () and the headline matches the color. People write in stuff like "Cutie in floppy hat. Our hands touched." BARF. The site hasn't been populated as much as Missed Connections, and it's not nearly as raunchy. (Seriously, if you have never perused the Missed Connections, you are missing out! People write the craziest stuff. Do it next time you are bored). Oh, but I did just see the headline on Subway Crush, "Tall Drink of Water - Huge Package." Nice! That's what I like to see.

Let's face it, we spend a lot of time on the subway just as a by-product of living in NYC. I know that I see plenty of cuties every time I am on the subway, but how do you actually go about talking to someone? You write them a message after the fact, instead of just putting yourself out there and risking perhaps a little rejection. The internet! Allowing people to maintain social awkwardness since 1996 - that's the year my parents got AOL on our home computer. Yeah dial-up! I'll also admit that it can be supremely awkward to just start talking to someone on the subway, especially in rush hour prior to a morning cup of joe with about 50+ other passengers on the same train.

Even with my faithful Crazy Blind Date site, a few of the guys who I have gone out with have been very passive aggressive when asking me for a second date. Following the date, you can just have the site send your information to the person, so they can contact you. No reason to get someone's number that night, unless you really want to go out with them. Two guys got my number immediately following the date, and the one guy asked me out again that night. Total turn off, mostly because he asked me out via text message to which I turned him down via text message. But that's old news!

The last guy I went out with (who had a goatee, and you all know how I feel about goatees!) didn't even mention going out again, then that night, he sent me his information asking me if I wanted to hang out another time. It caught me off guard, because I just didn't think he was interested or that he picked up the fact that I was totally not interested.

If any of you faithful readers out there will remember the original goateed man, you should know that he got my number as we were saying our goodbyes. I genuinely wanted to go out with him again, because he was smart, funny, and seemed pretty cool. Maybe the physical attraction wasn't there, but hey you never know! I've got a keep an open mind with this whole dating thing. Like I've said before, positivity! Well, the goateed man sent me his info the next day and wrote me a really nice message, so I wrote him back and it all seemed fine. Until I got an email from him a few days later, which read:

"You had mentioned that you would be interested in meeting up again. If this is still the case, let me know when you might be free. I'm around tonight and tomorrow and maybe Saturday evening if you are interested in doing something again."

Uh, are you asking me out? Because that is the LAMEST way anyone has ever asked me out! Our previous emails were super casual, but this one sounded like he was writing to a business associate. Also, he was giving me a time table to respond (the email was written on a Wednesday afternoon). Um, ok! I'm a busy lady. I may not be able to make plans with you on a whim (even though that is the entire point of CBD, shhh). I felt like I was being scolded or something; like I should have been the one to write him about going out another time after exchanging a total of two emails. I'm sorry, but that is not the way to a girl's heart, especially mine! Take some initiative dude! I would have probably gone out with him, if he didn't send me the most passive aggressively lame email known to wo-man.

Ah, this is the city that we live in. People can easily hide behind the guise of their online selves instead of taking chances and talking to other human beings (one world, y'all). Though, I will say, it is taking a big risk to go out on a date with someone who you have no prior knowledge about. You wouldn't think that the people using such a service would be so lame! And afraid of confrontation, as I write from the comfort of my living room, typing as my online self, watching my roommate's cat chase her tail. Listen, people, I never said I was perfect!

Hopefully with the warmer weather moving in, the city will get a little happier and we will all remember that just because we are New Yorkers, doesn't mean we are too cool for school. Because that statement right there was a testament to how lame I am.

Maybe I was too harsh on the goateed man.

Naw.

PS. I learned how to set up links in my blog, which I'm sure you noticed. I totally went on overkill tonight.

Dinosaur Baseball

Good evening readers! It's a lovely Sunday night in Brooklyn as I'm prepping to watch the Rock of Love II season finale. Ah, life is good. I'm dvring it, so I can watch it commercial free, in case you were wondering about my television viewing habits. And I know you are!

This weekend was probably one that will go down in the history books. Well, it will be pretty memorable for me until the next awesome weekend that comes along. I randomly decided that I was going to go to Philly for the night earlier in the week. I had a birthday party Friday night, and you all know how I feel about parties. Love them! I didn't meet any cuties, but I did have a grand old time laying on the soft shoe for most of the night. Whatever that means! New York can get a little intense sometimes, so a night away was perfecto. My cousin and I took a long ass train down there to meet up with our other cousin. I only ever hang out with family members. It's just the way of the Goonies. And Goonies never say die!

Whenever I hang out with my family (which is always as you now know), we end up inventing about 25-30 new catch phrases within 5 minutes of being around each other. It's amazing, but anyone not involved in the creation of the phrases may feel a little put out and probably pretty freaked out. Our standard recipe of fun is: catch phrase, rinse, repeat. Basically, the whole time spent in Philly was repeating all of the funny things we came up with in the course of hanging out for a good couple of hours. At one point, I said, "I like things." Truest statement everrrrr.

So, as you can probably tell, this post will not really cover anything about dating or New York for that matter. Sometimes I have to deviate! I did go on a date in the middle of the week that I will tell you all about later.

My cousins are crazy in the best way possible. When my cousin, Chris, was a kid, he was so obsessed with dinosaurs that he made his teacher call him Reptile instead of Chris. Awesome. My cousin, Ali, drank 8 beers on Thursday night just for the hell of it. Hardcore. So, while at Chris' apartment in Philly, while we were drinking Sparks Plus (sparks plus), we invented the best game known to man. Dinosaur Baseball.

For some reason, Chris had a bag full of little plastic dinosaurs. At one point, he was standing in his living room holding a whiffle bat and the idea was born. I said, "Where is that bag of dinosaurs you were telling me about?" The next 30 minutes were spent by one person lobbing a little plastic dinosaur at another person who is up to bat. Let me tell you, I am amazing at Dinosaur Baseball. I hit almost everyone of those little dinosaurs thrown my way. The next morning, we woke up and there were teeny tiny dinosaurs spread through out the apartment. I stepped on a few of them stumbling out of bed in the morning.

Ahhhhh, the rest of the night, we just drank more and played some Wii. We were trying to rally to go out to a bar, but that just never happens when I go to Philly. We always end up having so much fun just hanging out that we rarely make it out.

Good times, good times. Ok, I'm going to finish watching Rock of Sluts Deuce. A-mazing show.

California Dreaming

Whenever the weather starts to change over from winter to spring, I start to get majorly anxious about the impending warm weather. So much so, that I think I can trick Mother Nature by wearing what I think are season appropriate clothes, even if they aren't really weather appropriate. Take that Mother Nature! You must be so bitter, making it so cold for us on the East Coast right now. Warm up already, you frigid bitch! Kidding! I love you. Now make it warm.

Sometimes it's difficult being an East Coaster, especially being a female East Coaster. My friend sent me an article today with a map of the US that identified how many more singles there are in each metro, by gender. Women equal red dots on the map (um, thanks for reminding me of my period, dude who created this map), and men equal blue dots. I live on the wrong coast. For reals. According to this map, there are 210,820 more single women than single men living in the NYC-Northern NJ area. AH! I know there are over 8 million people living in this city, but that’s just depressing! Incidentally, my friend entitled her email, “Why It’s Not My Fault That My Love Life Stinks.” With odds like that, no wonder!

As I’m studying the map more, still in shock from the huge red dot looming over NYC, I glance to California. The state contains one tiny red dot, which appears to be the location of Sacramento (at least I think it is). San Francisco has a huge blue dot, LA has a huge blue dot and two additional blue dots surrounding it. In LA, there are 89,459 more single men than women living there. Obviously, I’m not only in the wrong city, I’m in the wrong state! And in the wrong portion of the country, for that matter. The East Coast is heavily populated with red dots compared with the mass amounts of blue dots overtaking the West Coast.

In the article that accompanies this oh-so-informative map, the guy who wrote it, Richard Florida (nice name, buddy), is basically saying that people move to different regions for two reasons: job opportunities and to find a mate. Duh. Why else would I move anywhere? The typical person makes most decisions in one’s life based on these criteria (with a few exceptions, I might add!). People genuinely want to be happy – or at least I hope we all do! (Cheer up, Charlie!) – and moderately successful. The article never really mentions why there is a higher population of women on the East and men on the West, but it does mention that men are more willing to travel away from their families for work than women are. I’m not so sure about that one! I know plenty of mama’s boys on this coast, particularly in NJ (I’m not dissing you Jersey, just making a statement. I know you get rough treatment, baby).

I’m not even sure how this map makes me feel, to be honest. I looked at it and said to myself, self, you already knew this. It just makes me wonder why there are so many single women in NYC. It is the greatest city in the world! And it’s also one of those places that will always have opportunities opening up, something that women have not been privy to for as long as men have. Yeah, women in the workplace! We wear heals and we don’t care who we step on! Oh, wait, sorry, did that hurt? Let me get a bandage.

The guru often goes out to LA for work, and I’ve been incessantly asking her if she will take me out there sometime (I’ve only ever been once when I was just an innocent child). This map just gave me more reason to want to go out there.

So, here is a run down of the cities that are constantly having sausage parties: Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver-Aurora, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland Dallas-Ft. Worth, and Honolulu. I expect you all to be planning a road trip at this moment.