Week Ten: Date Report

Week 10. Date 1. This is not actually a date, but I’m counting it anyway. Faced with not meeting my goals, I decide to take action. I drag Bridget and Kathy to the Lab for a “singles club” event. It seemed promising – they do activities like wine tasting and hiking, and tonight’s event is a social at the brewery.

“Do you have men in this club?” I ask the woman who runs the group, doubtfully eyeing all of the women sitting at the table. “Welllll…” she responds. “There’s more women than men. Women are just more active. Also this is a good group if you want people to do things with. Everyone is very friendly.” Which is all fine and good. Except that I’m not looking for people to do things with. I’m looking for one man to have a relationship with. We order beers, dreading sitting at the table with it's ensuing small talk. We linger at the bar, watching members of the group arrive. Men do start to trickle in, although this only adds to my general dismay. Everyone is way older than us. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But I want someone I could possibly have kids with, not someone who has already put his kids through college.

We decide to try speed dating next.

Week 10. Date 2: Pink Party. He looks familiar, but I can’t quite place him. It’s a frisbee party, there’s lots of people, and I’ve just come from my friend Mike’s Birthday party, (Happy Birthday, Mike!!!!) where I drank too much wine. I’m blaming Jonathan for bringing my favorite kind, although Lord knows he didn’t exactly force it down my throat.

“Don’t you remember me?” he says. “I met you at the Pink Party.” Oh, right. The first guy I’d brought home from a party in over ten years. You’d think I’d remember. And furthermore, he was three sheets to the wind at the Pink Party, and woke up in my room with no recollection of where my house was or how to get back to his car. So I was surprised he remembered me. He had given me his phone number, but I never called. Something about me having to ask if he wanted to see me again clued me into the fact that he probably didn’t. "I'm sure I'll see you around..." he had said.

But maybe I was wrong? Tonight, he certainly seems interested. But roles are reversed after this party. He's driving, not drinking, and I wake up with a pounding headache.

As I leave, he says he wants me to call him. Unprompted. But I still sense some sort of hesitancy or something on his part. I’m not sure what it is, but this time, I’m determined to find out what the real deal is. So I pry more.

“I’m not dating” he states.

Crap! How can I count this as a date if he’s not dating? I decide I’m going to anyway. It certainly is more of a date than the “singles club” I counted as a date last night.

“Did you ever spend more time getting over a relationship than you spent having the relationship?” He asks. Apparently he’s still getting over some chick he went out with last fall.

We're clearly in different dating worlds, and I'm confused. “Why would I call you if you’re not dating?” I ask. “I don’t know,” he responds. “Because we like each other?”

Good point. I do like him. He’s fun, interesting to talk to, and nice. But as my friend Jennifer asks; How long is going to mourn his previous relationship? I give him my phone number, but I’m not holding my breath waiting for him to call.

Week 10. Date 3. Dogman

Going with the gut check- he's nice, but I'm not alltogether smitten. He's way less nervous than last time, but I'll still go out with him one more time to be sure I'm really getting to know him.

Week Nine: Date Report. You be the Judge

Zilch. Nix. Donut. Nada. Nil. Naught. Zip. Diddlysquat. Not a single date. In giving Ultraman a serious chance, I stopped emailing or setting up dates with anyone. Unfortunately, the result is I have nothing going on during week nine.

I guess this means I have time to reflect on this whole crazy process. So first, I should say that although I liked Ultraman, I don’t really miss him. I felt disappointed when I told him things wouldn’t work out – but it's because I'm not in a relationship, not because I'm not in a relationship with him.

I’m thinking more and more that the whole “gut check” might be entirely the way to go, and I should just scrap that whole list I wrote in the beginning. As some people have pointed out (and correctly so) if I liked Ultraman a lot, I probably wouldn’t give a rat’s ass what he drove. And I don’t want someone who is a carbon copy of me. Upon reflection, I might have been using the whole values thing as an excuse because I just didn't like him enough. (although values are extremely important to me.)

I've definitely had some good comments/thoughts/suggestions from people. I appreciate the input! Here are just some of them:

"If you don't look forward to seeing someone, maybe you shouldn't be dating them"

"To me, making each other laugh, enjoying each other's company, respecting who the other person is as a person is HUGE"

The gut check – "Do you want to kiss him? Hug him? Shove your tongue down his throat?" may be more important than any of the other things

Respect is necessary, maybe more so than love

I need to be more up front with how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking

"You can tell a lot from a kiss"

"In the context of a committed relationship, it can be fair to ask someone to change their behavior out of respect for the other person's values. I don't think it's fair to ask someone to change their values to match your own"

"If you don't have good chemistry, even if you have the right number of cars and coffee cups, it's going to be hard to make it work"

I'm going to officially extend this whole three date a week thing until my birthday at the end of April. Maybe this will make up for weeks with not enough dates!