Film Frenzy

Between your great feedback, my instinct and the fact that Mister Darcy said “Bugger” last night, I’ve decided to go on a second date with him. We’re going to see The Next Three Days Saturday night.

I’m genuinely excited about this, but I’m kind of nervous because he was so nervous last week; so I’m nervous he’ll be nervous. Why was he so uncomfortable? I intimidated him? It’s his natural disposition? He’s on the lam? His ripcord wasn’t responding? This is confusing.

Nerves are like yawns. They’re contagious. So we’ll be stiffly sitting in our seats, minding our personal space, and then we’ll put our hands in the popcorn bucket at the same time and then look at each other and pull our hands out as fast as we can. The popcorn dance is tricky. It’s always a power play to see who removes their hand and who proceeds to take a handful.

Everyone has a movie date story. When I was 15 I went to see Armageddon with this totally hot older guy (think 18 not 45), but when I turned left to look at him, he was staring at the wall. And he didn’t move for several minutes. So finally, I tapped him on the shoulder, pointed at the screen and said, “The movie’s that way.” He looked at me, didn’t say a word, and turned back to the wall. Apparently he watched movies with a side eye.

My older brother once took a girl to the movies and said he kept looking over at her because he thought she was crying. The next day she told the entire grade he was a huge creep who stared at her the entire movie. So that went well.

We’ll see how round two goes. Meanwhile, Bob Loblaw hasn’t called me Babe in over 24 hours, so maybe he’s in Babe rehab. And when I got home from work last night, an attractive brunette was moving in next door.

I smell a sitcom!

Rebel With a Cause

Alright I have a confession to make. Let me preface this by saying I really do try to stand by the things I say and to my core beliefs. I like to do what’s right. But, well, I’m finding myself torn between what is right and what is….hot. Really hot.

So Bob Loblaw has committed a crime. Well, he has multiple offenses. Because he’s called me Babe roughly nine times now. And it’s so annoying! Seeing that word in a text from him is like seeing your dad in a Speedo. You just want to pretend it’s not happening. And you don’t want your friends to see it either.

Anyhoo, normally I’d just write him off and move along. I mean I've already ragged about this, but it really just cheapens our love. Haha just kidding. By the way, he probably Googled a line from one of the articles I showed him and is sitting at his desk reading this sentence right now, with his jaw dropped in complete disgust. Hi Bob!

But seriously, it makes me think he's a womanizer and fancies himself the James Dean of our time. (If that was the case, he could call me anything he wanted to. And no, one photo wouldn't do James justice.) I mean do I need to wear a name tag on our first date? The whole Babe thing is just derogatory. Does he call every girl Babe? Is he going to meet my mother and say, "Hey Babe" as he winks and puts his hand on my butt?

However he’s really intelligent and nice. And from his photos I can tell homeboy’s got it going on. And it is just ONE word. Maybe I'm being silly. I just can't help worry this is a warning and he's total sleaze.

Stick to my guns…or stick to his?

Lactose Intolerant

Can we take a minute to talk about something that really makes me cringe? Like appetite-suppressing, frown-inducing full-on nausea? As you might have picked up by now, I have a fairly low tolerance for the cheese and the sleaze.

So when a cute guy (ahem Bob Loblaw) I’ve been texting with starting slipping in the occasional Babe or Hun, I was extremely disappointed. It’s the sleaze, it’s the cheese and, as we all know, the cheese stands alone. Ow!


I’m a classy, intelligent, fully employed member of society, not some fake blonde in pleather pants and a cut-off bebe t-shirt. Although I did own a black bebe t-shirt for a hot minute in college, that had their name in rhinestones across the chest. That I wore to frat parties, confident guys would be unable to resist a girl with fake diamonds glued to a cotton shirt.

Anyway, this misogynism shrouded in a cloak of smoothness is really a downward slope. Because if you start out as Hun, suddenly you’re Baby, and then one day you wake up and you’re just Ho. (Or as my dad thinks it's said, Skank-Ho.)

While I’m always turned off by the audacity and sheer ignorance of a guy I barely know calling me Sweetie, there must be a ton of girls who like this behavior because a lot of guys do it. Or maybe these women are just tolerating it for the attention? Do they actually like being a Hun?

Why don’t you just call me Sugar, pat me on the butt and tell me your beer isn’t going to refill itself?

Bottom line, the Babe-caller isn't going to try and get to know you. He's going to try and charm your pants off. Literally. He probably imagines if he focuses hard enough, your pants will actually take themselves off while he pretends to laugh at your joke and refills your vodka tonic. So the second a guy plays the Sweetie card, you'd be wise to politely move along.

Or put on an apron and get moving. That beer really isn't going to refill itself.

Maid in the U.S.A.

I’ve done a little house cleaning. I had only exchanged a few emails with Col. Sanders, and just wasn’t feeling it. Plus he was kind of short. And in one of his photos he was making a peace sign. So I dropped the quick fade. Which really wasn’t even a fade because we never met. It was more like a quick delete. All communications ceased.

And I wasn’t really interested in Dick. Sure we had some funny conversations, and I accidentally sexually harassed him via IM, but he was a little abrasive. He kept saying things like he was sick of meeting trash. Oh and then he asked me, basically a stranger to him, how many one night stands I’ve had. Excuse me? Then he said he’d guess at least 10. Delete.

I am still chatting with two guys. Mister Darcy, the charming British chap who continues to amuse me, finally signed up for Gmail so we could chat. He wasn’t familiar with it, so I coerced him into getting an account. The next evening I got an email that read, “Right then, I signed up. Now what?” Now you just talk to me in your Prince William voice. He could read a VCR installation manual to me, and I'd be peachy as punch.

Then there’s Bob Loblaw. This boy’s primary method of communication is texting. Which is fine. But I don’t like meeting a guy in person without chatting on the phone at least once or twice. So I was happy when he called me the other night. And he has a cute voice!

I could tell that he has a really good sense of humor, so I decided to just tell him I have a blog about my dating life. Why hide it? It’s a big part of my life, and I wanted to see how he reacted. Well, he was genuinely interested and said he wanted to read some of my entries.

I’ve told guys in the past that I have this blog, but I’ve never shown any of them my stuff. It’s just so weird to have some man see my dating history on paper. I may as well hand them my diary. Which I don’t currently have, although I did recently find my diary from 6th grade and let me just tell you, I was way ahead of my time. I had bulleted lists of dating rules, which ranged from only ordering salad and eating half, to not talking a lot about myself and really focusing on my date. And then I’d written a script that I was going to read when I called this totally cute 8th grader named David who probably didn’t even know who I was, and pretend to be my best friend “Ashley” and get this guy to meet the real me at the movies.

Anyway, the idea of sharing my stories with Bob Loblaw was equal parts intriguing and terrifying. I decided I had to do this. So, I carefully selected three articles (this one, this one and this one),dropped them in an email and hit send. And then I realized my heart was racing and my palms were a little clammy. I was really nervous.

Well he’s batting a thousand, because he said he loved them. And not because he stroked my ego with some nice comments, but because he gets it. He gets that dating can be ridiculous and it's something to laugh about.

Let’s see if he gets to first base.

The Three Musketeers

Alright so I'm chatting with three gentlemen right now. They all seem really nice and cute, so I'm enjoying the PMA.

There's a stock trader (I know, I know) who went to school in Kentucky and likes talking about college basketball and how much better his school's team is than mine. Colonel Sanders wants to meet sometime next week, so I'm thinking we could do something fun like grab coffee and play a game and then get in a screaming match over whose team is better. Should be fun.

Then we have a former college football player (I know, I know) who told me he loves the water, does not appreciate women who expose their thong underpants above their jeans, and didn't have that many jersey chasers in college. Well Dick Butkus asked if I could get together on Nov. 5 because that would give us a few weeks to talk and get to know eachother before we met in person. I thought that was a nice idea. However he did text me yesterday morning at 7 a.m. to tell me good morning and to have a great day. So I replied with, "Thanks, you too!" a few hours later, to which he replied "Good Day!" I'm not sure if he was telling me he was having a wonderful Thursday or he's from 1905 and wears a monacle and top hat and was haughtily telling me goodbye.

I'm sort of on the fence about Dick, and I can't put my finger on why, so we'll see how this plays out.

Last but certainly not least, we have a life-lovin' lawyer (I know, I know) who just started a job in the city. He IM'ed me when I was chatting with Dick Butkus so I wasn't really paying attention. It was kind of like when you walk up to two friends talking at a party and they really don't want to acknowledge you because Trent's telling a really funny story about the time he and Amanda went camping and their dog got into the baked beans and it would just be horrible to start the whole story over.

Anyway, I checked out his profile and he has this adorable smile and chocolate brown hair. He volunteers, likes sports, and is close to his family. So I decided to say hello back. He asked me what brought me to the site, which is a question I hate. Why are we allll here? So I replied, "Because Ashley Madison is only for men." Of course I said just kidding and he laughed and everyone was happy.

I couldn't talk long because I had somewhere to be, but I was intrigued, so I gave Bob Loblaw my email address and off I went.

This morning I opened my inbox to find an email from him. Which put a big smile on my uncaffeinated face.

So we've got a Southerner, a conservative panties lobbyist and an attorney.

I do not object.