Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Your gut instinct......

Have you ever just had a dark feeling about someone?  Nothing that you can really put your finger on, per se, just something that's not right?

I finally met Jimmy last night.  He had mentioned sometime last week that he wanted to go to Legal Seafood, which is a fairly nice restaurant.  We kept talking and then once we agreed upon Tuesday, I received a text asking if I wanted to meet at "The Tilted Kilt".  A Pub?  So, I texted that I thought we were going to Legal Seafood?

Ok.  I'm not driving 35 minutes away to meet some guy in a pub.  It felt like the old bait-n-switch to me.  But, this guy is intuitive.  He could tell I was not going for that even though I didn't say anything.  Long story short, we met at Legal Seafood.  I have spent hours talking to him over the phone.  I felt that we had great chemistry over the phone and even in person.  He is an attractive guy.  Says he's 5'11" which is just blatantly wrong.  I've really enjoyed talking to him.

BUT, there's just something there.  I can't articulate it now.  I'm all mixed up.  But, suffice it to say, I don't think I will talk to this guy again.  I just don't think it's a good idea.  It's almost like I want to call him a phoney.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

The Elvis Bling

Ok.  Have you had a good laugh today?  This is one that I have to blog about because it's just too unreal.  So here goes......

Exchanged a couple of emails with Bob.  He had posted on his profile about what an Elvis fan he was, and I was like, oh I grew up in Memphis.  Love Elvis.  And, I do.  He's a part of my culture.  Everybody back home claims to be related to Elvis, for real.  He is still the King and always will be the very best in my eyes.

Bob is a member of the Dead Elvis Society.  He has been to over 30 Elvis concerts as a boy.  He attended the famous Madison Square Garden come back.  He has a scarf that Elvis gave him in Vegas, blah blah blah.

I THOUGHT this was a conversation piece.  I enjoyed talking about my homie.  I respect his knowledge of Elvis and thought it might be nice to meet this man.  He texted me and asked if I would like to meet this weekend.  So, I suggested brunch on Sunday.  I suggested a couple of really nice buffet restaurants that do a big brunch but we settled on Nudy's Cafe at 10am.

I showed up about 5 mins early and he was already there.  I like that.  But, what I didn't like was as I was walking toward the door, I could see him looking me up and down.  I felt like a piece of meat.  Like a steak about to go on the grill, or something.

So, I introduced myself and shook his hand.  His pictures are from 2008 it turns out.  He is quite a bit larger and greyer than his pics.  He was wearing white tennis shoes, cheap black pants, a beige cotton shirt and he was sporting this necklace:


Do I need to say anything else?  
Leaving me to ask the question yet again, "Oh no he didn't?"



Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Bring it on......

It's been a while since I've posted so here goes.....

The thing with Ron dwindled down in to him calling me and mostly annoying me.  I did go out with him one time after my last post.  I really wanted to see the Great Gatsby and he took me.  Just the movie, no dinner.  I did enjoy the movie and was going to go see it again by myself.  I just never found the time.  Unfortunately for Ron, he did not understand the historical settings of the movie (i.e. Prohibition, the Speak Easy, etc.).  A lot of the movie just seemed lost on him.  That's not all.  It turns out that he doesn't know a lot of things.  I made a reference to Der Fuehrer and he had no idea who I was talking about.  I made a joke another time about me living in England and how if it weren't for the U.S., they'd all be speaking German right now.  He had no idea what I was talking about.  I talked about Dr. Robert Oppenheimer once and he had no idea who that was.  I made a reference to Stephen Hawking, no clue.  Ok.  One might argue that so he doesn't know his history or all that much about theoretical physics.  I'll give you that, but the guy couldn't speak in complete sentences.  It just got to the point that I would almost be in a frenzy when we spoke.  He would just stop talking in the middle of a thought.  Aghh.  By the way, he still texts me. lol

So, then I met another person on eHarmony by the name of Craig.  He was moving here from NY.  As an ex-marine he is 5'10" and weighs 290 pounds (he says).  I was open minded even though he would not provide me with a current picture.  I was even open minded when he told me that he was a recovering alcoholic of 22 years.  The deal breaker came for me when he told me that he signed his children over for adoption to their Stepdad.  He had become a dead beat Dad and stopped paying his child support.  He had this reason and that reason, blah blah blah.  At the end of the day, I just had no respect for that.  I stopped taking his calls and he eventually quit calling.

Fast forward....so I got off of eHarmony and posted my profile somewhere else.  I stated very clearly what I am looking for.  I hit it off with this guy named Jeff (age 47).  So, I agreed to meet him Friday night over dinner.  He took me to a really nice Italian place.  Loved it.  Since we hit it off, we decided to go to the movies on Saturday.  We saw "The Internship".  Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson get an internship at Google.  We are both in IT (he owns his own business) so we enjoyed it.  Then, I saw him briefly on Sunday. He was a gentleman and opened my doors.  He is very intense though.  His divorce is not final yet and he seems to have that edge of anger about him.  He is somewhat quiet and well, I'm not.

Not sure if I will hear from him again.  He understands my situation and my availability.  I made it very clear that I can't be there 100% of the time.  He made it clear that he was looking for someone full time and that should it come along for him, he will let me know but until then, we're good.  However, after the weekend he has let the ball drop and we have lost a bit of momentum.  I have not heard from him.  It's Tuesday, but you know.  I found out that his wife is 5 feet tall.  I am just under 5'9".  Sooooo, he probably is looking for a little runt of a woman.  That's just not me.

In the meantime, I have opened up conversations with a very interesting man named Jimmy.  He has written to me several times and just sort of threw his phone number at me.  He never asked me for mine.  Well, you know me, it just doesn't work this way.  Finally, after a few more email exchanges I agreed to let him call me.  Here's the run down: 54 years old, 4 children aging from 14-8, practicing Catholic, own his own construction business with his cousin, he does the sales part of the business, very Alpha.

At 19 or so, he ended up going to a dealer school in Pennsylvania and learning Black-Jack. So, he decides to pack it all up and move to Vegas.  He stayed there for 3 years playing Black Jack apparently.  Married a woman 12 years older than him.  Didn't work out eventually.  All the children are with his 2nd wife who is 12 younger than him.

His Mom had been doing his books for his business and she came down with cancer.  So, he hired a woman that a friend recommended that had been doing the books for a landscaping company.  Long story short, the woman had embezzled over $400K from his company.  Along with a lot of nice things, she had bought Harley Davidson's for herself, her son, and somebody else.  She had been arrested for embezzlement and there was a court date.  Long story short, before they could get in court she ended up going for a ride and was killed by a truck.  It was an apparent suicide.  He had over 100 employees at the time.  I'm sure that I don't know all the details of this, but it ended up breaking up his marriage.  About the time that his marriage broke up, he lost his Mom and his business.  He's on the uphill side now, he says.  lol

There's something about him.  He says that he would like to take me to a place called Legal Seafood when I am available and says that he will wait.  He is not available this week because he is in Ocean City, Maryland doing deep sea fishing off the Chesapeake.  I've been to Legal Seafood several times for dates through It's Just Lunch.  It's a very nice place.  We'll see what happens.  Stay tuned.

Friday, April 26, 2013

There it is in black and white.

"When a man dates a woman, it's just like fishing.  He is looking for one of two things.  He's either fishing for fish he wants to keep, or he's just out there sports fishing.

.
.
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If he lets you pay for the bill or only pays for part of his, he's sports fishing."


Steve Harvey "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man"

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Lost interest

Well, what can I tell you?  Ron is a really nice guy.  Turns out his an Eagle Scout leader.  Has been for many years.  Why have I lost interest?  Well, here's what happened.....

On our second date, we met at the same place for dinner.  He showed up with flowers which I loved. It was all good.  We had a nice dinner and the waitress brought the check.  We continued to talk and she kept coming to the table asking if she could get us anything else?  She came by THREE more times asking?  In other words, she wanted to be paid and it was fairly obvious.  He didn't do anything but just sit there.  After the third time, I finally just grabbed the black puffy folder and laid a $50 in there.  He said nothing.  Nothing.  Ooooooo-kay.

He was very very awkward walking me to my car which I would later find out that this is because he has only been out on 3 dates after his marriage ended 6 years ago.  I had sprained my ankle the day before and was walking slow.  He knew this.  In spite of that he sped up ahead of me and didn't realize that I wasn't keeping up with him until I gave a little holler.  Once we got to my car, as I said he was really really awkward.  No kiss which was fine.

So I really want to give the guy a chance in spite of making me pay for our date.  He called the next day and wanted to go to the shooting range.  Ok, great idea!  So, I told him to find one half way between his place and mine and we'll go.  He had A LOT of trouble doing this even after I suggested that he google locations.  I finally ended up googling it myself and giving him the numbers to call so that he can find out the hours.  On Saturday, he called with a place and started telling me the range rental fee.  I can only imagine that he is doing this because he again wants me to pay for our date.  You can hear the breaks squealing now, "ERRRRRRRRR".

So, I again gave him the benefit of the doubt since he has little dating experience and asked him if he would like to go dutch on this excursion?  He said no.  So, I asked him why he would tell me this information (range rental fee, gun rental fee, etc)?  I am well aware of what going to the shooting range cost.  So he says he was just repeating what the lady told him.  I felt very uneasy at this point.  I'm not sure how to describe it.  I had no desire to go out with him, but again decided to give him the benefit of the doubt due to his lack of experience in dating.  We then had a discussion and I explained to him that if he asks me out on a date, then I expect to be treated.  I also told him that I am not interested in being a "buddy".  He said that he understood and that he felt bad about letting me buy dinner on the 2nd date.

In the midst of all this, he apologized for being so awkward and says that he would like to kiss me.  I said ok that's fine.  He made this huge deal out of it.  Really built this up.  Wanted to see me.  What am I doing tomorrow? So, I told him that I will be going into Lancaster for some shopping on Sunday.  He said he would like to take me to lunch.  Ok.  We go to Cracker Barrel.  He bought me a nice lunch and walked me to my car.  I'm thinking he is going to kiss me after the big build up.  Well, he kissed me with a closed mouth several times.  Probably 6 times.  Never really kissed me per se.  Very bizarre.

So, I had dinner with him one time during the following week.  It was nice.  We walked around and I showed him a house that I wanted to buy a while back but didn't.  He walked me to my car and then he kissed me.  I had a lot of anxiety about it to be honest since he put it off for so long.

So, a few days later, he would like to "meet" me.  Now that I think about it, he worded it that way.  Maybe I should have understood then?  So, I agreed to "meet" him on Sunday evening after I took my kids to their Dad's.  I got there early and ordered an appetizer and a glass of wine.  He finally showed up and he ordered a glass of water.  He had a small rectangular box that he sort of tossed in front of me.  I did not really acknowledge the box as the way it was presented was more like a dog dropping his bone in front of me.  He eventually said, "that box is for you".  I opened it and he had bought me a sweet little necklace made out of black mother-of-pearl when he had gone to the beach with his Mom a few days earlier.  I was very impressed and thought it very thoughtful.  We stayed there talking a bit and I ordered another glass of wine.  He continued drinking water.  The waitress (in this same restaurant that we initially met in as well as date #2) brought the check.  So far so good.  Eventually it was around 8:30 and I said that I really needed to be going.  He did not offer to take the check or anything.  So, I paid the $20 for my 2 glasses of wine and we left.  He had parked next to me.  Walked me to my car and he wanted to make out like teenagers.  8-|  I don't know.  I was not comfortable with the whole thing.  It disturbed me greatly that he let me pay my check in spite of the conversation we had just had less than 2 weeks ago.

In the meantime, he had decided that he wanted to take me to the Pocono's this Saturday since I've never been.  Then, I find out that he has booked a room at the Days Inn for an over night trip.  Turkey season opens up that day and after he's done hunting, he wants to take me to the Pocono's.  And, stay at the Days Inn.  For those out there who don't know, the Pocono's is a well known honeymoon destination.  They have lots of cabins, bed-n-breakfast's, romantic type places to stay, etc.  I'm not sure that the Days Inn in this particular town is considered a romantic destination as it is right off the turnpike.  He told me he googled "MO-TELS".  I suspect it is a truck driver stop over.

When questioned as to why he would allow me to pick up the check on a date yet again especially after our conversation about it, I found out that he "was not thinking about it".  He said that his stomach hurt and that's why he only drank water.  He says that he was nervous.  He says that he just didn't think about paying for my wine because he was thinking about kissing me goodbye in the parking lot.  He told me that 4 years ago he filed bankruptcy.  He told me that his ex left him in a "bad situation" over 6 years ago, blah blah blah.

I don't know.  I'm just not feeling it.  I have lost interest to be honest.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Ron

I've had a couple of dates since I've been on here.  The only one worth mentioning is ....ah, nevermind. Not truly worth mentioning.

I ended up joining eharmony when my bff decided to get online.  She went OKCupid and I went eharmony.  I paid the money and answered all the questions for their profile matches.  There were a few people I've written back and forth with.  Pretty soon, there is a guy named Ron that showed an interest in me.  We did the "icebreakers" and eventually took it to the phone.  He called me every single night for about a week.  We exchanged pictures.  He wanted to meet so I suggested Sunday night.  So far so good.

Well, after everything I have been through, I have said that I want a "good ole boy".  I put it out in the universe and to my God that I want a Chevy drivin', John Deere baseball cap, gun rack in the truck, red blooded born and bred American man.

Dude showed up in a t-shirt with a moose on it, Blue jeans, tennis shoes and a baseball cap.  It wasn't a sports team either.  If we were down south, I'm pretty sure it would have been a John Deere cap.

He is 6'3".  He opened my doors.  He paid for my meal.  He is very attractive.

Now, I am wondering what's under that cap?  He didn't look bald.  There was hair coming out from under the cap.  It didn't appear to be particularly thin hair.  Hard to tell though.  He has brown eyes and dark hair.  He has a moustache.  He is 43 years old.  He doesn't speak with the obnoxious Philly accent.  He is a practicing Catholic.  We are kinda like the Brady's.  He, being Mike Brady with 3 sons (24, 21 and 18).  And, of course, me being Carol Brady with my 3 lovelies.

He lingered a lot at goodbye.  He asked me to go bowling on Saturday.  I said sure.  I could tell that he wanted to kiss me.  I didn't stand in one spot for long so that didn't happen.  He ended the date by saying, "You are very attractive."  It wasn't in a creepy way.  It was very complimentary and I said, "thank you.  You are too."  I meant it.  He is.

Oh, and he drives a Chevy TrailBlazer.  I drive a Suburban.  lol.  He admired my truck.  8-)

At no time during this date did I say, "Oh NO he didn't".  This one may have promise.  We'll see.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Gordon

I've had a couple of unremarkable dates over the last few months through It's Just Lunch that I haven't bothered to post about.  They were mostly uninteresting and the same old crap.

I got a call a couple of weeks ago regarding a new date with someone named Gordon.  Lisa goes through her usual spiel that I don't really listen to anymore because 98% of the information is just vague and incorrect.  He likes to go to the movies, work out, work on his house, blah blah blah.  I do listen to how tall they are and what color eyes they have.  She typically give a vague description about their job and then I meet them in person and it's something much less interesting than what she described.  You know like how someone says they are a "domestic engineer" and that usually means they are a stay at home Mom.  Think that, but only in describing a man's role.  You get the drift.  But, I digress.  Gordon is an "executive" but she wouldn't tell me what that means as executive could be anything.  He is also 6"2" with brown hair.

We set something up for Saturday Feb 2 at 6pm.  His idea on the day and time and I agreed.  So, then I get a call a couple of days ago wanting to change the time to 5pm.  Hmmmmm.  I smell a rat.  So I asked her why?  No explanation.  Here's the email I sent her this morning:


Lisa,I have given this a lot of thought.  Part of the reason I joined "it's just lunch" is because of what I was told and what the contract said when I joined.  I was under the premise that I would meet men for lunch.  If lunch was not possible (as in most cases for most members because this area is so large that it's next to impossible to drive somewhere eat and get back to work in a short hour), then I was told that we would be introduced over dinner.  The restaurants were advised per IJL's instructions to give us separate checks as per your policy.  

In our conversation yesterday, you advised me that you set up drink dates and coffee dates now.  I paid a phenomenal amount of money for your service.  If I wanted to have drink dates and coffee dates, I could get that from any on-line dating service for a significantly fractional amount of money and some sites are totally free.  How does that make your service any different from match.com or chemistry.com, etc for the client (me)?  You are going to go out of business with this sort of service, and at least these sites use some sort of algorithm for the matches.


I *loathe* meeting someone in a restaurant bar.  This is part of the reason I signed onto your services.  This does not fit into my lifestyle in any way.  In addition, I simply do not do coffee dates.  I have researched this subject quite extensively (as I suggest you do as well).  Any man who says he wants to meet for coffee is a CHEAP SKATE.  They want to meet you for coffee to size you up.  Men are visual.  They don't get to know you over coffee.  They look you over and then make a decision. According to my research the chances of having even a 2nd date after a coffee introduction are slim to none and of the one's who do, the chances of it ending up in a relationship are even slimmer (less than 2%).


My service with IJL has deteriorated to drink and coffee dates?  I'm astounded.  


Regarding Gordon, he wants to change the time of our drink date to on a Saturday to 5pm "because he has a kid".  I have 3 kids of my own.  This guy offers no reasonable explanation as to why he wants to up the time?  Anyone with half a brain can figure this one out.  You said, "You could be missing the opportunity to meet someone really great!"  Sounds to me like he's the one meeting someone really great.... after I get him warmed up on drinks.  Someone that he'll probably have dinner with.  lol   
Lisa, this is just disrespectful to me.  I hope that you will forward this to your management because if you don't I will.  If they aren't in the business of matchmaking, then they are certainly in the business of making money.  


The contract with IJL says that they will introduce you to 12 people over the course of a year.  If I say that I am not interested in meeting Gordon now, they will count him as one of my 12 and I will have to wait until the next month for a different match.  There's very little chance that my concerns will be addressed.  I give up.  Should I waste my time?