Mr. Forgettable

Lest anyone reading my blog thinks I only have strange or bizarre dates, I do have the occasional normal date where I go out with a man who acts like a gentleman, where we have nice conversation, decent chemistry, a good meal etc and everything is grand. But those aren’t nearly so interesting to write or hear about as the wild, crazy, or just plain bizarre ones. To that end….


…this one certainly fits in the “strange” dates category. Be sure to speak up and share your own bizarre dating experiences with me so that I don’t feel like all the crazy men are out there with homing devices pointing towards me!

A few days ago I was contacted on an online dating site by a guy whom I’ve seen on dating sites before. We had a couple short email exchanges and he hinted at meeting up but finally today he instant messaged me, and we had a longer, real time, conversation online. Shortly into our dialogue, he mentioned that he used to be a recruiter, but because of the market had gotten out of the field. I replied that I currently work for a recruiting firm and he said he knew, that he actually knew who I was, had spoken to me a couple of times on the phone and had even come into the office that I work at and met me.

You can’t say these kinds of things to a girl online and not expect her to be a bit shocked. I’ve lamented the smallness of the “world of Orlando” before in this very blog but this is a bit extreme, don’t you think?

Sure enough, he knew my last name, knew what I did for a living, knew where my desk is in the building, knew approximately how long I have been working there, etc. Then he promptly invited me out on a date. He said he thought I was cute then, but didn’t feel like he could ask me out at the same time he was applying for a job with my company. (At least he had some sense, right?)

I agreed to meet him for a drink at a local bar, we met, and I have no recollection of having ever met him before. Its not that I doubt it happened, I’m sure it did or he wouldn’t know all those things about me, in fact I even remember his resume. But I don’t remember him in person at all. I remember other people who came in and interviewed, but I have zero recollection of him.

I guess my lack of recall should have told me something…The date didn’t go very well. It wasn’t bad by any means but there was no chemistry, no attraction, and although we chatted easily and made each other laugh, we had no rapport. The date was completely forgettable. In a year or two he will probably be able to contact me again and I won’t remember that I ever went out with him before…

Sick in the head

Being sick is wreaking havoc on my dating life! I came down with a head cold the other day, it might even be the flu, and I have been pretty miserable for the last few days. Kleenex and Nyquil are my constant companions and my nose begins to resemble a certain sled pulling reindeer.


Just prior to coming down with this bug, I was contacted by a man on a dating website who seemed very interested in learning more about me. His picture was cute, he wrote in complete and understandable sentences and didn’t appear at first glance to have any glaring defects. (If you are 35+ and single, you know these qualities in a single 35+ man are rare) We exchanged a few quick email volleys and made each other smile and want to know more, and then BOOM, this cold hit me. I feel miserable. I just want to close my eyes, cuddle up with my blanket and pillow and trusty box of Puffs extra strength with lotion, and pretend the world doesn’t exist.

Problem is… this guy doesn’t know or understand this. I get the next email from him and I feel so bad, I don’t even want to answer it. I don’t want to spend time on the computer, I’m sick! So I roll over and go back to sleep. Next morning, there’s another email from him. “Didn’t hear back from you…” Do I really HAVE to answer this? My head is full of cotton wool and my eyes don’t want to come unglued and the last thing I want to do is be witty and conversant via email. So I send a quick “I’m not ignoring you, I’m just sick,” note to him and go back to bed. Two days later I’m still not well but there are three more emails from him sitting in my inbox. The first one is get well wishes, the second asks if I’m better, the third is starting to get a questioning tone, wondering if I’m just using being sick as a way to blow him off.

I write back, “No I’m not ignoring you, yes I’m still sick although slowly getting better.” Practically before I hit send I have a response from him asking if we can talk on the phone. Does he really think I want to talk on the phone when I can’t even breathe with my mouth shut? Do I want his first impression of me to be one where I dalk like dis and cabnt breede? And that’s not to mention how alluring it is to have someone sniffing and coughing and sneezing in your ear, none the less pausing to blow their nose (a task I do that has often been compared to someone loudly blowing a trombone or an elephant trumpeting prior to charging).

After much explanation of this, he asks if I would like to set a date and time to meet in person. Some quick calculation on my part decides the day I will be able to once again speak like a normal person, breathe through my nose…and then add another 3 days for the redness, swelling and peeling of the Kleenex-dried appendage in the middle of my face to abate. I tell him approximately a week from now I’ll probably be up to meeting. I think that was the last straw. I get the final “I really thought we had a good connection but now you keep putting me off and seem very careless of when or if we even meet, I want someone more excited to meet me than that” email. And truth is, I don’t care. I’m way too sick to care! And I thank God that I can now go back to bed without feeling guilty.

To Be(ard) Or NOT To Be(ard)

Last night I was out with a group of friends at a local hole-in-the-wall pub listening to a blues/americana band play.  The band was great, the beer was tasty, the company wonderful, the people watching... well that's when I noticed something odd going on.  The pub was packed with people, mostly men.  And the majority of them had beards.  There were a few nicely groomed goatees.  A couple of short and neatly trimmed full face beards.  However, by and large, the majority of men there had full on "Hagrid from Harry Potter" style beards.  The guys from ZZtop looked like amateurs in comparison to these beards.  Small children and animals could be concealed within these beards. Smugglers and terrorists could use them to transport crates of contraband across the borders.  (My mind cannot even think about all the other things that could be nestled in amongst the wiry, grizzled, overgrown strands without becoming permanently scarred.  No lets not go there!).

Of all of us females sitting there observing this group of bearded men last night, not one thought that any of the full scraggily bearded men were attractive.  NOT ONE!  Which begs the question then...why would men grow them?  These beards aren't things that just popped up overnight when the guy rushed out of the house without shaving one day.  These beards took months and months, maybe even years to grow to these lengths.  This is a deliberately cultivated appearance.  I will admit that sometimes overgrown hair can be an attractive or at least interesting phenomenon, such as really long great dreadlocks.  But the "I've superglued a dead poodle to my face" look doesn't qualify in that category.

Ladies?  What is your input?  Beard? No beard? What is your preference and why?

And guys, riddle me this... WHY would any half normal looking guy choose to hide his features behind a mountain of overgrown pubic-style hair unless he was in the witness protection program?

A life of crime

After much thought and consideration, I have decided that I cannot pursue a life of crime. Ok, it really didn’t take much thought or consideration but my reasons for eschewing such a life may not be the usual ones. Along with the obvious legal, ethical and moral issues… there’s one outstanding barrier to this vocation for me, the “small world syndrome”.


This week alone, I have accidentally run into at least 8 people I know while out and about. And that’s not counting people who know and saw ME that I didn’t know or see.


You think I’m exaggerating? I ran into people I know playing poker in Daytona this week. I ran into people I know at the grocery store. I ran into people I know at a pub. I ran into people I know at the Scottish Highland Games where there were thousands and thousands of people milling about. Heck, I even ran into the same people I sat beside at the Copper Rocket the night before at the Scottish Highland Games! (Try having to explain that you’re really not a stalker, it was just coincidence - to four strangers you’ve run into two days in a row in two different areas of town.)


Lest you think it’s just because Orlando isn’t the biggest city in the world, the latest census puts Orlando metro at just over 2 million people. Surely with 2 million people in a town, I should be able to go somewhere without running into someone who knows me! But no. And it’s not limited to Orlando. I was killing time at the Philadelphia airport waiting for my connecting flight and ran into someone I knew from Texas. I was visiting a family member in Denver a couple of years ago and as we were driving down the interstate, I looked at the car driving in the lane next to us and there was my sister and her husband who lived more than 30 miles away on the complete other side of town. I was on my way to Virginia to see my family last year and had someone I knew from South Florida say they saw me that day driving past them in the middle of Georgia as they drove southward. I could continue to recount even more instances if you’re really bored.


It’s not like I’m in the public spotlight or have a high profile job. It’s not even that I’m extremely unusual looking where people I don’t know personally might be inclined to remember my appearance. If I, being a relatively obscure and un-famous (not to be confused with infamous) person have this much trouble doing things anonymously…I can only imagine how someone famous must feel!


So as you can see...a life of crime is just not a viable option for me. I can just see myself heading into a bank to rob it and running into someone I knew 10 years ago. “Hey Mindy! I haven’t seen you in ages. What’s up with the ski mask and gun?”

Funniest joke I've heard in a long time

I really enjoyed this joke that a coworker sent me, I thought I would pass this one along via the blog as I'm horrible at remembering jokes.

A store that sells new husbands opened recently in New York City, where a woman may go to choose a husband.  At the entrance is a sign with this instruction about how the store operates: 

You may visit this store ONLY ONCE!  There are six floors and the value of the products increase as the shopper ascends the flights.  The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!

The first floor door sign reads:

Level 1 - These Men Have Jobs

Our visiting female is intrigued by continues to the second floor where the sign reads:

Level 2 - These Men Have Jobs and Love Kids

"Thats nice," she thinks, "but I want more."  So she continues upward.  The third floor sign reads:

Level 3 - These Men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking

"Wow," she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.  She goes to the fourth floor and  the sign reads:

Level 4 - These Men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-Dead Gorgeous and Help With Housework

"Oh, mercy me!" she exclaims, "I can hardly stand it!"  Still she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads:

Level 5 - These Men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-Dead Gorgeous, Help With Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak

She is so tempted to stay, but goes to the sixth floor, where the sign reads:

Level 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor.  There are no men on this floor.  This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please.  Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

Please note:  The store's owner, in the interests of being unbiased, opened a New Wives store just across the street. 

The first floor has wives that love sex.

The second floor has wives that love sex and have money and like beer.

The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth floors have never been visited.

7 years

I got thinking the other day about why I’m single. As I mentioned in the prior post, I’ve been single for 7 years now. This is no small amount. I really haven’t had many close calls in that timeframe either. There was one main close call, but before it could become a full-blown, deep relationship, he was relocated to the west coast.




But still, only one true possibility in 7 years? I did some introspection on what I am looking for, what I felt the men I have dated have been lacking, what I, myself might be lacking, where the disconnect might be coming from.



To be truthful, for the first 3 years I was single, maybe even more, I wasn’t interested in getting into a relationship. I married young, at 20 years old, had been married 13 long years, played the role of wife and mother and at the ripe old age of 33 felt like I had lived a century. Being single felt young, free and exciting, full of endless possibilities. It took a long time for that feeling to wear off or at least lose some of its allure. So let’s throw out those first three and a half years and call them my “sowing my wild oats” time. That leaves the most recent 3.5 years. In 3.5 years I haven’t met a single man who I seriously considered seeing on a regular basis, being monogamous with etc? And the answer is – except for the above mentioned close call… No.



I do have a history of dating men once or twice and then never again. Some of my friends have criticized this tactic *cough*Michael*cough* as not giving a guy a chance. But I stand by my cutting it off quickly. I generally always know beyond a shadow of a doubt, by the second date, if we have any chemistry between us. If we don’t, then there is no point extending it any further. The longer I date someone wrong for me, the harder it is to break it off with them without someone getting hurt.

So I continue looking. If it took me 100 dates to find the one guy that almost happened, well then I must need to either go on more dates or hopefully increase the quality of dates to where my ratio of 100 dates to one good man improves. Maybe if I do both, I can find another close call that DOESN’T get relocated.

Why are you still single?

One of the most common questions I get asked by men in the dating scenario is “why are you still single?” After many fumbling attempts to answer this, I’m wondering if there is a good answer to that. It has a connotation behind it, similar to “what’s a nice girl like you doing in a dump like this?” Like if you were really that great of a person, you wouldn’t be single. And I think that is the perception. It’s ok to be single for a short period of time after a breakup. That’s perfectly normal. A month, two, maybe even three months. If you just got divorced then ok, a year, possibly two if it was really painful. Beyond that…if you’re still single, there must be something wrong with you.
Considering I’ve been single for 7 years, I must really be screwed up or a terrible person! --No comments from the peanut gallery, thank you!