A Departure and My Return

Sorry I've been MIA - I needed a little bit of a break...plus now with the dating bender suspended indefinitely, my life is just not interesting enough to entertain y'all with new stories every day. ;-)

I know I said I was going to try to keep dating, particularly once Parker had left on his trip...but it is really hard to care about meeting up with someone who I know is not going to be 1/10th as awesome as the guy I am seeing - and the one dating site that I still have my profile on really sucks! (Oh, did I mention that Parker took down his profile too!?!) :-D

I think I am just a monagomous person by nature - which I was trying to change with the whole dating bender thing, but I guess you can't escape your nature...I really hope this doesn't come back to bite me in the a**. Then again, I guess I can just date bend again.

That being said...I'm back now, and here's what's been going on since I last posted:

Last I left you, I was feeling a bit anxious about Parker not inviting me to his (potential) birthday party and I wasn't sure if I had the right to be upset and/or if I should go through with my plans to do something special for him to celebrate with him separately. Here's how everything went down:

At around 6, Parker sent me a text asking if he could come over earlier than we had planned because he decided not to go to his friend's birthday party. (Yay, points for him!) I told him of course that would be okay. I had already decided I was going to go through with my plans for him. Since he has been constantly surprising me with how cool and sweet he is, I just had to trust that he is different than the guys in my past and ignore the fear. "Eff You, Fear!" Haha. But, seriously I kind of really did have to say that in my head. When he got to my place I had baked him his favorite cookies (he had mentioned them in passing on our second or third date) and I brought them out of the kitchen with a candle...he was really flattered that I remembered about the cookies. (Yay, points for me!)

We decided to rent a movie and just stay in (read: pretty much spend the whole night naked). We had to revisit the subject of "the decision" of whether or not to have sex and even though it was nearly impossible to hold out - we both agreed that we should wait to make it official until he gets back from his trip. (My personal Rules of Singledom dictate that he doesn't get the proverbial cookie (because I baked him actual cookies, hehe) unless we are exclusive to each other. (SIDE NOTE: That doesn't mean we have the Boyfriend/Girlfriend titles...to me, that is a very distinct and separate conversation...but there I go, digressing again...) But, on a positive note we also agreed that we were definitely going in that direction. I just didn't think it smart to become exclusive after 2 weeks of dating and then be separated for a longer period of time than we've known each other... to me, there is no rush when, as all signs point to, this could be something really long-lasting. He agrees.

I gave him his actual birthday present in the morning - a little token to carry with him on his travels to remind him of me. And I gave him a third surpise present that he can think about on his travels to remind him of me too...IF you know what I mean (wink, wink). As we were pillow-talking in the morning, I finally got up the guts to ask him about his party and he assured me that it was really a boys night and very casual. He said he has no reason to hide me, especially since I have already met most of his friends. Phewf! I feel so much better!

Communication 2, Immaturity 0 ;-)

The best part was - the next night, after being with his buddies for a few hours - he called me and told me that he just wanted to spend the rest of the night with me anyway, since he was leaving the next day for his trip. So I went over and slept at his place that night and I took him to the airport in the morning... It's only been a couple days and I miss him already! Luckily we have been able to chat a little bit with one of those International messenger apps. So yeah, things with Parker are going really well!

Guess what else happened...? Dylan sent a text. Did I call it or what? This is what it said:

"Hey Penny. How was your 4th of July? Let me know if you want to grab dinner tomorrow or Sunday? :-)"

So I replied:

"Hey Dylan, I had a great holiday, thanks! I hope you did too! Dinner on Sunday works for me - what did you have in mind?"

Can you guess what happened next? ...I bet you can... he's a predictable one, that Dylan. That's right. Nothing. WTMEF?!?! This guy can't be serious. If he ever dares to text me again, I am going to tell him to lose my number.

But that reminds me...I hope y'all had very happy holiday weekends too!

I'm going to try to figure out a regular posting schedule over the next couple weeks, but for the immediate future I'll be posting kinda randomly (but at least a few times a week). So check back regularly or better yet, follow the blog to get notifications when a new post goes up!

Dating Bender: Updates

Tommy: Never heard from him - shocking, right? Thank goodness.

Parker: I think you have probably living under a rock (or most definitely not reading my blog ;-) if you don't know what's going on there...  

Abe: Didn't hear from this guy either. I guess his 3 out of 5 was an over-estimation. On another note, he has also since deactivated his profile - guess I was right about him not being quite ready to get back in the game.

...TMBOG2: Still haven't heard from him, but I have a sneaking suspicion (as does my friend, Andie) that       he''ll randomly pop up again.

Bernie: He never called me! This one I am actually surprised about! But I think it might be due to the fact that I didn't let him kiss me. WTF? This is why guys in LA suck so much. I knew my suspicions about him being "a typical LA dude" were right, I just thought it would take him a little longer for his true colors to show. At least he spared me the string of BS down the road...

Dylan: Shocker of all shockers, he has not contacted me to set up a date yet (but stay tuned, I still don't think this one is over...).

So - a couple weeks of dates and 6 guys later, I actually think I found an amazing guy - thank goodness, because there were ZERO other prospects (which is actually kind of depressing to think about).

I have deactivated one of my online profiles and just to mix things up have signed up for a different one to see if I can get some different results...

Parker is leaving next week for the rest of the month and even though it's been a whirlwind two weeks we have decided not to have "the talk" until he gets back, so that means I can keep checking out what's out there until then - and possibly beyond (although I am hoping that's not going to be the case).

Stay cool (those in LA know what I mean) and Happy Sunday!

Dating Bender: Episode 7 - "Non-Starter"

I will never understand why men who get a girl to agree to go out with them will the suddenly falter on the follow-through.

Stats-
Name: Dylan
Age: 29
Hometown: ?
Currently Resides: Santa Monica
The Date: TBD

Dylan's first email to me was this:

Whats your schedule look like? Would you care to have lunch (or dinner) with me perhaps next weekend?

Once I checked out his profile, saw that he was cute and "seemed normal" I wrote back:

Very forward, I like it. Dinner sounds great (usually more fun than lunch), thanks for asking :-) You know, you are the first guy to actually ask me out on this site... it's been a lot of pointless emailing...

So far, I'm still free this weekend.

So, did he miss the "very forward, I like it" part? Because our next series of emails were him saying "Oops I forgot I might actually be going camping this weekend, but maybe Thursday, I'll let you know by tomorrow." And then, of course, him promptly NOT letting me know by the next day.

That was a sign of things to come.

On Thursday, when I still hadn't heard from him, I sent him a text: "So...Next Week?"
He replied that he could make Saturday work and I said that I could as well so we agreed to make plans.

Later that evening he sent a text to ask if he could call me. WTF? When did men become such wusses? I already told him I like that he was forward. You know the best way to see if I'm available for a chat? Dial the effing phone. Jeez.

I was already out so I couldn't talk to him but said we should talk the next day. He said he would call me then. Well, ladies and gentleman, what do you think happened the next day? That's right - no phone call from Dylan. Since I had already sent him the "So.." text on Thursday I decided I was not going to send him another nudge - I shouldn't have to nag someone into taking me on a date. I figured he was just a typical LA flake and that was it, so I made my plans with Parker (which turned out to be a great decision) and mentally told Dylan to eff off.

At 5:30pm on Saturday evening (really?!?) I got a text from Dylan: "What time are we thinking about grabbing dinner tonight? (If we're still on) :-P

Did you really think I hadn't already made plans for the night by 5:30? (Truth talk - prior to the dating bender I would have probably been on my couch, haha). Dude, this was supposed to be a first date - I am not some buddy you are grabbing beers with after work. What time are we grabbing dinner? I don't know...what time did you make the reservation for?

I apologized and gently told him I had made other plans since he said he was going to call me the day before and didn't, I figured he was going to flake out.
He said: "Yeah, I figured neither of us were really on top of it :("

Um, excuse me? Neither of us? Since when is it my job to plan a date that you asked me out on? You were not on top of it. Say it one more time for emphasis, you were not on top of it. My only job was to say yes (which I did already) and to show up. Don't like it? There's a surgery for that.

The next day I sent him a text saying that I would be happy to reschedule and let him know that since he was the one who asked me out, it was my expectation that he was going to take the lead on making the plans. (I'm honest). He agreed that he would like to reschedule too and then made some half-assed excuse that the reason we didn't end up making plans was because I wasn't available when he wanted to talk to me (yeah, that's gonna happen a lot, buddy, I have a life) and he got too distracted (all day?) the next day. Whatever.

I said: "Okay, well let's make a plan"
He said: "Indeed, let's do it."

...and then nothing. WTF?

So, I said: "Haha, I guess I should be more clear...You come up with a plan, then you ask me what days I'm free, we'll pick one of those days and make it a date. Like a real one. :-)

I realize this kind of makes me sound like a B*tch, but seriously this was getting to be too much. How do you ask a girl out and then not know it's your responsibility to make it happen?

He said: "Hahahaha!! Okay I'll do that."

...and then nothing. WTF? This time it was nothing for 3 days except for a stupid YouTube link he sent to me  that he thought was funny, that wasn't.

Yesterday Dylan resurfaced with this gem: "I still would like to meet up with you. I've just been so crazy busy as of late, that it's hard for me to find the time to make a 'hard set' time to meet up. Don't give up in our meeting up. I promise we'll have a great time."

My reply: "Well let me know when you can set aside some time."

Listen. No one, and I mean no one is that busy. Why would I possibly wait around for this guy? He doesn't even seem that great, he definitely needs a thesaurus, and while I was previously attracted to his forwardness (is that a word?) it was because I thought it implied masculinity, but I've had to give this kid step-by-step directions on how to set up a date and he still hasn't even managed to figure it out yet. So now he just seems like some boy I would have to train.

Something tells me though, we haven't heard the last of Dylan...