Dating in Your 30s... sighhhhhhhhh

A couple observations from the last few months of me actually trying to focus on dating.  I want to preface this by  saying all girls are guilty of all the below in other ways and soooo many more.  Today let's focus on the virtual aspect of online dating, all pre-date.

I am just trying to help.  Recently a friend and I exchanged dating profiles so we could critique each other's .  We're givers that way.    

Naturally, both were perfect.  Here a few things I have experienced/observed on guy's profiles...

When your "match's" screen name is I_luv_my_BABIES038

                                             

• First of all, HOW are there 37 other people with that screen name? 
• WHY CAN'T YOU SPELL LOVE
• Who cares about your "babies" - I give zero fucks about them, so there's that
• I mean sure I like kids, I might even like yours, but they should not be the very first thing I think about when I first see you pop up into the dating maelstrom that is Match
• If they're actual babies than you're definitely not over your ex
• If they are not babies, why are your calling them that?

Let's talk about your online dating photos guys

                             

• Stop taking photos in bathroom
• So do you not have any photos with friends, or friends to take a photo of you, or anywhere else to take a selfie?
• "Why are you always in the bathroom Bill, what are you doing in there!?" (says your wife, mother etc. none of which are a good sign)
• If you do take a selfie, try not to take the photo with your selfie stick showing in the picture
• Please don't scan photos from 13 years ago, leave vertical photos horizontal, and use "photo shop" aka Paint in Window to white out your ex wife's face... so many wrongs
• Oh and especially don't do it to your kids' faces, get a new photo or leave them in. There's something reminiscent about that is not dissimilar to finding a secret room beneath the floorboards with a shrine to someone... or maybe I need to lay off the Criminal Minds

Things you should talk about

• Dogs, your dogs, friend's dogs, dogs you just saw but don't know yet
• You should also have photos of dogs... even if they're not yours 

Well as I started writing this I realized I have a much bigger list of what not to talk about soooo....

                                         Things not to have in your dating profile

      

• Your car
• Your bicycle
• Your motorcycle
• Any cycles really
• How you are easygoing... No one is easy going, maybe if you're a surfer living on the beach in Hawaii or like a bearded dude named Desmond living in Vermont brewing beer out of your home.  Maybe you own 3 shirts that you got for free. You live off the land on shit you find that fell off a tree. In that case, have fun canning your berries for winter in your cellar. - Everyone else, you're not easygoing.  you're just not.
• Your ex
• How you're looking for "an honest/loyal/respectful girl" - AKA you've been cheated on, but don't drag that shit all over what is basically your dating resume   
• It is like applying for a job and putting on the resume that you had issues with your boss or you like to steal things from the supply closet... just no

                Things not to do once you've hooked some interest

             

• Don't text me, "what's up" on the reg.  I mean, ask me a question, send me a funny meme, talk to me about your day... or crazy, call me
• Girls basically just want to be asked questions and then ask you a bunch of questions and then think about what you said. Then follow back up on it and then analyze you and then ask you what you meant by certain things. Finally, they ask you what you're thinking about.

Dating is like a gameshow where you have many of the answers but if you hesitate in hitting the buzzer or forget to repeat the question before you answer.... you could be dunked in slime or something, or not get to go onto the Steps of Knowledge - Legends of the Hidden Temple... anyone?

• Don't wait too long to actually go out, because then you're going to get into the friend zone
• Before we've even gone out, try not to send me a picture of anything you would not want your family to see... also in general keep those pics to yourself
• But again, to be clear, pictures of dogs, any dogs, are always welcome
• Please, for the love of God, do not make me plan the date. Take some initiative.
• Don't wait until the last minute to cancel
• Don't wait until the last minute to plan something

Remember, we're all a bunch of weirdos, so take this with a grain of salt.  Unless you're actually trying to date me, then take this seriously.  Now go have fun out there you crazy kids!  And if you get a bit nervous before a first date, make sure you have some liquid courage:

The Dirty South Chronicles

I complain all the time that I don’t have any free time anymore but as I sit here in my grandmother’s house in North Carolina with literally NOTHING to do… it looks like I now have free time.  So to Andrea’s question last week,” what happened to your blog?” here you go…

I just finished reading The Andy Cohen Diaries, ok that’s a lie, and I owe you more than that… I’m 90% done with it according to my Kindle. It is hilarious, albeit overly name droppy, and I have learned a couple things:

• Mark and Kelly Consuelos are excellent designated drivers.
• Andy’s life is pretty fabulous – but he talks about his weight too much
• All famous people know each other

Now that we have my educational learnings covered, I can give you an update on the dirty south aka the sale sud a la ma grandmere who is French.

First things first, my grandmother is hilarious.  She normally pisses me off beyond belief but in her natural habitat, (or maybe out of mine), she is much more like a combo of ‘Shit My Dad Says’ and the “where’s the beef?” lady from the 80’s Wendy’s commercial.  Which if you cannot tell, is a combination I respond really well to.

My grandmother likes beer, but not like a glass of beer, she pours a 1/3 of a glass and then tops it off with Sprite Zero – which if this wasn't her doing it, I would have to pick up the glass and throw it across the room.  Thank God she didn't do it with wine.  So because she likes beer but only uses a small amount of it, she is forced to be pragmatic about her purchase – being an old person and all and not wanting to waste anything (including water, we’ll get to that later), she buys 40s.

Yes, twist off, Miller High Life, 40s.  Sigh. I have kept this a secret for a while and until my sister in law witnessed it, I never thought I’d have to talk about it.  But here we are now,  she immediately offers me a glass when I arrive and hands me an unopened 40 ( I am a guest and all ) – thankfully she doesn't encourage me to add Sprite.  We then have pretty delicious hamburgers on her pre-George Forman, electric grill.  In case you were wondering, the beer was surprisingly refreshing, but it isn’t something I am going to take up. 

Grey Poupon in the background for class

I am always thirsty at other people’s homes.  I am not sure why.  Maybe I had a traumatic thirty incident as a child but whatever it is, I get weirdly anxious when I don’t know where my next glass of water is coming from. 

Coincidentally, this is one of the few things I don’t like about Europe, there is never any water for drinking in hotel rooms and they never bring it to you without asking (sometimes even after asking) when you’re at a restaurant.  But I digress.

I had finished my overpriced Fiji water and had drank some tap water, spoiler alert, NC water tastes like dirt. Before you get all fired up about that statement, I just mean it tastes like soil and mineraly… and also terrible.

I forage in the fridge and find a filled water filter container. Eureka!  I guzzle down two glasses before I finally come up for air and look at my now filled 3^rd glass… more specifically, what is floating in it.  Yup, some weird white cottonesque mold is bouncing around inside my glass. 

                                 

I did what any 30 year old would do, I dumped the glass and called my mum while I searched for bleach.

                                     

Fun fact, my mum said she too had experienced that and forgot to warn me.  My lovely grandmother, like most old people, doesn’t drink enough water so that fucking container had probably been sitting in there, with some foreign particulate stowaway for weeks!  She probably thought it was always going to be good, or maybe she thought it was added protein.  If I don’t survive, at least you’ll have this last memory of me.

I washed my mouth out with Sprite Zero and orbit chewing gum.

                                     

My grandmother also told some really fascinating stories about France, my grandfather, her travels.  This is a woman who has been everywhere and has the loot to show for it.  She has lead an extraordinary life.  She also talked to me about people she hates (which is my favorite type of story).  Hearing a story from a 92 year old woman with a thick accent and a somewhat repetitive memory, is not always the most riveting, you mostly just sit there and listen – but that is really all old people want, so give it up!

                                     

She did add in a gem about a family member who had a thick mustache the last time she saw her and she wasn't sure if she was more thrown off by the thickness of the stache (the poor woman in question had always had thinner hair) or by the bleached appearance (she doesn't care for dying of your hair, in any capacity).  Anyway, she said had she been closer to the woman she would have told her herself but hindsight being 20 20 and all… she now just felt like talking about it to me with a glint in her eye – I feel blessed she shared this moment with me.

I have Law and Order SVU on in the background (like there is any other kind of Law and Order that is worth watching) and there is an actor who looks like the fatter, sadder, and I guess less famous brother of Justin Long… so that’s a thing.

                                   

After attempting to Tinder below the Mason Dixon line with little luck (talk about unattractive mustaches) – I have given some serious thought and napping… to how much I am similar to my dad’s parents – both in good ways and bad.  Bad like my masculine, ever growing jaw that needs surgery.  I told the dentist I only will consider it when I become unattractive or Ripley’s Believe it or noteworthy. Or like my grandmother’s threat that I will become hairier as I age…

But also good – they’re both smart, honest, stubborn people who overcame a lot and lead pretty amazing lives for people of their time, or any time.  I once wrote that you can’t go home, but maybe coming to a place you have a lot of memories is like home, and helps you refocus where you’re going.

Or maybe the moldy water is affecting my brain.