Time for a Change

I've been dating almost exclusively online for as long as this blog has existed. With a few exceptions, most of the dates I had were online dates. I will never speak badly about dating online, I met some great people, had one of the best relationships of my life, but I'm tired of dating online. I'm tired of the emails, and the winks, and the work that goes into being an active online dater. Plus, it makes everything so complicated.. You can check when the last time the person you are dating logged in, if they are still active after your date, does that mean they aren't interested in you? If they don't take down their profile, does that mean they plan on using it, even if you're in a relationship (This was a problem with Mr. P in the beginning.) So how does one meet people in a digital age, where social interaction has been limited to text messages, facebook posts, tweets.

My first step is to ask ANYONE and everyone I know if they know anyone they can set me up with. This is friends, family, co-workers... blog readers? Seriously, if anyone who reads this knows of anyone in the Philly area that might be interesting to date, shoot me an email, let me know. I'm open to anything or anyone.

My two extra jobs are also hopefully going to bring new social interactions. Yesterday and today I had to attend two different synagogue services for the high holidays. There wasn't an overwhelming amount of single men there, but there were definitely a few. And you know Jewish mothers are all about setting up their sons with "nice Jewish girls" (that's me!!) At the library, it's a little tricky, but my job is to talk to people who come in, help them answer any questions, locate any information they can't find themselves. So, new interactions = new potentials for dates. I still have a month paid on Match, and then I get another 6 months for free since I didn't meet "the one." So there will still be possible online dates, it's just not the only way I'm going to try to meet people these days.

The single girls at school are going to make a concerted effort to go out, try different/fun things, happy hours, wine tastings, hikes. We're going to go out, and if we meet people, great... If not, at least we're getting out and doing something fun!

I don't have any dates coming up, there are some email exchanges happening, but no dates scheduled yet. If anyone wants to try to set one up, I'm game!

One Year Ago...

A year ago today, I posted a very sappy loving post about my then boyfriend, Mr. Perfect. It was the day before my 28th birthday, and I was so in love. It's funny what a difference a year makes. In fact, in this case, it was only a few days after that post that Mr. P and I had one of our worst fights ever (it was the day after my birthday, I remember it well) and when we made up a few days later, he told me that even though he loved me, he couldn't see himself ever marrying me. This devastated me, because at that time, I was certain... he was it. I never told a soul that, until today, when I did tell 2 of my best friends this in different conversations. Why, might you ask, would I need to remind myself that at point in time Mr. P made it very clear to me that we would not be a permanent thing? Because tonight, of all nights, he took me out to dinner and a movie to celebrate my birthday. And while it was very innocent and platonic (nothing more than a kiss on the hand when I was leaving his car), I felt an enormous wave of sadness fall over me when I walked into my door, spending the night before my birthday with an ex, and going to bed alone. I don't miss him, or our relationship, we had so many problems by the end. But my life just isn't how I thought it was going to be at 29. And a year ago, if you told me this is where I'd be in my life, I probably wouldn't have believed it. Back to where I had started so many years ago, so many heartbreaks later, and still so unsure where it's all going to go. I definitely have the birthday blues this year. I kind of just want it to be over with, I guess 28 was actually the bad year, so maybe 29 will be a much better one! My 28th year started with me falling down the stairs in school (in front of an entire class of my students!), almost breaking up with Mr. P the following day, and eventually leading to the inevitable break-up, a few months of us being broken up, but not really... and then me spending a summer being irrational and impulsive, again making poor choices. Not my finest year, by far. I hope 29 will be truer to myself. I hope that I can resolve any issues I have with the "ideal" I have in my head, who will never be a reality (mainly because I stalked him... yes, that's the stranger from earlier the summer... I haven't done anything else, just still haven't gotten the idea of him out of my head. Pathetic, no?) I just want to be honest with myself, with the guys I date, with what I truly hope to get out of whatever the purpose of these dates are for. I'm not into dating just for fun anymore... It's not fun anymore, to be honest. It's a lot of work. I read back again over my summer before I turned 26 (that sounds SO young at this point!), and I was having a great time with dating. I didn't care about how it was all going to turn out, I just dated. I didn't care if the guy wasn't into me. I didn't send him crazy emails, trying to explain myself, I just let go, and moved on. I'm feeling a little lost and little bewildered with my life right now. I'm hoping I've made the right choices and where I am will lead to me where I am supposed to be. Hopeful... well at least one of the worst years of my life will be over in just 26 minutes, Happy Birthday to me... :)

29 times around the sun.

With a birthday looming, just a few days away, I feel like maybe I'm just too old for this these days. I'm not the youthful 26 year old serial dater I used to be. I get too invested, too caught up, too emotional, and it's just not the right mindset. 29. Damn.

I seemed to have given off a strong enough uninterested vibe to PJ to end this without me having to say anything at all. It's been 3 whole days and I've heard nothing from him at all. I talked to him on Sunday night, and he tried to convince me to drive out to his place to see him. I was already tired, it's a 45 minute drive there and back, and I wasn't interested in starting my first week of school with students on a sleep deficit. But I was also feeling kind of lonely and sad, too, and stupid thoughts of "maybe it's better to be with a guy who really likes me than no guy at all..." were running through my head, so I was actually considering it. I was debating back and forth, and finally called him to see if he would give me a reason that would convince me to come over. He was at his brother's place, and had been drinking all day... this did not make for very convincing material for me. Basically, we ended the conversation with not seeing each other that night and maybe we'd plan something for another time. I haven't heard from him since. And even if it wasn't already feeling questionable about him, the fact that he did not text me to see how my first day of school was seems pretty clear that he's not all that interested in how I feel or how I'm doing. Maybe this should have been a sign in the beginning when he didn't text after our second date. Whatever the case may be, at least I can settle this and feel alright about it. I updated my match profile, and it seems to have generated a good bit of interest there. I'm not sure when I'll be able to actually go on these dates though, as I have work scheduled for every single weekend from now until November. Well, they are not all work, there are some fun events/activities planned too, but mostly, work. Blech. I'm less than thrilled.

But my motto from the summer, hopeful dating, this is what I'm still trying to muster up, every time I get a wink from a 50 year old in Camden or an email all in CAPS from a guy who calls me creepy things like "sexy mama," it's beyond description. But still, I'm hopeful that the next one will be better suited to what I'm looking for.

Catching Up.

So, here's my life... September is traditionally a big waste of a month for me, socially. It's really hard to balance getting back into a work schedule, being exhausted all the time, AND dating. Traditionally, it's a slow dating month if I'm single. This month proves to be no exception, but I do have some updates from the end of August to catch up on.

Last Saturday, I returned home from the most beautiful vacation, ever. Hawaii is gorgeous, and I highly recommend it to everyone. Throughout the whole week, PJ and I had been texting and talking, almost every day. I would go back and forth between being really into him and missing him, to being annoyed and irritated with him. Not a good sign. He wanted to come over Saturday night, the night I got home from traveling for 14 hours, no sleep, and just overall exhaustion. Also, the following day was my first USY adviser event, and work started on Tuesday and I hadn't so much as even looked at my classroom before I left for Hawaii... Needless to say, on top of being tired, I felt a little stressed out too! I should have known this was not a good idea. I'm not really being fair to him, it was really sweet that he wanted to come see me the very day I got home, and there was a part of me that missed him, I just probably would have felt better about it if I wasn't feeling so overwhelmed by everything else. So, he came over and it was ok. I was cranky, and not being super affectionate for not having seen him for over a week. I definitely feel like my interest in him decreases every time we hang out, which is weird. I can't figure out how that happened, shouldn't you be more interested in someone the more you hang out? We had dinner at my place and then just hung out on the couch. I had every intention of going to sleep early, and despite the 6 hour jet lag, I hadn't slept in 24 hours so I was exhausted. He decided he was going to stay over... I thought that was too much for me right then, but was too tired to get into a conversation about it. It's one thing if it gets too late and you decided to sleep over because it's so late (like 4am) and you decide to stay, but it was 11:30. So he stayed, cramped my sleeping style (which was exactly what I did not need the night before my crazy week), and stayed until almost noon the next day. I HATE that. I really wanted him to leave earlier, but how do you say that? I had so much to do, wanted to get some laundry started before I went to my event, but nothing got done. So finally he left, and I realized that this is just not working for me. I've had the whole week to process these feelings. I just can't date someone that I just don't feel anything for. I can't exactly place what it is that makes me feel this way, and some of my friends think I should give it a chance, let him continue to take me out, etc. I've done that before... and then it lasted over 2 years of my life. I'm not interested in getting stuck in something that I already know I don't want.

So, he came over last night, despite me telling him that I had been at school until 6, and didn't get home until after 8, and was just exhausted. I knew if he came over he would want to stay, and I did not want that. I need to catch up on my sleep, my housework, laundry, the rest of my life! We went to go see Extract, and then he came back to my place. He asked if I wanted him to stay here, and I just said that I really was so tired, and I don't sleep very well when I'm sharing my bed (which is true!), so it'd be best if he left. He seemed rather disappointed that he was leaving so early (although it was after 1am!), and asked what I was doing every single night this weekend. I just can't seem to find the right way to say that I'm not feeling it anymore. I'm not good at this part. I was hoping that my busy schedule would be a deterrent, I even brought out my calendar that shows that all my weekends are booked from now until well into October. I don't know what else I can do, I guess I'll have to tell him.

I was able to figure out why I like him less now than when I first met him. He doesn't have anything new to say. It's like the conversations we had on our first 3 dates, which were great, are the only conversations he knows how to have. He doesn't ask me anything new about myself, and sometimes talking to him feels like pulling teeth. I wonder how this is the same guy that I once had a 3 hour phone conversation with, and now I can barely manage a 10 minute one. It's disappointing. And I feel like I'm constantly trying to drive the conversation into new topics, but he's not the best conversationalist. He's got a weird social awkwardness about him too. It's not like I don't date socially awkward guys, it seems to be all I date actually. But his isn't the withdrawn, shy social awkwardness that I'm used to. It's the "I'm saying things I think are cool but really make me look stupid/like I'm trying too hard" awkwardness. This is BRAND new to me, and I don't know how to respond when he says things like "I'm picking up what you're putting down," or when I say something that is clearly sarcastic or rhetorical and he responds to it as if it were serious. It makes for very bad communication skills. Not what I'm interested in, at all.

With the craziness of school starting, and my 2 other jobs, I'm really ready to just take a break and enjoy what little free time I have.