Well We'll See

I thought there was no hope of actually meeting ChefGeoff. But he surprised me and asked for an impromptu meeting at a coffee shop on the Danforth last Saturday.

He looked just like his picture, only I couldn't tell he had these amazing crystal blue eyes. That made it very easy to maintain eye contact, which I usually cannot do when I like somebody.

We talked about a wide range of topics - his education, my education, politics and even the weather. But the weather talk was more centered around global warming, so it was small talk on a grandiose scale.

The date had a finite end point - the start of his shift. Oh, did I mention he went from being a chef to a paramedic? Yup, he's a real life Superman, saving lives all over the city of Toronto. :)

He walked me to the subway station and as I turned to leave, he gave me a big hug and said we should meet up for dinner the following week.

Well, it's the following week and he has yet to find time in his schedule for dinner with me. Now don't get me wrong, I can totally cut him slack as he does work night shifts SAVING LIVES. That's gotta be exhausting without a doubt. However, there are times when I see him online via Facebook or Lava and it just makes me wonder why we couldn't have spent that time together, figuring out if we like each other enough to you know, date.

The plan is to meet next Thursday, as that's the only night we both have free in our very busy lives.

In the meantime.....

Boy has popped back up in my life. We went out for drinks a few nights ago where he told me that he misses me and wants to revive our sexual relationship. I told him as long as he's still sleeping with Woman, I'm not game. Then he had the audacity to ask me how I'd feel if he dated my friends. I told him unequivocally I would NOT be a means to his end. I told him if he wants to be friends with me, it's because he wants to spend time with me, and not because he may meet more meat through my social circles.

Honestly, just when I think it can't get any more ridiculous, he comes out with shit like that. I kinda feel sorry for him though. He's clearly mentally retarded. And I feel socially responsible to make sure the retard doesn't hurt himself with any sharp objects. Like a letter opener, which I may have been holding at the time.

No Surprise There

I never heard back from ChefGeoff about going out tonight. I sent him a message today through Lava. I know he was online, cuz Lava tells you that stuff. So I guess he changed his mind about actually meeting me.

Yup. Same shit, different asswipe.

Just Delete

About 6 months ago, the motherboard in my home computer blew up. Okay, it didn't blow up, it probably got shorted out during several power outages in my building and hence met its untimely death.

I had 3 hard drives in my case. One of them was about circa 1994, another probably circa 2002, and then a new-ish one. At any rate, I had to ask Faux Beau to pull the data off the new-ish one and store it on his hard drive before I reinstalled Windows and installed the new motherboard.

Only recently did I figure out that I didn't get all the data back from Faux Beau's hard drive. We went through a whole rigamarole in figuring out what I had, what he still had, and then transferring the missing data with an external hard drive I borrowed from work.

Today I was supposed to be over at a friend's house to help out with a party she's throwing at the end of the month, however I woke up with a wicked sore throat. So instead of going over and spreading my germs, I decided to stay home and spend some time cleaning up my hard drives.

I found a folder buried in some other folders labelled "Pictures". I take a ton of pictures and because of my three hard drive problem, kept them all over the place. In this particular folder, there was an AVI file labelled "Picture 061". I double clicked to see what it was.

Turns out, it was a video clip of when my ex husband proposed to me at karaoke in front of all my friends.

It took about two seconds before I started bawling my eyes out. I turned it off and flung myself onto the couch. Gizmo came over and immediately started purring loudly and he gave me a kitty hug. My cat knows when I'm in pain and he's so awesome that he tries to make me feel better.

So do I delete this? Or leave it buried in my archives? Part of me wants to delete it so I don't accidentally upset myself again. But another part of me wants to keep it, only because right now I feel like I will never have someone propose to me again. And if it never happens again, at least I will have a record of it having happened once in my life.

Everything isn't quite so fine in '09...

PB

Today has been a hair-pulling kind of day at work. My phone just would not stop ringing. I kept trying in vain to get away from my desk to go grab some lunch.

Finally around 1pm, I put my phone on forward, bundled myself up in my beautiful red winter coat, threw on my hat, grabbed my awesome oversized purse and started for the door.

As I approached the glass doors to our department, the whole management team was about to walk in. One of them is a hottie director of project management who I've had a crush on for about 6 months.

One of the other directors held the door open and waited for me to exit. As I was walking through the crowd, the hottie says, "You look like Paddington!"

"Thank you, I think." was my reply. There were a couple of girls waiting for the elevator when this went down and I asked them if I should take that as a compliment. One girl said yes, because bears are warm and fuzzy and you want to hug them. One girl said no, because...well he said I looked like a bear!

(sigh) I was going to screw up the nerve to ask him out too. (double sigh)

101

I just logged into my Lava account and saw that under my "relationship" profile, I've had 101 people view me. Now I say "people" rather than "men" because there could be some ladies out there who are interested in my awesomeness. I won't know for sure because it costs $14.99 a month to have such a privilege, along with sending messages and chatting. It's always free to reply, so I've been coasting on the generousity of the guys who've reached out to me.

I'm happy to say I've had quite a few IM and email messages sent my way. But there have only been 3 guys that I've had any interest in. The first was "The Yeti" (real name Scott). A tragic nickname but boy was he cute and he had a fantastic smile. We IM'd a few times, never at the same time though, so I sent him my email address and asked him to drop me a line. I haven't heard a peep from him since. Splat. :P

The second was "SharpDressedMan2" (real name Jeff). He didn't have a public picture so I asked him for his backstage pass. (It's sooooooo stupid that Lava even has this feature. People should be forced to show themselves! It's not like when you go out to a bar, you put a bag over your face when you are talking to people you are interested in. GEEZ.) He sent it and he looked alright to me. However I did get a sense of uneasiness when I looked at his eyes. They looked kind of angry, which totally reminds me of my ex husband. He'd smile with his face, but never with his eyes - pure evil. At any rate, Jeff and I exchanged MSN addresses.

The next day I initiated a chat with him and he was all like "Who IS this?" OMG, we'd chatted via the Lava chat window not 24 hours earlier and he'd already forgotten me? And once he figured it out, he just kept saying "What's up?" Seriously. Like 5 times in a row. He'd ask what's up, and I'd reply "Oh just procrastinating at work, how about you?" Then I'd see nothing for about an hour until I'd get another "What's up?" Yeah. He's going nowhere real fast.

The third is "ChefGeoff" (real name, you guessed it - Geoff). A long, curly haired, red headed chef turned paramedic/teacher. That grabbed my attention immediately. He sent me an email and a backstage pass. I liked what I saw so I wrote him back. And I'm currently waiting for a reply...

I guess I'm giving Lava a little longer chance than I gave PoF. But that could all change depending on if ChefGeoff is actually a douche.

Million Dollar Question

I went out for drinks with my friend Carolyn the other night. We went to The Irish Embassy, a trendy downtown pub on Yonge Street. Walking in felt like winning the lottery as every guy there was HOT. However, the lottery feeling soon washed away when it was evident most were married - guys at trendy pubs wear their wedding rings.

Carolyn had called her friend Peter (who is also single) to join us as our wing man. He showed up about an hour after we arrived.

When he arrived, he immediately started talking to my boobs. I have to admit I was wearing a top that had a lot of cleavage, however I was getting annoyed with the fact that my boobs were having more conversations with him than I was.

It's too bad too cuz he was kind of cute, and I could have been swayed to at least sleep with him if he hadn't totally turned me off by talking to my chest.

At one point, where he was actually addressing me and not my girls, he asked, "Why is such a lovely lady like you still single?"

Why indeed? There were a million ways I could have answered that, but I came up with "Well, actually, I'm divorced."

I know that divorced still equals single. However if I'm doomed to single hood for the rest of my life, I at least want it known that at some point in my past, there was one person who found me desirable enough to make me his wife. That puts me one step up on the Ladder I've built in my mind.

The bottom rung is never married, never had a boyfriend and never been kissed. The second rung from the bottom is divorced. Then there's a million rungs in between, leading up to the top rung which is happily married with kids and a fantastic career.

At any rate, if I knew the answer to his question, don't ya think I'd have fixed it by now? I wish it were that easy. "Oh, the reason I'm still single is because my hair isn't curly enough. I'm off to the hairdresser tomorrow to get a perm and by night fall, I should be happily coupled!"

And the reason he's still single? Just ask my boobs, they'll tell ya.

Karma

Facebook sure has brought a ton of people back into my life, even in a limited profile sort of way. One of those people who has popped up was a guy I went to elementary school with named Eddie B.

I was in LOVE with him in Grade 5. We "went out" for a few days and then he dumped me for my friend Elana. I was heart broken. For years after, he would make fun of me, calling me ugly and stuff.

Even as we went on to high school, he hung with the "cool kids" and I apparently was too much of a loser for him to even acknowledge my presence, never mind admit that was once I was his "girlfriend".

I got a friend request last week from him. So I added him, expecting he would be non communicative like 3/4 of the others on my friend list. About 10 minutes after I added him, he sent me an email asking me what I've been up to in the 15 years since high school. I filled him in, including the fact that I am divorced. He wrote me back, divorced as well + 2 kids. At the end of the email he asked me out for drinks sometime.

I had a true laugh-out-loud moment as I read that. He never spoke to me in high school and now 15 years later he wants some quality one-on-one time? Yeah right. That smacks of desperation. Oh, and he's fat now too.

I love karma.

[ ]

I've spent the last hour searching through profiles on Lava. There are quite a lot of unremarkable looking people. Not ugly, just not really anything.

Of the few pictures that I've seen which have tickled my fancy, I've tried imagining what it would be like to meet them, get to know them, and perhaps even have a relationship with them.

And then my brain goes numb and I just can't really bring about a picture in my mind of what that would actually be like.

I think I've hit a true mental block. I just can't envision this ever happening. I wish there was a way to download the feeling and post it here. It's like a big, blank, white space with nothing in it.

And the harder I think about it, the more tired I get. Really, really, t.i.r.e.d. I just cannot fathom having to go through all the get-to-know-you shit again. It was hard enough dating before I met my husband, and now to have to start all over! But now it's with a rag-tag-patched-up heart to protect along with a huge void where my self confidence used to reside and a big ol' chip on my shoulder.

Oh I think I'll be shutting down my Lava account before the week is over. I'm just so over it and the whole scene they call dating.

Andrew, from Buffalo

Just got home from a night out with my DT, her BF and Cheerleader. We hit the College Street Bar, in the heart of Little Italy. The original plan was to go to Courthouse, however DT suggested we try CSB.

I quite enjoyed the atmosphere there. Lounge/bar/laid back. Just my style. The crowd was pretty diverse which was pretty cool.

About an hour after being there, I noticed this super tall guy making eyes at me. At one point, we locked eyes and I smiled my best smile.

DT and Cheerleader both noticed he was checking me out. I was convinced he was checking out one of them instead. Then all of a sudden, I see him waving me over. Honestly in that moment I felt like one of the Butabi Brothers from A Night At The Roxbury. (Me? Him? Me? Who? Yes? No? Me?)

The girls were going nuts. "Go talk to him!" "Do something!" "Ask him how tall he is!" "GO GO GO!!" And I protested greatly to this absurdity. First of all, I was there to hang out with my friends. And secondly, I'm sure the minute I walked over there, he would have changed his mind.

At any rate, I finally screwed up enough courage to go over where he was standing with about 5 of his buddies.

He was pretty cute looking from across the bar and as I got closer, he got hotter and hotter. OMG, an honest-to-goodness-real-life hottie waving *me* over to him!

His name was Andrew, he was 30 years old and from Buffalo. He was in town for a University of Buffalo football game at the Skydome.

And that was pretty much it. I kept trying to talk to him and dance with him and he just wouldn't give anything up. Dude had no game.

Eventually his buddies wanted to leave to go hit up Croc Rock - and for anyone who knows Toronto, Croc Rock is the absolute WORST bar in the city. I tried really hard to convince him to stay, but short of giving him a blow job on the dance floor, I don't think there was anything I could do.

And then he left. He didn't ask for a number or anything, even though I had mentioned that I still have family in Fort Erie, which is exactly two minutes from Buffalo, and I'm down there all the time.

And then the rest of the night fell to crap because my whole focus had shifted from having fun with my friends to proving my worth as a sexy and desirable woman.

So we left. And I went to Amato's and ate (what is still) the best pizza in the city.

Lava Flow

I opened a Lavalife account last night. I was on Lava about 6 years ago with disastrous results. The guys I met would either be at least 10 years older than their pictures, or they were only looking to molest me for a night.

I am hoping this has changed, now that the age range of men I'm interested in has had a few years to mature. Wait, did I just use the word mature when referencing the male species? I must still be drunk from New Year's Eve.

So in the 16 hours I've been on Lava again I have noticed a few things which have not changed. The first is guys still do not have any clue on what a good profile picture should be. It's either a shot of them from the side, a shot of them not smiling from the side, or one of them really faaaaaar awaaaaaaaaaay because they needed to get the whole mountain in the shot.

The second is there are ridiculously hot guys with profiles. If a guy is ridiculously hot, he does not need to go online for dating opportunities. Just walk out your front door and smile and I'm sure a line up will start. And the profiles these guys have might as well say, "I'm ridiculously hot, so you should be too!" They must be crazy assholes to be so hot and not be in a relationship.

And the third is that every Asian guy on there is wearing a suit in his profile picture. No offense to my Asian brothers, but really? Is this supposed to perpetuate the stereotype that Asians are smarter than everyone else on earth, and therefore have super high paying jobs in either the financial or technology sectors, and therefore are able to purchase and wear high priced suits for casual Sunday lounging at the cottage? Yeah.

I think I'm gonna be shutting down my Lava account faster than my PoF account.

Happy New Year

Everything will be fine in '09.

I went to a house party last night to ring in the New Year. I drank way too much, took some things said to me the wrong way and started crying. Then I inadvertently hurt one of my very best friends as she was trying to console drunken, angry me. (I'm sooooo sorry EG, please forgive me!)

I passed out on the floor of the computer room and one of the boy guests snuggled up to me and made out with my face while I was semi unconscious.

Yeah.

I dunno how much is gonna change this year. '09 is already off to a bizarro, tear-filled start.