My Dream Man Can Formulate Sentences.

Generally I think I'm pretty understanding and forgiving.  There are constant comments made about people's inability to spell in their online profiles.  Maybe it's the many years I spent abroad, especially working for an English-speaking company that hires most of the employees from countries where English is a second language.  I can understand when a word here or there is misspelled (speaking of which - according to my spell check, that is how you spell misspelled, but I'm having one of those "it looks so wrong" moments).  I am also forgiving of typos.  They happen.

But even this girl has a limit.  I have been sent far too many messages where they are so filled with spelling and grammatical errors that it takes multiple reads of a "sentence" to even understand what the guy is saying.  I don't believe that all of these men who are messaging me are new to speaking English!  And when your grasp of the language is that terrible, wouldn't you take advantage of the little tools on your computer like spell check and grammar check?

Read for example, a message I received from "parx36":

"Hey there!! how is it going? you look preety attractive,elegant and gorgeous woman!! Im [real name], computer enggineer my proffession, Got to say love my job and its challenges,i look at life way i treat my job.To give input about my physical apperance and activities i go through, well im tall, fit built n good looking guy. Im mostly in my gym working out, doing kickboxing or in field playing basketball or baseball. Im not looking to meet a perfect gal , i just wish we share some beautiful moments n have plenty of good times. You would adore ,when you meet me.Lets meet up for something casual a beer n wings in patio or something you suggest. Im up for anything simple as long as we get to know each other n have fun. Drop me message sweety. cheers"


Or from "mandj1234":

"Adventourous guy! I like your prfile ie, travelling and different cultures. I m worried I cannot dance , but would love for to teach me.I would love to adventure the himalays with someone. Are u family oriented?"


Then there's "PATEL4":

"Hi nice girl how r u? i like your tato it's so nice. I hope u are ok. I like your profile. If u like me can we meet I wait for your replay."

 I've read his message over and over and cannot figure out what he means by "tato".  My guess is "tattoo" (I do have a couple tattoos), except that I looked through my profile pictures and you can't see my tattoos in any of them, nor do I mention in my profile that I have tattoos.  So "tato" remains a mystery . . .


Finally, there is "Ouzzy019":

"Hey! if wishes came through, you will be my friend.lol, its beautiful viewing your profile, by just reading your profiles put hope and smiles into my face, because you sounds decent, optimistic, humble, adventurous and outgoing, These are through definition of a true woman. Therefore, I will be glad if you can accept me as your new friend? We can chat anytime soon in the future

How was your day? hope to read from you soon"
 

Bless.  The poor guy seems to be trying so hard to be sweet and romantic, but it's just so darned hard to read!

My dream guy is now Tall, Dark, Handsome and can write a coherent sentence.  Sigh . . .

Mr Classy

It's been a couple weeks since I've posted any stories here.  For my eager readers, I apologize.  I'd been growing weary of dating.  It takes a lot of energy to continually be putting yourself out there, giving your best effort over and over again.  It's also tiring to be always telling yourself that you're a great catch and yet never finding someone great.  Then I had a particularly terrible evening that led to me taking a break from dating for awhile.

Mr_Classy was someone I met online.  We'd messaged handful of times, texted, spoke a couple times and arranged for a date one evening after I finished work.  The day before our date, we were talking on the phone and he asked me what I wanted to do - go out somewhere, just stay in . . . I said go out.  He laughed and said I was quick to give that answer, but it was fine, we'd go out.  I apologized, said I didn't mean to imply anything, but I just thought we should go out somewhere.

The day of our date, I texted him to ask him where I should meet him.  He sent me his address and said to meet him there.  I wrote back that shouldn't we just meet out wherever we were going to go?  He replied back that he wasn't some crazy guy off the internet, but that we could meet up in public.  I told him I wasn't assuming anything and that wasn't what I'd meant.  It was fine, we'd meet by his place.

I was running a little late trying to get to his part of the city from work when he sent me a text.  He apologized, said he was running late from the gym and he'd be out shortly.  I thought, oh okay, so this guy's schedule was kind of tight and it made sense to just pick him up from his place before going out.  Fine.

I pulled up to his house and waited only a couple minutes before he came out.  After we greeted, he asked if I wanted to go for a coffee.  I said sure and then we got in his car and took off.  I was familiar with where we were in terms of the main intersections, but it wasn't an area I'd spent time in, so I didn't know where we would be heading.  A few blocks from his place, he pulled in to a plaza where there were a bunch of shops, a restaurant, a pub, etc.  He turned a corner and then I realized we were in the line for the Tim Hortons Drive Through!  Was this really this guy's idea of a first date?  He ordered some food and a drink, I ordered a small frozen drink.  I offered him some change to pay for my drink but he said it was fine, it was his treat - not that it was anything fancy he said.  Again, really, is this his idea of a quality date?  I don't need to be impressed or wooed, but the lack of any effort was disappointing.

After we had our food via the car window, he asked, "So, do you want to just hang out in the parking lot or should we hang out at my place?"  Fine, we could go to his place.  I wasn't fearful, just disappointed, but hoping that once we sat down somewhere we could chat and save this date from it's unfortunate start.

We get to his house, go to the rec room and set down our things.  I step out to use his washroom.  While I'm in the washroom, he calls to me and asks if I want to watch a movie.  I haven't been dating in this city all that long, but the last place I was living before that, "watch a movie" was always code for "let's fool around".  So I was a bit skeptical.  Again, I was disappointed because even if that wasn't what this guy was getting at, how could I possibly get to know him if we're watching a movie?  It doesn't exactly lead to conversation.  But I give the guy the benefit of the doubt and try to be easy going so I say sure.

He has a small movie selection of not very good movies, most of which I've seen and don't care to see again.  We picked one I hadn't seen, but honestly I didn't really care to watch.  He put the DVD in the player, turned out all the lights, tossed me a blanket and left the room.  He came back a minute later wearing sweatpants and said he "just wanted to get comfortable".  Yet again, I was unimpressed and disappointed in his lack of any attempt to make a good first impression.

I was seated on one end of the couch and he sprawled out on the other end.  I swear that the opening credits had probably barely finished rolling before he asked, "So, are you a cuddler?"

I fought from rolling my eyes. "I can be," I answered.

 "So come on over here," he said.

"I'm okay here," I replied.

Seriously dude?  You're really going to try this?  After calling me out for being paranoid, you are doing exactly what I'd suspected - just trying to make a move on me straight off the bat.

Maybe five minutes had passed before he got up and moved so that he was now leaning right up against me. "Seeing as you won't come to me, I'll come to you," he said, then kissed my cheek.

I was so irritated.  The movie was only minutes in and already it was terrible.  I found myself thinking, am I really going to spend the next two hours of my life at best watching a terrible movie and at worst constantly stopping this guy's advances?

Soon I had my answer, that yes, my time would be spent stopping his advances.  Only minutes after moving right up against me, he turned my head to kiss me.  I let him kiss me once before turning away.  Another minute later, he began kissing my neck and tried to get me to kiss him again.  I pushed him away and sat up straight on the edge of the couch.

"I'm sorry," I said.  "I just think we had different expectations for what would happen tonight."

"What?  It's fine," he replied.  "We can just watch the movie."

"This is awkward," I told him.

"It doesn't have to be awkward," he insisted.  "We don't have to do anything."

I was silent for a moment, then said, "I'm going to go."

"You don't have to go.  Just stay.  It's fine.  We don't have to do anything."

"No," I said back.  "We're looking for different things here.  I don't think there's any way that we can save this situation.  So I'm just going to go . . . Yeah."

I stood up, grabbed my bag and started heading for the door.  He followed.  We said nothing as we walked through the house.  As I walked out the front door, I just said "Sorry . . . but . . . take care."  I don't remember if he said anything.

I had a ridiculous amount of pent up energy.  I was angry, I was on edge, I was frustrated, I was disappointed.

Thankfully a good friend of mine lives only about 5 minutes from where I was.  She picked up her phone when I called and I told her I was on my way.  When she asked how the date went, I answered "Well, I ended it about 45 minutes into it, so that should tell you something!"

My friend had another friend at her place and they were about to go out for ice cream when I'd called.  So I picked the two of them up and we headed to a nearby ice cream shop.  I'd barely finished telling them about the disaster of a date when my phone went off.  Mr_Classy sent me a text message that said:

"9 inches hung.  Too bad you didn't know how to get in it.  Nice knowing ya."

Now I was pissed.  Really?  I mean, REALLY?

I'm not great at being bitchy.  But I had a lot of pent up energy, texting bravery and two girlfriends to egg me on.  So I wrote back to him,

"Look a**hole.  If you'd bothered to read my profile before messaging me, you would have known that trying to f*ck me before having a genuine conversation with me would fail.  I didn't miss out on anything here."

Very quickly, he'd responded.  I did not even read the entire message before deleting it, deleting him from my contacts and blocking him from having any possible way of communicating with me again.  The gist of what I saw in the message said that I could send him the $2 for the smoothie (and he included his postal code) then said that it was fine because he could find another girl who isn't fat, with an ugly face . . . etc.

Now obviously I can't be as horrid as he made me out to be, or he wouldn't have tried so hard to get in my pants.  But you know, if I am that atrocious, imagine what it must have done to his ego to have me turn him down!

I was pretty upset that night and even rather bothered the next day.  It's not that I think there is any validity to anything this guy said.  It just doesn't feel good to be treated so poorly.  And as a friend the next day pointed out to me, it also just leaves you feeling so disappointed that there are people like that out there.  As I said earlier, I was already feeling rather tired of dating.  This evening just took the last bit of energy out of me and I decided to take a break for awhile.

There are many great comebacks that came to me that I could have replied to Mr_Classy.  My favourite is that I considered actually mailing him a $2 coin with a note that said "I hope your ego has recovered from the pity f*ck turning you down."  But ultimately I decided it's best to just let it go.  He's putting enough bad karma out into the world.  My final word on the matter is just that it leaves me with a phenomenally bad dating story - perfect for this venue.

Stay classy, Mr Classy.