Honestly, mostly honesty is the best policy when you disagree with their policies!

Good Evening,

After the handshaking debacle a few people including my Grandmother told me to give lawyer the benefit of the doubt and go out again. Our plan was for a Sunday evening and he offered to come to my town but I strongly discouraged it- my reasoning. When a guy wants to hang out on a work night near where you live, by a certain time of night there is nothing to do and that's when it seems like a great idea (to them) to invite themselves to your place. Now once they walk in the door, you can be assured that in their mind sex is right there on the table. It's not on my table, and my house is full of tables so that was just not an option. Therefore I opted to venture a few towns south of where I live where we could meet by the water and hang out.

As we met he was once again on his cell, but that I could shrug off as I am guilty of the same though usually hang up before I leave my car. As we walked along the water we meandered to an area he claimed to be his favorite spot. You know what those are like, the more secluded area where the walkway extends out further and the wood is carved with initials and non prosaic statements and questions by teenagers who felt cool making out there past curfew. When I asked how many girls he had brought their previously he claimed none but I just couldn't believe it. As we walked and chatted somehow the topic of deal breakers came up. He mentioned how their was an exception to every rule and I said that's true, for example one of my non budgable qualities is a full head of hair ( I can't help it everyone has preferences!). When I thought about it though I decided suppose someone who had shaved their head in support of a relative or friends who was God forbid going through chemo would be an exception.

Obviously living at home is another deal breaker for me. Now of course there are exceptions such as recently divorced, going through graduate school, or at home to aid an ailing parent/ relative. However, after having owned my own home for five years now and still (yes still) being under the age of 30 I have a low tolerance for this. When we were discussing exceptions he said kind of like my situation. "What do you mean!?" I gasped. "You don't live at home."

"You know I do. I told you that"

"OK clearly I would remember that. You have a studio apartment in the next town?"

"Ummm, are you confusing me with another one of your dates? I never said that, I have an office in the next town, and I don't live there"

"But, I could swear you said that. Trust me I definitely would have remembered that!"

OK so he's 3 years older than I and his parents basically said that because he was working on building his legal practice he should just live at home. He claimed it was cost him $3000 a month. Now I know we live in one of the priciest areas of the country, but come on. Maybe to live like your parents live, where a housekeeper takes care of everything and you have a large place indicative of having worked for a longer period of time that he had, but come on. At 32 you should want to not live with your parents. You should be willing to live in a cheaper town, rent a room, get a studio. I would sleep in the small office instead of being one of those that's enabled. My reaction was obviously dramatic to him, so he asked if if I felt I needed to cal a friend and discuss or go home. Hell no, I drove 30 miles out of my way and hear that this guy who mooches off his parents now was trying to get out of buying me dinner. I don't think so. He suggested a pub, and I nixed that. I wasn't going for crap food after this convo. Instead we opted for his ex gf's favorite Asian Fusion place, which turned out to be great. For once, I broke my own rules and ordered the steak (It was an Asian place, only $22) because this guy clearly blows several hundred a week on booze and eating out every day (hmm enough for rent perhaps?). Anyway the ex had great taste in restaurants, but not in men, well maybe since she's moved on...

After dinner, I had a bad taste in my mouth, but not from the delectable food, however from the laziness of this moocher. To top it off, I just really did not like his personality. I guess I knew that from the beginning to an extent but was willing to give it a try. As we were in the car about to say goodbye, I was concerned with it being the 4th date and my success record of avoiding a kiss. He started to lean in but it was intermittent, like a woodpecker...I started laughing and that luckily killed the moment. I got away with a closed mouth wouldn't be incestuous if it was your Uncle kiss. I have to say he was good with the follow up and I heard from him daily. He even invited me to go out on his friends boat for the upcoming weekend. Although I initially texted I didn't feel we because I was hungover from the previous night (true), I really just didn't want to lead him on and meet his friends and then subsequently announce I didn't like his personality or some nicer excuse. My friends made me promise not to back down and so I did it I called and said that I had been thinking about it and I just couldn't deal with the living at home thing.

"It won't be forever" he claimed. However three years seemed to be forever to me, and he didn't even have any seemingly close plans to consider it. "Don't you think that's shallow?" he exclaimed.

"Actually the correct use of the word (this English lesson for a lawyer, go figure) would be if I said you didn't make enough $$ for me"

And soon after the convo was awkwardly over, thank goodness I was free of the bad personality, living at home lawyer.

So who else was on the horizon? Well, I was supposed to meet the teacher and he sent me an email suggesting lunch at this dive bar known for having crap food so I wrote back and suggested about 8 other places (not too pricey or anything just not crappy) citing that the place was just not known for its food. I got an email back the next day (day before our date) saying he was going to have to do something he didn't do too often and cancel due to the fact school was starting, and he was working on starting a business, writing a novel, and also was overwhelmed by the response of people who wanted to date him since he began online dating. Now here was my sympathy date. Someone I figured since he lived in the next town and seemed OK, although I didn't find his pics attractive I would give it a try. I am not sure who these people are who are overwhelming him (is another one or two overwhelming?) but I didn't care. I was relieved to have the time back in my schedule, and have avoided eating crap food. His email went on to say that he sincerely did want to meet me and this was in no way to avoid going out, he was just overwhelmed. He asked me to contact him in 3-4 weeks and then he definitively wanted to start something. I couldn't hit the delete button fast enough!

So whom do you ask do we have left in the current and ever changing line up? There's still the analyst, whom I am supposed to be chatting by phone with for the first time tomorrow and potentially meeting for dinner this weekend.

The consultant from years ago has once again (third time was not a charm) disappeared so he's out for now

In new news, we've got a psychologist I spoke to on the phone from the next state who suggested potential drinks for next week, another lawyer who is moving to my state shortly who I've been exchanging long emails with, the newest recruit today's new match who I found out through our exchanging of info is divorced with a three year old son across the country, and whose family are Mormon zealots, but my friend thought he sounded nice so I should keep corresponding. Now if that isn't a potentially titillating cast of characters for next week what is? By tomorrow half could be gone, and a new few could emerge. Until then, take care!

To shake or not to shake- that is the questions, or is it the answer?

Good Afternoon All,

As promised I made my weekend date with the lawyer after finding out the consultant had to go out of town. Let me backtrack a bit...last year, specifically in January of 08 after a serious relationship ended the first guy I started talking to was consultant. Since I was still bummed about the other relationship ending, and was weary about meeting someone new I hesitated to meet in person. Consultant and I sent wonderfully long, and introspective emails for close to two months, and I found out ironically one of the main companies he consulted for was my company. After a few months and maybe 1 or 2 calls or communication ceased, and I wondered what had happened. I wasn't too surprised to get an email that was extremely nice but basically said around the same time he started talking to me he started also talking to someone else he had met in person, and wanted to be fair to both of us and see where it went with her. I was disappointed but there were many frogs to meet so I moved on. Fast forward to the fall of 08 where my company had rumors floating around about lay-offs and I remembered that consultant was working with highers ups who impacted the financial decisions at our company so after discovering that he still worked for the same company I sent him a casual email asking if he knew anything about lay-offs and it was well received. We went back and forth with him mentioning he didn't want to lose touch again.

Just as it happened the last time though less prescriptively we lost touch and I started dated my ex, dentist/roomie. A few weeks after he moved out tough, I sent consultant a casual email saying it's time for our once every 9-10 months hello and if he wanted to catch up sometime to let me know. It took about ten days (because of him being out of town due to a serious family illness) but he did get back to me saying that he did want to get together and inquired when would work. We had planned for Friday but he had to go back out of town, and after texting back and forth over the weekend I am hoping we'll solidify plans soon. It would be nice after knowing so much about each other through email for over a year and a half to actually meet in person in any context.

So back to Friday- after finding out Consultant was busy I agreed to give lawyer a third chance (rare for me as I usually am the two date wonder, as in they wonder why they never get a third date). We agreed to meet in a town in between where both of us live and as we walked in I was quite surprised to see a close friend there dining with someone. I introduced the lawyer to my friends and he saw down, there was no handshake! I had never seen anything like it. Although he claimed to say hi, even after me motioning for him to come over and reiterating that these were my friends he continued to sit. I was in awe. Am I blowing this out of control? Come to find out when I saw my friend the next day her friend had said lawyer seemed sketchy because he didn't in fact shake their hands, or make good eye contact- see I am not the only one who appreciates proper etiquette. Once we were eating I commented to lawyer that he seemed not to be in a good mood. He admitted he was stressed about work, and while I can certainly sympathize with that my feeling is that on the third date you need to bring it. Put your best foot forward or cancel like last time. My other concern is that two out of three times we've met there has been trouble at work so could he be too high maintenance?

Moving on from dinner we again went out to get some ice cream and since I was buying some chocolate to take home I said I would pay for the ice cream. Now he claims that he did say thank you but I didn't hear it. Ok I can give him the benefit of the doubt for that but still was unsettled about the handshaking thing. When I mentioned to him that I couldn't believe he didn't shake my friends hands, and he claimed he thought they were just acquaintances, but what does it matter? I shake everyone's hands regardless of how important I think they are to the person who has introduced us. As we sat outside and chatted with our ice cream the topic of sex came up. So how many times if you are in a boyfriend/ girlfriend relationship do you think you should have sex a week? Again sizing me up for how I'd be as a girlfriend, but what are you bringing to the table as a potential boyfriend? He started to tell me about how relationships often end because of a disagreement about sex, but I made sure to tell him that it's not the sex that's the problem it's a consequence of a larger problem. If a girl doesn't want to have sex with you when your her boyfriend it's more than likely for a reason other than sex.

After mentioning that I didn't think the date was going that well I agreed to go for a drink. As we walked into the first option I saw what I am still 100% was two men kissing. He told me that they were talking to a shorter woman and he thought that one of them kissed the woman not the man. It was still not acceptable for me so we moved onto the next place, which he soon vetoes because he said it had a weird odor, along with a lot of underage looking kids smoking outside, seemed to be a running theme where we went, though this time we were in a very wealthy town. You couldn't tell that by the next place we finally ended up in, a pretty male dominated sports bar/ restaurant where the drinks were subpar and the atmosphere was just not there for me. Lawyer's mood improved and he mentioned he thought things were going better but the earlier mood had kinda set a bad tone for me. As the night went on I knew being our third date he was definitely going to try and make a move, but just not feeling it no altoid went in my mouth, and I wasn't looking for anything else there either. As he learned in for the kiss I must have given a some kind of look or something because he almost immediately backed away and asked if he could kiss me on the cheek. I said sure that's chivalrous and awkwardly departed for the night. Later on he sent me a text saying he hoped I got home safely and he would be really nice to me in the future. The next day I got another text saying I should shake my friends hand at the movies. I mentioned I was going to the movies with the same friend he didn't shake hands with during our date the following day.

I didn't respond because I wasn't quite sure how to take it, and last night he left me a vm around 9 telling me to call back and he'd be up late. Tonight I must return the call and in my general blunt and honest way I think I will tell him my concerns. I am torn between giving up but also with financially impactful news that was negative today and a large car repair bill wondering if I should give it one more spin to get another free drink/ meal. Can't hurt right? Hey guys do not get a period, or give birth, we totally deserve the free drinks!

So who else is on the horizon you may wonder? Well there's the teacher whose pics I am not attracted too who I have a lunch date planned for Sunday with since I figured I should at least give him a chance.

There's also the analyst who looks diff in every pic who lives 2 hours away that I've been emailing for a few weeks. His company pays for him to keep an apartment in London. No word of meeting yet but I imagine it will come.

In addition, there's the incredibly hot stockbroker who I sent my number to yesterday after he suggested meeting up sometime. He's from western Canada originally and was of course a professional ice hockey player.

And then we're still waiting on whether the long awaited meeting with consultant will ever actually take place...stayed tuned cause things can only get more dramatic, more twisted, and more feisty.

Until then...

Back in the saddle, more frogs for the blog!

Good Evening All,

Seems it's been quite some time since I deviated from one main frog to jumping from Lily pad to Lily pad. Well after an 8 month relationship with yet again another roommate (only taking females from now on, and NO not even a chance). I'm back in the game again. Roomie/dentist is back fixing super outdoorsy folks cavities on the Oregon trail, and I am hot on the trail perhaps to finally find someone I don't look at and wonder if there's anyone else better. Is that possible? Only time will tell of course. So fresh after the most mutually agreeable we're 3000 miles away and weren't meant to be anyway should have shaken hands at the end break-up why waste anytime?

Within a week I was out with the first one a lawyer who seemed jaded by NY woman but well-educated, ambitious and ready to make plans. It was a Monday night when we met for some ice cream. The conversation flew pretty well as we took a walk, ate some calories, and then walked some off. The requisite what was your worst date convo took place and I must say though not better than my stories he did have some gems. There was the girl who brought her gay best friend on the date without asking, and he made it just ten minutes before ducking out the bathroom door. And then there was the girl who told him he was her second date of the night. "Why would you tell me that?" he exclaimed!

"Well I plan on sleeping with either you, the guy before you, or the one I am meeting afterwards so keep your cell on and I'll call you if I decide you're the guy I'm going to screw".

And folks wonder why NY is the city that never sleeps? Maybe it's the city that never sleeps with the same person (more than once at least). In any event I felt like while there was a jaded an cynical undertone to a lot of what he said, we had a pretty good banter going and when he asked if I'd like to continue hanging out I said sure and we headed to this bar I had never gone into before because I thought it was seedy. Well turns out I was right. Welcome to middle aged guys drinking beer and playing poker with nothing else to do on a Monday night central. We grabbed some drinks and headed for the patio where the conversation continue to flow as did the flurry of middle aged have to take a break from the straights and flushes to torture their lungs crowd. For a first date it was pretty decent, no major sparks but no major non sparks and a hug goodbye was respectful and going along with my new whole taking it slow and feeling it out (not up or down) mentality. Lawyer followed up with a text and seemed interested in going out again.

In the interim I had been talking to personal trainer and he invited me not just for drinks and ice cream, but actual dinner! Score! With the boyfriend out of the picture free meals had become a thing of last month and I so needed some badly, especially the kind that came with enough food to wrap some and provide free lunch the next day. Personal trainer/ expert in some unique techniques, which sounded incredibly similar to chiropractic techniques but I was assured were completely opposite and were changing the world one day at a time and I made plans for the upcoming Sunday evening. At first glance outside of the landing strip on his forehead he was pretty cute. Reminded me of a guy in college I used to hook up with. Not that guy the other one....Let's leave that topic for a little while and move on. Personal Trainer sure had a lot of energy and excitement about this new revolutionary methodology and a lot of energy in general. Certainly not a cynic but albeit an actual pickier eater than me.

"I have texture issues" he said

"Oh I have a few friends with those, so no flan, no pudding? I know I know flan looks like snot I hear it from my sister all the time."

"Well pistachio pudding absolutely no flan, no rice pudding, bread pudding vile, mashed potatoes unheard of, rarely can I eat cooked vegetables, and absolutely no stews, soups etc!"

Wow and people thought I was bad! This was nearly impossible. Coming from a guy who said he cooked I can't imagine what he actually cooked. Now I thought I was an impossible orderer but I have never quite heard more substitutions. No onions on the steak, no mashed potatoes, no arugula on top of the steak. I suggested these potatoes I had had before that were crispy fried potatoes with olive oil and herbs. When the food came I asked how he liked his potatoes and he said they were absolutely disgusting? I thought he was kidding until I realized he was clearly not.

Good News: I took the potatoes home and got two side dishes worth of additional meals

Bad News: They just weren't crispy enough for him.

In the course of conversation as he ate simply his steak, which actually was an acceptable texture I found out not only did he have texture issues but also issues with unfinished wood. Chopsticks, Popsicle sticks all horrified him. This was not something I was familiar with. As a fellow picker eater and I can certainly understand and appreciate the idiosyncratic ways of someone who just isn't into trying everything and everything (at least food wise). Unfinished wood though? Really? I am not going to even describe the look on his face when dessert, homemade doughnuts with a dipping sauce came served with a wooden stick speared in one of them. I actually had to remove the stick and put it in my purse. I found it again today and was wondering what it was doing in there. It reminded me why I wasn't concerned I hadn't heard from Personal trainer since the date, or had made an effort to contact him. Before I wrap up that date let me just mention during our worst date comparisons stories he mentioned a woman who he was planning on meeting who asked for a picture of his feet prior to their date. She had a foot fetish he reassured me. Alas, I was not reassured, I was scared. You didn't give him the pic did you, I asked skeptically fearing someone I already perhaps knew the answer. Of course I did what's the harm? Wouldn't you?

How about no, and I am thinking no second date either, but best of luck with your wooden stick phobia, maybe if you mix the eyes of two newts with the skin from a dragon and burn it that can be cured???

The next day I had plans to go out with lawyer again but he texted saying he was burnt and wanted to see how he felt when he got in. I texted back he should grab some aloe vera and relax. Come to find out he meant burnt as in burnt out and thinking he was getting some kind of stomach bug. No need to be around that so we agreed to see how he felt the next day. He texted me at work saying he was feeling much better and could we meet for drinks around 9. I figured for the second date dinner would be more appropriate but he had to change and go to the gym etc etc so I agreed to meet at 9. We showed up to a bar, which is usually hopping on the weekends but was deader than the personal trainer would have been if he had fully encountered the unfinished wooden stick in the doughnut. The bartender sugared the rim of the drinks like I asked but it all went downhill from there. We both struggled through straight vodka, which I added sugar, grenadine, and lemon too and it still tasted awful. Speaking of the bartender she sure did a lot of speaking as she was bored with us being the only customers. It's no problem for me to be friendly and chat with whomever but it's definitely not the best way to get to know someone new.

During our vile drinking lawyer told me that honestly although he was burnt out the previous night, he actually was really stressed about one of his cases and having a bad day, so he didn't want to come out. Ok- that's understandable. After somehow consuming the vodka we meandered on to the next destination a seedy bar up the road where there were folks playing trivial pursuit, and I decided that I couldn't risk another undrinkable drink so I ordered some rice pudding. At least have the guy pay for one thing that's not alcohol right? Thank god I have no food texture issues because the rice pudding was good. While the conversation was pretty decent, I couldn't help but feel like lawyer wasn't as interested in me as how I would be for him. I felt like I was being interviewed as a potential girlfriend, which is fine because everyone sizes each other up however, at the same time you need to balance that with presenting yourself as someone who would also be a potentially desirable partner. Another hug at the end of the date, although I could tell he wanted to kiss me, but thank God realized the atmosphere was not that appropriate with the underage guy smoking and texting sitting on the bench outside the bar where we were saying goodnight. Good call lawyer. And he kept calling. I told him if we were going to go out again it needed to be a real weekend date, before 9 PM, with dinner. It's just not conducive to get to know someone when you can't even sit across from them at the table. Plus, I figured since I am dating more than one person he is too, and if by the third date he can't give me a weekend spot, than he must not be that interested. He was however very good about the texts, and intermittent calls and asked for Friday night. It was what I was looking for except for the fact I had already made tentative plans with Consultant for Friday night....

I must head to bed, but stay tuned for who got Friday night, and meeting the other players in the game of love/luck/I can't believe this is true/ and other tales from the adventurous...

Until tomorrow....