The next guest post comes from one of my favorite bloggers ever, Nora at Walking Through the Rain. And while these days she’s happily in love, here she talks about the frogs she had to kiss on the way to finding her Prince!
Little Miss asked me to guest post about online dating… which I’m more than happy to do but I thought about what pushed me into the online dating world. We need to take it back a bit, back to the year 2000 when I was still in high school.
I was one of those girls in high school. No, no, not THOSE girls, but the other kind. The girl who dates only one guy for most of her days spent in high school. The girl who inadvertently alienated her single friends because she was too busy being one of the “guys.” The kind of girl who had a framed 5 x 7 of her boyfriend on her desk in her dorm room when they went to separate colleges. Yup, that was me.
Not hard to see why it was a huge shock when after my 18th birthday my High School Boyfriend (HSB) decided to break up with me. On the phone. After seeing me all weekend.
My college roomie heard me sobbing in the hallway (I remember I didn’t want to interrupt her soap opera watching) of our dorm and literally had to guide me to bed. I couldn’t speak. I was panic stricken. The crying and accidental anorexia (I honestly didn’t have the energy or desire to eat) lasted for a solid two weeks until HSB called me to say he had a new girlfriend.
That night I got angry. Like, throw all of the presents he ever gave me, including jewelry, clothes and pictures, in the dumpster and then go run five miles on the track in the middle of the night angry.
And that, my friends is when the recreational drinking started. And coincidentally when I really started to date. This is a story of the first guy I kissed after HSB.
The following weekend my roomie and I ventured out in our Saturday night’s finest to a classic house party in the more alternative side of town. Think alternative meets punk meets rocker chic meets poet meets English major and that’s the kind of party we were at.
Save for a wine cooler here and there and champagne on special occasions I denounced drinking in high school, partially afraid to betray my parents trust, partially afraid of what the liquor would do to me and partially a bit of self-righteousness I suppose. This night I had beer. From a keg. I liked it. I liked it so much I had three or four 16 oz cups of foamy beer. I hung around the bonfire. I talked to new people. I even talked to a boy. Tall, lanky, wearing a page boy hat, holey jeans and Jesus sandals; most definitely not what I would have classified as my “type,” but he complimented me, told me I was beautiful, said he would take me out. Just the words I needed and wanted to hear that night.
I vaguely recall kissing him, vaguely recall bits and pieces of our conversation but the best part of the night, to this day is this brief conversation we had:
New Guy: “Hi, my name is Cricket.”
Nora: “Um… you mean like the insect?”
NG: “Yes, that’s right.”
Nora (I remember saying this, too, despite my friends laughing right out loud): “Did your mom like Charles Dickens? You sound like a character from a Charles Dickens novel!”
Cricket called me the next day and asked for me. I told him he had the wrong number. And so began my dating career. My sophomore year in college I was voted “Most Likely to be on a Dating Show.” My junior year I dated a great guy until I graduated and came back to the StL. Then I had a semi-serious thing with an Australian. And after him another semi-serious thing with a Workaholic. And after he broke my heart? Yeah, online dating, baby. I saw it as a safe way to meet men who were obviously interested in meeting women. Or at least, most of them wanted to actually meet… others were obviously interested in only one thing. You know what I’m talking about. From there I met an array of men. Here’s a random sampling:
Model Guy: slept with 63 women.
Cat Boy: our date lasted all of 20 minutes.
I’m actually engaged boy: enough said.
Bruno the Tall Italian: ditched me for a blonde.
The teacher: Tried to take me home on the first date and Napoleon complex.
Over Waterer: After one date he emailed, sent egreetings and texts every day, five times a day.
The Bartender: turned out to be an alcoholic.
The Ben Affleck Look Alike: Played one too many mind games with one too many girls at a time.
The Artist: Baby, broke and cheated on me.
The Chiropractor Student: Wouldn’t let me have male friends.
That’s honestly just the tip of the iceberg.
The best part about all of these horror stories? Looking back, I wouldn’t trade these experiences for the world. They’ve all helped me figure out what I really want in a man, who I really want to be, and proclaim the motto I still use to this day: “You never know unless you try.”
Little Miss Obsessive 