“I like spending time down at the river, it’s where I can relax” Lynn told me a number of times. We planned on spending time at the river on our first date but the rain took it in a different direction all together.

I have been taking a break from dating for a little while now. Actually, this is a lie. I have gone on some dates but most of them were uneventful or worthy of writing about. It has become pretty easy to get a date at this point with women of all ages (no one younger than 30); for the most part though it has been a sad affair. It’s been sad for some of the women, and sad for me. My decidedly empty life has a little bit of meaning when I meet some of these strangers…well at least I tell myself it does.

Normally when I write these, I will change the name of the person. The fact that this woman was named Lynn though, I couldn’t change it. It fits way too well.

Lynn started writing to me a long time ago. Right around when I first started using the dating site. She lives in a part of New Hampshire that is a little too far away for me so we never exchanged anything aside from a few brief messages. She wrote me out of the blue a few months ago and we eventually exchanged phone numbers and started texting and then talking on the phone. After the first phone call we got along okay, she was very clear as I was that she wasn’t interested in anything serious, almost to the point of sounding like some sort of free loving hippie woman. Lynn lives in what I understand is a room in a friend’s house and she had car issues, often borrowing her friend’s car to drive home. Said car apparently didn’t have working headlights so if Lynn found herself out past sundown she would park the van in the lot of a Walmart and sleep there until the sun came up. Lynn is also a grandmother. A young grandmother at 43, although I believe she may have changed the age on her profile at some point as I remember her being older when we first started talking.

Speaking of talking, Lynn did quite a lot of this, and for a woman who agreed with me that I didn’t want any kind of situation where I was talking to someone on the phone or texting every day she sure was a bit talkative. I don’t want to know anyone’s schedule or what they are doing, and I certainly don’t want anyone to know what I am always doing (well, aside from my 300 + friends on Facebook). There were a few instances where she would call me and I wouldn’t pick up the phone and text me and I wouldn’t reply. I’m not going to get into small “cute” text messages with a woman I’ve never met. After my last relationship I think I am bitterly out of those for good at this point.

Lynn and I set up a date for a Saturday, and like the last time I went on a date far away in New Hampshire I got myself a room. For one thing, I’d have the luxury of spending the night in a bed. Since I have been sleeping on couches and floors for the last two and a half years this is always a highlight of my life. It’s the little things. Also it would appear that I might have been getting together with Lynn for more than just a “walk by the river”

She decided we meet at the hotel, which I was a little apprehensive about at first. Since this would be my little escape if I needed to run away. We met outside in the parking lot and she was pretty much what she looked like in pictures; short, long wavy blonde hair, thick and big tits. I’m not really a “tits guy” although I like to sometimes pretend I am when I am “out with the guys” and we are talking about women. Well when I am out with married men or men with girlfriends who seem to talk about women who they’re not in a relationship with more than us single men. Since it was raining our plan to go eat lunch and then go down by the river would change. She suggested we maybe hit up a club in the area after we eat and see some live music. Lynn doesn’t drink alcohol, and I barely do, but if I go out to a bar I might have one beer or a drink. Lynn apparently goes out at night to the bar and drinks “iced water and watches the music” Sounds fun Lynn.

She grabs a free newspaper called “The Hippo” in the lobby and we go up to the room. She mentions her cell phone is out in the car and we should use my phone to call all the venues in Manchester listed in The Hippo to see what kind of music the artists are. I tell her I have limited minutes (I don’t, I just don’t want to try and explain how to use a touch screen phone and what if a text comes in from one of my snarky friends while she is holding it?) We use the hotel room phone. She puts me in charge of the phone book and she will tell me the name of a bar, I will find the phone number, tell her and she’ll make the call. These are all the real names of bars we called and the artists performing, and pretty much exactly how she spoke to whomever picked up the phone.

First place is called Derryfield

“Hi, can you tell me what the band Phoenix is like? Oh, 90’s and classic rock covers? Okay thanks”

Now on to the Jam Factory

“Hi what is the band Cruise Control like? Oh, classic rock covers and 90’s? Okay thanks”

Mad Bob’s

“Hi can you tell me what the band Max Voltage (!!!) is like? Oh, classic rock and 90’s covers? Okay, thank you”

You get the picture…we called a few more and finally I stopped her and she stumbled upon an ad in the paper for a place called Shaskeen where a band called “Destroy Babylon” was playing. “They play reggae and dub…I’ve never heard of dub, what is that?” she asks. “It’s instrumental reggae” I tell her. The show is listed as tonight but the date is off so we assume a typo. We are going to get lunch right near this club so we will check when we get there.

We drive to downtown Manchester (in her car) and park right in front of Shaskeen where there is a sign that reads who is playing. “Toolfist” I am pretty certain Toolfist is a Tool cover band, which to me sounds like a nightmare. She apparently doesn’t believe me and still wants to go in and check. So she literally walks in and asks the bartender “Hi, what is the band Toolfist like?” I was correct.

We decide on Chinese food right next to the bar. She has been here before and tells me they have a fried-rice here that doesn’t have soy sauce in it. It’s white, but has the same vegetables and meat a generic Chinese fried-rice would have. I find it on the menu and when it comes time to order the food Lynn has a brief uncomfortable exchange with the waitress who can barely speak English

“We would like that fried rice that doesn’t have soy sauce in it, it’s that white one”

“Yes, white house rice special?”

“I don’t know, is that the one that doesn’t have soy sauce in it”

“Yes”

“Do you mean yes that is the name of it or yes I am right that it doesn’t have soy sauce in it?”

I pull the menu out and point to the “white house rice special”

Over lunch Lynn starts talking about her life and her son. I remember her telling me she had a son and a grandchild but that was it. She lets me know her son is in federal prison serving ten years and she takes care of his daughter from time to time but the mother may move away from the area and then her eyes start getting watery. Are we really going to start crying into the white house rice special or what? At some point she tells me, she may have to take a phone call from him so she can read him some docket over the phone so he can assure people in this jail he is not a rat. I can’t make this shit up. She never tells me what he is in jail for.

Once we finish I half joke how I could use a nap. For all I know this could be me being passive aggressive about sex, but I would never admit that here. It is early though, and these clubs all don’t start having live music until 9:30 or so. I really want to make sure I am fully rested before Cruise Control or Max Voltage takes the stage.

We arrive back at the hotel and her phone rings just as we are pulling in and I can hear the recording “You have a call from a federal prison….” I give her the second key card to the hotel room and make my way upstairs. She comes up about a half hour later, says nothing about the phone call and I am already on the bed getting pretty tired. Now normally I wouldn’t write anything this personal in this blog, especially as I don’t want people to think I sleep with random women all the time. But again, I can’t make this shit up.

So Lynn joins me on the bed and we start fooling around. It’s at this point when I realize she isn’t as attractive as I initially thought so I am a little apprehensive about ummm, “stuff” She takes her top and bra off and after a minute or so tells me “that one had pre-breast cancer in it so there might be a scar there you can see” Now I definitely would never make light of cancer, especially where I know so many people who have been affected by it but really. Don’t talk about cancer when we’re about to start doing some shit in bed. This pretty much turned me off, but not as much as what would come next.

I’m not going to lie and say I would never have sex with someone on a first date. There are lots of people who do this every day. To me it’s no big deal really, especially if it’s agreed that you’re not doing anything serious relationship-wise. So Lynn mentions she has a condom in her bag. She gets up to get it and casually says “You don’t mind having sex with me while I am on my period do you?” That Price is Right music when someone loses goes off in my head.

“Um, yeah I don’t think so”

“Oh okay, I figured I’d ask as some guys are okay with it”

Yeah, not guys who have the hotel room on their credit card and want to leave the room looking like a crime scene. It would appear Lynn was kind of a disgusting person. So this pretty much brings everything to a screeching halt and she puts her clothes on and says she is going to go out to her car and get a book so she can read while I take a nap. This is at 6:30. The next thing I know it is 7:45 and Lynn is still not back. And she has a key to this room. I assume she left for good. I clearly don’t want her to come back. The 90’s and classic rock cover bands can wait. I venture outside and notice her car is gone so I send her a text message

“So did you leave?”

I go back in the room and tell the clerk at the desk I may have dropped the second key outside with the envelope with the room number on it so he gives me a new card. About an hour later I get a response “I thought you were going to sleep longer. I’ll be back in a little bit”

I reply

“Don’t bother, I’m going to sleep”

She replies

“K, goodnite” and that is the last I heard from Lynn.

At this point I am going to put dating on hold. I have a number of other things going on right now that are preventing me from giving someone attention, even if it’s someone I am only half interested in. As much as I like to think I am cynical about these experiences, and think I have no room in my life for a real relationship it’s obvious this isn’t the place to find that. All of my best relationships have been by accident, or something that grew out of a friendship and that kind of thing. The closest friends in my life right now are all women. Either platonic friends or ex-girlfriends I have remained friends with. They all know me well and I know them well and sometimes having them in my life fulfills that need to spend time with a girl.  What can I say, I enjoy spending time with women, whether it’s on a deep emotional level or some shallow empty one night affair in the middle of New Hampshire.  Live free or die.