caffeineandcookies

“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.

A couple of Saturday’s ago, as usual sitting around waiting for something to happen I get an alert on my phone that I have a new message on the dating website. I had slowed down all dating activity for the most part. The message turns out to be from “Donna”. The first woman I went out with on this site, which turned out to be a nightmare. I received a number of messages from her over the couple of months since that date. I ignored every single one of them. Most of them just said “hi”, while some read: “Why are you ignoring me?”, etc. She finally stopped for about a month and then I get a two word message from her that just says “YOU SUCK”. I’m not really a mean person, but sometimes I have to be I guess. This is how the rest of the exchange went:

“Wow, thanks”

“WELL U DO”

“Look, it didn’t work out after that one date and I moved on. Sorry if that was wrong of me”

“OK then”

“So Donna, have you had any luck on here since our date? I haven’t”

“Well that’s UR Problem NOT MINE”

“Good luck being a drunk, lonely older woman forever Donna”

And then I blocked her.

For the most part this online dating thing is working. I have gone on dates. Most of them have been less than one time deals. It’s getting a bit exhausting at this point really. There’s only so much talking about yourself you can do, only so much listening to someone else talk or write about themselves you can take. Some of the messages out of the blue I get are painful. I feel like I have become shallower than ever. I like to think I am meeting people for practice, or because of some eventual time when I meet someone I really like I’ll suddenly be “ready”. What it all boils down to is I’m bored. I like hanging around with women more than men and, well I’m bored. I am not in any place to be in a relationship with someone. I most likely never will be. Even writing to women on there, after a few days you start writing each other more frequently and then start to know each other’s schedules and that kind of thing. I don’t want anything to do with that. It’s nice to share certain experiences in life with people, and obviously it’s nice to get laid, but really, I’d rather just be doing my own thing without having to “check in” or wonder where some girl I call my girlfriend/wife is. That sounds horrible to me at this point. Okay before I get too serious here…

I started talking to Jill on the dating website right when I started using it. It was really hard to talk to her as she would send these one-sentence responses to me and couldn’t keep a conversation going. I kind of forgot about her and then noticed her online one night and sent her a message asking how her search was going. Asking this seems like something everyone asks each other there. Usually when I ask someone I am trying to gauge how bitter she might be at that certain time. If they are really at the end of their rope it’s going to be harder to get a date. From what most women on there tell me, and from what most women I know in real life tell me, men are idiots. They have no idea how to talk to women, they say disgusting things right off the bat, assume women love photos of penises, etc. I never do this, and I’ve never sent a photograph of my penis to anyone via my phone…that didn’t ask me to. I have to say trying to photograph your penis with an iPhone in your mother’s bathroom at 5:35 AM is a skill every man should learn at some point. This is what I have heard anyway. I’m not some sort of gigolo with “THE PUSSY WHISPERER” airbrushed on the back of my Chevy or anything, but I like to think I can talk to women and generally am interested in things they have to say…well as long as they aren’t playing the “do I look fat?” game.

So Jill and I start talking and she is now more talkative, and admits that she is “shy at first” We exchange phone numbers and text for a few days straight. At one point, after a week I see on my phone I have a missed call from her. This is followed up by a text message. “Sorry, I accidentally called your phone! LOL” I guess we are at a text only situation. A few days later I suggest talking on the phone and through some miscommunication I assume she doesn’t want to talk on the phone. We continue texting for another week. In the meantime a new woman starts talking to me, also named Jill. At one point she gives me her phone number. I have no idea what either of their last names are but don’t want to put “JILL 1”, “JILL 2” as the contact names. I end up just putting “Jill” for the first “text only” Jill and leave the other one blank. In a year from now I will most likely have no idea who either of these two women are so what the fuck does it matter really? Finally the first Jill and I speak on the phone and arrange a date. Well, to hang out.

Jill lives in New Hampshire, about an hour from me. She lives with her son (11) and her brother (38), while he “gets back on his feet” The father of the son is homeless and has one leg. When I tell my friend about this a couple of weeks prior she tells me to “run away”.

“Are you fucking crazy?” I ask her

I am going to head up to her place on a Friday night and hang with her and her brother and the woman he met on the very same dating website. Oh yeah. So when Jill and I started talking she mentioned her brother seeing this woman he met from the same website. She showed this woman a picture of me from the dating site and she claimed I wrote her. When I arrive at their house, low and behold I recognize her as a woman I sent a message to.

I make plans to hang with the other Jill on Sunday afternoon. When I pull get off the exit to go to the first Jill’s place I note there are two towns listed on the sign that I am heading to. One is where Jill lives, and the other one is where the other Jill lives. I have to come back here Sunday.

The house they live in is a two family house with a huge yard. When I pull into the driveway I am immediately confused as to where Jill is. She ends up looking a little different than her pictures, but not much. Also, I have recently as of this summer realized I might need glasses so that might have had something to do with that as well. She greets me, and there is a younger skinny girl (upstairs neighbor) standing there, a guy (brother Billy) sitting on the porch with his date (Brenda). There is also a little Chihuahua running around and a little boy (the son) off in the distance. Everyone is smoking aside from the child and the Chihuahua. It seems as if for the remainder of the night there is always at least two cigarettes burning. Jill introduces me to them and then immediately mentions “See that’s Brenda who you wrote to”. I make eye contact with the brother and now I’m pretty uncomfortable. The brother is a normal looking New England type guy. He is wearing a New England Patriots shirt, has a goatee and is just New Hampshirey. He turns out to be a pretty nice guy. They are all really nice people.

We sit around a fire pit. Jill to my left, her brother to my right, Brenda to his right and the neighbor comes and goes throughout the night. Her boyfriend arrives at one point and he is an okay New Hampshirey guy as well. While sitting by the fire a radio plays a classic rock station that is playing some of my favorite music, and of course Billy has to call out the band every time a song comes on. I only correct him twice. He is wrong five times.

For whatever reason, I quiet myself into a personality that must have left little to be desired. I think we had talked about everything we could talk about those few weeks getting to know each other before meeting. This was the end result. Two people sitting there barely talking to each other with other people around to make it a little easier. Obviously everyone there must have noticed. I had three cans of Budweiser over the five or six hours I ended up hanging out. At one point while putting my beer can down in the tall grass to the left of my seat I secretly dumped out half of the beer on the ground. I don’t really like beer or alcohol that much so it’s usually a chore to get through a second beer, and a third one, forget it. I didn’t want to look like a pussy that doesn’t finish his beers.

Once they grew tired of some of the deeper cuts on the radio a laptop was brought out and we listened to some Pandora stations. I then learned that one of Jill’s favorite bands is Matchbox 20. I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard Matchbox 20. I mean I am sure I have but according to my friends on Facebook I am supposed to not like them or Nickelback, another band I’ve never actually heard. Thankfully the band names are so awful that I already just don’t like these bands on that alone. So we’re listening to some truly awful music I’ve only heard of. Shinedown. Disturbed. The Sick Puppies. There is apparently a band called the Sick Puppies and it’s not a punk rock band from 1981. “You like rock music and you’ve never heard of the Sick Puppies?” Jill asks me. I shrug. And then Kid Rock comes on.

An hour later as I am pulling into my driveway a little shy of 5:00 AM I get a text from her “You could have given me a longer kiss than that”. She is referring to the peck I gave her five minutes after the Kid Rock song ended.

“Oh we hit it off?” I thought to myself.

Later that afternoon I call the other Jill on the phone and cancel our Sunday date. I need some time to myself on a Sunday. That’s what Sundays have always been: for me and that’s how I want them to continue to be.