Dating so sucks.

Today I'm going to rant a bit about men who are signed up with on-line dating services. The rant shall consist of a number of complaints, so deal !

I tried on-line dating last summer and about this time last year I made my profile private as I was tired of the complete freaking losers I was meeting. But I still get the "These are your weekly match-ups" e-mails, just in case. Last week's e-mail (which I got today since my home computer is still fucked) had four guys listed in it. The first two I can't even remember, the fourth's name was NASCAR_rocks2, so he was discounted immediately, as we all know I am a Champ Car snob, thank you very much. The third guy's picture/name didn't make me run screaming from the room, so I clicked on it to get the full details. What on earth is it about 42 year old men who are looking for a woman in the 20-30 range? Here is the portion of his statement that pissed me off: "What I am looking for is woman to talk to and possibly date. I am interested in a 20-30 year old woman (ask me why??). If you are over 30 and still look great--do not be offended--some older women take care of themselves and are much better looking and more fun (please contact me) than the younger beauty queen types who will not stay beautiful forever if they are not committed to being healthy. If you are a woman who can be supportive and loyal and fun then you should be able to benefit from being with me.(Ask me for more details). And I definitely dig career minded women and creative women with ideas and/or ambition (this would include creating a family)."

There is so much wrong with this (and I'm not even talking grammar, but I could) that's it's mind-boggling. I think I'll take a page from Julie's book and dissect this bit by bit.

What I am looking for is woman to talk to and possibly date = Sure, as long as you're young and beautiful and will put up with my 6'0" 150 lb bony ugly ass.

I am interested in a 20-30 year old woman (ask me why??). If you are over 30 and still look great--do not be offended--some older women take care of themselves and are much better looking and more fun (please contact me) = If any "older" woman (i.e., one his own fucking age) contacts this asshole, I'd like to smack them upside their fucking heads. Remember people, this fucker is FORTY-TWO years old!!!! But he's willing to condescend to a 30 year old. Yes, I'm offended. I'm not in the same shape I was when I was 30, but it's bloody hard when the metabolism shuts down, but I'm not a fat cow, although I do call myself one.

than the younger beauty queen types who will not stay beautiful forever if they are not committed to being healthy = Because we all know beauty is skin deep, but still, does he sound like he's talking out of both sides of his mouth? Go ahead, dickweed, date a Britney Spears-wannabe, because I'll bet she's a great conversationalist.

If you are a woman who can be supportive and loyal and fun then you should be able to benefit from being with me. (Ask me for more details). = In other words, be the dog he doesn't have. And I'm dying to know how any woman could benefit from this shallow Hal. I’m sure your self-esteem would be shot to hell the second you put on a pound and a half (or then again, he might just dump your ass for more of the 20 year olds he likes so well). I think I'd throw up if I were to find out what benefits dating him would provide me.

And I definitely dig career minded women and creative women with ideas and/or ambition (this would include creating a family)." = You are 42 years old, buddy. Even if he got married within the year and had a baby right away, he's going to be 44 when his kid is born, and 62 when s/he graduates from high school, while his 20 something wife is now in her 40s, if she's even lasted this long after giving birth to his child and not getting back to her pre-natal weight. And just because he's in "fabulous shape" so was Jim Fixx when he died in his early 50s.

The only point in his favor is that he spelled "definitely" correctly, since I've seen it spelled "definately" more times than I can count.

Last year when I was semi-serious about dating, I had a few first dates and they were winners, let me tell you.

All of them made a point of tellng me how often they worked out, which made me a little paranoid. "Shit, these guys are all in good shape. Damn, I'll have to lift weights tonight." Knowing full well that lifting weights for one night is going to do nothing, but what the hell.

First guy and I decide to check out a movie (I know, I know) after we had been chatting via e-mail for a month or so. He picks me up and we head to see Terminator 3, while he fills me in on the first two. We got to the theater early (this was dinner time, BTW) and sat there and chatted until the trailers and commercials started. 20 minutes later (no exaggeration here, it was 20 freaking minutes) I whispered to him something about the length of the commercials and then the movie started. We watched the movie, he drove me home (never mentioning food, although it was now 7:00 p.m.) and said something about "right when you started complaining…" Um, I wasn't complaining, I simply made a comment that 20 minutes of COMMERCIALS and trailers before a movie is a tad ridiculous. I didn't even use those words. Well, needless to say, I never heard from him again. Oh, and if he ran every day, it was down to the corner McDonald's. He wasn't fat, but he wasn't a runner either.

Guy #2 earned the name Icky Creepy Touchy Guy. I'm thinking that pretty much says it all, but I'll elucidate for you. We met for coffee one summer afternoon near my apt. I actually drove up just because I didn't want to walk in my sandals, as they weren't all that comfortable. It was in the 80s weather-wise, so I wore a cute little sundress with the sandals. I got there first and was waiting for a man with a shaved head. Now, I find shaved heads extraordinarly attractive, normally, so keep that in mind. I sat at a table and waited for him to show up to order my beverage. This bald man walks in and he's wearing all black. Now I'm all about black being a goth myself, but this guy didn't have a clue. He was wearing pleated black dress pants, black socks, black dress shoes and a faded blacked T-shirt with some sort of green creature on it. No self-respecting goth would have worn any of this outfit, but whatever. He also worked out three times a week doing karate or some such thing, but was a tad pudgy, I would say. I don't care if you're pudgy, but don’t tell me you work out daily or something when you obviously don't!

We order our drinks (I got a vanilla malt and he got a coffee). Oh yeah, Date #1 and Date #2? I paid for myself. All guys I've asked say that they always pay for the first date. Whatever. We sit down and drink our respective beverages and talk about God knows what. He was wearing some very cool silver rings, but I'm sorry, a word of advice, if you have fat pudgy extremely white fingers, you should not wear big rings that bring attention to your fat white fingers, okay?

I'm at the point where I'm trying to figure out what's the best way to get out of this date but since I suck at being assertive in situations like these, I ended up outside sitting on a bench (it was a gorgeous day, so this wasn't the problem). I lead the way to the bench and when I went to sit down, I noticed that he was RIGHT behind me, so I moved over a bit and then sat down – personal space and all, you know. Well, ICTG moved over too and literally sat right next to me. I don't think you could have put a piece of paper between us. Now you're thinking, "Kathleen, why didn't you just move over some more?" Ah, because I was stupid and when I sat down the first time leaving what I thought was space between us I sat down right on the edge of the bench. If I moved an inch to the right I would have been on the concrete.

It gets worse, so hang on to your seats. I'm pulling out all the stops here trying to be as unattractive as possible. I'm talking about Knitting Club as if it's the most exciting thing on earth so that he thinks I'm boring and obsessed, but he thought it was cool. *sigh* He had had his arm behind my back on the benchback the entire time and I had tried sitting up VERY straight because I could feel his hand on my back, but I was getting tired and really wanted to lean against the back, so I did and he started caressing my right shoulder with his thumb. EEEEWWWWWW!!!!! I tried to ignore it, because I didn't want to cause a scene, but I finally had to get away from the seeking thumb, so I leaned forward and pretended my ankle was itchy or something and rubbed it. For some reason, perhaps any men out there can explain this to me, he viewed this as an invitation to touch me. He reached down and took his fat-fingered white hand and caressed my ankle and up my calf to my knee and said something like, "Hmmm, nice." At this point, I looked at my watch and said, "Oh, I must get going, I have knitting club tonight and I must get ready." I know a lot of you are thinking, if he had been hot would you have been so bent out of shape about him touching you? Good question, I think I would be since it was a first date and it was not acceptable behavior. He insisted on giving me a hug good-bye and wanted to make plans to see me again. I told him I would e-mail him. And I did, telling him that I did not think he was the right person for me. He wrote back and said something, "Yeah, I got those vibes on Saturday." My question is if he had been getting vibes that I was interested why was he touching me?????

Date #3 was okay, nothing horrific, except that he supposedly competes in triathlons, but once again his body was not evidence of such activity. He was nice, but dull and I really can't remember anything about him except his general lack of dressing ability. In fact, I had met him at this bar (again near my apt) and even sat at the bar and there was a regular sitting on the other side of him. I was back at this bar the next night to meet a friend for a beer and the regular was there and while I waited for A to show up I chatted with Regular Guy and he questioned me about the obvious first date the night before and I said that he was nice, but that was about it and he made the first comment about the guy's sense of dress. He said, I didn't see you with him at all. Where did he get those shoes and that purple shirt? I had to laugh.

Date #4 took place six weeks or so later. I had been e-mailing this guy for a couple of months but we were both so busy that we hadn't been able to get together until September (I think). We agreed to see Seabiscuit since we had both read the book and were interested in seeing the movie. He picked a time, I agreed and he said, "What about dinner?" I said that would be good as I did have to eat. Now, there are lots of very good and interesting restaurants here in Dearborn, but he suggested Friday's or Rio Bravo at the Mall. *sigh* I didn't like either choice, but went with Friday's since I really hate fake Mexican. Day of the Date arrives and I get an e-mail from him telling me that he's going to pick up the tickets after work and he would meet me at Friday's at 4:55 p.m. I swear to God, he specified 4:55 p.m. I was going to be a smart ass and say, Okay, see you at 4:56 p.m., but decided not to. I get there right at 4:55 p.m. and he's already there. We say Hi, blah blah blah and go to get seated. Well, 5:00 p.m. is shift change at Friday's and although we got seated fairly quickly, the hostess apparently seated us where there were no servers, so we sat there for a good ten minutes before a waiter came over and got us and moved to us to his section. He was a very nice young man, not too friendly, but friendly and helpful. This is where things got weird. First off, he was wearing a wedding ring (Date #4, not the waiter). I knew he was a widower, but you'd think he'd take it off when on a date. Secondly, he wouldn't look at the waiter. When it was time to order, he obviously turned his head toward the other end of the table (away from the waiter), held out his menu and pointed to his choice. I was staring at him dumbfounded wondering where on earth he had gotten his manners. The waiter was very polite and asked "Soup or salad?" "Salad." "What kind of dressing?" "Bleu Cheese." Not once did he turn his head and acknowledge the young man. I literally couldn't believe it. I then felt obligated to go out of my way and be ultra nice to the waiter, who was more appealing by the moment than my wedding ring wearing freaky-ass date. The bill comes and as I pull out my purse for my money he does NOT say, "No, no, that's okay, I got it." Mind you, this person is a software engineer for a major corporation and has worked there probably 20 years, so he's close to six figures if not into the six figures. I hand him the money and then say, "How much do I owe you for the movie?" "$8.50, but you can just pay me $8." Wasn't that big of him?

We drive our separate cars to the theater and meet inside and go into the movie. I quite enjoyed Seabiscuit (the book and the movie), if anybody is keeping score. After the movie, he wanted to run to his car and get some pamphlet for me on some playhouse, but I told him it was okay, he could e-mail it to me. I then said, "Well, I'm parked out here" and indicated to the south." He replied, "I'm parked this way" and pointed north. Okay, well, good-bye. Now this was the matchstick that broke the camel's back – the movie theatre that we attended is at Fairlane Town Centre and if you live anywhere near the Detroit area you know it has a bad reputation. I normally don't go there at night and I'm actually not afraid to be there, but I wouldn't let a female friend walk to her car alone there at night, and he never once offered to walk me to my car.

He e-mailed me the next week and said he was going to be in my building that afternoon and he'd like to get together for a cup of tea. I wrote back and told him that I thought we were looking for different things and something else which was apparently pretty straightforward because when I went to visit Martha that afternoon at the time that I knew he was going to be in my building and told her what I had written, she laughed and said that there's no way he was going to walk by my desk.

And that was it. That day I made my profile private and gave up on men, especially engineers. I will not date an engineer ever again…I say this all the time, but the problem is that they're all I meet. I freaking work with engineers and am surrounded by engineers. It seems all there are in this world are salesmen and engineers and neither of them are my favorite type.

Good thing I love my cats, my friends and my family.