Elle and {The Dreaded Friend} Match

Yep. Yep. Yeppers.
This day was bound to come. The day when I discovered Seattle isn't such a big city after all.
Here I am in eHarmony heaven. Minding my own beeswax. Meeting some hotties. Meeting some...creepers. But hey, this is what dating is all about! So far it's been easy to keep my 'real' world separate from my "Elle" world.
My friends, the real world and Elle's world officially collided on March 13, 2011. Luckily, I was drunk.

Booze is necessary when two worlds collide.

For those of you familiar with eHarmony online, you know that when you are on your match page, you see the persons name and age but no picture. Like so:

eHarmony FAIL. Show us a thumbnail photo please!

This poses a problem. Why? Because you can't do a quick scan of the photo before opening them. Why is this important? Because when you open their profile, they can see that you viewed them. Are you catching what I'm throwing? Good.
Luckily, eHarmony joined the 21st century and has an iPhone app! Hello! Dating on the go! On the iPhone app you CAN see a small thumbnail photo of the people you are matched with. Luckily, I'm a tech savvy gal and use the iPhone app.
Anyways. As we previously discussed, every morning I wake up to an email with my matches signed, sealed, delivered just for me. I log in, judge and date. WELL. Luckily, on the day of The {Dreaded Friend} match I ran in the St. Patty's Day match. Which means I had to wake up early. Which means I didn't do my dating first thing in the AM.
Which means that after the race and the boozing, when I finally got around to checking my matches for the day on my phone, I was in a much better place to accept being matched with this {'Friend'}. Let me be clear when I say {'Friend'}, I mean {The X-BF}'s good friend. {FUCK}.
Yep. You read that right. I could just picture the two of them giggling like school girls over my profile. Oh wait. That's what I would do. Not what guys would do. Right? Right?!
After I sobered up, I had a minor freak out. I mean, this was my worst fucking nightmare. Not only the fact that he is {The X-BF's} good friend, BUT. BIG BUT. This guys is HOPELESS. He is the Northwest Profile #56. I. Am. Not. Kidding.

Some girls dig this. I don't.

Elle is not the type to date {Sandals and Socks Guy}. So not only am I mortified that I've been matched with {The X-BF}'s good friend, BUT out off all of his friends they match me with him. What the fuck?! eHarmony {FAIL}.
Anyway. I decided to take the power away from {Sandals and Socks Guy}. I look at his profile for one flat second. And close him.
Three days later, I cancel my eHarmony account. Don't worry, it's good until April 18. And then I'll be on okCupid full time!
How could eHarmony fix this? It's simple in my opinion. Let us users select names of people that we never want to be matched with. I mean come on!
xoxo,
Elle

Elle and {The Creeper}

It was bound to happen.

So far my online dating experience has been pleasant. I'd say I've been pretty lucky. Plenty of {geeks}, which I like and no {creeps}.

Weeeeeelllll. We all knew that wasn't going to last forever right?

Once again, I make it through the guided communication with another potential match. We email back and forth once or twice and he asks for my number. He seems normal. He seems nice. I think to myself, why not? I give him my digits and he sends me a text.

Side note: One of my {BIGGEST} pet peeves is shortening words in text messages or in online communication. I don't know why. But it {bothers} me. Big time. If you do this and you are my friend or family member, it's okay. I still love you. But if you are trying to woo me or get me into bed, don't be lazy. If you're too lazy to type out the word "you", I don't want to think about how lazy you are when it comes to other things in your life.

Don't be a cnt. You are better then that.

So he says, "hi, how r u?" And I think to myself, 'Elle, stop the judging. Answer back. Maybe he doesn't have a smart phone.'

Then I think to myself, 'But Elle, do you really want to date some loser who hasn't yet joined the 21st century and bought a smart phone?'

Anyway, I decide to look past his text speak and say something witty I'm sure. He says something else. I respond.

Then he asks me what size my bed is. Wait. What? How did we get from 'how r u', to what size is your bed? Did I miss something here? No, dear readers. I did not. Next question? 'Can I tuck you in?'

Is he trying to start up some kinky phone sex with me? Does he think this is hot? Time to stop texting with {The Creeper}.

But wait. Will he get the hint? Nope. Every day since then, he has texted me "hi, how was ur day?" So. I did what any online dater would do, and I closed him online. His response? 'hi elle, it's {The Creeper}, how r u?"

Ugh. Today is the first day I haven't heard from him. Trust me, I firmly believe that you should tell someone when you are not interested in them. But - he made me feel dirty. I even deleted the thread of messages. And before you call me a {prude} AND {rude} (which I am), it's not that he went to far. I just didn't like the direction he was going...after two text messages.

Elle's Self Potrait

Best of luck to {The Creeper}. There's gotta be a lady out there for him somewhere. I mean there's someone out there for everyone right?

xoxo,
Elle

Elle and {OkCupid}

Y'all. I've been slacking on the blog posting. You would too. This online dating thing can be exhausting. 

Recap. Talked to my friend {The Professor}. Heard his hilarious story about online dating. Told all of you. Signed up for okcupid myself annnnnnddddd...

I'm talking to some guys. Managing two online dating accounts is tough! Things weren't looking too hot on okcupid for a while.

One of the first guys that emailed me was wearing thick. black. eyeliner. And had long black hair. He had this whole email crafted about who he is and what he does. His pictures looked eerie - like hey, I'm a Satan Worshiper. Or a vampire. But not in an {Edward Cullen} kind of way.

He goes on and on and finishes by saying that he thinks we would be a perfect match. If you're not familiar with okcupid, the website gives you percentages of your likelihood of being a match.

Ours was 3%.

Honestly. 

Another guy winked at me. He said, "I like your cloak." I'm simply wearing a jacket in my photo. Not a cloak. He appears to be wearing a cloak in one of his photos. No thanks. While I'd never turn down the opportunity to attend {Hogwarts}, I know in my heart of hearts that it's not a real place. And I'm not interested in dating someone who might think it is.

I'm not throwing in the towel yet!

Happy Virtual Dating!
Elle

Elle and {The Professor}

So I'm talking to my friend this weekend - we'll call him {The Professor}. He's one of my older and wiser friends. I tell him I signed up for online dating - and it turns out he did too.

On Friday I met up with another friend, we'll call her {The Towel Bar}, and she asked me why on earth I was paying for online dating when I could try www.okCupid.com. It got me thinking. So I decide to give it a whirl.


Back to {The Professor}. He's been living in Pawnee, IN for the past two years. Population seven. So he gave oKCupid a try to see if he could meet one of the two hotties living in his town.

Side note: I find out his user name on the cupid and give him mine. We are 80% compatible. 56% friend. 10% enemy. Wait. What? Next time we are in the same state, we'll most likely hook up, just to ruin our friendship! We are so compatible! Who knew! I kid. I kid.

So anyways, I ask him how online dating is treating him and tell him about the freaks and keepers I've met so far. And then he tells me this story.

He met this one girl online. She looks cute. Seems nice. He decides to meet up with her. She shows up. And she's the size of a house. He thinks to himself. WTF? There's nothing wrong with being a little porky - he lives in the Midwest after all. But that's just false advertising. Right?

Did I mention {The Professor's} body type is skinny? Like a stick. And since I've known him, there has {ALWAYS} been a large girl going after his heart {trying to fatten him up I assume}.

So he gets to thinking about his luck with the ladies. He's thinking to himself, why do all the heavies try to snatch me up? And he comes to this conclusion. He says to me, "Elle, this one time I was at church camp and a heavy girl and I got sinful. This must be why God is punishing me."

I fell off my bed I was laughing so hard. One other thing you should know about {The Professor} is that there ain't no God in his world. So the fact that he came to this conclusion is huge {like a house}.

To be clear, he's not against a heavy. Heck, he'd even love one, if there was a spark. But so far. No spark.
It took some convincing from him, that I wasn't one of those gals that showed up looking like a house compared to my photos. I don't want to be one of those false advertisers!

We found each other on OkCupid and dissected each others profiles. We rated each other five stars and gave each other {an award}. We discovered we live 2007 miles apart. I sent him a message asking if he wanted to hook up. {He hasn't answered yet. Rude!} And I continued laughing hysterically over his story.  

mmm. Maybe he should give her a chance?

The moral of this story? Online dating is hilarious.

Oh and don't get sinful at church camp, unless it's with a hottie.

Lastly, post a realistic, current photo of you. You don't want to be the subject of a story like this!!

PS {The Professor} is still single and quite the catch I might add, if you're looking!

Happy Virtual Dating!
xoxo,
Elle

Elle and {The Dentist} Part II

Okay. So last time we left off, I was telling you about {The Dentist}. We decided to meet up on Thursday. Since he lives in Seattle...and works in Tacoma, we met at 8pm at Spur Gastropub. Uh oh. I sense a pattern here. This is where I've dragged two out of three dates. Here's what I decided. I'll soon become a regular here. And when I arrive with some freak, the bartender can rescue me. Problem solved. But anyway, back to my date.
He's late. Do we have to go through this again? This time I made sure my phone was NOT on silent. I'm sweating in my chair...so I do something very un-Elle like and crack open a bottle of wine. Yep. You heard me right. I start throwing back glasses of wine like my life depends on it. Before I know it, I'm halfway through the bottle and I tell myself to chill out.
I frantically text my friend Stacy who says, "OMG settle down, where are you going? It's not a big deal, if he doesn't like you, fuck him." Oh, thank God for Stacy.
Anyhoo, I get a text saying he is looking for parking. Last Saturday he was really concerned about parking too. I can't hold this against him though. I don't have a car to park...
I turn the lights off in my apartment and see this guy frantically weaving down the sidewalk. It's him, he's here. And I'm tipsy. Shit.
I grab a glass of water and chug. I pop a piece of gum in my mouth and triple check that I turned my straighter off {OCD?} and then head down stairs.
The moment we have all been waiting for. We meet.
He's kind of cute. I'm not falling over myself. He's got that male baldness thing going on, but not in a horrible way. His hair is salt and pepper {hot} and holy shit he says hello. Using my name. And he hugs me. His accent is {hot}. Like seriously. It's freezing out so we decide to book it straight to Spur.
He orders a cocktail and I decide to stick with red wine. He tells me the wine smells delicious. I tell him he smells delicious. Wait. Did I? Who knows? He did though!
We had a great conversation. He's the most interesting person that I've ever met. Ever. I do very little talking but do a lot of asking questions. He's very sweet and his story is incredible. Plus, he works with kids. I mean, how adorable is that.
We shut the place down. He insists on paying. He walks me back to my place. He hugs me again. I stiffen up and run inside.
Okay. So now I know where my area of weakness is. Pretty sure I sent him a strong signal of I need to get the hell outta here, which I am not sure I meant to do. But that's okay! I had a good time. It wasn't love at first sight...but he wasn't like {The Grandpa} - thank God.
There's always next time right?
xoxo,
Elle

Elle and {Stacy}

I started this online dating thing all by my lonesome self, but since I joined eHarmony, I've been lucky enough to have two other good friends take the plunge. You already met {The Juju}. Now let me introduce you to Stacy yesterday. She's one of my dearest friends - and she doesn't take shit from anyone. She also happens to be tall and blond. So if you are single - and want attention - don't bring her as your wing woman. :)
She also decided to blog about her quest in finding true love. Well, she just posted a {GEM} - that just can't be beat. And because of that, I'm not even going to post about myself today. I'm not even going to try.
Head over to her blog and check out how the shit hit the fan in her world.
And for all you single girls out there, it looks like {The Jock} is still single and ready to mingle...so if you wanna hit that, I'm sure Stacy would happily get you in touch with him...
I die.
xoxo,
Elle
From Stacy at www.stacy-onlinedatingadventures.com

Shit hits the fan

So today I arrive at work at 6:30a.m. and have to make presentations to the employees.  During my breaks in the presentations my friend "Britney" sends me a text message asking how my date went and letting me know that she got stood up on her date!  I text her back, "WTF? was it a match date with someone new?".  She tells me that it was with someone that she had been dating for a little while, and they had already been on several dates.  I feel bad for Britney, that sucks!  What a jerk.  I guess these are some of the downsides of match.com dating.

Today I receive more text messages from Jock, here's a little snipet:

10:28a.m.: "I'm back in town, if you would still like to get together this weekend"
                  **Umm, probably not considering I haven't texted you in over a week**
12:38p.m.: "Guess not. haha! I told you this would happen! I just wish you'd say you weren't interested, instead of ignoring me :("
                 "Anyways, best of luck to you!"
                 "Haha I just realized we have a mutual friend.. and that's probably why you stopped responding! Haha! I hate small towns :("

Now at this point, I know the "friend" he is referring to (see below). 

Britney had mentioned to me a while back that she actually went on a date with Jock several months ago.  After reading my blog, she realized that it was the same person (It under no means was a deterrent for me to not go on a date with Jock, he just annoyed me with his constant text messages - plain and simple). 

Britney and I were making some plans to meet up for St. Patrick's Day and then Britney sends me a text later in the afternoon saying that she's pretty sure a nasty email will come to me from Jock.

I give her a call and learn some interesting occurances:

1.  When I didn't respond to Jock, he decided to creepily do a search for me on facebook.
2.  When he found me, he also saw that him and I were a mutual friend with Britney.
3.  He started textually harrassing Britney.
4.  Britney let him know that I have a blog - and send him some "excerpts" from my blog!

Now, I understand what she means about a "nasty email".

Sure enough, here it comes:

***"First of all, I'm not a Jock. Second of all, I tried to call you and chat and you would never pick up my calls. Third, I never asked for provocative pictures, I wanted a picture of your face because I think you are beautiful.. I guess I'm an asshole in that case.

It really bummed me out to read your blog.. to really see the lies you were telling me when you were out with friends the night before my birthday (out on another date) and just had so much to do (another date) the day after. I invited you to my birthday because I wanted to meet you. It is really sad, because I am a good guy.. I treat people with respect and dignity, and to see the other side. To see someone just playing some big game and gain enjoyment is sad. Instead of being a stand up person and just saying I am not interested, you write about me, albeit anonymously, and laugh, while not responding to me.

I was trying to be persistent because I thought you were a sweet girl. But alas, I see otherwise. It's funny because men are painted as such pigs.. Especially, with my description. Like a neanderthal, just wanting a cheap fuck. Well that's fine, I'm sorry for blowing you up at book club (because I was interested in getting to know you), I am sorry for asking for a picture because I think you are beautiful, and I am sorry for inviting you to a party I was having. I tried all of the things you wanted me to do (coffee, call, etc.) and you blew me off, all the while, claiming how I and other men, are incapable or reacting the way you want them to.

So to answer the question your blog so eloquently poses, the answer is no. You can't find true love when you play people, lie, and write them off as people who couldn't be further from the depiction you write them as. You put me in a little box and treated me like all the men you've ever hated, treated you. Just remember, everyone isn't an asshole, everyone isn't a liar, and everyone isn't out to get you."***

Whoa buddy!  I think it is time you just settled down.  There are plenty of fish out in the sea, I'm just one girl, you need to let it go. 

Oh, and when did I paint men as such assholes?  Did I do that?  I didn't mean to do that, because I like men.  I'd say though that there is at least one man out there that doesn't like me.  :)

Thanks for sharing Stacy!

xoxo, Elle

Elle {and} the Importance of Communication

So I've been at this for a while. Feels like forever. Really it hasn't even been two months. Oh shit. I only have a month left on my subscription. I better hurry up and find a mate! Oh wait. You can't hurry love. No,  you just have to wait. Sigh. That song! So true.
So I'm talking to this guy. We'll call him {The Dentist}. Yep. He's a dentist. Photos? Nothing to write home about {male hair loss}. His story? AH-mazing. He is the most interesting person I have ever spoken to in my life. We go through the guided communication. Email back and forth a few times and he asks if we can meet up.
I start sweating.
Of course we can! I'm fresh off my horrible date with {The Grandpa} and ready to get back out there. {The Dentist} suggests that we grab a cup of coffee. While I'd prefer something a little...harder {liquor is a girls best friend in these situations}, I don't want him to think I'm a lush. So I agree.
I pick out a Starbucks in my neighborhood. And we agree to meet at Noon on a Saturday.
Here we go again. I pick out my outfit. I go through my usual getting ready. I sweat. The usual!
I decide to head down to Starbucks a little early to snag a table and buy my drink. After the disaster with {The Grandpa} I don't want to deal with splitting a bill. Even coffee.
I arrive. Order my drink. Snag a table with a view of the counter {that way I can hightail it out of there if he ends up being a freak...I kid, I kid} and then I. Put. My. Phone. On. Silent. and place it in my purse.
Yup. You guessed it.
I'm pretending to read my book and feel like time is CRAWLING. But tell myself to take it easy he'll be here soon. After an eternity passes I look at my phone. Three text messages and it's 12:32pm. He arrived. He waited outside the coffee shop for me. He never came in. He thought I stood him up. He said a few passive aggressive things. He left.
Mortified.
I texted him. I apologized! He called me. Holy shit. He has a deep voice and an accent. He's already on the freeway. We agree to check our calendars and reconvene later in the week.
Hi. My name is Elle and I over think things. I didn't want to be glued to my phone when he walked in, or be interrupted when we met {what? I'm a very popular girl}, so I over thought it.
Are me and {The Dentist} doomed? Or is this a story we will tell our grandkids? Stay tuned!
What did I learn?
1. Don't put your phone on silent.
2. Agree on where you will meet {inside or outside}?
3. Find a man who will actually come inside the joint for a quick scan to see if you are there...
Ugh. 
xoxo,
Elle