Murderers of Love

The good part about being single so long, is that you build up a huge reservoir of stories from horrendous dates; stories for a rainy day or just an interesting blog post. Dates that leave you with your jaw on the ground as you wonder in your confused state, what the H word that was! As I reflect on my single life thus far, I am quite amused to look back in wonder at the appalling things that some people get away with in the dating world. The question now is, where do I begin?? Do I begin with the 8th grade, where my curse began? Or do I just jump right in to my 20’s where most of the good stories played out. You don’t want to miss anything? Okay then, 8th grade it is.

It all started in the 8th grade with John Moe (an alias of course, completely original to keep his identity safe). John was an interesting (and not in a good way) boy. Interesting in deed. He didn’t have many friends; well, none really. It had something to do with the pink shorts he always wore with the tye dyed shirts and thick glasses securely attached to his head area with a rainbow colored string. He had a severe case of acne and some dandruff to top it off...literally! As if that wasn’t enough, his behaviors were somewhat spastic, and a little weird to be quite honest. People made fun of him. Being the sweet young soul that I once was, I befriended this John Moe because I felt bad for him. I didn’t go to great lengths; I just smiled at him and talked to him in our advanced math class. Even the teacher gave me strange looks.

It didn’t take long for my niceness and generosity to backfire. Don’t worry, I learned my lesson and I am no longer nice to lonely souls in need of a friend. Okay, not true…it’s just hard when they are of the male gender. Anyway, back to the story. One day, John Moe handed me a note and walked away. I knew that couldn’t be good. Lunch was coming up and I was feeling sick because I knew what the note would say when I opened it up. It read, “Will you go out with me?” My heart sank. These things really worried me when I was younger. I knew immediately that a rejection was necessary. My kind heart did not like to have to perform such tasks but when I saw him hopefully glance in my direction across the cafeteria I just shook my head at him and mouthed in slow motion the words, “noooooo John Moe, nooooooo.” We were no longer friends and thus the curse of my dating life began. So, on to awkward, entertaining, disgusting, and sometimes just outright wrong, stories of me and the men who have left small imprints in my life.

Awkward Moments: First there was Billy who sat too close to me in the booth at the Mexican restaurant. He pinned me between himself and the wall. By the end of the night I’m pretty sure I had some inappropriate relations with that wall. No two objects could get any closer, that’s for sure…what a make-out, the wall and me. Then there was Jack, who on our hiking trip wasn’t much of a conversationalist so I asked him what else he liked to do, to which he replied, “have sex.” He was divorced with two children so he had some knowledge in the area. That’s great but…how do you respond to that?? Faith Hill (ya, you know who you are) don’t respond to that! And next, a date that involved an hour long car ride both ways and a short activity, in all of which contained maybe a minutes worth of talking (we were young!). Ah, and then there was the boy who put his full head in his arms and screamed like a girl when I may have run a red light. Hey, I stopped at it first…I was tired and wanted to go home! Etc, Etc…

The winner of the ‘wrong’ category goes to Mr. Revelation. When I lived in a small town, he lived in a small neighboring town. One night he showed up at a YSA activity that I did not attend. He asked around to find out who was missing. When my name came up, he began the rumor that he was ‘inspired’ to meet me. He called people and spread the word, easily hooking a few and drawing them into his side. These innocent folks tried their hardest to help him out, giving him my phone number, calling me, and even taking emails from him to pass on to me. One such email read like this:

“I am appreciative that you called, “Livin it Up.” In regards to this situation I feel as if my time frame is quite patient. The YSA activity on the 7th of January is kind of my due date (if it is at all possible to put a due date on people). I at least would like to have her be informed of the situation so that she knows to at least come to an activity. Thank you for your help thus far in this regard.

As you may have noticed, I have emailed you a photo of myself. I will write a short synopsis of my life a little bit later. I will admit that when it comes to meeting girls initially, I prefer to keep electronical communication to a minimum.”

Well friends, needless to say, I did not feel that same inspiration. When I turned the page and viewed the attached photo, it did nothing to help that cause. While I sound completely shallow and judgmental right now, I was honestly a little creeped out by this one and slightly annoyed. Hence, I made sure that even a meeting never occurred!

And now, for the grand finale…you get an entire date’s worth of story. The date itself seemed like an eternity. We went to Lagoon (the local amusement park). First of all, I was tricked into going out with this ‘older man’ so it was not by choice that I actually accepted. On the way there he said to me in his super manly, Kermit the frog type voice, “I’m glad to be dating a fellow musician.” It was quite formal. Let me jump ahead to the end of the date for a moment and tell you just what kind of musician he was. He was a singer as it turned out. His name was Ken. I won’t give you a last name and I will just hope that it was so long ago that this blog will not actually be traced back to him because he was a nice guy and I don’t want to defame him in anyway, just share a little about our journey together. Yes, Ken was a singer, and after a LONG day at Lagoon, on the endless journey home, he put in a CD of him harmonizing with Enya. He called it, “Kenya.” Ever since, he has been know as just that, my friend Kenya.

After one particular ride with Kenya, I expressed my need to use the restroom really quickly and he proceeded to agree that he needed to as well. He said, “I hope they have those protective seat covers!” Keep in mind that I just met the man. Then, he grabbed his stomach, hunched over slightly, and said, “Ohhhh be still my gut!” Wow, and then I ended up waiting for him. Sick. I mean, I know we all do it but really? Really??

Later that evening his parents joined us for dinner. What a nice treat for me. It wasn’t awkward at all (yes, that was sarcastic!). In fact I loved that they loved me so much and were imagining me as their future daughter in law but really, enough was enough, I really just wanted to get outta there! So finally we did. And we listened to love songs by Kenya all the way home. Longest ride/date of my life!!

So friends, there you have it. These men are my murderers of love. Okay, I am sure that I have totally contributed to several men’s reservoirs of horrendous date stories as well. I of course just chose to look at mine this time. Here’s to better luck in my future. Better luck with #8, wherever he may be. And if not, then here’s to more good stories to share in the future!