A recent dating Herstory

To keep the entirety of my divorcee dating in one spot, I have cut and pasted some email excerpts. I hope it tells a cohesive story.


June 26, 2006

I interviewed an 86 year-old woman yesterday who thinks she is Thelma from Thelma and Louise. I told her the story of a man who has a painting company and I retained him to paint my parents house. He is really nice AND cute. Nice combo. He asked if we should meet, instead of at my parent's house, at my house or if we should meet for coffee to work out the details. I said that we should meet at my parent's house as I have been here all day. After I hung up, I realized I was being asked out on a date. She called me stupid. She said I should ask him out who to my house and sleep with him. Uh, I would settle for a cup of coffee at this point. . . and a kiss or three. The only problem is that his name is that of my ex-husband. Yow. Tough break.

What is the universe trying to tell me with the name? I have had no coffee with him. . . yet. I am having trouble finding how to ask him afterI blew him off. Hinting does not work well.

The special message the universe is trying to give me about the name is that not all men with that name are bad and I could guard against turning into a bitter man-hater. He caught me checking him out in a polo shirt. Mmmm.

Painter guy will be by later to get the rest of his money andlook over thecompleted job. Then he will not be a worker type, and he will be more of afree agent. A friend of mine said to wait until he is done withthe job, because you don't sleep where you eat or something like that.

Aug. 2, 2006


I asked out cute painter boy and he said . . .yeah.

Have you ever heard such a cute word? Cheers to my first date in 13 years,Friday at 4 P.M.! Just coffee.

Aug.4, 2006

I think I missed him. I sat down in a corner around a corner (I felt kind ofconspicuous) and waited. I was listening for him and thought I heard him. Then, from around the corner I thought I saw his ear. Did he get a haircut? Nuts. He did not look (maybe he looked diagonally and missed me in thecorner).So I spoke with my guy friend who said I should call him right away and stopplaying games. Again, I have to get the nerve up to call him - and forsomething more serious. If he meant to be a no show, then I probably don't care, anyway.

I called him. He was so sorry to have missed me! He was in the middle of helping a friend move (good guy points!) He asked if I would like to reschedule! I said I would love to. He showed up early, sat in the window seat and looked for my car when he left. I told him I parked down the street and sat in the back of the coffee place. He will call back this weekend. Ooooh, I am sooooo in like!

Aug.15, 2006

Dumb patiner guy forgot to paint the front door. Yeah, now he is dumb, not cute. I have noooooo problem asking my mommy to call him to do it as long as I am not around. None at all. I have a secret. Shhh! I have an (internet) date tomorrow at a coffee shop. He is mister rebound icebreaker. His name is "Chicken soup" and we are meeting at Breaking New Grounds in Portsmouth just in case I do not return. Of course he could be more, but I am not getting excited about it. I waste NO time! And next week I am asking out cute coffeeshop guy. (See, someone else is occupyingthe 'cute' space.) If he says no, I will ask someone else. I have the goal ofbeing caffeinated by the end of this month! Good thing there is little to no opportunity for anyone to steal a kiss at that kind of date; awkward moment averted! I would get plenty of dates (I think) if I could put my picture online. I will not date someone without one, and can't put one up until I get my new mobile phone.

Aug.16, 2006

Oh, the date thing. I just got back. He is cuter in person. We passed backand forth some witty banter, talked a little too much about the exes, and spent2 1/2 hours at it. His phone rang, and I asked if it was his escape call. Just a nice good time was had. At the end he said that I should email him andlet him know what I think about the afternoon. At the end I caught himchecking me out as I left. I thought, "yeah, baby. I am all that. DAAAAMN right I am and you know it."

Dad should call painter guy. It, I suppose, is a boy job. have I mentioned Iam soooooo over him?

Oh, getting cuter by the minute rebound from the invisible wonder asked me to email him and let him know what I think when we parted at the coffee shop. I did with:

"Thank you, 'Chicken soup' I had a lovely afternoon. Stephanie"

He replied late last night with:

"Your welcome stephanie,I'm glad you had a good time"

Did he not have a good time, too? He asked me to email him, so that means hewanted to hear from me. He is glad I had a good time, at least. The lame asscould ask me out again after checking me out for free. Does he not know thereis a weekend coming up? What does he think I am going to do, sit around and knit? Am I obsessing? Do I sound desperate? I think we chatted like oldgirlfriend. . .wait, reassessing, like old . . .lovers, yeah.I think I need to go out for coffee with a dating dilution stunt double, too. Someone from a different town.

Aug.18, 2006

He is Chicken Soup for the Loins!!!!
I should open a blog for this stuff!!!
Who wants to read a dating blog?
Did you save any of my recent email? I think I will incorporate it.
Oooooh, I am soooo witty.

I don't know if he wanted a lengthier email. I thought it was gracious and tothe point. He seems to be a pretty straightforward guy, I hope he would nothave to build up to asking me out again.I will hold my breath and ask him out to an outdoor theatre thing this weekend. Maybe. I am using TRUE. You know, the one that advertises online with thebikini-clad bimbo?

I am moving into graduate housing at UMass on the 28th. (Translate: Lots ofmen) smart men, liberal brainiacs who will make me swoon. Oh, geeks. Nerds,even. Loafers, brown Al Gore corduroy pantsed polo-shirted pocket protectoredart gallery-loving, latte making and drinking, higher education- appreciatingmen who can actually read something other than popular paperback mysteries. Someone who will know what a sonnet is, explain Biochemistry to me, "Oh, baby,explain sweet Biochemistry to me! Whisper poly-syllable alliteration into myear. Recite Chaucer in French!" . . . appreciate wine, shop at Crate andBarrel for lack of a better place, share the awe I feel towards Design WithinReach, scoff at the pretentious postmodernistic attempt at cosmopolitanism soflagrantly exhibited at Starbucks, go to poetry slams or Ghana, Africa and feelat home.I think I need a Galouises or even a Dunhill. (schmancy cigarette.)

Gotta go take a shower.

September 3, 2006

Forget chicken soup. I have found vicchysoisse with a good reisling and a linen napkin.I met a beautiful man. he is just neat. He is tall, smart, funny. . .and he has custody of twin 4 y.o. girls. He says "foible" in casual conversation. Heis a little bit of a political leftie. He looks like he is in love when he talks of his kids. The kids go to a Montessori school. He is well- travelled and very interesting. Hold me back. He has a masters in Poli Sci from Harvard. He speaks Spanish. He toasted inabout 6 languages. He painted his wheelbarrow. He cooks vegitarian meals. He is just, well, you know. ;-) I am going to his house for dinner Friday. What should I wear?

September 13, 2006

Dinner was just great. Just great. Yum. Wonderful food, great conversation. I left at 2:30 A.M. We just talked and shared a g'night kisslet. Mmmmm.

September 19, 2006

Did I mention that boys SUCK? "Oh, Stephanie, it is soooo good to hear your voice. I can't wait to see you again." Then why do you neither return my email nor call me?

This is from the infuriating boy. I guess his computer actually works. Ugh! I heard from him on the phone today. He is "busy" all weekend. &*# %! Whatever. He has gone from use of the word "foible" to this? What's next? WWF? I am such a free agent. I am going to go to art galleries and learn to act interested so I can get dates where I act interested in anything but football. (His acutely tasteless email follows.)

Last year a friend of mine upgraded GirlFriend 6.0 to Wife 1.0 andfound that
it's a memory hog leaving very little system resources forother applications. He
is only now noticing that Wife 1.0 also isspawning Child-Processes which are
further consuming valuable resources.No mention of this particular
phenomena was included in the productbrochure or the documentation, though other
users have informed himthat this is to be expected due to the nature of the
application. Notonly that, Wife 1.0 installs itself such that it is always
launchedat system initialization where it can monitor all other systemactivity.
He's finding that some applications such as PokerNight10.3, BeerBash 2.5, and
PubNight 7.0 are no longer able to run,crashing the system when selected (even
though they always workedfine before). At installation, Wife 1.0 automatically
installsundesired Plug-Ins such as Mother-In-Law 55.8 and Brother-In-Law
Betarelease. As a consequence system performance seems to diminish witheach
passing day.Some features he'd like to see in the upcoming wife 2.0:
* A "Don't remind me again" button *
Minimize button * An install shield feature that allows
Wife 2.0 to be installedwith the option to uninstall at anytime without the loss
of cache andother system resources. * An option to run the
network driver in promiscuous mode whichwould allow the systems hardware probe
feature to have greater use.I myself decided to avoid all of the headaches
associated with Wife1.0 by sticking with Girlfriend 2.0. Even here, however, I
found manyproblems. Apparently you cannot install Girlfriend 2.0 on top
ofGirlfriend 1.0. You must uninstall Girlfriend 1.0 first. Other userssay this
is a long standing bug which I should have been aware of.Apparently the versions
of Girlfriend have conflicts over shared useof the I/O port. You think
they would have fixed such a stupid bugby now. To make matters worse, The
uninstall program for Girlfriend1.0 doesn't work very well leaving undesirable
traces of theapplication in the system.Another annoying problem -- all versions
of Girlfriend continuallypop-up annoying messages about the advantages of
upgrading to Wife 1.0***** BUG WARNING ********Wife 1.0 has an
undocumented bug. If you try to install Mistress 1.1before uninstalling Wife
1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney filesbefore executing a self - uninstallation.
Then Mistress 1.1 willrefuse to install, claiming insufficient system
resources.*** BUG WORK-AROUNDS ***************To avoid the above bug, try
installing Mistress 1.1 on a differentsystem and never run any file transfer
applications such as Laplink6.0. Also, beware of similar shareware applications
that have beenknown to carry viruses that may affect Wife 1.0.Another solution
would be to run Mistress 1.0 via a UseNet providerunder an anonymous name. Here
again, beware of the viruses which canaccidentally be downloaded from the
UseNet.

I replied by saying:I am interested in whether or not you read this before sending. He's cool and cultured on the outside, a swiller of complete scum on the inside,I will suppose-until I hear from him again. He called yesterday (big deal) and says he is spending so much time with the girls that he has no time over the weekend. He asked me to call him at home later. I reminded him I don't havehis number, and he said he would call me later that day about his availability next weekend. No call. Just the email. Oh, sweet Loverboy, I am holding my breath. Ha.

Oh, how I hate to say back to the drawing board. I liked him. Let's hope he did not read the email before sending it.

. . .he says he did not read it and asked if it was bad. I asked him to reda1 it and let me know. He replied with. . .

"Oy....yes, that was bad. Not only bad, but particularly insensitive. I'm VERY sorry. I should have read the damn thing first.Forgive me?"

I waited a couple days to reply with. . . "Sure."



Players to date:

Cute painter guy - painted my parent's house - I seriously mishandled this one

Chicken soup for the loins - rebound from cute painter guy - no big deal, and he had no business not returning my email.

Vichysoise - Meticuloously cool and cultured on the outside, frat house during homecoming on the inside. If I delve any deeper, I may find a touch of WWF.

The cop - mr. friendly, now I feel like I am the type to jump in the lap of any supermarket bag boy who tells me to have a nice day