The Big Ugly Blog is an honest and uncensored collection of anecdotes recounting the madcap shenanigans of a perpetually 39 year old divorcee, as she wades through the mire of the murky online dating pool - ravenously searching (evidently in vain) for the man of her dreams...Keep On Dreaming, Baby!

BIG UGLY

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Just a Little Confused, That's All

I am a creature of habit to be certain. Every morning I rise around 6:15 (during the summer that is, probably more like 5:15 the rest of the year) I head down to my cheerful, little kitchen and put on the kettle. I fix a glass of water and unsweetened cranberry juice and drop in an Airborne tablet. While I wait for the tablet to finish fizzing, I wash whatever dishes were left from the night before. I chase 2 Advil and a multi-vitamin with the sour, fizzy juice drink and then rinse out the glass. Next, I fill the glass with whole milk and stir in a sugar-free Carnation Instant Breakfast and just about the time I'm done with that, the water boils, after which I pour it over the coffee in my cute, stainless steel French Press pot. I should mention that the whole time I'm bustling around my kitchen kickin' off my day, I am always as atwitter as a child on Christmas morning, eager to get over to my studio to see what new mail I might have received during the whole 5 hours that I was away from my trusty ole Mac, or if, perhaps, there are any new potential connections to be made, or existing ones to tend to. I fix a cup of coffee and scamper across the dew drenched lawn (spilling most of my Joe along the way) and plunk myself down in front of my computer, HOORAY!

Saturday morning marked the first time ever, that my blissful anticipation was swapped out for nervous anxiety thanks entirely to Jagermeister, the jackass who threw a wet blanket over the fun of online dating and the writing of my blog, with his derogatory diatribe. Since I had already caved and "unhid" my profile, I apprehensively positioned myself in front of my Mac prepared to find another of his reproachful onslaughts, most likely in retaliation to my last e-mail in which I simply stated, "I knew there was a reason that I didn't want to keep talking to you." I checked and there was no message from him, phew. Maybe he was gonna leave me alone. But then I looked in my "sent box" and learned that he had not yet opened my letter. Fart! I hated that I was gonna have to endure a sour stomach the entire time I waited to inevitably hear from him again. But you know what occurred to me while I distracted myself by clicking around on all my favorite sites? I started thinking about how - ideally, more people than just my 5 devoted friends would someday start to read the blog, and if that happened - wouldn't I be setting myself up for more negative attacks? Absolutely! Best I could figure, I needed to grow a thicker skin, like pronto. If I was so hellbent on essentially throwing myself into the lions' den, I quickly needed to figure how to stop taking things so personally, how not to not get my feelings hurt quite as easily. It was a tricky mindset and one that would not come naturally to me, but I was determined to make a concerted effort to let future hostile remarks roll right off my back, that's right.

I always find the ebb and flow of potential suitors to be very interesting. Typically, it's either feast or famine. This past weekend I was definitely suffering a drought, of sorts, which, timing-wise was optimal because I had my kids with me all weekend and I had a ton of yard work to get behind me, plus we had several social events to attend, so it was actually pretty helpful to be able to truly focus on my responsibilities. But it also bummed me out, I mean damn! Was I getting washed up on all of these dating sites? Had I become nothing more than a worn out, old image that everyone had seen so many times before, that I was now becoming almost invisible? I felt like a house that has been on the market for too long; people wonder why it hasn't been snatched up already. It looks pretty cute on the outside, but there definitely must be something catastrophically wrong with it, yeah...might be better to stay away from that one...Ok, no problem - Mama knew just what to do to remedy the sitch! I decided to reactivate a couple of idle accounts and see if I might be able to drum up some more business that way, and while I was at it - I freshened up the verbiage on my existing profiles. Next, I planned to get new photos made and posted, as soon as I was motivated enough to put on a decent outfit and make-up, again. But you know, I started thinking...every so often I scroll down the redundant selection of guys available in my 50 mile radius and once in awhile - I gleefully discover what appears to be a new profile to investigate. And then to my dismay, it winds up to be one of the worn out, tired old faces from like the beginning of (my online dating) time, it just happened to be a fresh photo...that's all. Even so...it DID make me look. So, I figured why not? Maybe with a different pic. I might even snooker a few new guys into peepin' at me...

I talked with my oldest daughter, Jordan, this weekend, a little bit about what's been developing in the ongoing online dating saga. Now some may find it terribly inappropriate to confabulate with a child about such adult themes, but in general I am pretty wide open with my kids about most everything. Of course I selectively edit out most of the gory details, and so far my children have walked away virtually unscathed, thank the lord. Anyway, after getting my inquisitive daughter up to speed on the latest news, we hypothesized that maybe I had kind of shifted my focus from literally finding a boyfriend through all of this nonsense, to instead trying to rack up kooky stories in order to keep the blog interesting and fresh. I was still addicted to the attention, and I was taking some of it seriously enough to plan a couple of dates, but was my real push these days to compile gobs of info almost as if I was doing research for an assignment rather than engaging in a serious man-hunt? Conversely, what if I suddenly, accidentally really FOUND true love? Seems I would have to delete all of my accounts and stop looking, which would essentially render the blog, kaput. The line between dating to find true love and dating to provide info for an entertaining blog was beginning to blur, what WAS my motivation, anymore? This was quite a quandary.

Sunday afternoon and into the evening a recent connection began to heat up a bit. Through manic texting, I began to see multiple facets on an individual who had only slightly piqued my curiosity, prior to this flurry of dialog. Gradually I discovered that he had a rather droll sense of humor, which had been completely unapparent to me, until then. Basically the only other things I'd previously learned about him, were that he is white, 6' 4" and 270 lbs. he weighs 150 lbs. more than I do! He says he does work out a lot, so I asked him if he was built like a body builder and he said, "More like a lineman" So - YES, he could easily kill me if he wanted to. Needless to say, we will be meeting in a public place. But get this, Alan successfully wrangled me into going completely against my strict policy...I agreed to meet him for drinks, tonight, sight unseen, for Alan has NOT got a picture of himself up on his profile. Didn't I swear that I would never fall for that bullshit, again? I honestly can't even tell you how he coerced me into breaking this cardinal rule. But how much you wanna bet it comes back to bite me in the ass? Anyway, for whatever reason, I am excited about our date and I'm not sure if it's because I'm hopeful there may be some real romantic potential there or if I am just hungry for the next juicy, little nugget to include in tomorrow's blog entry. Stay tuned...

Oh, btw, Jagermeister did finally write back and following the lead of my last e-mail, the best reply that he could conjure up was, "Yeah, me too."...........Oooooh...OUCH!

1 comment:

  1. hope you remembered to stop for condoms..

    ReplyDelete