The "Break-Up"

I would love to write a post about how fantastic my weekend was (it was family fun-filled) but I promised some 'cyber break-up stories' and I feel the need to deliver.

I've learned through my online dating experience (I clearly think that 3 months is a lifetime) that there are differences between meeting someone online and out at say a bar. At a bar, there is nothing invested into this person (unless you're a guy and you invested $6 for a drink), you can talk to this person for 10  minutes and decide whether or not you want to exchange numbers, hang out again (sober) or allow them to be your hook-up of the night (not that I've ever done that). But when you're talking to people for weeks on end via email, text, etc and you seem to have a lot in common you obviously want to meet them and see if you have that much to talk about in person, well guess what? 9 times out of 10, you don't. It took a while, but I no longer go into these dates with expectations...you'll see why below.

My first 'in person date' was a 3 hour long staring contest. On paper he was perfect! He fit all of my 'criteria', worked for a sports network, was tall enough, Catholic and educated, however he was a Met fan, but I was willing to let that slide. We met at a bar on the lower west side, it was kind of dark and kind of loud, but we tried talking through the live music (do your research people, if you want to talk to someone, live music probably isn't the way to go on a first date). Well he ended up being pretty boring and nerdy and I'm sure he thought I was a stuck-up ditz and it was three hours of staring at this guy who was talking about stuff that I really didn't know anything about. On that date I mastered the 'smile and nod' technique and never contacted him again (in his defense the feeling was mutual, he didn't contact me again either).

Thinking things could only go upward from here and not being one to be easily deterred, I decided to go on a date with online man number two. First of all, he was late and left me sitting alone in a bar (I actually called my cousin and asked how long I had to sit there before it was acceptable to leave) and when he walked into the bar, tapped another girl on the shoulder and asked her if she was me. These all should've been signs. Well A LOT of Chardonnay (and conversation) later we were running to Port Authority in the pouring rain so I could make the last bus out of the city...we failed, miserably. And the date ended up lasting 6 hours. Then there was a second date and a third and so on and so forth. Each day that went on, I had less and less to talk to him about and I found myself not caring about what he said and realized this was going nowhere fast. We had a date planned for him to meet my best friend and favorite co-worker for happy hour after work, I thought because the night before was so awkward and silent, maybe he wouldn't show, but of course he did and didn't say a word or get off of his phone the ENTIRE time (people that's RUDE). When he did talk, he was complaining about something stupid. I have no idea what happened to the fun guy that I was with on our first date (looking back on this now, it was probably the lack of alcohol in my system at the 'happy hour meet the friends' gathering). After commenting about how hot our waitress was at happy hour, he suggested we go to McFadden's where his 'hot friend was a bartender'.  This was enough for me to end whatever the heck we were doing, but oh no, he beat me to it!!  I asked him what was gonig on on Friday (via text, this IS the cyber world after all) and he said "Nothing, I was tired" the rest of the conversation went something like this:

     HIM: "This isn't going to work...I really hope we can still be friends"
     ME: "Wow, via text"
     HIM: "Well I figured we were already texting"
     ME: "I see"
     HIM: "I was serious about still being friends, you're awesome and really fun to hang out with"
     ME: "Yeah, that always works out well"

The next day he proceeded to tell me he was going glasses shopping, and took pictures of all the glasses and sent them to me while I was at work...It took about .5 seconds for me to realize that I didn't have to look at him in the glasses and didn't really care which ones he picked.  After a brief text explaining that to him...We stopped 'being friends'.