Wine Weekend Part 1: I'm on a boat...but my friends aren't.

This past weekend, I traveled to Wine Country, Long Island(?) to attend the bachelorette party of an old college friend. I knew that the weekend was going to be a blast--7 girls (most of whom I went to college with) in a condo for the weekend drinking wine, eating food, having some girl time. All good things. But, the getting there was worrying me. I'm not a big boat fan. I don't like the idea of not being able to leave a place if I don't want to stay there anymore. I went on a whale watch in the 10th grade during a stormy, rainy day that was less of a whale watch and more of a puke watch. Like a whole boat of Norovirus. I've been boat-wary ever since.

But, the neurotic in me couldn't stand the thought of not taking the most direct route to my destination. How could I drive 7.5 hours around the Long Island Sound instead of just taking the 1.5 hour ferry? So, that's how my friend Andrea and I found ourselves driving to the New London ferry.

We were meeting three other girls at the ferry itself. I had heard in the past that if you're taking more than one car on a ferry and traveling stand-by, it's nearly impossible to get your whole party on the same boat. However, we arrived at the same time and I couldn't believe our luck when a cute boat guy told us to go into the same lane that my friends were in. (Side note: If you ever want to go guy-watching and you don't feel weird ogling 20-year olds, hit a ferry dock!) I drove over to lane 3 where another cute boat guy was directing me straight ahead in the lane. Suddenly, the another-cute-boat-guy looked over his shoulder and moved me over to lane 2. As I got closer, he waved me over again, and moved me to Lane 1. Then, he directed me to the left, at which point I yelled to him, "Where am I going?" And he yelled back, "you're going on the boat." I just kept following his directions until he told me to park. But, as I believed that we were still in the parking lot, I didn't think much of it. I was a little bit confused when Andrea asked him, "Is this the 3:30?" And another-cute-boat-guy leaned over, looked at the clock on my dashboard and said, "yep". Slowly and finally, it dawned on me that I was actually on the boat, with the rest of my friends still in the parking lot. Somehow, even though there were six or seven cars in front of us, another-cute-boat-guy had helped us cut to the front of the line just as the boat began to leave. Andrea and I looked at each other...and burst out laughing. I think this picture accurately depicts how confused I was...

See the blue car that looks like it's about to fall off the back. Yeah, that's mine. The good news is that it happened so fast, I didn't have time to think about how much I didn't want to get on the boat. And guess what...I survived!

We ended up getting to the Cliffside Resort in Greenport, NY without any further confusion. I tossed a "Hey! You should come to the Cliffside. We can buy you beer!" to another-cute-boat-guy as we drove away. The others arrived safely and Night One was a great night of grilling burgers (well, I didn't grill burgers) and laughing and drinking and catching up. We ate a lot of cheese. We reminisced about college until we discovered that three out of the five of us who went to undergrad together had hooked up with the same guy, making it weird. (Just kidding about the weirdness: it was actually a running joke for the rest of the weekend) We sat on our condo patio and watched a beautiful sunset. I mused about how interesting it is to be able to watch the sun set over the water on the East Coast. To which my friend responded, "Uh, that's setting over Connecticut, but yes, very pretty." And we went to sleep looking forward to our wine weekend.

Two Girls and A Chart

I'm on a roll with my dating stories, so here's another. I've definitely dated sleaze. One, in particular, is a guy that I will call Mr. Writer. After Mr. Writer and I had been dating for a few months, we had the "talk" about being exclusive. The following weekend (and I mean, just two days after the talk), Mr. Writer went on a ski trip with some of his friends. That Saturday night, I received a text from Mr. Writer that said, "I'm watching two girls having sex right now and not joining in. You owe me." I was floored! But, my mother always told me not to jump to conclusions. [Note: Later she told me that this was probably one of those times when jumping was ok.] I told myself that I didn't have all of the facts and I shouldn't skin him alive and throw him into a lemon juice kiddie pool until I knew exactly what happened.

But, the "you owe me" line really got to me. I owe him? Really? That's like your delivery guy saying, "Well, I forgot your soda, but I did bring your pizza, so you owe me." Or like your investment banker saying, "Well, I lost one million of your dollars, but I was thinking of investing your whole life savings in that money pit, so if you think about it, you owe me." It's like Charles Manson saying, "Well, I robbed that guy's house, but I didn't tell my minions to kill him, so really, he owes me." The text was bad enough, but those three words were just so unbelievably arrogant.

So, I did what any other self-respecting woman would do...I made a flow chart.

After I sent it to him (yes, I sent it to him), he told me he was in the "sort of ok" category. And when he got home, I sort of dumped him.

Great Escapes

I hope everyone had a great 4th! I spent the night of the 3rd at a friend's annual party. The hostess brought up my blog, and some of the ladies and I began to talk about horrible dating experiences. We agreed that one thing that every person, man or woman, needs when going into a first date is an escape plan. How do you get out of it if the date is a night- or daymare? Do you feign sickness? Unless you're a really good actress, your date can probably see right through that. Do you have your sister call you back with a "family emergency"? Ugh too typical. There are elaborate schemes such as having your friend come in 20 minutes after the date starts and if you say, "Hey, what's up?", she knows it's going well and leaves you alone, and if you say, "It's so good to see you!", she parks herself at your table and joins you, bringing a much-needed change of dynamic. And a certain someone I know has pulled the old-"I just have to run to the restroom" then-sneak-out-the-back-routine.*

One of the party guests, "S", had an excellent escape plan, which I'll get to in a bit. It's a modified version of my own plan, which I thought was fail-proof....but here's the story of the man who thwarted me.**

I met Joe at a party. We started talking about what foodies we are and how there was a new restaurant that we were both looking forward to trying and so, we set up a date at 7 p.m. for dinner that following Wednesday. That night, once we were both seated at the restaurant and scanning the menu, I said to Joe, "I'm starving...want to order an appetizer?"  Joe looked at me matter-of-factly and said, "Oh, I'm just drinking beer actually. I just had some pizza at work." I was completely confused. Was this the same guy who told me that he was a foodie and couldn't wait to try the food at the new place and made a plan at 7 pm for dinner? What was I supposed to do? Eat a three-course meal while he sat there watching me?

Immediately, I thought that this must be his escape plan. Maybe he had been drinking too much at the party and wasn't really that into me and he was using the "I already ate." to make it an early night? It would make sense. But, I was still hungry. So, I responded, "I thought we were grabbing dinner, so I didn't eat. Is it ok with you if I order something?" He said, "Sure. I was planning on dinner too, but you know, the pizza was free."

So, there we were on an extremely awkward date. He's sitting there watching me eat. I'm sitting there knowing that he really doesn't want to be there and thinking of a good way to say, "You know, I'm a grown-up and I have eaten by myself before, so you don't have to stay and watch." As we made small talk, I realized that we weren't that great of a match anyway. He was 32 years old, living with 6 (no typo--that's a six) guys who had just turned twenty-one. When I asked him about the living situation, thinking in my head that it was temporary until he could find a better place, he answered, "Well, I found them on Craigslist and they have a hot tub. That's f*ckin money!"

Mercifully, I soon finished my appetizer and waved the waitress over for the check (which I paid for in its entirety, Joe's three beers included). I picked up my purse and started to get up to go on my merry way, when Joe said, "What's up next?" What?? This guy was completely confusing. I thought that the whole "I just ate" was his escape plan, but could it actually be because he was too cheap for dinner when work was springing for free pizza? So, it was time to implement my own escape. One that had never NEVER failed. I said, hopefully with convincing regret, "I have to run to the library before it closes. This is the last day that they'll hold my book for me." And then that scheming devil uttered the words that completely thwarted*** my Great Escape: "Sounds good. I'll go with you!"

Now, let's go back to "S" at the party. She shared a similar story. Her date didn't last as long as mine did. They sat down at the table and he started the conversation off with, "So...what do you think would be a good way to die?" I'm pretty sure that's how Dahmer started off his dates, too. As this was in the age of payphones and pagers, she excused herself, called her friend from a payphone and told her to page her in a few minutes. Once she sat back down and got the page, she said, "Oh, I have an emergency at work. I'm going to have to cut this short." And he responded, "No problem. I'll go with you!"

"S" had a much better escape tactic than I did. They got on the subway together. He asked her what stop it was. She looked up at the map and gave him some random stop. Then, at the very next stop, just as the doors were about to close, she jumped onto the platform and said, "See you later!" She never saw him after that.

I'm not sure if I'll use the "library" excuse again for fear that I might run into another devious wit who offers to accompany me. But, if I do, I'm taking a cue from "S" and making sure that it's a library that's accessible by T.

*After I laid a good old-fashioned Jewish guilt trip on her, she promised to never do that again.

**I don't think that I've used the word "thwart" before. Not sure that I will again.

***I was wrong.

Judging with Judgy Judges

Yesterday's post prompted a debate with a friend of mine regarding whether blogging about dating will deter men from asking me out. From his perspective, if my potential date knew that I would be analyzing him the whole time, ready to write my review later that night, he wouldn't want to take me out for fear of being judged like that. I jokingly responded that no one cares about the good dates; it's the bad ones that are fun to hear about and I'll never see those guys again anyway. However, after more reflection, I realized that if I'm writing about my life, I will be writing about the people in it, including the person that I'm seeing.

Which led me to... why should that be a bad thing? That's what we do on dates...we judge. We shake each other's hand or give each other a hug and then sit down and size each other up. Men and women may have different methods of analysis. She's asking herself, "Does he seem like he'd be good with kids? Would he get along with my family? Is he a romantic? A good kisser?" He's asking himself, "Will my friends think she's hot?" and "How long will it take me to get her out of her pants?" But, we're both doing the judging. I'm just being vocal about it.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing. The type of man that I will ultimately end up with is someone who's kind, intelligent, funny and caring; in other words, the type of man that I'd want to tell the world about. If that's who you are, why wouldn't you want the general public to know about you?

But, just in case you're worried about being painted in a bad light, here's a list of the type of men that I would probably say judgy things about:

1.) Men who spell "cool" with a "k". As in "kool" or, even worse, "kewl". This comes up in text conversations and drives me bananas.

2.) Men who take shirtless pictures of themselves in bathroom mirrors. You know how sometimes men say that it's better if women dress to "leave something for the imagination"? Yeah, we feel that way too.

3.) Men who start their online dating profiles with "I can't believe that I'm online dating...". If you can't believe that you're online dating, then what are you saying about me, who doesn't see anything wrong with it? And why are you even on there in the first place? Man up! This also applies to the headlines "Let's tell people we met in a grocery store" and "My friend/sister/brother/cousin/boss/dog/other put me up to this."

4.) Men who make fun of other men wearing pink shirts. There are straight men who look great in pink shirts. Deal with it. I may begin questioning your sexuality if you make a comment about another man's sexuality based on his choice of button-down color.

5.) Men in sweater vests. I realize that this is my own personal taste and there are women out there, like my sister, Lori [Note to Lori: I told you I'd work you in here somehow] who love men in sweater vests. But, unless you're in Boyz II Men, I'm not a fan.

6.) Men who wear bluetooth in their ear around the home or office or at McDonald's. Yes, I said McDonald's. These men exist. 

7.) Men who walk with their palms facing backward...gorilla style. We don't get a lot of these in New England due to our lack of muscle beaches. But, whenever I see this, I get curious and when I get curious, I get distracted. Does he have to train his muscles to turn that way? Do his wrists get tired? Are his elbows on backwards?

8.) Men who will not at least pretend to be interested in coming to my dance recitals. Look, I realize that sitting through three and a half hours of watching girls aged 3 and up in sequins run and skip across the stage to old Broadway tunes isn't exactly your ideal way of spending a Friday night. But, all I ask is that you half-smile and say "sounds fun". And I promise that I'll do the same while listening to a hole-by-hole recap of your golf game.

Things that went way over my head when I was a kid

While visiting with my mom last weekend, I was feeling a little bit under the weather. So, just like old times, I lay on the couch and let her bring me stuff. While lounging, I caught an episode of Three's Company. It was the one where Jack tries to get Chrissy and/or Janet in bed, and Mr. Furley makes fun of Jack for being "light on his feet", and then there's this huge misunderstanding. You've seen it. Anyway, about five minutes into it, I exclaimed to my mother, "Wow, when I watched this as a kid, I did not get this at all." So, that led me to think about other things that I encountered as a kid that went completely over my head. Here we go:

1.) Three's Company. I was convinced that Jack was just really really friendly.

2.) Paradise by the Dashboard Light. I was never quite sure why Meatloaf was in his car at a baseball game, but I just sang along and went with it.

3.) The entire movie Grease. You know the part in Grease where Rizzo says that she feels like a defective typewriter because she skipped a period and Marty asks her if she's PG? To the ten-year old me, that meant that Rizzo felt broken like a typewriter that skips periods because she and Kenickie french kissed and only kept it PG.

4.) Racism. We all knew that the "n-word" was bad and something that we should never say. But, after lecturing my friends on how bad of a word it is, I would then go off into the cul de sac with my jump rope singing "Chinese Japanese".

5.) Sesame Street. A square-shaped muppet singing "It's Hip to Be Square." Smokey Robinson singing "u've really got a hold on me" to the letter U. The "Beetles" singing "Letter B". Granted, the Children's Television Workshop meant for these things to go over my head. Kids are just supposed to think the songs are fun. They make the parodies for the parents. However, I think that most kids have figured out Sesame Street's schtick by age 9. Most kids.

6.) White Lines (Don't Do It). This one is embarrassing because it's SOOOO obvious! Sugar! Kane! Rock! White lines...what do white lines do? Blow away.... BLOW! I was probably 12 the first time that I heard this song. I knew what cocaine was. I knew it was called blow. I knew that people snorted it in white lines. Hell, in a way, the song even has "Just Say No" written into its title. Yet, I still had no idea what this song was about. I just thought it was catchy.

7.) Dirty Dancing. My favorite movie ever and I had no clue about the storyline. I would watch it on VHS, press rewind, and watch it again right after. But, really, the only line that I understood was "I carried a watermelon" and only because it involved being awkward and saying the wrong thing around boys, something with which I had a ton of experience. A lot of my confusion had to do with historical context. I grew up in a world where abortion was legal. So, I was completely confused about why Penny would trust a guy with a dirty knife and folding table. Also, every scene with Robby...over my head completely. I thought Johnny was the father of Penny's baby until 1996. And why was Baby so mad about the Fountainhead? Yeah...I didn't get that movie at all. But it had dancing. And Patrick Swayze's butt if you paused the VCR in the right place.

Adventures in Dating: The Drunk of the Irish

Being a single lady in my 30's, I've had some interesting dates in my time.  I don't think it's going that far out on a limb to say that online dating has probably made some of those dates more interesting than others. I'm reminded of a man that I met on the internet...let's call him "Patrick".

From what I read on his dating profile (and from what I may or may not have discovered from googling his name), Patrick sounded amazing. He worked for a large investment firm in Boston. He played semi-pro hockey in his spare time. He was from Ireland, meaning that he had an adorable accent. He was a sports fan who loved live music. A-pluses across the board. We made plans to watch a Pats game at a sports bar on a Sunday. On Saturday afternoon, he called and said, “I really can’t wait to meet you. We can still keep our plans for tomorrow, but my plans fell through for tonight. Would you like to grab dinner?” How could a girl say no to that?

I arrived at the restaurant before Patrick and stood in the entryway to wait. A few minutes later, I received a text from him that said, “pulling in now” and I knew that he would probably be the one of the next few people to walk in. An attractive male redhead came through the door. I smiled. He smiled. I said “hi.” He said "hi". Aaaaaaaaand then, he walked right by me and went into the restaurant. I stood there for a few seconds trying to figure out what had happened. Then, the redhead came out again. He said, “Are you waiting for someone?” in an Irish brogue. And I said, “Yes. Patrick?” And he answered, “Wow, you’re actually hot. I didn’t expect you to be hot.” I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, so I just smiled and said, “uh thank you [question mark]”.

As we walked up to the hostess stand, we heard a male voice yell, “Hey Patrick!” We turned to see a taller man approaching us with a blonde woman. Patrick shook the man's hand and then stepped away with him, leaving me alone with the woman. I made small talk with her, having no idea who these people were. Patrick and the man came back with beers for the four of us. I noticed that Patrick’s eyes weren’t really focusing when he talked to me, but I thought maybe he has some kind of far sightedness and he didn't want to wear his glasses for our date. Although the woman that I was speaking with was very nice, I sensed some awkwardness between the two men, but thought maybe they just didn't know each other that well. Then, the hostess came over to us and asked, “Would you like me to change your table to a table for four?” Before the woman and I had a chance to answer, Patrick and the other man shouted, “NO!” very loudly and forcefully. The hostess, the woman and I looked at the men strangely and the hostess paused for a beat before she said to the other couple, “Ok, then your table is ready.” The man and the woman walked toward the dining room.

I asked Patrick, who was beginning to sway back and forth, “Why didn’t you want to sit with your friend? I wouldn’t have minded.” Patrick replied, “That wasn’t my friend. Up until three months ago, that was my brother-in-law.” So, yes, unbeknownst to me, Patrick had just filed for divorce three months prior. And of all the people that we could have run into on our date... Now, I understood the awkwardness. Added to this, I realized that part of B-i-L's discomfort was stemming from the fact that Patrick was highly, HIGHLY intoxicated.

See, I hadn’t noticed that during my conversation with B-i-L's date, Patrick had finished two beers in the time that I had taken two sips. And in replaying the night up to that point, I'm sure that those weren't his first two.  While we waited for a table, I noticed that Patrick was leaning into the woman next to him, much to the chagrin of that woman’s husband sitting on the other side.  I pulled Patrick’s arm back to warn him to give her a little space. He turned to me and yelled at the top of his lungs, “I can’t believe how hot you are.” and proceeded to shove his tongue down my throat. I wasn’t really sure how to handle the situation. Not being a strong advocate for public displays of affection in the first place, here I was with a drunk-ass almost-stranger who had just announced to the bar how “hot” he thought I was (possibly through his beer goggles) before attempting to make out with me like a fourteen year old wallflower and his Selena Gomez poster. I managed to extricate myself from Patrick and before I could tell him that he probably didn’t need any more beer, he went back up to the bar. After a whispered conversation between Patrick and the bartender that I couldn’t quite hear, Patrick came over to me and said, “Apparently, they are not going to serve me any more at this establishment tonight”. 

The next few minutes are a bit of blur. I think there was wrestling involved, although I'm not sure if it was started by me trying to wrestle away Patrick's car keys or him trying to Pepe Le Pew me. He managed to slur directions at me as I drove him home, full of the terror that he was going to puke in my car, and I never spoke to him again. I just hope he remembered where put his truck.

 

Boston, you're my not-so-friendly home!

I love Boston. Truly. I love crossing the Charles River over the Mass Ave bridge on a sunny day. I love being at the Harbor at night and looking toward the lit-up city skyline. I love walking through the streets and watching the neighborhoods change, each of them unique and wonderful.

But, we, Bostonians, have a reputation. I'm guilty of it as well. We don't take kindly to strangers. Our first reaction to a random stranger approaching us and starting a conversation is "why the hell is this person talking to me?" We think they're either a) homeless and panhandling, b) crazy and actually talking to the imaginary man standing next to us, c) lost and looking for directions, or d) weird. Once we've figured out the "why", we have no problem talking to you, even if the answer is "d". But, if you're not used to our initial reaction, you may feel put off and not continue the conversation. Bostonians have a tough time making new friends.

I was thinking about this last Friday. One of my sisters (Stacy) and I went to a preview for the Martha's Vineyard Film Festival which takes place on the island September 6-9, 2012. The preview was in Boston. It was a night of five short films, a reception with wine and appetizers, then a feature film. It was fantastic and I'm thinking about going to the film festival itself. But, back to my night at the movies.

A shortage of seating at the reception compelled Stacy and me to ask if we could share a table with a young couple sitting at a table for four. When they agreed, they made eye contact with us! Now, this is unheard of in Boston. But, their openness led me to begin asking them questions about how they heard about the film festival, etc. Soon we were engaged in lively conversation. They were charming! They had moved from Houston last year (which explains the eye contact). The female member of the couple and I have tons in common. She loves the Boston Ballet and Sixteen Candles is one of her favorite movies. She's very intelligent (a doctor) so she's good at book-learnin', but she also knows quite a bit about pop culture, like me. When we went back into the theater, we sat next to them. We exchanged numbers and hopefully, it's the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The whole night got me thinking...it was really easy for me to make that friend. Yet, I've been finding it difficult to meet new people in this city. I've been blaming others for not approaching me. But, it's my own fault. I have made myself completely unapproachable. Eye contact, a smile, a "good morning", a "have a good night"...I need to start doing and saying these things. That's all that it takes. And I also need to remember that the "make new friends" piece of the old adage is just as important as "keeping the old".