In which we discuss total incompetence

Picture it: Newport Beach, last Saturday (I’m watching a Golden Girls marathon right now so forgive me for channeling Sophia).

Anyway:

You’re hanging out in a bar with your good friend when a random dude and his friend approach you. Eventually random dude tells you that he wants to take you on a date that week (as long as you’re not under 30, because he doesn’t date women under 30). Okay, cool. Sounds great.

The next day you get a “nice to meet you” text but nothing else. Okay, so maybe the date isn’t happening. No big deal. You’re slightly curious as to why he would even text you to begin with if he either 1) didn’t remember you as you suspected he wouldn’t or 2) decided thanks but no thanks. But you should probably check your curiosity at the door.

The day after THAT, at 7:15 pm, you get another text asking if you want to come over THAT night for pizza and a movie. For a first date. At a total stranger’s apartment. Yeah, that sounds like a plan, broseph. So, you decide to just not even dignify that question with a response by literally not responding.

Two days later, you get another text from random dude asking why he didn’t hear from you and you’re all, “because that is NOT the way to ask someone out on a date,” all up on your soapbox of Please Put in the Slightest Modicum of Effort, I’m Begging You.

Random dude tries again and you agree to go out the next night. He’ll call you when he’s done golfing. Except that no, no he won’t. Which brings me to my original question of what was even the point of the FIRST text. Just don’t text me.

So you find yourself sitting there waiting for your phone to ring and then realize that you don’t want to be in THAT PLACE, so you just block him and move on (to write a fictitious blog about this hypothetical situation).

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In which we discuss not dating

I realize that I haven’t updated this blog in a while, but it’s hard to blog about dating when you’re actively NOT dating. Pretty sure no one in interested in reading about my new pure barre obsession or my Friends marathons on Netflix.

My last date was in December, I think, because I’m not counting what happened after Stage 5 and before I decided dating and I were on a break because even I have a threshold of WTF that I won’t post here because it’s just too bizarre. Suffice it to say that if you establish that you are just friends with someone you should REALLY STICK TO THAT UNLESS YOU ARE BOTH SURE lest you end up with an awkward email begging for

It’s interesting when your focus changes. I have a pair of jeans that I haven’t been able to fit into since 2011 that I’m determined to zip in the next couple months. I’m going to Hawaii later this month. Actively not dating means a 10000% reduction in stress in your life. Who knows how long it will last, but this is my attitude moving forward:

 

 

 

 

 

In which we discuss stage 5 clingers

…disclaimer brought to you by Phoebe Buffay – “now I can’t stress this point too strongly…this story isn’t real”:

You have a friend. Your friend is not so good at the dating. It seems her only options are, “beating heart ripped out of chest” or “running away from stage 5 clingers.”

But, she’s been Mopey McMoperson for a fucking year over a douchelord who is an emotional sadist, so you tell her to get back out there and try her luck, because the path to ever lasting love does not involve watching Netflix at 4 am.

So, she gets online. Right away, she is matched with a guy who seems polite and normal. Their first date consists of beers at a sports bar.

Her date is nice but seems overly enthused. Which she is not used to, really, so she thinks it is weird he’s overly affectionate, like how when he gets up to go to the bathroom less than 45 minutes into the date kisses her as he gets up from the table.

But, as we’ve already determined, your friend is inept, so maybe that’s normal? She’s not sure. It’s also weird that he seems so gung ho over her when he hasn’t asked her many questions about herself, so maybe he’d just be that excited over a plant. Who knows.

At the end of the date, Mr. Seemingly-Normal-Until-the-Other-Shoe-Drops-But-We’ll-Get-to-That asks her to go home with him but she politely declines because it’s not like they were dry humping at the table and she gave him any indication that the evening was headed in that direction.

But they DO plan a second date, and he tells her that he will make her dinner at his place which in RETROSPECT was not a good idea.

As date number two approaches, your friend begins to get more nervous, as is par for the course with her, because she scares easily when people genuinely like her. But, she goes and tries to have a positive attitude but in the millisecond that she sees him when he comes to retrieve her from the parking lot she’s all, “yeah, no” and then spends most of the date pretty much like this:

Now, it is important to mention that she wanted to be honest with this guy so told him that she wasn’t sure what she was looking for but that she was still struggling with feelings for her ex because I guess it is easier to be honest when you have nothing invested and maybe being honest up front is the better way to go. But HIS response was something along the lines of, “well, I am ready to commit to you exclusively right now…or we can just have sex.” Pause for reaction.

Now, at this point she’s regretting that they aren’t in public so she can’t just peace the fuck out and at some point must have agreed that they could still hang out and see what happens because when she gets home (two hours later, which seemed like at least eight) he has texted her to tell her that she is going to LOVE what he is planning and where he is taking her later on in the week. She is confused – she thought she meant hanging out in a causal sense like hanging out without expectations or whatnot and he’s in a completely different chapter planning surprise dates that she is not comfortable with.

So, the next day she decides to rip off the band-aid and just tell him that she can’t see him anymore. She sends this via text because that is allowed after only two dates and no exchange of last names, correct?

He doesn’t immediately respond, so she feels like she is in the clear and is relieved. Just disappearing without explanation is kind of shitty and as much as it sucks, even over text, to tell someone you don’t want to see them anymore, she felt like she did the right thing.

But nope – spoke too soon. The responses start coming in. First a text: why, what’s up? Followed by another one: I was really hoping you wouldn’t tell me this over text. Followed by a phone call. Immediately followed by another phone call AND voice mail. (And that, my friends, is an A+ in How to Get Blocked 101)

Which okay – come on, dude. Really? First of all, I cannot tell you how many dudes have disappeared on me (I mean YOUR FRIEND) after we’d (they’d) been through more than two dates, second of all this all seems a little excessive considering she was upfront about her feelings and third of all, there are surely people reading this who feel like in the below GIF your friend is clearly Rachel and they are everyone else and this depicts them trying to get her to make reasonably logical decisions in general when it comes to dating (like maybe don’t go to a dude’s apartment on the second date because it might unleash the Stage 5).

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And your friend is all

ANYWAY. This entirely made up story is just another in the endless “dating sucks” stories we see on a daily basis. Fun times.

An open letter to cell phone companies (not to be taken TOO seriously)

Dear All Phone Companies,

This was originally going to be an open letter to T-Mobile until I realized this completely hypothetical scenario that has nothing to do with my current situation also involves AT&T, so maybe this is an every phone company type of request, but I digress.

It is a known fact among my friends that after a certain hour and/or number of glasses of wine, I should not be allowed to text certain people. It is also a known fact that sometimes I do stupid shit, I mean, HELLO, the name of this blog says it all.

Anyhoo. Smartphones now have features that allow people to block certain phone numbers. Sometimes, it’s easy to do. For example, the guy you went on one date with who you told more than once, “thanks but no thanks”, but he keeps texting you and you’re all, “Maybe Espanol would be more clear” but blocking is just easier and you can just do it and not even give it a second thought.

Other times though – not as easy. You find yourself forced to block someone because you are knocked on your ass in love with them, while you are their placeholder, and after what you thought was a breakthrough evening of amazingness they break up with you over text three days later and your friend is all maybe you should block him because I mean, really:

Then, because knowledge is power but not really, you decide that you want to know what happens if you block someone and then they try to text you. So, while discussing this over drinks, you block your very nice willing-to-humor-you friend, have her text you, and then unblock her. On her end, it appears the text goes through. On your end, you don’t receive it, so then you unblock her and immediately the text she tried to send you comes through. And you react to that brilliant plan:


So then you’re all, WHY DID I DO THAT? And by “that” of course I mean take the time to learn the intricacies of blocking/unblocking people in your phone. And this, phone companies, leads me to question number one.

WHY THE TAKESIES-BACKSIES?

This ability to unblock people – can you get rid of it? Once you block a person, can’t it be permanent so you don’t in your mind fabricate texts begging for your forgiveness that never actually happened but if there was no unblock option you’d never know this vs. caving and seeing a whopping two texts over the span of two months (side note: WTF). And then you hop back on the dating merry-go-round for another ride on the “this is the best and worst thing ever at the same goddamn time” horse and none of this would be an issue if blocks could be permanent! Screw will power!

This leads me to my second question/issue, and that is with factory resets. What if you had to do one over the weekend, and low and behold, these also remove all blocks because it wipes the phone so when you blocked this person for a second time after feeling emotionally abandoned in a Hooters parking lot, not only does it unblock them FOR you, but any attempted texts just flitter off to wherever these texts go. No, seriously. Where do they go? Because now not only did you lose the opportunity to see the maybe fictitious maybe not text(s) by unblocking him right before the reset, but now you have NO IDEA what he has attempted to text you, if anything, and when you had the choice to not know that was one thing, but it is QUITE ANOTHER to lose that power against your will because for some reason your Galaxy S5 decided to just not work and a reset was your only option.

Which leads me to my third and final issue. If you happened to text this now unblocked person and then realized not only that you didn’t know if you just responded to something like, “I hate you, never text me again,” with, “isn’t Jay Cutler the WORST?” but that apparently you haven’t hit your threshold for torture because you decide it would be a good idea to download a recent phone bill and see if blocked numbers still show up as incoming texts. Fun fact. They do. So now you decide that you’re done because you don’t want to count how many times he tried to text you and you wouldn’t be able to see the content anyways AND he didn’t respond to your lame attempt at starting a conversation because on Sunday you really just MISSED him and when your friend tells you to try and not go to the bad place of worst case scenarios, you’re all:

So this was just a REALLY long-winded way of asking for three things, phone companies of America:

1) For blocks to be permanent

2) For factory resets to somehow keep blocks intact (I mean, we’ve sent people to space, this can’t be harder than that)

3) For blocked incoming texts to NOT show up on phone bills because REALLY??? It technically wasn’t incoming if I never saw it. And furthermore if I didn’t have unlimited texting, would I have to pay for that? Does this even make sense?

Thanks for your consideration.

xoxox,

RF

In which Miley Cyrus makes me sad

This gem of a performance at the VMA’s happened on my last night in Chicago. My friend K, who came with me on the road trip to Cali, and I, sat at our friend’s apartment, watching for the anticipated and sorely disappointing 15-second ‘N Sync reunion.

Anyway. The next day, K and I embarked on the road trip that would bring me to my new home, Orange County. We got here on a Friday. Monday was Labor Day. I dropped her off at LAX for her flight home and then went home and took a nap before my date with Bachelor #1. And thinking about all of this makes me sad, and Miley Cyrus is an instant trigger to all of this.

I moved out here for my job, which I completely love. What I do NOT love is how badly I misjudged the situations with Bachelor’s 1 and 3, and how I came on this journey not expecting to meet anyone because I was essentially moving to a big suburb and in the matter of a very short time had my hands full in a way I could not handle.

What I do not love is the constant frustration I feel that B1 is back with his ex, B3 dropped off the face of the planet, my new crush, C, has no interest in me, and I feel generally like a troll surrounded by happy couples. It’s not that I can’t be happy being single, it’s that this triple middle finger I’ve gotten in 2014 is slightly demoralizing. And triggered by Miley Cyrus.