Boundaries

I was visiting a friend on the east coast recently, and since my galpal wasn't on vacation, I found myself going out on the town solo a couple of nights.

One night I met a friendly young thing, cute enough, and I thought I might like to spend a little more time with him. But just having met the fellow, I didn't feel comfortable bringing him back to my girlfriend's house. The next morning, after I got back from his place, I was telling her later about this trouble I ran into. She pointed out to me that maybe there was something funny in that I wouldn't, like, "vouch for the guy," and bring him over to her house, but that I was perfectly willing to let him get to know my vagina.

I got some money ‘cause I just got paid

It was another Friday night, and I had every intention of being a good girl. But I was not staying home alone—not after that asshole neglected to call me. Again.

So I prettied up and took my little coup out for a spin. I parked her carefully and began my strut. Before I’d even made it down the block, I ran into an old buddy for a stop-n-chat, how are you, how’s the family, where ever did you get that leather jacket, etc.

Then I stopped in at some schmancy event, took my free munchies and worked the room for a bit. Snore. So I figured there had to be some live music happening at the local Sip’n’Shake. But winter's coming, kiddies, and mama needs to keep warm. And this particular night was so blasted cold out that I couldn’t even walk all the way to S&S (I never drink and drive) without stopping off somewhere to warm myself.

I found myself walking past a bar next to a sushi place downtown that serves a decent drink. Sometimes there’s even a DJ. This night, there wasn’t, and the place was kind of slow. I was a bit disappointed, but really wanted a Bombay sapphire ’tini. So I ponied up at an empty seat at the corner bar. In front of the empty seat next to me was a nearly-full beer. Something micro.

Just as the bartender set down the gorgeous ‘tini, a young man with a striped shirt, a Joaquin Phoenix-ish face (minus the cleft palate scar) and a baseball cap sat down beside me, grinned, and said in a thick southern accent, “Well hello.”

“Well, hello,” I thought, “So you’re what I’m doing tonight.”

I didn’t really miss the asshole’s phone call after that.

Craigslist Personals - You Answered It

**Editors' Note: An anonymous post today about dating online.**

Dating is weird. The weirdness gets brought to a new level when you involve the internet.

But hell, why not give it a shot, right? I have.

And it was fine. Perfectly fine. We exchanged a few emails, we met for a couple of beers and a snack. He was cute enough, decent conversation, but no spark. No problem. Just a decent conversation with someone in town I might not have met otherwise. We even had a few things in common, so we chatted about that.

He was describing a painting he had made years ago. There were a couple of figures, and over them, he had pasted a newspaper clipping.

“Probably some depressing story,” he said, “Or the classifieds or something.”

Thinking of the shit-state of the economy, the lack of “help wanted” ads and the proliferation of people selling off personal possessions in order to stay afloat, I said, “Well, classifieds can be pretty depressing.”

“Yeah,” he said, snickering, “especially the personals.”

Awkward pause.

“Oh, that was bad. Sorry,” he said.

I moved on.

But, please. Are you kidding me? You answered the fucking thing.

Dating Is Weird Stickers

So we just ordered 1500 "DatingIsWeird.com" stickers. They're about 5" x 1.25" and look great on the wall of a bathroom stall. Bars stand out as choice candidates for these new stickers, but really anywhere you see stickers (back of a lift chair, your car's bumper, the local wall where everyone plasters flyers, etc.) works. They're white font on black background and simple.

Want some to put up?

Email us at datingisweird@gmail.com with your address. We'll mail you some in the next few weeks.

Happy dating.