I typically screen my work phone calls, particularly when they come from an -800 number. Once I answered it and got suckered into a 25 minute argument about why I wouldn’t buy advertising on dogandcat.com. (Now, actually going to that URL, I think it may have been a scam…probably why the lady was so insistent). So when an -888 number (isn’t that the code for the late night “local singles” porn numbers?) dialed in at about 10:30 am yesterday I hit “Ignore” to send it to voicemail. Oops. It was my bank, telling me they had a sketchy charge on my card and if I didn’t call back by noon, they’d freeze my account. At 5:58 when I finally checked the message, I called the automated service to verify my charges, only to discover that eHarmony charges as “Miscellaneous Personal Services.” My boss thinks it’s so people can cheat on their spouses without being found out. I’m just thrilled that Wachovia now thinks I’m paying for porn (or worse!) at 10:30 am at work. Excellent.
But I digress. By now I’ve come to look forward to my morning emails. Browsing an average of 10 new potential matches like a Banana Republic catalog is a pretty good kick-start to my day (though it’s still got nothin on crowd-scanning for Lenny on the Today Show). However, I’m astounded to discover that there are apparently only 50 compatible men in all of NYC proper. This morning (6 days in!?) my matches were all from far off lands called Suffern, NY and Oradell, New Jersey. Last time I checked, those were not NYC boroughs.
Have subway pass. Will travel? I think not.
Xo,
$ingle Lady #1
Thursday, January 7, 2010
$ingle lady #2: He's just not that into you
Many people are aware that I don't like (most) chick flicks...or, I tend to yell throughout the movie pointing out plot holes, etc. Meanwhile, The Terminator clearly is a perfectly woven storyline that is completely plausible and fool-proof. So, needless to say, I did not see "He's Just Not That Into You." However, I do have this book on my bookshelf and was enlightened by it many moons ago. The theme of the book is actually so anti-chick flick: if he's not calling you (and a slew of other things), guess what, he doesn't like you. That's it. No "his mom didn't love him enough so he's afraid to get close," "he's really superstitious and hates the number 7 so he can't dial my phone number," or any other excuse that we girls lay awake at night dreaming up.
eHarmz is actually a great lesson in HJNTIY. If someone doesn't like you, they close communication. Sure you can indicate "Our values are too different" or "I think the physical distance between us is too great" (which I was informed actually had to do with location, not inequality in your physical appearances...). But overall, that's just it. I'm not going to lose sleep over a closed communication, or go out for coffee with my friends to discuss what Matt from Arlington could have possibly meant by "OTHER." Maybe it's because I'm only in the beginning stages...I'm sure if I had months of witty banter with someone via eH messages and awoke one morning to find he was "Pursuing another match at eHarmony" I might feel a twinge of disappointment. But when you think that you never would have known these guys** even existed in the first place, it's hard to get too bent out of shape about it.
**As a sidenote, several guys I know like to use the term "broads" when talking about girls, which I find amusing. I've been trying to think of the boy equivalent of "broad" but I can't. Dude? Lad? Feller? Bloke? Suggestions welcome.
Big gulps eh? Welp, seee ya later!
-Single Lady #2
eHarmz is actually a great lesson in HJNTIY. If someone doesn't like you, they close communication. Sure you can indicate "Our values are too different" or "I think the physical distance between us is too great" (which I was informed actually had to do with location, not inequality in your physical appearances...). But overall, that's just it. I'm not going to lose sleep over a closed communication, or go out for coffee with my friends to discuss what Matt from Arlington could have possibly meant by "OTHER." Maybe it's because I'm only in the beginning stages...I'm sure if I had months of witty banter with someone via eH messages and awoke one morning to find he was "Pursuing another match at eHarmony" I might feel a twinge of disappointment. But when you think that you never would have known these guys** even existed in the first place, it's hard to get too bent out of shape about it.
**As a sidenote, several guys I know like to use the term "broads" when talking about girls, which I find amusing. I've been trying to think of the boy equivalent of "broad" but I can't. Dude? Lad? Feller? Bloke? Suggestions welcome.
Big gulps eh? Welp, seee ya later!
-Single Lady #2
$ingle lady #2: Oh thank God, I'm shallow again
Yesterday I thought, this is really nice. I'm totally finding out which guys I think are funny, interesting, etc. without knowing what they look like. I'm going to be a new woman this decade!! ...But then, I got the photos. Sheesh, eHarmony. Has anyone heard of this dating site (they've been kicking people out for gaining too much weight over the holidays): http://beautifulpeople.com/. Their tagline: "No more filtering through unattractive people on mainstream sites." Yeah, RUB IT IN.
Good news though, one guy, Ben aka Starfish, is SLAMPIECE (word of the day). Roomie J had this to say:
J: omg he is SO hot
J: he has that nice aryan race quality to him
J: i also like his cup of beer. to show his fun side.
J: ok i'm going and then to the gym. and then home to look at ben
J: he looks like he could carry our tv stand with one arm
Yah...we like Ben. Tonight I went bowling (whee!) with some friends, and they informed me that for tonight's post I wasn't allowed to put up pictures of the ugly guys. Awww shoot, really!? I suggested next, what about a matching game? Match the guys to their pics, like the dreaded test question style when you weren't prepared for an AP history test and the teacher told you that each choice could be used more than once or not at all. Again I was told that no, these guys weren't permitting their photos to be used for my blog, blah blah blah. Fine. I thought the charm of $L2's posts were that I'm just a tad mean. I guess the multiple choice photos would cross the line.
Nighty night, love #2
Good news though, one guy, Ben aka Starfish, is SLAMPIECE (word of the day). Roomie J had this to say:
J: omg he is SO hot
J: he has that nice aryan race quality to him
J: i also like his cup of beer. to show his fun side.
J: ok i'm going and then to the gym. and then home to look at ben
J: he looks like he could carry our tv stand with one arm
Yah...we like Ben. Tonight I went bowling (whee!) with some friends, and they informed me that for tonight's post I wasn't allowed to put up pictures of the ugly guys. Awww shoot, really!? I suggested next, what about a matching game? Match the guys to their pics, like the dreaded test question style when you weren't prepared for an AP history test and the teacher told you that each choice could be used more than once or not at all. Again I was told that no, these guys weren't permitting their photos to be used for my blog, blah blah blah. Fine. I thought the charm of $L2's posts were that I'm just a tad mean. I guess the multiple choice photos would cross the line.
Nighty night, love #2
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
$ingle Lady #3: What kind of vegetable are you?
It is with disappointment that I report that an e-harmony membership is not in the cards. Yet another unfortunate byproduct of being newly single (and thus in a new, big girl apartment) is that rent tends to quadruple, and if given the choice between my regular dinner size portion of frosted mini-wheats and a one hundred and twenty dollar membership to e-harmony I will choose dinner every time. I love mini-wheats.
With this in mind, the topics of my posts will, in turn, be relegated to social interaction of the face to face kind, or some variant thereof. In college, my friends and spent many an hour playing one of our favorite games “What kind of vegetable are they?” – it was the genius offspring of yet another of our favorite games “1-2-3-Chug” (which consisted of little more than locking ourselves in a closet with a keg and (shocker) saying 1-2-3-Chug). Inevitably, if you spend enough…or too much…. time with people (perhaps locked in a closet with beer?), it begins to make total sense to say that so and so is, without a doubt, a potato, while that guy over there, he is definitely a carrot. I challenge you – don’t knock it till you try it – you will soon see your own group of friends as a well-rounded representation of the produce section at your local grocery. Likewise, you are blessed if you find yourself a member of the 64-count box of Crayola crayons. Rather than beginning with vegetables, try colors – it might be easier for the novice to imagine that our friend F could be no other color than charcoal gray – it makes total sense. Obviously we played this game too. It is with dismay that I didn’t remember these all too revealing questions while free harmony was an option. Most certainly, the questions to all potential mates would have followed: What vegetable would your friends describe you as? (Which is, note, a drastically different question than if you could be any vegetable what would you be?) What color would people say you are? And lastly, but most importantly, do you have a 64-box of crayons or the 99 cent 8-box variety?
What brought me to these magical memories today? Yet another epiphany. I know - I’m full of them. But I have honestly been struggling with the nice guy dilemma. It is truly troubling to a female to think that she may not like nice boys. Makes you feel like a bad person, yaddi yaddi yada. Today, however, I had a blinding moment of self-revelation. One point scored for me. It is not the relative niceness of these men that is so troubling – it is the overflowing cup of joy and jubilation that surrounds some of you. Happiness. Yuck. So much happiness it makes me throw up a little in my mouth. If you were a shape, Mr. Nice Guy, you would be a fluffy cloud. If I had to come up with something off the top of my head, which I am because I don’t think we ever made it to the shape game, I might describe myself as more of an octagon. You, Nice Guy, are pink cotton candy and sweet baby lambs. I merely point out that if ever in a situation where some total whack job gets hit by a car in the middle of the street because she is acting like a drunk dumbass I need you to , with me (after calling the ambulance, of course), empathize about how the aforementioned girl is totally off her rocker, that’s all. I mean, she is – she stood in front of a moving automobile and was in no way trying to harm herself. That is crazy, and we need to be able to talk about it. FYI – this girl does exist and she is fine, I am not so horrible as to speak ill of the dead, only if you are alive. Where will I meet this dream man without e-harmony? I think I’ll start in the produce section.
With this in mind, the topics of my posts will, in turn, be relegated to social interaction of the face to face kind, or some variant thereof. In college, my friends and spent many an hour playing one of our favorite games “What kind of vegetable are they?” – it was the genius offspring of yet another of our favorite games “1-2-3-Chug” (which consisted of little more than locking ourselves in a closet with a keg and (shocker) saying 1-2-3-Chug). Inevitably, if you spend enough…or too much…. time with people (perhaps locked in a closet with beer?), it begins to make total sense to say that so and so is, without a doubt, a potato, while that guy over there, he is definitely a carrot. I challenge you – don’t knock it till you try it – you will soon see your own group of friends as a well-rounded representation of the produce section at your local grocery. Likewise, you are blessed if you find yourself a member of the 64-count box of Crayola crayons. Rather than beginning with vegetables, try colors – it might be easier for the novice to imagine that our friend F could be no other color than charcoal gray – it makes total sense. Obviously we played this game too. It is with dismay that I didn’t remember these all too revealing questions while free harmony was an option. Most certainly, the questions to all potential mates would have followed: What vegetable would your friends describe you as? (Which is, note, a drastically different question than if you could be any vegetable what would you be?) What color would people say you are? And lastly, but most importantly, do you have a 64-box of crayons or the 99 cent 8-box variety?
What brought me to these magical memories today? Yet another epiphany. I know - I’m full of them. But I have honestly been struggling with the nice guy dilemma. It is truly troubling to a female to think that she may not like nice boys. Makes you feel like a bad person, yaddi yaddi yada. Today, however, I had a blinding moment of self-revelation. One point scored for me. It is not the relative niceness of these men that is so troubling – it is the overflowing cup of joy and jubilation that surrounds some of you. Happiness. Yuck. So much happiness it makes me throw up a little in my mouth. If you were a shape, Mr. Nice Guy, you would be a fluffy cloud. If I had to come up with something off the top of my head, which I am because I don’t think we ever made it to the shape game, I might describe myself as more of an octagon. You, Nice Guy, are pink cotton candy and sweet baby lambs. I merely point out that if ever in a situation where some total whack job gets hit by a car in the middle of the street because she is acting like a drunk dumbass I need you to , with me (after calling the ambulance, of course), empathize about how the aforementioned girl is totally off her rocker, that’s all. I mean, she is – she stood in front of a moving automobile and was in no way trying to harm herself. That is crazy, and we need to be able to talk about it. FYI – this girl does exist and she is fine, I am not so horrible as to speak ill of the dead, only if you are alive. Where will I meet this dream man without e-harmony? I think I’ll start in the produce section.
$ingle lady #2: 80%...maybe not
So I said 80%...maybe I was wrong.
Subscribed. Got photos. WOOF.
Compulsively closing communications.
xoxo,
forever $ingle lady #2
Subscribed. Got photos. WOOF.
Compulsively closing communications.
xoxo,
forever $ingle lady #2
$ingle Lady #1: It's official!
Ok. I did it. $120 later and I'm an official subscriber to eHarmony.com. Basic subscription (let's not get too crazy) so I can view photos and send communication at will. A simple $10 upgrade would have gotten me some kind of through-the-internet "immediate" phone call. I dare to dream. I'd like to thank my Nana for the funds, who very nicely invited me once to Singles Night at her Presbyterian church (read: in Baltimore, hundreds of miles away) in I think, an effort to marry me off. Maybe I'll put it in the Christmas check thank you note?
I judge books by covers. Wandering through Barnes and Noble I'll never fail to pick up the book that is medium sized, paperback, and has a pink cover. It usually means that it'll be about shopping, or fashion, or a really great trashy romance novel. It's reason #1 I opted out of the About Me question "last great book you read and why" (although, one of my matches...can't exactly keep them straight...just finished The Blind Side which is my all-time favorite movie EVER). I do read meaningful books, usually when someone in book club suggests them, but typically I treat my reading like I treat my preferred TV. Vapid and shallow.
So I was like a kid on Christmas morning when FINALLY, eHarmony unlocked that teasing photo option and opened the floodgates for 15 minutes of rapid fire browsing. I was sorely disappointed. Neal has potential (but is also addicted to sex...bummer), but for the most part, I see why these guys are internet dating. They're the Radio DJ to a bar prospect's TV personality. You gasp in horror at my honesty (is it out loud if it's typed? If a tree falls in the forest...?) You accuse me of being mean and shallow. You throw at me that I thought they had great potential when I saw their personality before their face. How important is physical attraction?
Ryan, 28, New York, United States, picked me up on eHarmony the way a guy picks up a girl in a bar. He skipped all the preliminaries and sent me an ice-breaker: "Great pic, Would love to see more photos!" Photos is blue and underlined, and takes me straight to his 4 glamour shots. In one of them, he's hoisting 2 girls in the air at once. He's eh, but I'm realistic enough to know how I feel about this process to be flattered that he thinks I'm hot (in my totally undoctored, non-Googled imaged face shot. I swear). Plus, based on the two-girl-lift photo I'm pretty sure he's actually Ronnie from Jersey Shore and am willing to throw that one a bone.
Given that I've got 90 days (180 if I forget to turn off the "auto renew" button), I'm going to slow it down a little. These stages of communication are fun enough, but at some point (as my mom so quickly pointed out to me) these guys are looking for a real relationship. Her actual suggestion was for me to go back and re-watch How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Please, I can quote every line in that movie. BTW Mom, totally lovin that I'm being equated to Kate Hudson! But, as usual as my Official Moral Compass, she's right.
Don't worry - this doesn't mean the blog posts will stop!
xo,
$ingle Lady #1
I judge books by covers. Wandering through Barnes and Noble I'll never fail to pick up the book that is medium sized, paperback, and has a pink cover. It usually means that it'll be about shopping, or fashion, or a really great trashy romance novel. It's reason #1 I opted out of the About Me question "last great book you read and why" (although, one of my matches...can't exactly keep them straight...just finished The Blind Side which is my all-time favorite movie EVER). I do read meaningful books, usually when someone in book club suggests them, but typically I treat my reading like I treat my preferred TV. Vapid and shallow.
So I was like a kid on Christmas morning when FINALLY, eHarmony unlocked that teasing photo option and opened the floodgates for 15 minutes of rapid fire browsing. I was sorely disappointed. Neal has potential (but is also addicted to sex...bummer), but for the most part, I see why these guys are internet dating. They're the Radio DJ to a bar prospect's TV personality. You gasp in horror at my honesty (is it out loud if it's typed? If a tree falls in the forest...?) You accuse me of being mean and shallow. You throw at me that I thought they had great potential when I saw their personality before their face. How important is physical attraction?
Ryan, 28, New York, United States, picked me up on eHarmony the way a guy picks up a girl in a bar. He skipped all the preliminaries and sent me an ice-breaker: "Great pic, Would love to see more photos!" Photos is blue and underlined, and takes me straight to his 4 glamour shots. In one of them, he's hoisting 2 girls in the air at once. He's eh, but I'm realistic enough to know how I feel about this process to be flattered that he thinks I'm hot (in my totally undoctored, non-Googled imaged face shot. I swear). Plus, based on the two-girl-lift photo I'm pretty sure he's actually Ronnie from Jersey Shore and am willing to throw that one a bone.
Given that I've got 90 days (180 if I forget to turn off the "auto renew" button), I'm going to slow it down a little. These stages of communication are fun enough, but at some point (as my mom so quickly pointed out to me) these guys are looking for a real relationship. Her actual suggestion was for me to go back and re-watch How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Please, I can quote every line in that movie. BTW Mom, totally lovin that I'm being equated to Kate Hudson! But, as usual as my Official Moral Compass, she's right.
Don't worry - this doesn't mean the blog posts will stop!
xo,
$ingle Lady #1
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
$ingle lady #2: Wordsmithing
When asking open-ended questions of my potential 'soul mates' (cue gag reflex), I have used one every time: "Tell me about a word that you have made up or changed the meaning of. Define and use in a sentence."
**Note: it bothers me that I do not ask "of which you have changed the meaning," but I just felt a little too grammar nazi to do so...
This question is important to me because most of my day is spent exchanging words with my friends in a language that only we understand. Some examples include:
"It's really sea bass in here." Read: it's cold aka chilly aka Chilean sea bass
"This feep in my office ate the last donut." Read: fat person aka fat peep aka feep
"APM." Short for "almost pooing myself," created to express "LOL" without uttering those terrible letters.
I could go on and on. Anyway, I wanted to see if my future man could relate to such a silly pastime.
M#2 said: "Verbing. To take a word that is normally a noun and use it as the verb of a sentence. Ex. Text me your email." He went on to say some funnier things like making fun of those who say they "summer" somewhere, but an overall YAWN.
Jay said: "Stiplify...it's the combination of Stipulate and Specify. In a sentence: They need to stiplify the terms of the contract before they can close the deal." Okay, as someone who sort of loved George W. I can't get down with this blatant ripoff of "strategery."
But! Ben (who I had written off) said: "The first thing that comes to mind is 'starfish' because my roomates were using it to describe girls that just aren't that 'into it' in the bedroom. So in the morning when I ask if they had a good night and they simply reply with with 'starfish', I know it didn't go well." Original, and descriptive. I could see myself working 'starfish' into our vocab.
I'm sure my mate's ability to create ridiculous words actually has no bearing on whether or not we'll live happily ever after. But I'm only 24 and I figure that for now, it's important to me. Maybe I should be looking for someone who is "warm hearted" or "someone I can bond with on an emotional level" (WARNING: actual answers from supposed straight men). But for now I feel the same as Mr. Big: you just want to be with the one who makes you laugh.
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