Confession 5: Spark Notes

Tell us what your perfect first date would be!

Well that is a crazy question. It depends on the persona I wish to give off! Some options might be:

The Bachelorette Date: Pick me up on the roof of my apartment building in a helicopter. Fly me around the city showing me breathtaking views of Atlanta at night. Land at some restaurant that has been rented out for the night and sweep me off my feet by being completely compatible with me and give me a red rose at the end of the night which is of course a symbol that we are meant to be…

The Worldly Date: Take me to a concert or festival in a park where we sit on a blanket and drink wine. Dance like we don’t care and even join in with the crazy hula hoop people that are at every music festival. Give me a flower that you pick at the end of the night showing me that we are completely in sync and already know each other’s souls and of course that we are meant to be…

The Sporty Date: Take me to a local sporting event. Have amazing seats that I would never be able to get. Buy me a foam finger, hot dog, and beers. We get on the kiss cam which is completely embarrassing, but maybe a little cute. At the end of the night give me the little hat that our shared ice cream came in showing me that we are completely for each other because of our mutual love for sports and that we are meant to be…

Wow. I don’t know why I don’t have more first dates.

                My monsoon and margarita date went really well.  Louis and I had a lot to talk about and he didn’t seem to mind the leaves stuck to my legs or my crazy rain hair. We hit it off and by Friday he was asking me out on date two. I was really excited; I had never been on a second date before! And then I remembered… I had never been on a second date before! What was I doing? Was it going to be worse? Was it going to be different?! What were the expectations on a second date?! What if we didn’t have anything left to talk about because we had talked about everything on the first date?!

Louis asked me to go to a comedy show with him on Saturday night. I was really excited about it, but I was also freaking out. Humor is a really personal thing and what if we didn’t think the same thing was funny? I was going to have to practice my fake laughing. Well miracle of miracles that date went well too!! I wasn’t just getting good at emailing and texting, I was getting good at in person contact too! I was a lean, mean, dating machine!

This blog is called “Confessions of a Dateaholic”. We’re here to talk about my dates, not my relationships. Louis was important in my next steps in becoming a dateaholic though so I don’t want to short change the 2 months that we spent together. I have decided to write the next portion of this blog post in Spark Note style complete with a character list, chapter summaries, chapter analysis and summaries. Not only can you learn about my relationship, you can have a nostalgic high school moment. You’re welcome.

Character List

Amanda- The author of this blog, she is a young woman from Florida, just trying to meet people in the big city of Atlanta. She can be terribly awkward at times, but this seems to interest most of the people around her.
Louis- Amanda’s first online dating encounter. He seems interested and he and Amanda get along well.

Summary and Analysis

Chapter 1

NASCAR: That’s right. I just said NASCAR. Louis invited me to go with him Labor Day weekend to watch a race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. The weekend would entail sleeping on a converted school bus, meeting his friends, watching my first NASCAR race, and spending three entire days with each other. The people watching was the best I have ever seen, the bus had air conditioning, and his friends were great. On top of all that it was a giant tailgate AND you could bring beer into the race!! Maybe these NASCAR fans have something here…

Analysis: I sleep a lot. I hadn’t really noticed until this trip when it was pointed out the number of naps I took, including during the races (They’re 300 laps! Can you blame me?!) and earned the nickname Grandma Jean. I am a teacher, I have to be up early, its hard work, sorry I’m not sorry that I enjoy a good nap.  Louis’ friends were awesome and I seemed to make a good impression on them. We can all agree that it’s best if you get along with the friends of the guy that you’re seeing. Point- Amanda.

Chapter 2

Family: As it has been stated, my family lives in Florida. Louis’ family lives in the Atlanta area. It wasn’t long into our dating that he asked me to go with him to meet his Mom at her house on a Sunday. On top of that stress he told me to bring my bathing suit, just in case. Ummm are you kidding me?! I have to meet your Mom for the first time AND you’re going to see me for the first time in my BATHING SUIT?! Are you trying to send me into full on panic attack?! Men don’t understand the bathing suit anxiety and luckily I didn’t have to worry about it, because we didn’t end up going swimming. Dodged that bullet. I met his Mom, Dad, and younger brother that afternoon and it seemed to go really well! We can all agree that it’s best if you get along with the family of the guy you’re seeing. Point- Amanda.

My sister came into town and Louis had the chance to meet her and they also hit off. We made plans to drive down to Gainesville for a UF football game so he could meet the rest of my family.

Analysis: If you bring a girl to meet your parents, you’re probably dating. If she gets along with them, that’s probably a good sign.  If you make plans to meet her parents and are planning on traveling to get there, you are probably dating.

Chapter 3

DTR: DTR stands for Define The Relationship and is used to talk about that ever important talk you have with the person you are dating to see if you should define it into something more concrete, like “you are my boyfriend and I am not seeing anyone else”. DTR is super important in online dating. It is a tricky conversation in any relationship and even trickier when the person could potentially be being sent 24 “New Matches” a day by Match.com.  I tried being the cool chick and didn’t push to DTR what Louis and I had. I am so cool and laid back that I didn’t need to DTR.  Instead I took things like, meeting his parents, going on weekend trips, spending all weekend together, and planning to drive to Gainesville to meet my family to mean that we were in a relationship. Silly me!

Analysis: NEVER think you are cool enough to not need to DTR.

Chapter 4

The End: I didn’t do well in chemistry in high school. I passed, but barely and with a lot of help from after school study sessions. I didn’t know that 7 years later this would come back to haunt me. The first lesson I learned the night it all ended was that when I drink I get brave. Not good. Asking questions about matches past is never going to bring you anywhere you really want to go, as hard as your alcohol fogged brain tries to convince you otherwise. I should have known when I asked “So how many girls did you take out before me?” that it would lead to opening a can of worms that I didn’t want to open.

The second lesson I learned was that men and women see things very differently. Duh, I know. It was made crystal clear to me this night however as soon as the fateful question was out of my mouth. I was the only one he told me…. But he had been talking to other girls. In fact, he had just told a girl only a week ago that he couldn’t talk to her anymore because he wanted to see me exclusively. Hold. The. Phone. A week ago?! Is this supposed to be making me feel better because I am about to stab a bitch right about now! He was so casual about the whole thing and I was starting to reach full on bat shit crazy mode.

The third lesson I learned was that you should never cook someone breakfast if you had a fight and haven’t DTR'd. I was so busy still trying to be cool and nonchalant about DTR that I MISSED ALL THE SIGNS THAT CAME MY WAY! I made him breakfast and when I finally got the courage to DTR with Louis he dropped the zinger on me. “We just don’t have chemistry”. Oh. I’m sorry. You didn’t know this before breakfast?! Throw it up now! And because he wasn’t done with the zingers he shot this one at me too, “I really like you. We should still be friends”. Sure. Sounds great. Not.

Analysis: Pay attention in chemistry and don’t make breakfast before you DTR.

Confession 4: Monsoons and Margaritas

Members who post pictures are a zillion times more likely to get winked at then those who don’t. Post your pictures today to increase your chances of being winked at!!

Well duuuh they’re more likely. I mean getting virtually hit on is one thing when you can see the person. Seriously, what are you trying to hide buddy by not posting a picture??

Alright… time to choose a picture.

Hhhmmm… This one? Nope. Too long ago. This one? Nope. I look a little chunky. This one? Nooo… my hair isn’t that length or that blonde anymore… Ah! I need to find at least one picture that correctly displays all of my likes and awesomeness in 1 single glance…

OK, this one of me at the Eiffel Tower says that I love to travel and that I am worldly, the one of me skiing says I’m athletic and worldly, and the one of me in the sunflower patch shows that I am carefree … and worldly. Perfect! Glance away boys!

                We have established that I am prone to emotional freak outs and that I am awkward. The awkwardness is a character trait that I will never ever grow out of, but I will tell you that my emotional freak outs became less frequent as I found my groove in the internet dating scene. Louis and I emailed back and forth for about a week and my responses became lengthier, more in depth, and didn’t take me over 4 hours to compose. I was pretty proud of myself! Maybe I was the bad ass diva I always knew I was! Well, when you virtually wink at a guy, he’s probably going to email you. And if he emails you and you email him back and he emails you back and you email him back, etc. etc… chances are he’s probably going to ask you out on a date. Enter in more emotional freaking out.

                Just when I had become comfortable with the emailing, I had to enter into another unknown and even scarier world of texting. I find texting between my friends to be awkward and daunting at times and now I was expected to text this man that I had never spoken to, laid eyes on, or had any dealings with… without the help or filter of Match.  I take back what I said before about not being grateful for their help! I still need them! Don’t push me out of the nest yet, I’m not ready to fly on my own!  You’d think the man was asking me to run away with him to Vegas instead of setting up a casual first date with him for all the freaking out I was doing.

                Here’s my beef with texting, #1. It’s too instantaneous. Texting doesn’t give you time to think about your responses like emailing does. People expect you to respond quicker, because who doesn’t have their phone with them at all times? Which brings about  #2. The wait time. You can’t respond right away because then it looks like you have your phone with you all the time. You can’t wait too long, because people have their phones with them all the time and it’s just rude to leave someone hanging. You have to find that magic time that says “Hey! I’m in the 21^st century and own a cell phone, but I am not one of those crazy people that doesn’t ever let go of their phone, but I respect your time enough to respond in a timely manner that is considerate to you.” #3. Your text needs to be short and sweet, but not lacking emotion. The perfect length of a text says, “Hey! I am a busy person so my texts don’t get too much of my time, but they get enough of my time to be able to write you a concise, yet containing the appropriate amount of emotion text.” Piece of cake.

 Writing texts is like emails on crack. I have this terrible problem of sending texts that are really just my stream of thought… in writing. Scary. Here’s an example:

OH hey! Mexican sounds great, but only if you want to… I am down for whatever. I can do Thursday too, but really I am free any day this week… not that I’m a loser or anything haha… Just let me know when and where. Looking forward to it, but only if you are!

Like I said, scary.

                Anyway, after we had set up the date through texting, Thursday night at a local Mexican restaurant near my apartment, I had to wait around for almost a week. A WHOLE week for me to over analyze and you guessed it, freak out. This week was awkward because we had left the emailing world in the dust, but I didn’t feel like we were quite at the place to be texting every day. We were in online dating purgatory. Do I text him? Will that be creepy? Probably, but we talked every day for a week and now we don’t talk! He’s going to forget about me… He’s going to back out of our date because he won’t remember why we decided to go on it in the first place because we are in the awkward place between emailing, texting, and meeting!! Did I mention that I freak out a lot?

                On Wednesday, while talking to one of my male friends, he convinced me (or rather he just said whatever to make me shut up about the whole dang thing) to text Louis casually. It went something like this:

Hey! It’s been a crazy week so I’m definitely looking forward to that margarita tomorrow night!

Safe, right? Well when he didn’t text me back after about 5 minutes (and believe me I was counting the minutes) I started to hyperventilate. Ohhmygoshohmygoshohmygosh…. How could you have told me to text him?! Why did I listen to you? I don’t care that I’m a big girl and I can make my own decisions… YOU talked me into it! I should have kept quiet. We aren’t close enough yet for me to send casual texts!!! After he sent back his reply: Definitely. Me too I calmed down a bit. The date was still on.

Thursday (cue somewhat scary and foreboding music):

7:00 am- 4:00 pm: Work I didn’t think about my date all day… yah right!

4:00 - 5:00 pm: Traffic I hate, hate, hate Atlanta traffic

5:00- 5:30 pm: Shower

5:30-5:45 pm: Apply lotions, potions, and serums to face and hair

5:45 pm: Glance out window No no no… those are not dark rain clouds I see. I don’t care if it’s August and rainy season, I specifically ordered no rain for tonight!! It’s ok, it hasn’t started raining yet… there is still hope…

5:50- 6:05 pm: Blow dry hair Oh my gosh!! It’s raining!! NO! It’s OK. I’ll check the weather channel. It’s probably just a quick little rain…

6:10- 6:20 pm: Frantically check weather.com for radar and forecast.  It doesn’t say it’s supposed to be raining! What the heck. I mean really weather people… lets update this mess.

6:20- 6:45 pm: Straighten Hair. OK, really?! It’s like a freaking hurricane. The wind is blowing and it’s coming down in buckets. WHHYYYY MEEEEEEE?!?!

6:45-6:50 pm: Check weather.com again. Have you updated yet, because really all you have to do is look out your window to see the MONSOON happening right now. Alright, it says it should be done raining at 7 ish which will be OK because then I won’t be too early for my date. Fashionably late is sooo mysterious. Perfect.

6:50- 7:00 pm: Makeup. It’s still raining. I am going to have a word to say to those weather people.

7:00-7:05 pm: Stare out window and try using Jedi mind tricks to make the rain stop. Stopstopstopstop. I command you to stop raining! Cease!! MMMMMMMM aaannnnddd CUT!!

7:10: Resign myself to the fact that it’s not going to stop. I guess I need to practice my Jedi force. Better get my rain jacket. UGH.

                As I am driving to the restaurant, it starts to let up and the torrential down pour becomes a light drizzle (I should also mention that I park in a parking garage so I didn’t have to get wet going to my car, a point in my favor).  I mentioned before that the restaurant is close to my house, it’s 5 minutes at the most. I am thankful that the rain has let up and that I might be able to sneak inside without getting too wet. I arrive at the restaurant and drive through the tiniest parking lot ever. There are literally 8 spots and they are all taken. As I circle the lot a spot opens up and I race to get there, but I am beat out by a girl in a Prius (I do not wish to make any further comment on this. I will just say that I deducted the point I got earlier for the parking garage). I give up and decide to park on the street. The nearest spot on the street is about 3 blocks away.

                As I parallel park into what seems to be the only parking spot left on this side of Atlanta it starts to rain harder, of course. While I am walking it keeps raining harder so I have to start running. My Rainbow flip flops are no match for the river I am now running in and so I take them off and start to sprint towards the restaurant. I splash through a puddle that is more like a small lake, bound up to the front door, swing it open and hurl myself inside. I let out a whoosh of air in relief and realize that most of the restaurant is staring at me, but who can blame them? My hair is coming out of my hood in wild pieces, the bottom of my dress is soaked, and pieces of leaves are stuck to my legs.  I look like some kind of crazy amazon woman in a pink dress and anorak jacket that embarrassingly says my name across the left side.   I glance around and see a guy sitting at a table looking at me expectantly. I put my head down and walk quickly to his table.

Louis?

Yah. Amanda?

Yes… oh my gosh, you’ll never believe what I just went through…