It has been quite some time!  It’s true, I’m not longer the “last single girl”, and I’m sorry I don’t have any crazy dating stories for you today.  I have some things on my mind and I was hoping that writing about it would make me feel better.

First, a little housekeeping.  11 months ago Sean asked me to marry him!  It’s been an exciting time celebrating and looking ahead and planning…SO. MUCH. PLANNING.  When we first got engaged and I started telling people, there were 2 specific responses that stuck out.  One was “now you get to plan a wedding!”  The other was “now you have to plan a wedding.”  The first was said by a friend who I’ve known for 15 years, the later by a coworker who, clearly, doesn’t know me too well.  As anyone who knows me will attest, I am quite organized (understatement of the century!).  The night we got engaged I called my relative, an Armenian priest, to check his availability.  The next day one of my friends yelled at me because I was already working on my guest list.  Within weeks we had the date, the church, the priest(s), the reception venue, and the photographers!  It has become a joke to everyone just how organized I’ve been in planning this.

Fast forward to COVID-19.  Early last week, before things became really scary, Sean came into the living room where I was watching The Bachelor season finale.  He proceeded to tell me about a podcast he had just been listening to and about the expected number of deaths and how this was going to continue for months and months.  This shot something that I had successfully been ignoring rattling around in the back of my brain right to the forefront.  I looked at him, with tears in my eyes, and said “are we going to have to cancel our wedding?”  Of course, being the good fiancé he is, he said of course not.  All I wanted was to shut that out and watch my mindless reality TV.  But you know what they say about opening Pandora’s Box.

It is now something I think about every day.  This is a time when I’m supposed to be stressing about seating charts, not global pandemics.  Or dress fittings, not if we have to cut our (ginormous) list down to 10 people per the CDC (impossible).  I am in a few wedding crafting facebook groups and I am seeing posts of “Change the Date” notices going out.  I feel horrible for couples who were scheduled to get married in March, April, and May.  All of that work, all of that preparation.  And those in the hospitality industry who are basically out of work while we all have to social distance, my heart goes out to you.

Since we’ve been engaged, we’ve talked a lot about being surrounded by the people we love, wishing us well on our wedding day.  It’s definitely at the top of our list of things we’re excited about for the wedding day.  I just can’t let the thought into my head that, because of this horrible thing out of our control, that might not happen the way we want it to.  I refuse to believe that I waited all this time for Sean to find me and now, with our wedding looming, fate is just going to say “nope.  You can’t have the day you’ve always dreamt about.”  Fate.  You know, that magic concept we always talk about.  Sean and I are both believers in fate.  We believe we were fated to meet when we did.  So I will keep having faith that everything is going to work out.

Last night I had a virtual wine night with my skating team.  Social distancing at its best!  It was a great time, and a distraction from everything in the real world.  I highly recommend gathering a group of friends and setting up a zoom.  We need to be able to process this all, and talking it through with each other is helpful in that.  Well…it WAS helpful until some people decided to bring some extreme predictions into the conversation.  With talk of the world being shut down until August, or next March, I had to mute them because I can’t let those thoughts get into my head if I want to stay sane.

Even though it’s difficult to ask friends to buy park tickets in the middle of all of this, I’m still planning for my bachelorette party in Disney World at the end of May.  I have to have hope that we will be able to do it.  And Sean and I have no plan to make changes to our wedding.  It is 4 months from yesterday, and we fully intend on becoming husband and wife on the 3 year anniversary of our first date.  I just keep hoping that everyone takes this social distancing seriously so we can get back to some sense of normalcy soon.

I know there is nothing I can do right now, just keep planning and sit tight, and listen to Sean when he tells me everything is going to work out and all he wants is to marry me.  In that vein, last night we started online dance lessons and Saturday we went to pick out our rings.  I keep trying to think of crafts to keep me busy.  Anything I can get done ahead of time, that I haven’t already done, I’m doing.  July 18 is going to be here before we know it, and hopefully the world won’t look so scary when it does.  One thing some friends keep saying is that our wedding, after all of this, is going to be one epic party!

We’ll be smiling even bigger at our wedding

Hello, World!  It’s been a while.  I have a good excuse, though.  I haven’t been able to write about crazy dating stories because I’ve been happily in a relationship for the past year!  Yes, cue the “awwwww”s.  I assumed no one wants to read about someone who is happy, so I let this fall by the wayside.  I’m not so sure I will continue after this post, but I figured, at the very least, an update was in order.

I met Sean online or, rather, he found me there.  He sent me a message accusing me of stealing his profile.  The opening paragraph of my profile was a description of the man I was looking for.  Actually, I presented it as the attributes of my “lost” best friend.  That was his cute (at least I thought it was cute!) way of telling me he exhibited all of those qualities.  Such a better first message than “how’s your week going”, or “hi beautiful”, or some other kind of lame come on.  After catching my eye with that message proving he looked at my profile, I checked out his profile and I was interested.  Noting that he was an English teacher, I responded with feigned embarrassment of him catching my “plagiarism”.  I thought it was clever!

We exchanged numbers after an acceptable amount of time communicating through the dating site.  Looking back on our first text messages, Sean pointed out that he texted me around 7 at night and I didn’t respond until about 8 the next morning!  I guess that was me playing hard to get.  I remember him asking if I was a Patriots fan and, after saying yes, him responding that it would have been a deal breaker.  I told him it would have been for me too!  It didn’t take long for Sean to suggest we meet in person.  We made a plan to meet up in a few days and then he said “OK great see you then”.  In my head I was thinking “oh, so I guess we’re not going to talk until then?”  We didn’t.  Though he did check with me the day of the date to make sure we were still on.

He earned some major points that night because he got to the restaurant early (always a plus in my eyes).  His favorite story from that night is when I told I had just finished a Jodi Picoult book, and he told me he loves her.  He likes to say that I gave him a skeptical “you’re full of shit” look, to which he proved himself by listing the books he’s read of hers.  The conversation was very easy and he made me laugh a lot.  I remember telling him how I was getting these spam calls that kept leaving voicemails about how there was a warrant out for my arrest and he said “that’s too bad because this seemed to be going really well”.  I told him about my new job and leaving my old one he told me how fate and timing were important things.  He walked me to my car and we hugged in the parking lot.  I tell him this even now, the most lasting impression that night was that he was a great hugger.  He hugs you like he means it.  When I got home, I texted him right away to thank him again for the night which, as I’ve mentioned before, is my own personal test for if I’m interested in someone.

Sounds all wonderful, right?  Sure.  And then I didn’t hear from him for 2 days.  All the old insecurities came back and I told my friends that maybe he just wasn’t interested.  Obviously that wasn’t the case, or else this blog would have been written back then, with a very different ending!  I did, finally, hear from him, and we went out again.  And again and again and again…  On our 3rd date we were talking about online dating horror stories and I told him about this blog.  Of course I felt trepidation in telling him.  I mean, we were on a date and I was writing a dating blog.  But, proving the kind of guy he is, he thought it was great.  He even wanted to be the subject of a post (good news, babe, you got your wish!).

Now, when I earned some major points with him (and his friends when he told them), was when I suggested we go to the Patriots Hall of Fame.  For a couple of serious Pats fans, it was one of the best dates we’ve had.  We spent hours combing through every exhibit.  The only reason we ended up having to rush was because we were meeting my friend and her boyfriend for dinner (we probably would have spent another hour there at least).  It was a pretty big deal, as it was the first time either of us was introducing the other to friends.  After that night I kept steadily indoctrinating him into the skating family, yet it still took some time for him to introduce me to anyone he cared about.  I gave him a hard time about this, saying I was clearly a secret, though I did believe him when he said it was just scheduling complications.

When he finally asked me to meet his brother and sister-in-law at dinner, I accepted and then upped the ante by inviting him to my church Bazaar, where a bunch of my family would be.  Little did we know that, in only a couple of weeks, he would meet my whole family under some difficult circumstances.  Before we get to that though, dinner with his brother and sister-in-law was great!  Considering we had been dating for 3 months and these were the first of his “people” I was meeting, it really couldn’t have gone better.  I felt at ease with them, and they were just as excited to meet me as I was to meet them.

Soon after that, Sean was leaving for a family wedding in Celebration, Florida and we hit our first bump in the road.  His brother and sister-in-law were going to spend a day at Epcot and had asked if he wanted to join them.  He said no.  The Disney fanatic inside of me wanted to yell and ask what was wrong with him!  The rational part of me let it go with just mild irritation, saying “well, it’s not what I would have done but to each their own.”  And then I really had to tamp down that Disney fanatic when I realized it would be during the Food & Wine Festival!  Then, before he left for the wedding, he very sweetly asked if he could refer to me as his girlfriend.  It was adorable and just made my heart soar.

The day after he got back from his trip, I had to let him know that my grandmother was in the hospital.  That night when I talked to him, he told me all he wanted to do was drive to me and give me a hug.  That’s when I knew this was something special.  Unfortunately, a few days later my grandmother passed away.  Sean was the first person I called, the first one I wanted to talk to.  He told me he had things to do after school, but would come over after that, if I wanted.  He checked on me throughout the day, and even cancelled whatever he had after school.  He met my parents for only the second time, brought flowers, and then met and made small talk with so much of my extended family.  We had only been dating 3 ½ months, and this was not the way I envisioned him meeting my family; it was like throwing him to the wolves.  My dad’s cousin walked in and said “who are you?”  He got a bit flustered, I was going to answer, and then he said “I’m Erika’s friend”.  I knew immediately that was the wrong thing to say, but I stayed out of it.  He was going to have to sink or swim with my family!  He did a good job and held his own.  Though, after he did the same thing with another cousin, I told him he should just start referring to himself as my boyfriend!

Since then we’ve had a lot more ups than downs; I finally met all his people, he has come to all kinds of skating events, I let him read this blog (big step for me), we’ve spent holidays and birthdays together, we’ve planned trips (Disney for Food & Wine Festival!), and I even got to be there to support him last month when he spoke at graduation after being voted faculty speaker by his students.  For our one year anniversary this week, Sean sent me beautiful flowers at work, and that night we went back to the scene of the crime.  We met at the same restaurant where we had our first date, at the same time we met, a year ago.  It wasn’t until we were walking in when I said “by the way, I’m wearing the same thing I wore last year” and he said “I am too”, that I realized how cheesy we are.  I wouldn’t change it for anything!

Throughout all of my posts I feel like I always sum things up with a statement about waiting for the right one, or everything happening for a reason, or just some positive spin about how someday it will all be worthwhile.  It’s impossible to know what the future holds for Sean and me.  What I can say is that this feeling I have of love, peace, joy; it’s made all those past frustrations seem hazy, like they happened a lifetime ago.  Sometimes it feels like it’s too good to be true, in the same way that it felt like my singledom was never going to end.  But it is true, and it’s really all I’ve ever wanted; to be able to share the exciting and mundane aspects of my life with someone.  It’s been a wonderful year, and I can’t wait to see what the future has in store.

Celebrating 1 year together

I had dated someone for a few months.  He was a few years younger than me and didn’t really seem to be settled in life; he had just changed careers, so was working an entry level job, and he was living at home with his parents.  Deep down inside I knew that he wasn’t Mr. Right, but he was a nice guy and I enjoyed his company.  I remember that it was somewhere around the 4th date when I knew he wasn’t The One.  I saw him and my stomach dropped.  Part of me thought “oh, this will be the last time I’ll see him”.  But then we had a nice day together; I remember laughing a lot.  I decided to not listen to my gut, and continued seeing him.

And I continued seeing him even after the next red flag.  One night he told me that the path he wanted to take at work might take him out of the state, to Texas.  He went on to tell me that maybe he wouldn’t have to go to Texas, because there were also some jobs in Boston.  Or maybe he wanted to go back to school to get a masters, and he’d do that around Boston as well.  Or maybe he wanted to go live in Italy for a few years.  My head is spinning just recalling all of his potential paths!  I was silent for a while, not knowing where he was going with this.  He asked what I was thinking and I just didn’t know.  I’m the type of person who really needs to collect my thoughts before offering an opinion.  I asked what he was trying to tell me and he said he just wanted to let me know where he was at.  He was fully aware that my whole life; family, friends, skating, work, were all in Boston.  Yes, this conversation gave me an uneasy feeling.  And I even had multiple dreams where we ended things.  But I still let the relationship continue.

In the few months that we dated, he would always come to my place since he lived with his parents about 30 minutes away.  He didn’t once stay over.  One day he told me that he had an appointment in Boston the next morning and that traffic would be tough.  I made the observation that he was more than welcome to stay at my place, closer to the city.  He got back to me a little while later and said that he was going to stay at home.  I was somewhat frustrated by this, which he picked up on.  That night we spoke on the phone and, of course, that was the end of things.

He said there was a reason he didn’t want to stay over.  He didn’t want to insert himself into my life when he was so unsure of what he was going to do.  He brought up again how he’s unsettled and didn’t know where he’d be in the future.  Throughout this conversation I really didn’t get upset.  I knew this was going to happen.  He wasn’t the guy for me and I had known this for a while.  But he kept talking.  He kept saying that he really liked me.  Again, I just said “I understand, it’s fine.”  What really got me, what really made me get emotional, was when he said “you’re so great and I kept trying to make myself feel something more for you.”  Something snapped inside of me.  I lost it.  I told him “do you really think that’s what I want?  That I want someone to have to force himself to feel something for me?  No.  I deserve better than that.  I deserve someone who thinks every day that he’s lucky he found me.”  I went on and on like that for a bit.  You get the picture.

Of course, in getting all of this out, my voice displayed my emotion.  I could also hear him crying on the other end of the phone.  Honestly, I wasn’t sad about things ending, I was annoyed at what he was saying to me.  I don’t ever want anyone to try to convince themselves of their feelings for me.  That’s not fair to anyone.  And I’m not able, nor willing, to feel enough for 2 people.  When Mr. Right comes along, he’s not going to have to force anything; the love will be there.  He’s going to be so excited to have found me, and he’s going to thank his lucky stars that I’ve waited this long for him to show up!

In the meantime, I know a lot of the blame is on me too.  I knew for a while it wasn’t right and I didn’t do anything about it.  I was enjoying his company and was ignoring what my subconscious was trying to tell me.  Sometimes I feel that I get caught in the dichotomy of listening to my gut and pushing past the doubt in my head, thinking that it’s fear.  In my recent dating life I have tried to really focus in on what my 6th sense is trying to tell me.  If I see a guy and my stomach drops, I now know it’s not fear; it’s really my subconscious letting me know that he’s not the right one.  Listening to that voice inside is what’s going to save me from unnecessarily risking my heart or wasting anyone’s time.  In hindsight, while I’m still irritated with what he said to me, I am glad he ended things when he did and it didn’t go on longer.

A well-intentioned, very sweet, friend of mine asked if I would be open to being set up.  She said she thought she found a good match for me.  She told me that the guy, her co-worker, was in his late 30s, was an amazing guy, looking for something serious, not interested in playing games, family oriented, good job, not crazy (she said this 3 times!), handsome, taller than me, had already seen my picture and was interested.  With the way she sold him, how could I say no??  I told her to absolutely give him my number.

A couple of weeks went by and I hadn’t heard from him.  I hadn’t thought about it much, figuring if he wanted to get in touch, the ball was in his court.  I didn’t have his number, so there was nothing I could do.  I went on living my life.  My friend would check in and see if I had heard from him, I would say I hadn’t.  She told me that he needed a little push, but I would definitely hear from him, he was definitely interested.  I wasn’t sure why he needed a push, but she said he was a little shy when it came to dating.  I understand shy.

And then one day he texted me in the middle of the day.  We texted a bit for a couple of days.  What was odd to me was that he was only texting me when he was at work.  The second day we spoke he said something like “leaving work for the day.  Talk tomorrow.”  I don’t know why I was relegated to work-time texting.  The following night he apologized for not writing all day, but work had been crazy and he was going to be out of the office for the next couple of days at some meetings.  He let me know that, because of that, he wouldn’t be able to chat again until the weekend.  I found this to be so considerate of him.  I wasn’t going to have to wonder why I didn’t hear from him.  We talked over the weekend and then on Tuesday, when he still hadn’t asked me out, I asked him if he was free one night to get a drink.  We had a hell of a time trying to find a night we were both free and were able to finally settle on the next day.

When Wednesday came around I got to the bar and waited at the front door.  I watched a man get out of his car and was reminded of my White Linen Pants story…but the opposite reaction.  This was an immediate thought of “oh, he’s handsome” and then the realization that this was who I was meeting!  To have that instant attraction was great; now to have a discussion and see if there was something there!  We had a couple of drinks while we talked about work and family and skating and being competitive and sports and school and all kinds of things.  There was a playoff game on TV that he was interested in, and hadn’t realized the game was going to be that night when we made plans.  He felt bad about being a bit distracted and asked if we could put something on the calendar for the following week.  That night we made a plan for date 2.

The following week he told me that he had to cancel our date because he had to work late.  At 9pm that night he even sent me a picture of the McDonald’s drive thru saying that he was just picking up his gourmet dinner!  I told him we should reschedule and he suggested a day the following week.  Then that week came and with it another text.  He was doing some traveling for work and would have to leave at the drop of a hat, so he didn’t want to keep making plans and having to cancel them.  He said he felt bad and it wasn’t fair to me.  He asked if we could see each other later in the month when things calmed down at work and when there was “more opportunity” to get together.  I said sure and that we could still text if he wanted to.  He said great and thanked me for being understanding.

A week had passed and I hadn’t heard from him.  Now I wasn’t exactly waiting around for him, I was doing my online dating thing and seeing what was out there.  But I was still interested in seeing him again.  I had assumed that he was out of town for work, until my friend told me that he’d been in the office all week.  My stomach sank, but I fought it.  I told myself that, even though he wasn’t traveling, he was still busy at work and I would hear from him at some point.  After all, my friend told me that he wasn’t interested in playing games.  And I told myself that if he didn’t want to go out again, all he had to do was leave it at “work is crazy”, he didn’t have to ask to get together later in the month.  Also my friend did confirm that work was indeed hectic, but should slow down the following month.

As the weeks went on and still I didn’t hear anything from him, a battle warred within me.  I knew at this point that he was blowing me off, but I was tired of men walking all over me and me letting them do it.  I wanted to say something to him; I wanted to stand up for myself and let him know that it wasn’t okay to treat people like that.  But, at the same time, I didn’t want to make things awkward for my friend since she still had to work with him.

I decided I just had to go for it.  I kept it nice and civil.  I told him that I wish he had been honest with me if he didn’t want to go out again, that there was no need for excuses.  I told him there were no hard feelings and that I wished him well.  He wrote back and said he was sorry if I felt like I was misled.  He wished me the best.  What did that even mean??  So I followed up again, I just had to know.  I asked if he had any intention of getting in touch with me again.  I told him I could understand work being crazy and the travel, but when I didn’t hear anything I assumed he wasn’t interested.  He said “I think at this point I’d rather just move on.”  He turned it all on me!!!  He made it seem like I was crazy to call him out and THAT was the reason we wouldn’t be going out again.  I’m not crazy.  And his response that day let me know for sure that had I not reached out, I never would have heard from him again.  I had quieted that churning in my stomach, I had believed when he said he wanted to go out again that he was being truthful, all because my friend was lead to believe that he wanted something serious and wasn’t interested in playing games.  He played the biggest game!  And then he was trying to play the good guy by saying “sorry if you felt misled”, while never apologizing for ACTUALLY misleading me.

Here’s a tip for everyone in the dating world, just be honest.  If you don’t want to go out with someone again, tell them.  I know it’s difficult and people either don’t want to bother with it, or don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, or just don’t know how to say “you’re not the right one for me.”  But it’s the decent thing to do.  In this instance, he could have just used the excuse of work to walk away.  I talked to my friend that night and let her know what had happened.  She was so angry and disappointed in him.  She apologized to me and I told her she had nothing to be sorry about; she had no way of knowing that he was going to treat me like that.  I appreciated that she saw qualities in this man that I would be interested in and made the effort to set us up.  We did have a good time when we went out; I didn’t imagine that.  She had even overheard him with his work friends discussing it after.  But clearly this man is more focused on work than being in a relationship, no matter what he says to his coworkers.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  But the man I’m going to end up with is going to make me a priority in his life, not forget I even exist.

There are some dates you go on where the puzzle pieces click into place and you realize you should have seen this odd behavior coming from a mile away.  For me, on one particular date, I realized that I should have known from his first message.  But, in my defense, you can’t tell tone from an email!  He contacted me, saying my profile was thorough and he thought he had the qualities I am looking for.  I thought he was joking around, keeping things light.  Now that I’ve met him, I know he was being completely serious.  When he texted me the day we were to meet, multiple red flags went up in my mind.  He wanted to tell me that we would only be going out for an hour and then we could decide if we wanted to go out on a real date afterwards.  He asked if I’d gone on many dates.  When I said I had been on my share, he said “good”, like he wasn’t interested in training someone in the ways of dating.  It looked like it was going to rain that day, so we were both keeping an eye on the weather.  He texted me many times that day; telling me what he was seeing with the weather, when he was leaving work, his updated eta.

We met in Faneuil Hall and as we talked he had to stop walking, telling me that he couldn’t walk and talk at the same time.  He freely spoke about his ex-wife and how she had pushed him into going to school and, ultimately, his career.  He said something like “At least she did that for me.”  He told me he’s not really a planner, that he’s more spontaneous.  I laughed to myself because, well, that self-assessment just didn’t jive with the day I’d had filled with text updates and rules for a first meeting!  We ended up at Ghirardelli and when he paid for my Coke float he made a joke that I owed him $6…yeah, not off to a good start.

He told me about his ADHD and about his medication (I suspect there is more going on than ADHD, though).  He got a cappuccino and said he probably didn’t need any more caffeine; an assessment I would agree with.  Before we even sat down he told me about his experiences on a couple of dating sites.  When he asked about my plans for the weekend he told me that he was talking to a girl from another site who had similar plans, and told me her name, as if I was going to know her.  Let me tell you, if I did know her, I’d warn her to run in the opposite direction!

We sat down and began our interview date.  He told me how he had come up with a list of first date questions with his therapist and proceeded to ask me some.  Why are you single?  I haven’t met the right guy yet.  Are you close to your family?  Yes.  When was your last long term relationship?  Define “long-term”…and then I sensed my answer to this last question was not satisfactory and I felt judged.  Listen, there was a long period in my life when I did not date.  I’m not ashamed of that.  There are a multitude of reasons; I was shy, I was scared, I wasn’t happy with myself, I was thinking my dream man was going to materialize before my eyes so I felt no need to search, etc.  In all seriousness, as loyal readers will remember from previous posts, I had to work on myself and get to a place where I was happy with me before I could be happy with someone else.  I don’t appreciate being judged for something as insignificant as the length of my relationships.  It’s my life, it’s my story.  Being (or not being, as the case may be) in a long term relationship does not define me.

He asked if I’d been on any weird dates and I bit my tongue to keep from saying “this one”.  He said he is drawn to “crazy”, but that’s not the best thing for him.  Clearly he has become very cerebral in his approach to dating, as evident by his list of questions.  He told me about a first date when the girl rocked in a corner and said she wanted to skip the dating part and just get married because she missed having a husband.  And then told me about a relationship with a girl who decided one night to spike his drink with whiskey, when he has made a conscious decision not to drink.  But perhaps my favorite part of our time together was when he told me that, more often than not, if someone is approaching their mid to late-30s and hasn’t been married, they are likely to never marry.  This was clearly a comment on me, not him, as he is divorced.  You would think I would be offended by that, but I just laughed.  I don’t really think I fall into that statistic, if it’s even a real one, so whatever.  In this day and age people are getting married later in life.  You can’t tell me that because I’m 35 and have never been married that means that I will never get married.  I don’t buy it.

Mercifully our time together came to an end.  He looked at his watch and said “ok, it’s 6:20, I’m going to say it’s time for me to go now.”  We said our good-byes and he told me that he’ll think about things, and I should think about things too, and he’ll get back to me either way.  If I had any questions, I had his number.  We parted ways and I had to keep myself from laughing out loud at his parting words.  I practically ran to my car so I could call my friends to relay all the details of this odd hour of my life.  One said “the date was either really good or really bad.  You don’t call if it’s just okay!”  Another suggested I should have told him immediately “I’ve thought about it and it’s a no”.  Of course I could have done that because I had decided within 5 minutes of meeting that I was never going to see him again, but curiosity usually gets the best of me.  A couple of days later I got the decision I had been waiting for with baited breath.  He enjoyed our conversation, but it was a no.  He did call me a good apple.  Though I thought it was “good egg” or “bad apple”?  Mixed metaphors aside, I’m going to keep searching for the right puzzle piece!

I am a product of a Disney family.  I, like many kids, grew up watching Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White.  I am a firm believer in Happily Ever After.  I believe a dream is a wish your heart makes, that someday my prince will come, and that I walked with him once upon a dream.  More often than not, this leads me to continuously be looking for my own fairytale.  This was never more true than when I was leaving my nightmare of a job a few months ago.

My last week I wrote an email to all of my client contacts letting them know that I would be leaving and that it had been a pleasure to work with them.  I received some very nice responses; many saying I had always been so helpful, that I would be missed, and one touching statement from the big boss there telling me that it would be hard to fill my shoes.  And with all these uplifting messages I got one very interesting note.  I had worked very closely with a lot of people there, but the sender of this email was not one of them.  He was someone I spoke to only a handful of times, so I was a little surprised.  He let me know that he is originally from Boston, that he’d been in LA for 15 years, but was moving back this summer.  He said he was currently in Boston snowed in and proceeded to give me his personal email address.  To say I was taken aback would be an understatement.  Was this man interested in me, or was he just being nice?  I responded about the weather and politely inquired as to why he was moving back.  When he wrote his response (no mention of a wife/girlfriend, which is what I was fishing for!), he also mentioned he was on LinkedIn.  Of course I headed right over to check him out.  I sent him a request and let him know I did so.  He accepted and said “cool pic!”  There was nothing exciting about my LinkedIn picture, it was a picture of me sitting at my desk at work, but now I was sure he was interested!  In the background of the picture there was an autographed photo of Jim Rice, which he mentioned as well.  We emailed a little more talking about the Sox, as all good Bostonians do, and then he reiterated his personal email address and provided a SECOND personal email address!

Well, I figured we might as well stop emailing each other from work addresses, considering my access to that email was almost up, and I switched over to the personal ones.  The response I got from him was almost immediate and was signed ~J.  The following night we were going out to celebrate my last night at my job and I invited him along.  Unfortunately he was already going to be out of town, but he told me 3 times that he was so mad he was going to miss it.  He said he would love to have met up.  Over the course of the next couple of days I got emails from ~J wishing me a good last day at work, telling me that he wished he were out with me & my coworkers, telling me he almost called me on my last day because it would be the last chance he would have to do so, etc.  Clearly this guy was interested.  He wasn’t going to be back in Boston for over a month, but I didn’t have a problem with that, it would just provide more of a chance to get to know each other prior to meeting.  And meet we would because he had asked if we could get together when he was back in town.  I told him of course.  After about a week he even told me he was pushing his move up a few months.

We continued our emails and they started to get somewhat lengthy.  Since he was in LA he would write to me at night and I would get it in the morning.  One of these nights he sent me a drunken email.  He told me that he had been talking about me that night.  His buddy had come over to watch the Bruins game and he was telling him how excited he was to be moving back to Boston and how happy he was that we had been messaging.  He said sometimes he just wanted to text me (we hadn’t exchanged numbers at this point).  He told me I was on his mind.  Could this be my fairytale?  What could be a more romantic notion than discovering love because I finally decided to leave a bad job?

Despite my proclivity for Happily Ever After, I was being smart and not getting ahead of myself.  I knew I hadn’t met this guy yet and my reliable gut doesn’t actually get a feeling until I see someone face to face.  Still, I was enjoying talking with ~J so I gave him my number and we started texting.  One night I was at a friend’s house and I was texting him throughout the night.  I had told him that I needed a refill on a drink and he said that, had he been there, he would have gotten it for me.  He told me he’d never let me down, promise.  He told me he wished he were there.  Throughout all our conversations I noticed he wasn’t bringing up his move.  Finally one day I asked when he was going to be back in town.  He said he was trying to figure that out, as he was having it coincide with a work trip.  A few days later we were texting and I mentioned a video that I had emailed him that he never commented on.  He said he thought he had, I said he hadn’t.  And that was it.  I didn’t hear from him again.  The last couple of times we talked I had been the one who initiated it, so I was waiting for him to initiate something to show his interest.  When I didn’t hear from him I figured he wasn’t anymore, or that he was so mixed up with his move (was he even moving??) that he didn’t have the time in his life.

I was disappointed and confused.  How did we go from him saying I was on his mind, that he wished he were with me, and that he couldn’t wait to be back in Boston to just nothing?  On one hand I had gotten to the point where I was tired of waiting for him to get to town so we could meet, and a little annoyed that he was never bringing up when he was actually moving.  On the other hand I had put so much into our communications that I felt like we needed to meet up just to see if there was a connection there.  But I was still refusing to get in touch first.  If he was interested, he needed to reach out.  So I went on living my life sans ~J.  A month passed.  Every now and then I would wonder what happened, but I kept telling myself that he just didn’t have his stuff together and, at the end of the day, that’s probably not the right person for me.

Two weeks ago I decided ~J would make for a good blog post.  I told a friend, who was familiar with the situation, that I was going to write it the following week.  Then, low and behold, I woke up 2 days later to find that ~J had sent me a few texts at 4am!  He sent a picture of the seaport, he said he knew I was mad at him, but he was in Boston and was thinking about me.  He said he missed me and included a crying emoji.  I was dumbstruck!  Why would he think I was mad at him?  Did he think I was mad that I hadn’t heard from him in a month, or had he thought I hadn’t talked to HIM in a month because I was mad?!  I wrote back and asked why he thought I was mad.  He didn’t respond.  The following day I wrote him again.  I said I wasn’t sure why he thought I was mad, but I was glad he was enjoying his time in Boston.  To that he responded.  He said he had thought I was mad about the video and because he hadn’t heard from me since.  I told him I hadn’t been mad at all!  He said he was glad, and we proceeded to catch up.  I asked when he would be leaving and he said he was leaving the following week.

Here’s the part where you think I’m going to say we met up, right?  Wrong.  He never asked me out, he never even came close!  ~J has now left Boston without ever having made an effort to try to schedule something with me.  At this point I am done talking to him, because I wasn’t really looking for a pen pal.  He was all guns blazing when he was 3,000 miles away, making plans and typing sweet nothings.  But all of a sudden he’s in the same city and he’s, what, scared?  Shy?  A coward?  Again, I don’t understand it at all.  Yes, I am well aware that his 4am texts were most likely drunken messages, but why send them if you’re not interested in meeting up?  You’re thinking about me?  You miss me?  I’m right here!

If I’m being completely honest, it rubbed me the wrong way that he thought I was mad and, for over a month, he didn’t try to contact me to smooth things over.  He said I didn’t get in touch with him for a month but, last I checked, my phone is able to receive texts, not just send them.  What kind of man is he?  Clearly not one that I need or want in my life.  I want someone who, when an argument happens (even one he made up in his head), isn’t going to run away and hide under a rock until he’s drunk enough to reach out again.  Suffice it to say, I’m going to continue my search for Prince Charming.  I’ll find him someday.  He’ll love me at once, the way he did once upon a dream.

Someday my Prince will come…

To state the obvious: it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything.  While it’s true that I haven’t been dating in the past 7 months, I also never intended to stop writing this blog.  As it so often does, life got in the way.  I was in a massive rut and I needed a shake-up; not just in dating, but in my life in general.  I was walking around with a black cloud over my head and I needed to change that or I was going to be miserable forever.  Someone once told me that when you’re driving a broken down Chevy, you see broken down Chevy’s everywhere.  And when you’re driving an Audi S8, you see those everywhere.  The meaning being, when you’re unhappy in your life you’re going to attract a similar personality and that’s not going to change until you do.  I was that broken down Chevy and I realized I needed to fix myself and make myself happy because no one else was going to do it for me.

I felt very stuck in my career.  I was working for a boss who made me feel marginalized every day.  No matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I did, it wasn’t enough and it wasn’t correct.  Every day I felt like I was bad at my job and, truthfully, I felt like I was drowning.  That kind of negativity not only affects you at work, it effects every aspect of your life.  My attitude about everything was negative and hostile because that was the world I was living in.  Work was so bad that I would snap at my parents when they asked me about it.  I even noticed my teammates treading carefully around the subject.  I began to see that the only thing that was making me happy was skating with my team.  Saturday nights at the rink for 6 or 7 hours was my salvation.

I needed a change.  Luckily, I have some great friends who passed my resume along to their bosses and one of those positions panned out.  I am happy to report that two months ago I left that toxic environment!  I didn’t believe it was actually happening until I had the signed offer in my hand.  My letter of resignation served as the vehicle with which I begin removing the boulders that had taken up residence on my shoulders.  As my last day drew near, I couldn’t keep the smile off of my face.  My job is still shiny and new, but I can already tell that the atmosphere is completely different.  Even though there is a lot I have to learn, I don’t feel like I’m drowning.  I no longer see the black cloud above my head and I just feel like a happy person again.

Now, when I look back, I can see what I was doing.  I was in a job that I hated because I didn’t know what else I could do.  I was miserable, and I was thinking “if only I weren’t single, I’d be happier”.  Sure, finding a man might have made me happier for the time being, but it wasn’t what I actually needed.  It would have been a short-term reprieve instead of a long-term solution.  And, honestly, what man wants to be around someone who is miserable?!  That’s not the kind of man I’m looking for.  Frankly, it was unfair of me to put that pressure on anyone.  This is all difficult for me to admit because I like to think of myself as a strong, independent woman.  So why would I put my happiness in someone else’s hands like that?  Like the car analogy, I was never going to attract the right type of guy without first being happy myself.

When it came to dating, I was constantly in a state of stress when I was going to meet someone new.  Whenever it came time to plan a date I always had to preface it with “so my job is a little crazy”.  I would plan something for a little later in the evening with the stipulation things could go wrong and I may be even later.  It’s like I was immediately on the defensive and would go out of my way to be overly accommodating because I felt bad that I wasn’t available at a normal time.  This job was my handicap in the dating world.

Now that I’m working a normal 9-5 job that doesn’t make me want to pull my hair out, I am looking forward to what the future will bring.  Nicer weather is here and I am excited to be able to meet people without the albatross around my neck.  I am back to being that cheerful girl who can go with the flow.  This is the real me.  I’d lost that for a while and I’m so glad to have it back.  So watch out because I ditched that dilapidated car by the side of the road and I’m ready to take this Audi for a spin!

Since it’s almost Thanksgiving I wanted to share a story about when my brother brought a girlfriend (hereby referred to as The Ex, as that is what she became) home to spend turkey day with our family.  I hope that anyone reading out there who is going to spend the holidays with a significant other’s family will gain some insight into how you should behave, and even what that person’s family is REALLY thinking!

It was Thanksgiving Day and my brother had brought his girlfriend home.  They were living together in another state at the time, so they had come into town the night before.  This was not the first time The Ex had met the family, nor was it the first time she’d stayed at my parents’ house.   She knew her way around and seemed very comfortable to be there.  She had been over for Christmas Eve before, but Christmas Eve is more of an open house at my parents’ house, with all of us running around.  Thanksgiving usually just has 9 or 10 of us, so it’s more intimate.  It’s worth noting that The Ex is lactose intolerant.  My parents, being the considerate people they are, always took care to keep this in mind while cooking.  When Dad would make scrambled eggs, he would use 2 pans; 1 with butter and cheese, 1 without.  This dietary restriction was especially concerning to Mom for Thanksgiving.  Most of our normal side dishes have some kind of dairy in them.  But she took care to make additional sides that The Ex could eat.

That morning we got up and started getting everything ready, as always.  I set the table and got the appetizers ready while Dad ran around setting up tables and getting drinks and Mom got all the cooking going.  Soon enough the family arrived and it was time for appetizers and football.  The Ex was especially excited because her football team was playing in the early game.  Finally the turkey was done and Dad was ready to carve, but the football game went into OT.  Mom called my brother into the kitchen and told him that it was time to eat.  He blew up and said that we had to wait until the game was over for The Ex, and that if it were the Pats playing we would have waited.  Well, we did wait, and Mom got more and more furious.  I started getting nervous because my good friend and her family were coming over for dessert.  I didn’t want to be in the middle of doing dishes and putting away leftovers when they showed up.

We finally sat down to eat.  Even though Mom claims that dinner was ruined that year because it sat too long, I don’t remember it being bad.  I do, however, remember that The Ex didn’t say a word about the lactose-free side dishes.  After dinner came my least favorite part of any family dinner: the dishes.  As Mom washed, my cousin dried, and I dealt with the leftovers and putting everything away, I kept giving Mom a look; she knew exactly what I was thinking.  Why hadn’t The Ex offered to help at all throughout the day?  She didn’t offer to help set anything up, she didn’t offer to help clean up the table, and she certainly didn’t offer to help wash the dishes.  As a matter of fact, she continued sitting at the dining room table while the 3 of us did all the cleaning.  My family is very old fashioned in that the men don’t ever help with the dishes.  Because of that, it’s always been my experience that when we are in the kitchen washing, drying, and putting everything away, that is when the gossiping happens.  As a woman who was looking to potentially become part of this family one day, I didn’t understand why she didn’t try to get in on that.  At that moment I made a mental note that whenever I would visit a boyfriend’s family I would be sure to do whatever I could to help set up or clean up or whatever was needed.

Luckily we finished the dishes just in time for my friend and her family to arrive, and for the Pats game to start!  We all had a great time watching the game, chatting, and eating dessert.  When the game ended everyone left, and we were once again left with a mess to clean up.  Mom went back to the sink, I manned the dish towel, and Dad ran around getting everything in the house back in its place.  All the while, The Ex and my brother sat on the couch with their phones, laptops, and iPads.  I was the only one in the house who had to work the next day so I was especially irritated that they did not lift a finger to help.

Because my family is so close, we feel that we can say anything to each other.  Soon after that Thanksgiving Mom called up my brother to let him know that this behavior, not just The Ex’s but his too, was unacceptable.  She let him know that he was raised better than that.  Soon after that call Mom got an email from The Ex saying that she had asked my brother a couple of times if she should help clean up and he said no, so she hadn’t.  Sure, always a good idea to email a Mom and blame your poor behavior on her son.  There was another situation with The Ex prior to that Thanksgiving that made us start to question whether she was the right girl for my brother, but Thanksgiving was really when that feeling started to solidify.   It wasn’t that she didn’t do anything; it was that she didn’t even offer.  If I had ever behaved like that at someone’s house, my mother would kill me!  When someone invites you into their home, you show your gratitude by helping in any way that you can, and thanking them.  That’s it, it’s not anything big; all you have to do is say thanks.  After all, it is called Thanksgiving.

Before I started online dating I was a happy person; I was optimistic, I was hopeful.  I thought that if I just put myself out there that love would find me.  To quote one of my favorite chick flicks, “every woman has the exact love life she wants.”  I believed that if I wanted it enough and tried hard enough, I would get the relationship I wanted; I would get my happily ever after.  Well, now I can officially say to Match, OK Cupid, Bumble, et al: you have broken me.  You have stolen enough of my time and, in some cases, money.  I wave the white flag of surrender.

Somewhere between the disrespectful messages (yes, I would LOVE to kick you in the balls…can I wear my skates?), and looking at the same profile for the millionth time, I’ve just decided that I have to be done.  For me this online thing isn’t working.  And I really tried.  I didn’t play games; I said exactly what I’m looking for right in the first paragraph of my profile.  I made it clear that I wanted a commitment.  If you’re only looking for a good time, you need not message me.  I never tried to hide my crazy love of all things Disney or my closeness with my family.  While some may stay away because of some of my quirkiness, I decided I didn’t want those guys anyway.  I want someone to be interested in me for me, not some fake persona I thought might attract a guy.  None of it really worked for me.  Don’t get me wrong, I met some good guys, but they all just had me spinning my wheels.

You would think that I would feel liberated when I deactivated my profiles and deleted the apps from my phone this week.  I didn’t.  I felt like I was giving up on love.  That I’m giving up on the life I always wanted with a husband and family; making cupcakes with homemade buttercream on a snow day with my kids, and that wedding I always dreamed of having at my church.  I don’t know, maybe that is not in the cards for me.  And admitting that hurts more than anything.  The truth is that I have no idea how to meet someone off line.  My friends all say they wish they had someone for me, I wish they did too, but they don’t so that’s not an option.  It seems like any of the good guys around my age are already married.  When I go out to a club, I feel old.  I thought online dating was the answer, but it really isn’t.  Sometimes it was good for a laugh, but even when I was laughing at an absurd message, there was a deeper part of me that was still disappointed that the guy messaging me was 5’5” and lived in Timbuktu instead of someone I could actually be interested in.

Pre-online dating, I don’t think I ever really believed that I would meet the right guy for me in the same way I buy my pants.  But somehow, through countless messages and winks and swiping right and double tapping, I got it into my head that this was going to work.  I know it’s worked for so many people and I really don’t know why it doesn’t work for me.  I did learn a lot from online dating; invaluable lessons, like someone’s profile is much more important than their pictures.  I have met many different types of guys through online dating; short guys, tall guys, bald guys, guys with long hair, Yankee fans, bad kissers, guys who are super serious, guys who are super laid back, guys who have nothing in life figured out, guys who still live at home.  All I’ve discovered is that I don’t really have a type.  Well, I guess that’s not true, almost all of them have been close with their family.

I think the reason I pushed myself so hard in this online dating world was because when I look back at my 20s I feel like I wasted a lot of my time.  As I’ve said before, I was the shy girl, and I honestly didn’t really date.  I wasn’t really that confident in who I was.  It took some time (and, yes, losing some weight), but now I do have that confidence.  So maybe I’m being hard on 20-something Erika.  She wasn’t in a good place to be dating anybody.  That being said, I am a stronger person now and I do like the person that I am.  I am just afraid that in another 10 years I’m going to look back and say that I wasted my 30s.

I don’t know what I’m going to do now to put myself out there.  I don’t know where single 30-somethings go to find each other.  I guess for right now I’m going to re-focus my efforts on other aspects of my life (skating season is back in full swing!).  I’m sure whatever is meant to happen will happen in due time, I’m just impatient.  I feel like I’m in a race and my friends are all close to the finish line and I’m still wandering around trying to find the starting line.

As you can tell by now, I’ve had some very interesting dates.  Some of the dates that I have been on seem to go on for an eternity.  I try not to look at my watch during a date because it is rude, and I would be offended if it was done to me.  But sometimes it feels like time has slowed down and, when it’s finally over, I feel like a prisoner being released after 5 years behind bars!  These slow dates are usually pretty similar; I feel like I am carrying the conversation, there are awkward silences, I don’t feel any spark.  So today I wanted to share a few of those stories, complete with awkwardness, a career that I didn’t see coming, and no second dates!

The messages I had with one such gentleman were mostly about sports and being competitive.  He asked me about skating and told me about the baseball teams he played on.  He is Greek, I am Armenian, so we had a lot in common in terms of background, which also became a topic of conversation.  I hadn’t heard from him in about a week, and when I finally did he made a baseball analogy about not being able to steal second if you don’t take a lead off of first, and then he asked me out to lunch.  Even though I wasn’t really sure about him, I felt like I should see if there was anything there, so I agreed.  He was from the South Shore and told me that he would come to me for lunch on a Saturday.  He made a reservation at Legal Seafood and we met there.  He got there before me, which I appreciate, and when he stood up there were a bunch of thoughts running through my head; “there is no way he’s taller than me, glad I wore flats”, “he has a lot of product in his hair”, “he looks like a nice guy”, “he looks Greek”.

When we first sat down he was just staring at me and smiling.  I figured I had to start this conversation, and I said something like “so…baseball?”  He started talking about the 2 teams he’s on and how it’s difficult because he works nights.  Then I realized that we hadn’t discussed work at all throughout our messaging, which I mention to him and ask what he does.  He tells me that he works in his family business, they have night club, which he runs with his uncle and cousin.  I said “oh, okay.”  And he looks at me with a little smirk and says, “by ‘night club’ I mean ‘gentleman’s club’.”  I did not see that coming!  Normally I would ask a guy about his job, but I really just wanted to change the subject immediately.

When we were going to order he asked me if I like mussels.  I said not really, but he orders them for us anyway.  I know this sounds weird, but on a first date I try to eat like a normal person.  I won’t order a salad because I don’t want to be ‘that kind’ of girl.  So I ordered a sandwich, and then HE orders a salad…a Greek salad!!!  If I had known he was going to get a salad, I probably would have too.  I ended up eating muscles, that I really didn’t want, and then taking home most of my sandwich.  The conversation continued to drag on with me trying to pull information out of him because all he seemed to be doing was smiling at me.  Finally the check came.  He paid with his credit card and then paid the tip in cash…I guess something he learned at the night club!  I didn’t know how much lunch was, but I calculated it later because I saw how much he tipped.  I calculated that he tipped the waitress at least 50%!  I don’t know if he is normally that generous, or if he was trying to show off on a first date.  Either way, I had no plans of seeing him again as I felt like I had been in that restaurant for 8 hours when it had only been 2!

Another time, I had received a first message from someone simply asking “Can we go skating?  I’ve never skated with a professional before.”  I thought it was a little odd that he didn’t say anything else.  No “hi, how are you”, or “my name is so-and-so.”  Nothing.  Just an invitation to skate.  I agreed and we made a date for a Friday night.  I dutifully brought my skates with me into work.  That day he texted me asking if I would be able to show him a few things, including how to “snow ball.”  I said I didn’t know what that was, did he mean “snow PLOW”, as in stop?  He said they must have changed the name of it.  I told him that I have been skating for almost 30 years and I’ve never heard it referred to as a snow ball stop.  His response was that we would discuss it later.  I got to the rink before he did and when I saw him I had a feeling in my gut that he wasn’t the one for me, but I had no idea the night I was in store for.  As we got our skates on he asked me if I am 100% Armenian; I am.  I asked him what his background was and he said “well, I’m from Salem.”  Okay, so you’re a witch?  I thought I had made a joke, but then he told me that he actually is a descendant of John Proctor!  And then he went back to the snow ball discussion.  He asked where I grew up and when I told him he said, “oh, I thought it was a regional thing, but I guess not.”  He said that it was a snow ball because if you do it in front of people it’s like they’re being hit with a snow ball.  I said, “or like snow from a snow plow?”  That was the end of that conversation.

We got on the ice and things got even stranger.  I felt like I was giving a skating lesson, and the “child” I was with was showing off for me!  First he showed me his crossovers and then looked at me expectantly, like you would to a coach.  I told him that was great and could he do them backwards too?  He turned around and did.  He asked me to show him a few things, which I did, and he tried to emulate.  Mostly I watched a little girl in the middle doing all the skills you learn when you are a kid learning how to skate.  I wished I were teaching her rather than this grown man I was on a date with.  I started making excuses about how I had practice the next day and I was going to have to get up early to get my skates sharpened.  He asked me if I had to leave right then.  I said no, I was just thinking out loud.  He looked at his train schedule and there were 2 possibilities.  In my head I kept thinking “dear god, please pick the earlier one!”  Luckily he did.  We took a couple more laps around the ice and we were done.  We walked to North Station together and when we got there we parted ways.  While I waited for the T I realized that I met him just before 8 and it was currently 9!  I don’t know how it was possible that so little time had passed when it felt like I had been there forever!

The last story I have today is about a guy who had suggested a Saturday lunch date at Fuddruckers.  When he asked if I liked it there I told him that I hadn’t been in years so, maybe??  We settled on meeting at one in a Jordan’s Furniture.  I thought it was an odd location, but went with it.  My friend told me not to judge; maybe he just liked their burgers.  When we got there, again, I knew immediately that there was no spark.  While we waited in line to order he asked if I had been to the Fuddruckers in Saugus.  I told him no.  Then he asked me if I had had their chicken fingers.  Again, I said no.  I’m not sure what part about “I haven’t been there in years” he wasn’t grasping, but it seemed like he was a regular!

After we ordered our food (he apparently didn’t pick the location for their burgers because he got chicken fingers!), I racked my brain for topics to discuss with him because it was clear I was going to have to drive this conversation.  I thought a good one would be teaching, his profession.  It was like pulling teeth!  Whenever I talk to teacher friends it seems like they have a passion for what they do.  He, however, did not.  I asked what he was doing with his summer and he said he was floating in the pool.  He did say that he had to take a class next summer and I asked him about that.  That conversation lasted 2 sentences.  I soon changed topics to the Patriots and how difficult the beginning of the season would be without Tom Brady.  He then proceeded to tell me that he thought if Trump gets elected he will probably clean up the NFL.  I think he’s a little confused about POTUS’s job description!  The conversation floated around to a few other topics.  He did ask about skating, so I talked a little about that, and then I told him about a book I had just finished reading…seriously, I was grasping at straws to fill the silence!  Finally, I did what I said I try not to do and looked at my watch; it had been an hour and a half.  I told him it was time to go and we walked outside together with more awkward silence.  We hugged and I thanked him for lunch.  He said he would text me, which he didn’t (thank god), and I tried not to break out into a sprint to freedom…I mean my car!