When I put up my first post for this blog, someone reminded me of this story. It’s not that I had forgotten it, believe me I could never forget, but it hadn’t come to mind because it was not an online dating story. With a quick comment of just 3 words: “White. Linen. Pants.” I remembered just how ridiculous this story was, and knew it had to be shared.

A well intentioned relative wanted to set me up with someone. I looked him up on facebook when she sent me his name, and my gut said no. Of course, I had my friends check him out as well. One of my best friends is always encouraging me to step outside of my comfort zone; go up to the guy at the bar and give him my number, go on dates even if I’m not attracted to the guy, etc. Being the girl that she is, she said “oh, he’s cute, you definitely need to give him a chance.” I did not think he was cute. But, okay, I’ll give him a chance. I gave my relative the green-light.

She told me that he was a big Sox fan, like me, and she was giving us tickets to a game for our first date. He was just leaving on vacation, but he would get in touch when he got back. He called me probably 5 days before the game, which was just after the 4th of July. I asked how his 4th was, he said he had been on-call for work, but had done some improvements around his house. His actual words were: “I painted my interior.” While on the phone, I said “oh, cool”, but then after I hung up I thought “hmmm, that was kind of an odd way to put things.” We also talked logistics of the date. I said that I would be coming from work, so we could meet somewhere around Fenway. He asked where I would be parking, I told him I’d park at work and take the T.

The day of the game rolls around and I’m walking down Lansdowne Street to meet him in front of Jillian’s. As I get closer and closer I think to myself “Please don’t be him, please don’t be him, please don’t be him.” No such luck. This guy is standing in front of Jillian’s wearing white linen pants, some sort of gauzy shirt, and is holding a hat. Is this a Sox hat? To this day I have no idea because he never put it on! The entire game, he held the hat in his hand. I am in no way offended by a man in a hat. On the contrary, I am pretty much a sucker for a guy wearing a Sox hat. This was an odd outfit to wear to a Sox game at any time, but this night had the potential for rain. White pants and rain? Could turn into a bad situation. Luckily that didn’t become an actual issue, just a fashion faux pas.

I meet him in front of Jillian’s and he has the tickets. He asks if I got to the park ok, did I drive? I say no, I drove to work and took the T. I tell him that I think we can go in at the entrance that is right across from us. He says, no, we have to go in Gate A. I say I’m pretty sure you can go in at any entrance, but he says the ticket says Gate A. Now I’m a bit annoyed because I just walked all the way down Lansdowne, and now I have to walk all the way back!

WLP (White Linen Pants) is very nice. He buys me a hot dog and a water, and offers to buy me a foam finger. I decline the finger. I can’t even tell you how many times during this game he offers to buy me an Italian Ice! A very nice gesture, but I’m all set. If you want one, by all means get it! Don’t let me deter you. So as we’re sitting and watching the game, I can tell that he’s trying to impress me with his knowledge of Fenway. Like he points out the numbers in right field and tells me that they’re the retired numbers. If I was told that he was a big Sox fan, I assume he was told that I was as well. I’ve been to Fenway more times than I can count; I know about the retired numbers, and, yes, I also know about that red seat in the bleachers. But, okay, I understand the nervousness of trying to find something to talk about. So instead of saying, “yeah, I know about the nuances of Fenway”, I decide to demonstrate to him that I do. I tell him “ugh, looks like the Yankees are winning.” He has no idea where I got this information from. That big green thing in left/center field? It’s not just a home run obstacle, it doubles for a scoreboard! I think at some point I mentioned the placement of the Sox in the AL East, and he also was not aware how I knew the standings. So now I’m seriously second-guessing this “big Sox fan” label. But hey, maybe he just doesn’t go to Fenway much.

Yes, I know what these are

Over the course of the night, he asks me a few more times where I am parked. Each time I patiently tell him that I’m parked at work, in Downtown Crossing. I should mention here that a friend of mine was getting married the next day and after the game I was headed to Newport to spend the night with some teammates in order to get an early start. Considering I had an hour and a half drive ahead of me, and the next day would be an early one, I was definitely looking forward to this date being over. But then the game was pretty exciting; there was a bench-clearing brawl! Along with the rest of Fenway, I jump out of my seat to watch the melee. Well, almost “the rest” of Fenway; WLP stayed seated.

The game ends, and we walk out of Fenway. One last time he asks me where I’m parked and I point to Kenmore and say “I have to go that way to take the T to my car.” He, thankfully, has to go the other direction. We say a quick good-bye with no discussion of getting together again. When I get down to Newport everyone is already asleep, but I text one of the girls (the one who brought up WLP after reading my first post), so she comes to let me in. She asks me how the date went. And, as she recently reminded me, all I said was “he wore white linen pants”. Enough said.

Through this experience, and through a bunch of other ones that I’ll write about too, I’ve learned that I just have to listen to my gut. Call it what you will; intuition, instinct, clairvoyance. As much as I value my friend’s opinions and seek them out often, I still have to listen to that tiny piece of me that’s saying “this isn’t the guy” or “go for it”. Yes, there are still plenty of times when I don’t listen to myself because I think I’m just being scared or judgmental or not letting myself be vulnerable, but at the end of the day I have this feeling that I knew it wasn’t right all along. I’m sure, as part of pushing myself to be more outgoing, I will continue to quiet that voice saying “no”. Maybe one of these days it will pay off because the man of my dreams turns out to be nothing I’ve ever expected.

There are a lot of things that annoy me with first interactions in online dating. At the top of the list is definitely the misspelling of my name. If you’d like to woo me, and my screenname is actually my name, take the time to proofread what you have written to me to at least make sure it’s spelled correctly. I understand that autocorrect happens, but please care enough about the potential of meeting/dating me to make sure the ‘k’, I am sure you typed, didn’t get corrected to a ‘c’. My parents named me EriKa for a reason, and the likelihood of me ever telling you the reason, or conversing with you at all, is severely diminished when I feel like you are addressing my childhood friend, who actually does spell it with a ‘c’!

I have gotten some ridiculous first messages on dating sites. If your message doesn’t make any sense, I am probably not going to respond to you. One time a guy said “let me guess, Woburn Showcase Cinemas”. I am pretty sure I didn’t ask any questions. Someone suggested that maybe he was trying to guess where one of my profile pictures was from. That could be the case, but in most of my pictures I think I look pretty nice, and I don’t typically dress up to go to the movies. That guy also had a main profile picture of him with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. If I was intrigued at all to find out what his message had meant, that all flew out the window with that picture. In this day and age, how do people think that’s actually an attractive quality?

Not at the movie theater

I’ve had people send me messages that just said “…”, “Wow”, “And?”, “????”, and even just emojis. If you can’t even start a conversation, how am I supposed to deal with meeting you? I am an intelligent woman. I’ll be honest; it does make me feel pretty good to get a “wow”, but please try to engage me in some way. Also, if I wink at you, that means I’m interested. What you should then do, if you are also interested, is send me a message. Winking back at me to put the ball back in my court doesn’t do wonders for my perception of you as a man. One particular instance, I did shake off my annoyance and sent the gentleman a message, only to never hear back. Hey, if you’re not interested, that is fine. But I winked at you first to clearly show my interest. You didn’t have to wink back if you didn’t like what you saw in my profile.

I have also gotten some interesting propositions. I’ve had at least 2 invitations for threesomes; one being with a couple, another being with 2 guys. I’ve had messages from a few guys looking for dominants. Those made me sad because they were young guys in their late teens/early twenties and it seemed like they’d never known a normal, healthy relationship. When one of these boys mentioned the household chores he would be willing to do, I did consider it! Hey, if someone wants to wash my windows, who am I to say no? I also got a message asking if I was into CBT. I did not know what that was, so I asked a couple of friends. They didn’t know either. Google wasn’t much help, as I didn’t think he was asking if I was into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. But then I saw “CBT urban dictionary” at the bottom of the page, and knew I was 1 click away from my answer. It was an eye opener and I encourage you to look it up for yourself. I don’t know what guy would ever suggest this, but good luck to you if you are a man, or want a man, who is into this.

I’ll leave you with an experience I recently had. A gentleman wrote me asking “how long did it take to blow those guys up, all weekend?!?” It took me a minute to realize that he was referring to one of my pictures, where I am standing with 2 inflatable Patriots players, Bubba and Tiny. I did what I normally do when I get a message; I looked at his profile and pictures to gage my level of interest. It was not high. I didn’t respond back. I’d like to note here that I do try to normally respond with a “thanks, but I don’t think we’re a good match” type of message. But with an opener like this, it didn’t really feel like it was necessary. The next day, after presumably seeing that I visited his profile, he sent me another message. This may be my favorite one ever received: “God, you are so dope I can’t even handle it”. Of course I found this funny, and my friend told me that she’s going to say that to me all the time now, but still I had no interest in this guy. About 5 days later he messaged me again saying “Had some awesome bagel world today haha”. Had I unknowingly entered into a conversation with him? Why would he write to me again, as if we were in the middle of discussing our days? Is Bagel World funny? I guess the bright side is, at least he didn’t try to spell my name!

Tiny, me, Bubba