First Dates.

1. College Boyfriend
First Date: Basement of a frat party, while drinking red wine out of a water bottle.  Spotted each other from across the room, instantly recognized one another from our shared dingy dorm building. Spent the "date" dancing shamelessly & making out, never realizing that what we were doing would turn into something meaningful. Ended the date spooning in his Twin XL dorm bed
Duration of Relationship: Better part of 3 1/2 years

2. The In-between-er
First Date: Nice restaurant in Epping, NH. Spent the date talking about favorite types of beer (the only conversation topic I can honestly handle), ended it making out in his 1989 volvo.
Duration of relationship: 1 month (if that?)

3. Mr. Nice Guy
First Date: Surf downtown Portsmouth.  Spent the date talking about our favorite travel destinations (the only other topic I can keep up while being genuinely interested). Barely touched my food because it was the first real date I had been on in a while, and I couldn't figure out how to eat & speak at the same time.  Ended the date with a kiss on the cheek.
Duration: 3-4 dates (without any moves being made…awkwaaaard)
Update: He's set to be married in the next few weeks..

4. The Handsome Coworker
First Date: Made me dinner in his tiny studio apartment.. An interesting and strong smelling"fish fry" (that would later leave me banned from my apartment until I bagged all of my clothes and showered multiple times). Snacked on "fish" and drank beers for hours. Other than the smell, great date.
Duration: Sadly, less than 3 months.

5. The Barely Legal Guy
First Date: Middle of winter house party. Fed me Fruit Loops and Loopy Vodka and listened to me drunk ramble about the ending of my handsome man relationship and who-knows-what-else. Fast forward a month or so and I've discovered that in addition to only being 19 (and being told he was 21), he had a bad habit for drinking too much.
Duration: 1-2 months. Maybe.

6. The Mature Asshole
First Date: Nice dinner at a restaurant in Kittery. Opted for haddock even after my past issues with first date fish. Had amazing convo and ended the night with a charged kiss.
Duration: On and off for almost a year. Each time ending for bogus reasons and often times over text.

7. The Airline Guru
First "date": A bar crawl through Malasaña, Madrid. Delicious gin&tonics in hand, we bonded over both getting scurvy or dysentary during The Oregon Trail game in elementary school.  Likely my male body double, due to disgusting sense of humor, wit, and appetite for puppies & beer.
Duration: Only a month or so due to moving back stateside, picking things back up each time I return. Hopefully more to tell in the future on this one.

8. The Patron
First Date: Met at a wine bar for drinks (after agreeing to said date while waiting on him at the bar). Realized he had a full on lisp immediately, but passed it off as "charm." Continued the night with more drinks elsewhere, dry convo, and a kiss before going home separately. Upon debriefing with friends later, I was told he has a "rapey vibe" and likely "kills small woodland creatures in his free time." Phrases like, "installs hidden cameras in bathrooms," were used too.  Guess I had lost my touch after being too out of practice.
Duration: 1 date. Duh.

9. The Talladega Nights Fan
First Date: I mean, the name should be enough... Loves Will Ferrell, thank goddddd. First date consisted of Ladies Night drinks at State St, followed by a tour of the old digs, and finished with some popcorn, weed, and the discovery of dog shit all over his shoes. Oddly enough, fairly successful first date, even though there was no waiter, fancy clothes, or fish.
Duration: I'll let ya know.

The New Stalker Forum: LinkedIn

So I have a bad habit of google searching guys that I'm interested in. I like to figure out their back story so I know what I'm up against. Crazy (but usually gorgeous) ex-girlfriend, found her, likely stalked her too to be honest. Impressive employment history, jealous of it. Live with your parents, not a secret anymore (also, jealous of it). Weird and uncomfortable habits (i.e. World of Warcraft addict, into sending FarmVille invites, super love Trump- or worse yet Ben Carson) are no longer private anymore.  One of the toughest parts of these internet escapades is pretending that I didn't take part in them.  I have to act surprised when a guy tells me that he spent a year working in a school in Colombia, or when he confesses that he only recently got out of a relationship (c'mon, you think I didn't know that already?!). I have to feign excitement when they tell me that, they too, are fans of traveling and drinking dark beers.
Enter adulthood: the land of careers and networking. And LinkedIn! God damn LinkedIn.  So quick and easy to see what a guy is about! Or any person for that matter! I search their name, view their profile, and BOOM, employment interests, history, and so much more are at my fingertips. It's like a mecca for seeing the adult side of someone. Combined with facebook, instagram, the news clip from their high school basketball team winning the championship, and that website they created for their college tech class, I've got the full picture.

Well, I recently discovered that some people get FUCKING NOTIFICATIONS WHEN YOU VIEW THEIR PROFILE. Oh my god. What the actual fuck! Not only does this challenge the possibility for future creeping, but it means that so many people must know by now what a complete creep I am! Like, I assume other people creep too, but I've gotten frighteningly good at it. Well, no, actually, clearly I haven't gotten good because I'm only just recently realizing this startling info. Uuuuugh.
I guess that the moral high-road take away from this would be to get to know people in person instead of taking tabs on the online, but instead I'm just gonna sneak this link in here: http://www.socialtalent.co/blog/how-to-stalk-people-on-linkedin-in-private. You're welcome.
Also, if any of you people who possibly stumble across this blog know of any other creeping outlets, please let me know.
And if any of my male interests stumble upon this page, I'm honestly sorry.  The internet has been my enemy for the past few years, including self-diagnosing, creeping, over analyzing, and researching instead of doing. I swear I'm not really that much of a creep, just trying to find your arrest logs before I become a subset name on one of them (aaaaaaand I also want to know the name of the band you joined in 9th grade).

Relationship Status: It's Complicated

My love life hasn't exactly been booming lately. Hell, it hasn't really been doing anything lately.  I'd be lying if I said I had some hot new boyfriend.  Or if I said I had a boyfriend at all. Ha, I'm lucky to have consistent male contact, and most of that is thanks to my male regulars at the bar.  And if those guys counted as boyfriends, then my love life might be something worth reading about.  So, on that note, read on at your own risk.  Not promising much. But definitely promising that you won't be able to get the next 10 minutes of your life back. You've been warned.

Ended a very long (& often tumultuous) relationship just over a year ago. Finally started feeling recovered as of late, and decided to jump back into the dating pool.  To my dismay, it is MUCH harder to find a "normal" relationship now than it was 5 years ago. In college, everyone had the same schedule, similar priorities, and was in the same age bracket.  Made life pretty simple. Meet someone in your dorm, end up in the same class with them, and then date them for the rest of college...  There. Done. Relationship status: Normal.  Now, everyone is ALL over the place, myself included.  After several failed attempts to put myself out there, I decided to make a list of what I was looking for in a guy.  This is the revised version:

Depressing? Kinda. Realistic? I f*cking hope so.  If there isn't anyone out there that can meet 3/4 of the things on this list, then I'm looking at a long future of dating my body pillow (which hasn't actually been thaat bad).  

Here is the censored version of the last 3 guys I've dated (or attempted to date), all of whom have not lived up to this glamorous list.

1: Forever-a-Bachelor-Guy: Made me dinner, took me out for drinks, super funny. Great guy all around!  Until I asked him if we were exclusive, and I got a long, drawn out, "Ummm, thats not really what I'm looking for right now." What? Then why do nice things for me? And why wait so long to tell me that? Missing #3 & #10.

2: Recently-Discovered-Alcohol-Guy: Wow! This one was an experience.  If I was good at staying up until 6am and getting completely sloshed daily, then this would've been a PERFECT relationship. But. I'm not. Missing: A lot of #s.

3: Mr-Nice-Guy: Very gentlemanly, thoughtful and (what the f*ck), normal! Didn't know this breed still existed.  Issue is, theres always something that makes them unattainable, like a crazy schedule. And a constant need to be a "good guy." Missing: #10 (and maybe #12, not sure, uh-oh).

Lesson learned from dating these three gems: Stop dating? Seems to be the only solution that would keep me from being disappointed. My male regulars at the bar (aka my only consistent male contact) are often telling me nice things. Boosting my confidence.  Keeping my standards "high" (in quotations because I don't feel like my list above qualifies as high standards).  And maybe for now thats all I need.  Some best friends to get drunk with, a body pillow to spoon with, and a few harmless male friends who will tell me nice things.  This might be a snapshot of the modern twenty-something relationship: twisted and perverted, but fulfilling.

Therefore, my current relationship status: It's (really f*cking) complicated. And I'm feeling pretty okay with it. 

Per usual, I got kinda lazy by the end of this post, and the only two things I forgot to cover are as follows:

• Caught myself looking for a wedding ring on someone's hand at the bar the other day.  What has gotten into me? Am I that old already? That marriage is a plausible reason for someone to be out of my dating pool?! Terrifying. At least I was at a bar when this happened. If I start perusing the local community center for eligible bachelors, someone please slap me.
• Word to the guys that are (probably not) reading this: When you break up with a girl me (screw it, this one's personal), don't tell me that I'm "really great" and that you "really liked me." If those things were true, then we'd still be dating.  I would rather have you tell me that I'm a lunatic, I'd probably be more understanding. I've been called crazy before, I'm used to it.  Most people notice sooner or later, so just be honest about coming to the realization.  Or just tell me that I'm not your type, or that you're getting back with your ex, or that you never wanted to date me in the first place. Just don't tell me that I'm great. Makes no sense. No logic there. About as believable as throwing out an ice-cream cone because it "tasted delicious." Not cool.

To sum up this rambling nonsense, I'd like to clarify that I'm completely fine.  Whenever something shitty happens in my love life, I get treated like a psych-ward patient.  If I can make fun of my bad luck, then everyone else should be able to too.  This shit is funny! And probably 99% my fault! Best thing that anyone reading this can do is sit back, crack open a beer, and watch it unfold. I know thats what I'm going to do.  All luck turns around eventually, so why not enjoy the show (and blog about it)?