Annoying (but funny) things

I still get an e-mail once a week with the latest articles from HowAboutWe.com, the website I came upon by recommendation of the Cosmo dating article sent to me by Cousin J's fiancé 6 months ago, from which I fashioned the Great Cosmo Challenge of which I completed about 5 of the 22 tasks, and certainly not in the original month I planned..

(Yes, that is a bit of a wind-around sentence .... my brain is in a bit of wind-around mode today.)

Despite not having attended to my HAW profile or solicited the profiles of men who are attending to theirs -- although I wouldn't rule it out -- I am often amused by these advice articles and how spot-on and only mildly sarcastic they are.  Today's by Chiara Atik, particularly, made me dig into the link:

"The 9 Most Annoying Things to Say To A Single Person" 

"The good thing about being single is that people are usually pretty willing to talk about your romantic life, because, let's face it, it's probably more entertaining than that of your seriously coupled-up friends.  The bad news? 

"Sometimes, people will want to talk about your love life regardless of whether or not you're in the mood to talk about it.  And they will have opinions.  And questions...

Well, I certainly confess to having put my love life on the front burner whether or not other people are in the mood to hear about it or not.  And have left myself equally open to opinions and questions, which will infrequently annoy me and then make me feel like I shouldn't be annoyed, because I did put my life on the front burner.

Nonetheless, today I only print Ms. Atik's questions for your amusement.  Here are my favorite 3 of 9; the rest are behind the bold-faced link above:

"Are you seeing someone?  Why not?"
Amazingly, I get this question at least once a week.  At least once a week!  It's fun to turn the question around to the asker. "Why are you in a relationship?"  "Because I'm in love!" "Right, well, I'm not."  End of discussion!

"You need to put yourself out there more!"
Out where, exactly?  [Whenever some helpful soul suggests this to me, I immediately picture myself in the middle of some crowded piazza, waving my arms around, saying "yooo-hoooo!"]

"Why don't you join a group?"
It's a common misconception for people to think you're single because you just don't have enough hobbies.

Great Cosmo Challenge: Amusement

Today I'd like to write a post full of lists of dating advice take an opportunity to talk about a "find fun people!" extravaganza I signed up for, which promptly started

a) (surprise, surprise) spamming me with daily e-mails
b) pestering me every 3 days to pay a membership fee to join at a higher level and
c) is starting to grow on me, despite a) and b).

Since I have no doubt exceeded my allotted goodwill for talking about being melancholy, let me today reverse course and introduce you to:

4) How About We? (dot com)

Cosmo says: "Men with fun date ideas do exist, and howaboutwe.com is the fastest way to find them. Instead of posting a profile on the site, users explain their ideal date (e.g., 'How about we take a sushi-making class together?' or 'How about we kick ass at trivia night?'). When you see a date idea you like, just message the guy to make it happen."

Karin says: I put an inquiry into this site on March 14. Since, my Gmail account gets a daily blast telling what any random 5 men in the Greater Boston area have signed up to suggest.  Here's today's:

From a man who says his occupation is "monkey": How about we .... climb a tree and chill.

From a man who says his political views are "anarchist": How about we ... Go for coffee and see if we like each other, then I take you away to a secret museum and after we have crepes. Finally we have a drinks as I tell you another secret. Finally I do a tarot reading and find out if everything I imagine about you is true!

From a man whose profile pic is a pencil sketch of a smiley face: How about we ... gdgdg.

From yet another Jewish software engineer in Cambridge: How about we ... Invent names for abstract pieces of art at the ICA.

From a man whose profile is relatively nondescript: How about we: each pick a place that serves mulled wine, try 'em out, and see who made the better choice."

That's just today. Since I've been hanging around chatting with Piano Man pretty regularly the last couple weeks (which, I both anticipate and fear, is turning into a long story with uncertain ending) and otherwise maundering about, I haven't answered any.  Which maybe I should ... especially since a glance at past offerings shows a large number of men proposing to take yoga class together, and I have not been getting my yoga on lately as I should.

(Which might help with that whole maundering problem I'm having.)

Incidentally, I didn't mention my offering from the day I signed up which didn't get any hits before it expired:

How about we... ....enjoy the glory of Bach's incomparable B-Minor Mass as sung by The Cantata Singers and do a post-event critique over cocktails in the South End. (Which I ended up not even doing myself. In fact, that was the night of the Meet-Cute at Symphony Hall that ended with me crying in my beer for an hour.)

So Howaboutwe.com is also spamming me with bi-weekly advertisements for another feature of their website, "The Date Report." Usually these things annoy me more than tartar-removal sessions at the dentist, but I'm actually enjoying them. I'm thinking it's the no-nonsense unsentimentality of it, like today's heading:

10 Adventurou​s Boston Dates, Morning-Af​ter Etiquette, + How to End a Short Relationship

Which brought me links to advice titled

How Do You Break Up with Someone You're Only 'Sort-of' Dating?

Oh Sh-t! Is This a Date? 6 Strategies For Coping with Awkward Situations.

Dating Tips from Awkward Tween Pop Star Hopefuls

Which brought me views to links of past articles which such titles as:

8 Things to Wear on a Date to Impress a Geeky Guy

Vocab Lessons: British Dating Slang We'd Like to Adopt

Tell Me If You Think This Is Weird: I'm Totally Ok With Being Single And Know Valentine's Day Is A Made-Up Holiday But I'm Still Depressed

How Do You Know If She's The One? Watch Her Eat Corn.

I don't know what to do with it all.  But it's all very amusing.

Foggy glasses, perhaps?

Today's "Love Letters" LW: 

the Man With Dating Fatigue ....

"I've got a serious inertia problem. On the one hand I'd really like to be in a relationship, and I'm ready to have the fun and do the "work" of a relationship. But it just takes too much effort to get to that point. For one, dating is expensive, even doing it cheaply .... But mostly, I have the same date over and over again. Here's how it goes, more or less:

[Grabbing drinks, grabbing dinner, catching a movie, going to Quirky Artsy Thing, or doing Quirky Sport/Game Thing.] This weather is crazy! It's Snowmageddon! Compliment. Compliment. What do you do? Descriptions of what you are both passionate about and your shared values. Discussion relative to various tv shows, music, movies, or other pop/sub-pop phenomenon. Recall childhood cartoons/memory ...."

He ends it asking if he's being "a drag."

(Could this man be my Soulmate In Crime?)

Says Meredith, the moderator:

"I get it ... Dating can be annoying, especially when you've been doing it for a while. Your complaints are fair, by the way. Dating is expensive and can be seriously repetitive. (Snowmageddon, indeed.) And that's why you can only do it if you're psyched about it. Taking a break will give you some clarity to see beyond the small talk. Right now, your dating glasses are all foggy."

Says one of the unsilly of the 1006 mostly silly posted comments (a _thousand_ comments? strike a nerve with anyone, dude?):

"You're right: dating gets stale when you're doing the "one, two, three strikes you're out" and on to the next one. How often do you have to describe your passion for _____(fill in the blank). It does get old." 

And another:

"It sounds to me like you're not sick of "the process" of dating, but tired of meeting new people in general. I feel ya, it's EXHAUSTING. Any time I have to meet new people without my wife as a safety net, I need a nap immediately afterward. Meredith is right, just go hang out with people and enjoy life for a while. You need to get your mind right, because right now even if you meet the right person you might come off as so annoyed/bored/exhausted that they won't want anything to do with you."

And my favorite:

"Sorry, I can't muster up much sympathy for this guy or anyone tired of 'dating'. I've been on about 5 dates in the past 8 years. I'm tired of not dating."

I'm way simpatico to this "foggy glasses" concept to describe wanting something but not wanting to get up the energy required to figure out how to get it. The exhaustion of feeling the need to make yourself meet new people (Great Cosmo Challenge, anyone?)in order to have a wider pool to choose from. Fear that you are looking like "that girl" who is transparently trying new friendly! things with the goal of meeting new people ... and therefore looking .... lame?

Who knows. Maybe I should just e-mail the guy with no sympathy? He looks available.

Great Cosmo Challenge: Profiling

While there have been many things I've let fall down in recent months -- my running chops, the cleanliness of my kitchen floor, my abdominal muscles -- I have not done so regarding the Great Cosmo Challenge, lest you think that be the case.

Although I've done the next best thing: crossed off three online sign-up things.

1)  Be a guy on Groupon

Cosmo says:  "Groupon is an awesome way to find bargains .... and men.  Here's how:  The site sends people different deals based on their profiles. So if you create a Groupon account for a 28-year-old male, you'll get daily e-mails with the lowdown on all the fun, cheap, and (most important) guy-friendly events happening in your area."

Karin says:  Since I already have a Groupon account attached to my Yahoo! e-mail, last Friday I set up a male profile (and made him 32) for my Gmail account.  Since then, here, my respective offers have been:

Saturday Girl: 75% off car-sharing services through RelayRide
Saturday Boy: 52% Off Massage & Mani-Pedi at Vim in Cambridge 

Sunday Girl:  20% for Irish-Heritage Trolley Tours
Sunday Boy:  20% for Irish-Heritage Trolley Tours 

Monday Girl:  Half-off products & classes at Stitch Boutique
Monday Boy:  Half-off products & classes at Stitch Boutique

Folks, I've identified a reason for my singleness: I'm a 32-year-old man and didn't know it.

Meanwhile, the car-sharing service seems the most promising. Can you imagine the sparks unexpectedly flying over the key exchange and fuel receipts? That's a novel waiting to be written.

2) Join a co-ed intramural

Cosmo says:  "Men are obsessed with recreational sports leagues.  But if your athletic abilities are lacking, they're not exactly your idea of a good time.  Luckily, lots of fun, new options are popping up that require zero talent (think skee-ball, dodgeball, or even Quidditch, the game from Harry Potter).  Sign up for one to increase your dating pool with none of the embarrassment."

Karin says:  Maybe down the road I'll have a stomach for kickball, but for now I want to join something for which I do have a minor talent.  I was thusly pleased to see The Most Informal Running Club Ever (TMIRCE) still meets every Saturday morning for Charles loops and brunch.   Duly signed up and will have a report next week.

3) Get random and silly ... online.

Cosmo says:  "Online dating sites are cropping up lately that match you with guys based on random, silly shared interests.  A couple of our favoirtes:  alikewise.com, which looks at your favorite reads, and saladmatch.com, which gives you your Salad Soul Mates based on your go-to toppings.  Since they don't take dating as seriously as the big matchmaking websites do, you're likely to meet more laid-back dudes with a sense of humor."

Karin says:  On the former, I listed The Corrections as favorite novel and JoAnn Beard's Boys of My Youth as most memorable memoir, followed by a tale about how I came to know Beard's book 13 years ago while trying to talk my way into the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop. But haven't browsed yet, since I seem to have lost track of my user ID and password.

Just Salad serves "just salads" and has 5 locations in New York and 2 in Hong Kong. So I couldn't answer to most-visited site (there's one at 30 Rock!)  or if I brought my own reusable bowl and bag when visiting. But I did confess that my favorite salad toppings were (in order) portabella mushrooms, reduced fat cheddar cheese, butternut squash and pumpkin seeds and that I don't add bread because I'm "watching my carbs."

I thought it would be fun to have my profile photo show me ravishing a roasted goose leg, so I added one that does.

I also thought it would be fun to say my age is 28, so I did.

My first "search" tonight yielded a slender, dark-complected six-o-clock shadow man balancing an appetizer plate in one hand. We only are a 43% match," but share an affinity for "spicy Thai peanut dressing."

Groovy.

Day 6 of 31: 1 mile (just enough treadmill time to break a sweat)

March Total: 7.55

2011 Total: 110.61

Report card

For those of you curious if I ever do anything anymore that I proclaim (via this blog) I'm going to make myself do ....

1) The Year of Making Coffee? FAIL  I'm back to buying Dunkin' Donuts and/or Starbucks coffee drinks every day. Damn tax refund, for causing momentary flushness.  Although Lent is on the horizon .... with its reminder of the need for sacrifices.  Stay tuned.

2) Quit Online Dating? B-  Caved last week and rewrote my OKC profile to see if it entices hits from a different breed than I had been attracting the last 6 months.  But take heart: when a 22-y-old engineer who, after initial sweetness, began detailing unsolicited fantasies about a fetish I can't even think about without throwing up in my mouth a little, I didn't reason, just ignored him. I think he has gone away.

3) Run every day, no less than 2 miles a day?   B+ After tonight I will have clocked 103.6 miles in 2011 to date.  Not every day. But 103.6 divided by 49 days = 2.11. (Whew.)

4) Great Cosmo Challenge?  Eh.  Baby steps.  Last week:  contemplated the 22 date ideas. Yesterday: fed the list into a Google Docs spreadsheet for easy further review. Tomorrow: contemplating them further. In the meantime: if you know of any co-ed rec leagues that might take a chance on a shorter-than-average girl, get thee your suggestions to my comment box.

5) Major Shake Up?  Better than Eh.  Fear not, I haven't given up.  It's been on my mind.   I have a serious thought as to executing such .... but I'd rather figure out the logistics before spilling what it is. 

In the meantime, I have started wearing everyday earrings, something I haven't done since 2003. In the last week I have received 5 male-based comments on my "pretty" appearance, all while pulling my (in serious need of haircut) hair back and wearing these $4 hoops from Target. 

Coincidence? Can major shake-ups come in smaller packages than originally conceived?

As in, should I just have been exposing my neck and collarbone all this time?

Day 27 of 28: 1.8 miles

Day 28 of 28: 2.8 miles

February Total: 53.05

2011 Total: 103.6

Great Cosmo Challenge

Q:  How do you know you must really be appearing tapped-out and desperate to the the masses?

A:  When your cousin's fiancé mails you a torn-out clipping from the March issue of Cosmo titled

 "Where to Meet Your Future Boyfriend:  Is your dude selection seriously lacking? Think of our suggestions as your guy GPS--they'll direct you straight to an eligible cutie."

To be fair, his accompanying note stated that my cousin is the one who thought I might want to see this ....

And to be more fair, Cousin J down in Nicaragua did e-mail me last week to say she was asking him to forward it to me -- in particular because he himself had given a "real man's stamp of approval" to this list new suggestions for meeting guys he thought were "good and valid."

Not surprisingly, I have to agree that many are indeed that -- from going to coffee tastings to visiting a guitar shop to hanging at the iPad displays at Apple stores to joining a fitness bootcamp.

Other than going to wine tastings, I haven't given many of them a thought before.  (And as I sat on the bus this morning perusing the list, I caught the man next to me innocently reading over my shoulder and quickly looking away as I caught him ...  which seems a good omen.)

So it is the 22nd of Feburary. 

There are 22 ideas.

My birthday is on the 22nd of March.

A month seems adequate time to see how many of these I can tick off, eh?

On your marks, get set.....

Day 22 of 28: 2.00 miles
February Total: 43.01

2011 Total: 93.01