Update: 10-19

I don’t know much about batting averages, but I do know that mine is not very good right now. Here’s an update for you from 10-19.

I never heard back from 10-14 (I later found out that Fourteen is now dating someone, so hopefully he has deactivated his dating account).  If I were going to have a pity party, it would definitely be in honor of Twelve because I was really excited about that one.  Fifteen and I went on a date and had a nice time, but then neither of us ever contacted the other.  Even though I loved the beard to no beard story, I didn’t lose any sleep over him.  Sixteen doesn’t live here - he gets negative points for not telling me that at the time, but I will also grant him positive points for responding to my texts.  Seventeen and I are now email invitation friends, which means we include each other in mass email invitations to activities, but so far we haven’t actually gone to each other’s social events.  Eighteen had a girlfriend and Nineteen hasn’t responded either.

Nine attempts and one date – it’s not great, but it’s an improvement since the last update.

Nineteen

My friend Lydia invited several people out for dancing to celebrate completing her exams.  Even though I don’t know any of her friends, who am I to say no to celebrating and dancing?  It was a fun night of meeting new people and dancing.  Nineteen was one of the people in the group that I met, and he was armed with a smile and an old school camera.  He was standing in the corner rather than dancing, so of course I started talking to him and encouraging him to dance to which he responded with the classic line of I need a few more drinks first.  True to his word, after a few more drinks he found his groove and joined the fun world of dancing, while continuing to take random pictures throughout the night.  Then like a herd of Cinderellas, my friend and her posse decided to head home at midnight, so I told them all bye and stayed to dance a little longer.

The next day Nineteen tagged my friend in several pictures from the evening.  Rather than request him as a friend, I stuck to my tried, true, and unsuccessful method of sending him a message.

Nineteen!

It was great meeting you. Excellent job capturing Lydia's fun. Let me know if you'd like to meet up sometime - I promise I won't make you dance (well, probably not).

Penelope

Eighteen

Eighteen worked at a bar where I met some friends for trivia night.  Early in the evening I enchanted the handsome man (dark hair covered with a backwards baseball cap, small gauges in his ears, and a few days worth of facial hair) with my amazing conversation skills such as, “What’s your name?  Really?  You should be a professional football player or soap opera star with that name – I like it.” 

When things had slowed down for him after trivia, I decided to make my move.  Returning some pencils to Eighteen, I told him I had a follow up trivia question that was true or false.  He smiled (such a precious smile) and said he was ready.  “True or false: you and I can go on a date sometime soon.”  Seventeen slowly responded (with genuine regret, I like to think), “Ahhhhh, false.  I have a girlfriend, but otherwise I would love to take you on an amazing date.”  To which I replied, “Man she’s lucky.  Thanks for being so sweet.”

I went back to my friends and told them the line I was so proud of was wasted on an unavailable man.  I’m adding that line to my repertoire for the next suitable situation, and I give you permission to use it, too.

Dogs - Sometimes they ruin my game

There is a rumor that dogs are a great way for people to meet, but I find this isn’t necessarily true.  I mean, I can see in some cases where this could work; for example, if I see a guy sitting outside of a café with his pit bull, I would totally stop to pet the dog and chat up the guy.  However, my real-life situation is that I occasionally dog-sit a white, fluffy bichon.  In my experience, while this dog is a complete sweetie, she isn’t the greatest wingman.

1. The average guy doesn’t stop to ooh and aah over small, fluffy dogs.

2. The dog stops to do her business right when an eligible bachelor is walking by, and I just can’t bring myself to strike up a conversation with a guy in that situation.

3. Then I’m walking around carrying a plastic bag, and no matter how colorful that bag is, everyone knows what it contains.  I’m not going to introduce myself to someone while I’m holding said bag because then it gets awkward when I try to shake his hand.

Dog may be man’s best friend, but this particular dog is kind of a cock block (pardon my French).

Seventeen

I briefly met my friend’s roommate, Seventeen, several months ago, and re-met him when they hosted a play-off party.  Seventeen is a quiet architect from the east coast who has short, dark hair and no facial hair (look at me branching out).  I thought I would ask Seventeen out at the end of the evening, but when I was leaving he was nowhere to be found.  Of course, I did the next best thing and emailed him when I got home (I do love it when people don’t bcc the people in a mass email because it makes so much easier to track down people.  That sounds stalker-ish.  Shoot).

seventeen!

4 things:

1. congratulations to your winning team!

2. thanks for welcoming the enemy fans into your house.

3. do you want to go out sometime?  You can tell me all about the east coast, architecture, and the victorious giants.  I’ll educate you on the midwest. karaoke, and ridiculous dance movies.  what do you think?

4. have a great week.

-penelope

Seventeen replied two days later.

Hi Penelope,

I enjoyed seeing you on Sunday.  You seem like a truly wonderful person and I’d love to hang out again and get to know each other better (in fact I am thinking about having folks over for the Super Bowl, if you’d like to join?!), but I am really just interested in friendship and not in dating.  Let me know if that sounds OK to you and I hope you have a great week, too.

Best,

Seventeen

Ladies and gentlemen, put me down for another friend, please.  At least he already knows I’m "truly wonderful."

Sixteen

80s music & dance floor equals pure magic for my dance moves or maybe just silly entertainment for the people near me.  For example, “Maneater” started playing and in addition to singing at the top of my lungs, the clear dance move is to walk around opening my arms up and down like a crocodile mouth.  Clearly.  That’s what I was doing in the dance area right by the door, and almost took off a newcomer’s face. I apologized, laughed, and kept going in the opposite direction because that guy looked a little taken aback. 

After three hours of spinning around, it was time to go.  As I was making my way to the door, I passed by the guy that I accidentally attacked with my crocodile move.  “Hey, I’m sorry I nearly took off your face when you came in; “Maneater”  was playing, and that is the required dance move.”  He laughed, then looked serious and said, “It’s okay, except that I had a traumatic experience with the game Hungry Hippos when I was a child, and I immediately had a flashback to that day.”  “Oh no!  I’m so sorry.” Then I gave him a hug (I'm addicted to hugs), and asked, “How can I make it up to you?” “It’s okay, I’ll be fine.  It’ll just take some time.”  Very enthusiastically I told him, “I know! Let’s go on a date. You can tell me all about your Hungry Hippo fears, and then I’ll be extra charming and help you get past your fears.”  He agreed, and we exchanged numbers and said goodbye.

*Please note, that Sixteen didn’t really have a traumatic experience with Hungry Hippos.  At least I hope not because if he did I was laughing way too much during our conversation. 

Two days later I asked him to join me for bowling, but he wasn’t available.  He then invited me to meet up with him for drinks, but I already had plans.  A few days later I invited him for dancing but got no response.  I gave it one more go and sent him this text, 3 more chances: 1. Drinks tomorrow.  2. Hotel Utah Friday. 3. Free haircut from the assistant at my salon.  (The assistant at the salon is practicing men’s haircuts, so I figured I should pimp her out while I try to get myself some dates).  Sixteen promptly replied I give props for persistence.  And I could use drinks and a haircut, but I’m actually back on the east coast where I live.  That would have been nice to know earlier.  

Date One

Fifteen followed through – hooray!  My tactic should definitely be to not talk to a guy at all in order to get him to call me…I’m going to struggle with this concept. 

Three days after I gave him the note at the coffee shop and he sent me the text, Fifteen called me to set up a time to meet; it was seriously a three-minute conversation of hi, how are you, do you still want to meet.  We made arrangements to meet the next evening after work at a nearby bar.  A few minutes after I arrived, a beardless Fifteen walks up to me.

Me: Hi! I’m pretty sure you had a beard when I saw you a few days ago.

15: Yeah, I did. I hope that’s not going to be a problem.

Me: Not a problem at all. (However, I was thinking it probably was the beard that got my attention, but whatever)

15: Well, my mom got me a beard trimmer for Christmas, and after work today I thought I should trim up my beard a bit for the date.  (awwww, how sweet)  It turns out the trimmer she got me isn’t that great.  It took out a chunk in the middle, and I thought I could even it out.  Then it took out another chunk, and then the trimmer just died.  Obviously, I ended up just shaving it all.

Me: It would have been hilarious if you had shown up with random facial hair patches.

Summary:  After that exchange, Fifteen and I had a nice time talking for the next two hours.  Then it was time for me to go.  He walked me to the bus stop and waited with me until the bus arrived at which point I told him I had a fun time and gave him a hug.

Conclusion: He looks a lot younger without a beard.  I didn’t ask his age, but I’m going to guess he’s 24 or 25.  We had a steady flow of conversation, and he seems like a super nice guy.  If we see each other again, great; if not, I still had a good time but won’t mope.  I’m just excited that I had a date finally!  Yay!