Merry Christmas?

Awhile back I made the horrific mistake of dating a man who was not quite over his ex wife. When I say "not quite over" his ex, I mostly mean that he seemed to merely want a woman in that "wife" role in his life. I'm pretty sure he is not nor ever will be capable of being single. But fortunately for him, since he is a man and is fairly successful in his career and whatnot, he can pretty much get some kind of woman to fill that role. I didn't imply that the woman would be stable herself, but he will never fall short of finding a woman who is ready and willing to commit.

We had been dating for a very short time, less than two months, when he told me he loved me (via email, how romantic...) which was shortly followed up with a conversation about "soul-mates". He asked me if I believed in soul-mates to which I responded "No, I don't. I think that puts unnecessary pressure on the other party to live up to some kind of unrealistic expectation when in the long run we are all mere humans. Also it gives you a reason to never actually settle down as you will always have one eye out for 'the one.'" He replied that he "...believes in soul-mates and that (I) am his soul mate and that (I'd) better be okay with that." He completely ignored the rational point I was making. As usual, it seems.

I broke up with him shortly before Christmas that year as I felt an unbelievable amount of pressure from him to move in (after a mere couple of months) and sign onto his mortgage and so on.  I felt strongly that I was not being heard and if you know me at all, you know full well that I am not the type who can sit by idly, being ignored and being told what's "best for me". No way. He responded to the break up by sending me a letter detailing how and why I am such an awful person and basically a failure at life. It stung at first but given the psychotic nature of the man, I realize that his words have absolutely no weight.

Several months after the break up I was still not seeing anyone. As much as I dislike being single I also enjoy my life. I have some great friends and my family is pretty awesome as well. Plus the job I had at the time was very involved and so my priorities were: friends, family, career.

I didn't recognize his number when the text came in with him apologizing to me. After I realized who it was and what it was about, I had to investigate. It turns out that the man had a woman move into his home a few weeks after I broke up with him (...do you recall my comment about him simply needing a "wife"? En pointe...). The woman became upset and moved out. So in his texts he informed me that not only did he miss me but that "it (was) time to get back together and move in with him."

Are you nuts? Because I'm not...

Obviously I did not nor did I accept any of his invitations for drinks or sex or whatever else it was he was after. I finally had to block his phone number as well as his email address. Who knows whatever will happen with him.

Before I cut off all contact with him, I had to ask him what it was that he had gotten me for Christmas that year. I had selected a hand carved chess set for him. I thought it was a great choice though a bit on the spendy side! He told me he bought me a coffee mug that said "What do we want? Coffee! When do we want it? I'll F**king cut you."

Funny, true, but not something I'd want to put under the tree nor something I'd want to receive in front of my parents. "I love you, you're my soul mate, move in, marry me, sign my mortgage...here's a coffee mug with vulgarities."

Maybe I am more shallow than I thought....

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty...

I'm sharing my stories with you in no particular order. Each experience has left a mark on my soul and made me question who I am. And as you make your way through my, ahem, adventures, I'm sure you'll be wondering the same couple of things that I wonder.

First of all, I wonder why. I wonder why men behave the way they do and why they accept such a substandard way of living. I also wonder why they seem to find me.

Then I wonder how; I wonder how on earth I can change my dating karma to obtain what I really want. What I want is a partner who is caring and gentle. Someone who cares about themselves and their home. Someone who has personal and relationship goals. Someone who doesn't simply want someone to take care of them. Unfortunately, to this point, that seems to be exactly the opposite of what I've experienced.

I blame a lot of it on online dating (which is why I am choosing not to do that anymore).

I met John on a dating site. He seemed full of promise. He was an executive chef for a first class catering team for a local airline. So right away I knew he could cook. Since I have always been the one to work it in the kitchen, the thought of handing some of this responsibility over has always been a bit of a dream. After a long day of work it would be amazing to come home and have my partner taking care of dinner rather than having to figure it out on my own.

I honestly cannot recall our first date. I'm sure it must have gone well because I agreed to go one two additional dates. But the third date...oh, the third date...

He had purchased tickets to some sort of dinner cruise boat. I expected something really lovely; I dressed up a bit. It was agreed that I would go to his house and then from that point he'd drive us to the dock. He was very proud of his home and wanted to show me. It was his first home purchase and he was in the midst of remodeling. I arrived at the agreed upon time and he welcomed me in.

I was shocked. The place was filthy. And not just filthy because of sawing and hammering and other home remodeling projects but filthy with that thick greasy dust and a stale odor as if the windows hadn't ever been opened. The lawn wasn't; it was merely brush growing up and around the windows. I felt stressed out just looking at everything and wondering what was going to be expected of me.

With him being a chef, I expected to see a wonderful kitchen. Of course, once I was inside the house I knew it wasn't going to be nice. But you know the saying "the cobblers children do not have shoes"? Yeah, that totally applied. The door was off the pantry and revealed packages of instant foods. The greasy layer of dust continued into the kitchen. The stove was coated with old grease and bits of stuck on food. I was sure that if he turned on the stove it might light the entire home on fire. Of course, given the state of things, it probably would have been better to cash in the insurance policy had the place burned down.

I couldn't understand how he was so proud. Maybe I have a touch of OCD but I wouldn't be able to live in filth like that let alone share it with someone else. I was appalled.

He continued to show me around his home. I kept my hands to myself, worried that if I touched anything I might catch a staph infection. Finally we made it to the back porch.

There was a crunching underneath my feet. It was louder than the general crunch of stepping on the bits of dirt around his home. I looked down to see that a white pail, maybe three gallon pail, of cat litter and shit had spilled all over the porch.

I don't remember seeing a cat.

I didn't think he said he had a cat.

"John, do you have a cat?"

"Oh, no. That's from my ex girlfriend's cat."

"Oh."

Funny thing is, the ex girlfriend had moved out six months prior. So for at least six months, a three gallon pail of cat shit sat on his porch, festering, rotting, stinking (though it must have been far too old to carry an odor as I didn't smell anything).

And right next to it was a shop-vac.

"How come you don't just vacuum it up?"

"I don't want to wake up my roommate" And so that was the explanation of the cat shit.

The cat shit stuck in my brain (no pun intended) and the rest of the evening was awful. I'm not going to go into much detail but lets just say that while I was looking mighty fine, John chose a stained shirt (which he added to during dinner), his table manners were repulsive (no elbows on the table, but belching, etc)...and the worst part about it was that I was trapped on a three hour boat ride with this crow-magnum.

At the end of the evening he asked me to stay over (which I most certainly did not) and when I got home, I sent out the "thanks but no thanks" email. Yeah, email. It was internet dating so that's part of the MO, right?

I received a response letting me know how shallow and high maintenance I am. And again, if that's the case, I'm perfectly content to stay high maintenance.

Its not so much that I wouldn't live like that but it makes me wonder how some CAN live like that. How they choose to live that way. Isn't it disgusting? Am I along in thinking this? What am I missing? Do these men think they are just going to find a woman to do the housekeeping for them? I guess I am really not quite understanding this....

Oh well.

The (Road)Rage from Within

I hadn't dated John that long, maybe six weeks. I was delighted when he suggested we go to the theater. I haven't ever dated anyone who wanted to actually go to the theater with me (let alone the opera where I have never been and would be completely swept off my feet if a man suggested taking me...*swoon*). I was taken aback and thrilled at the prospect. I thought that perhaps I had finally met someone with a little class...some interest in subjects other than football and beer...perhaps someone who even managed to properly wipe his ass! What a lucky girl I was!

We drove into town, preparing to take the freeway. I remember the weather was decent; it was still winter but the sun was out and I recall being in an overall good mood. As he accelerated down the ramp he saw a woman, already on the freeway, who was going to be in his way. Rather than back off a bit and let her by (which, I believe, is what a person is supposed to do when getting onto the freeway), he sped up and cut her off. I thought we were going to hit her!

She became upset and while I can't swear that she flipped him off, it seems familiar that she did. Well, that out and out pissed off John. Instead of laughing it off, he became enraged. His already pale skin turned into a red color as his temper rose and rose; there was a vein in his forehead... He motioned to her as if he were going to bump her mini van. Or run her down, drag her soccer mom ass out of the van and curb stomp the bitch on the side of the freeway.

I was terrified.

I started to cry and told him to stop...to leave it alone and just get away from her (because she was no peach herself; she was ready to play the road rage game herself!). But he wouldn't give it up. It was as if he couldn't hear me. So despite crying and, at this point screaming, he was far too focused on "winning" against the other driver.

I envisioned him beating me down in a fit of rage some time when he didn't get his way. Would he use a baseball bat? Definitely not a gun - that doesn't allow for enough rage to get out. Of course, if he emptied several rounds into me that might quell his thirst for violence. I know I shouldn't joke but the episode of road rage was writing on the wall that more immediate abuse might follow.

I dumped him 2 weeks later.

A couple of Saturdays after I broke it off, he spent an entire day texting me about how I am such a horrible bitch, that I'm crazy...that I don't know anything...etc. I'm pretty sure he was drunk. And since he had called several times before I turned my ringer off, I knew he was driving. So he was pissed. And driving. AND drunk.

Finally, after the threat of calling the police, he stopped.

One of his dearest friends informed me, several months later, that she knew it wasn't going to work out between him and me as I was too stable and sane for him.

(How I wish I could say I was making this up...)

The Kiss...of Death?

With the invention of the internet, folks immediately began to use it to satisfy our primal urges. The internet is a hub for shopping, learning, sex (isn't online porn one of the main reasons the internet was invented? So that people can enjoy their depraved sexual fantasies from the privacy of their homes?) and with sex comes dating. Or what is supposed to be dating.

I have, like many in my generation, engaged in online dating. However, at the time of this writing, I have pretty much decided that online dating is not going to work for me. I have found it exhausting and mostly unsuccessful. The vast majority of men that I have met off the internet have mis-reperesented themselves so thoroughly that they have pretty much tainted it for the honest ones out there. How can I trust anyone off the internet when so many have been so dishonest?

One of my first experiences with meeting someone off the internet happened years ago and it has left and impression in my psyche that leads me to ask any internet date what their dental hygiene is like. Of course that leads to mockery and laughter and I have to explain this horrifying experience.

This...guy (he was neither a man nor a boy, well, maybe more boy-like but that's something else), I'll refer to him as John. I think, in fact, that all of the men throughout this blog shall just be called John, for the sake of ease.

John and I had been chatting from an online dating site for several weeks. We both lived in Milwaukee so it wasn't difficult to make the decision to meet up. He seemed like a decent enough guy but he was obsessed with kissing. In several of our conversations, he asked me to promise to kiss him on our first "date." It seemed odd to make such a request and despite my obviously poor choices in the past, I refused to promise such a thing. In fact, I pretty much have a rule that making promises like this lead to trouble. It creates an unreasonable expectation within something that is point blank unknown.

(I'd like to know the psychology behind this? When someone makes a request for something that simply cannot be known...fear?)

Anyway, I refused to promise to kiss him. And in reflecting, I might have vomited in his mouth if I had been held to some kind of promise like that.

This is another situation where I have pretty much blocked it out of my memory. Perhaps reliving all of these horrible dates isn't exactly healthy. I do find it humorous, however.

We met outside of a coffee shop. I had my contingency plan set up and I was ready to take off if need be. Let me tell you, the need was there. He approached me, with all the physical appearance of scrawny, malnurished drug addict and the fear of that as a truth was confirmed when the man smiled at me. He had a mouth full of rot. Green and fuzzy stumps with an odor that could destroy a small city.

I did not even go into the coffee shop. Nope. I took off. How could I possible sit across a table and engage in a conversation with a man with a toxic mouth? I also understand why he was so focused on a promise for a kiss.

This experience taught me two valuable lessons when it comes to online dating. One, have a contigency plan and two, ask after dental hygiene.

I have encountered a fairly high frequency of men with poor dental hygiene. In some cases I understand. There are, in fact, medical conditions that leads to bad teeth. There is also the condition of "laziness" that leads some folks to neglect brushing their teeth altogether leading to the toxic mouth as outline above.  Poor dental hygiene makes me wonder what else they are neglecting when it comes to their health. And if they are neglecting their own health then they'll most likely neglect my needs and wants.

There's the saying that you can't judge a book by a cover but that's a load of crap. We are humans and we do judge a book by its cover. A person who projects confidence and displays a healthy amount of self care is going to be far more attractive than someone who just doesn't care about their physical self. People! These are our bodies and we are assigned to live in them until we don't anymore. No one is perfect but we should at least keep ourselves reasonably healthy so that our bodies can do the things that we'd like to accomplish.

He wanted a kiss...but his choices to neglect his own hygiene prevented him from getting a kiss.

Several weeks after I bolted away from this guy, he sent me an email to let me know how I missed out on "getting him" as he "met someone" and they were very serious and living together and whatever else. Somehow I don't think I missed out...but I'm glad he me someone who is okay with toxic mouth syndrome....

Boys and Their Poo

I'm not quite sure how so many men became so comfortable with their own waste but this is a bit of a problem that has come up over the years with different men in my life. Understanding that other women have had similar issues with their male companions I feel comfortable in generalizing that there seems to be a thing going on here with men and their shit.

Years ago when I was married, my husband had a very dirty job. He worked at a place that performed quickie oil changes and he'd come home absolutely filthy. I would insist that before he pretty much touch anything, he take a shower. Even still, his greasy hands would graze the walls and leave streaks and you can bet he wasn't going to be the one to clean up those paw prints. He'd end up in the shower anyway and by dinner time he be once again presentable.

After awhile, though, I started to notice a pattern. Heaven forbid he hang up his own towel (because, after all, that's what a wife is for -- even if your wife works full time (and you don't) it's her job to take care of her husband as if he's a toddler) and I noticed that the towels had some streaks on them. It looked like streaks of dirt and so that's what I assumed it was. Since we had separate towels I didn't think much of it. I was already annoyed that he'd come home and mark up the walls and leave his wet towels on the floor after he took a shower. My towel was always hung up after my morning shower so it was easy to tell which towel was mine.

But then the story takes a horrifying turn for the worst.

I recall, faintly (as I believe my brain is trying to block out this memory), reaching for my towel one morning after my shower and toweling off. Normal behavior. But as I bent over to whip my hair up into the towel, I see the dreaded streak of dirt on the towel. Well, it wasn't quite black like the undersides of his fingernails...so I looked...and looked...and looked...

It was shit. It was a 4 inch long streak of shit. On a towel that I just dried my whole body off with. Obviously I hopped right back into the shower and used a CLEAN towel when I was done.

Upon confrontation of the (not-supposed-to-be) striped towel, my husband became combative and defensive and insisted that I had no idea what I was talking about and that it was normal.

In what universe is it normal to take a long shower then get out of said shower and still be so filthy that in the process of drying off your butt crack you end up using the towel like toilet paper? I don't believe I have encountered this problem for myself so I don't really know how normal it is.

Needless to say, his behavior didn't change. And now I have white towels. That I can bleach. And remove any hideous marks which are made obvious anyway.

So...years later...post divorce

I had dated a man for several months when we finally decide to have the big sleepover. In the morning I went and had coffee while he was sleeping (or...not...). After awhile he woke up and joined me and we had a pleasant conversation before he had to leave. He left and of course I went about my business, including making up my bed.

There was a streak. A streak I was all too familiar with. Cautiously I approached the streak and looked it it in disbelief. How could another man be so comfortable with his own fecal matter that he'd feel comfortable using my bed sheet as a piece of toilet paper?

It was...shit. It was!

Having had to tolerate my towels being ruined by someone's shit...I wasn't ready to deal with this man's shit on top of the shit I had already been through with my ex husband. I didn't even think twice but instead I threw them into the trash. Simple and effective. Not what I would prefer but SHIT.

If you are a man who is reading this I would truly appreciate some insight on this whole fecal matter thing. I have to ask...do you feel unresolved poop on your skin if you weren't able to wipe properly? Wouldn't that be uncomfortable? Itchy almost? I fail to understand how men can feel okay with feces stuck to their skin and then to be defensive when the hygiene problem is presented. To further this argument, I must also ask why men feel that their ladies should be okay with (and in some cases clean up after) their men and their weird pooping habits. Streaks, track marks, racing stripes, etc...all of these terms have nick-named this problem which again, makes me believe that it is a legit male trait.

I do not want shit on my sheets or on my towels ever again. How do I avoid this?

The Common Denominator

I'm nearly 32 years old and just about every relationship I have had has ended in disaster. This includes being married for several years where that just sort of exploded in my face. I've dated the ultra feminine (yet not gay), the gay, the filthy, the filthy minded, the rude, the pushy, and the stinky ones. I reflect on my entire dating history and there are very few men that I would consider some of their traits that I'd like to find in a future relationship.

I do not pretend that I'm the nicest person; certainly not. And this blog is definitely reflecting some of my own poor choices and bad judgment calls. As much as this is a rant of all the crap I've tolerated over the years, I fully acknowledge that the common denominator is me. Yep, me. It IS my fault because I tolerated this silliness, I've chosen mates who are subpar, and I questioned my very being based off of their ridiculous accusations, assumptions, and opinions. None of that should matter.

As I air out my grievances, please note that I am still hopeful that Mr. Right is somewhere out there for me, just waiting for me to completely become myself before we make that connection. I am a lonely person but I also have been spending the last few years really enjoying my own company as well as the company of friends and family. I have enjoyed expanding on my hobbies and discovering news ones. So as much as I would like to have a partner, I'm perfectly content with who I am and where I am at in life. I also completely understand why some folks really love their pets!

So as a share these juicy little details of my pathetic dating life,  please note that names have obviously been changed as well as some time frames and places...as much as these bone heads do not deserve privacy (if only to warn other women that they might date), I do not care to take on a lawsuit over slander. I value myself more than calling out men on their specifics.