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.
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