Was That A Bad Date?

Seriously, someone help me figure this out. Since I tend to have an aversion to dating, sometimes I can't even tell anymore. Here are the facts: dude and I met online and spent roughly two-three weeks playing email and phone tag until we finally settled on a date.

We met at a bar in the East Village. Since I got there a little late, he was already on his first drink, but soon enough I got my whiskey consumption started. We talked, we chatted, we compared notes about our unique childhoods. He confessed that he wasn't all that tech savvy (which is why I'm almost positive he isn't reading this right now). And we drank. A bunch. But while I stuck to my "healthy" drink of double shots of Jack Daniels with a club soda chaser, dude mixed vodka, bourbon and lord knows what else. Advantage: me.

After about four rounds of liquor, we decided to change locations to another bar—one that I am convinced must be a drug front because it was well situated, but hella empty for a Friday night. This time, instead of sitting on stools, we sat at a booth across from one another. More small talk ensued, and soon enough, he held both my hands while reaching in for the first kiss. Fuck it, I went for it and we made out. He wasn't a bad kisser, but he was definitely an OVER-kisser. What is over-kissing? Let's just say it's comparable to the kind of junior high basement party makeout session that left you with lockjaw.

How much of an over-kisser was this guy? After a while, he wasn't even sitting on his side of the booth. He was bold enough to squeeze in next to me at the table to continue the kiss fest. Now I'm all for a good makeout session, why else would I keep indulging him? But the bar was nearly empty, with only one other group sitting around. I was seriously ready for them to shout, "Get a Room!" at any moment and it made me a little self conscious.

After an hour or so (time, like our conversations that evening, remain a little blurry), he walked me towards home along First Avenue, but insisted on pushing me up against several buildings so we could kiss some more. Jeez, yo. I know I'm cute, but let a girl up for some air. At 14th Street, we parted. I can't remember the small talk we had, or if we agreed to see each other again. But I'm not exactly sitting by my phone waiting for a text message.

Still, one of the thoughts that haunted me all weekend: Was that a bad date? Was all that booze a Dating Don't? Since I can't tell, I want opinions. Just remember to keep it classy.

Dating Don'ts: Don't Comment Bomb

Remember back in elementary school when boys expressed their affection by tormenting girls in the schoolyard? Well, I've found its modern day equivalent: comment bombing a chick's Facebook page.

What do I mean by “comment-bombing” in the first damn place? Simple: habitually leaving insipid, pointless non sequiturs—or those friggin’ thumbs-up approvals (that’s “Arrr, this be pleasin’ to me eye” in Pirate)—for almost any status update I make. The worst part? None of said comments are ever direct enough for one to determine if the guy actually likes you, is cyber-stalking, or simply has too much free time on his hands.

It’s long been known that I’m a very direct person—almost painfully blunt to a fault. This is probably why I’m equally baffled and annoyed by the comment bombing methodology. If you’re interested, ask me out. Send me a private message, even email seems more intimate than “liking” the fact that I had Thai food for lunch. It just seems so trite; and I have no time for that bullshit.

So here’s my advice to all of those guys guilty of this: Shit or get off the pot. Seriously. Girls like assertiveness and forthrightness, not comment-bombing bottom feeders. Be direct, ask the girl out, or stop before she’s so annoyed she blocks you altogether. Who knows? You might even get laid out of it.

And if you think I’m directing this at you, I probably am.

xoxo,

The Management

Dating Don'ts: Don't Be Awesome

A few years back, I dated a model/entrepreneur named Danny. Though I'd known Danny for a while through friends (and realized he was obviously cute because tons of girls swooned every time we were at a show together), he just wasn't my type. He had long hair, personified surfer cool, and was most definitely a thigh bruiser. Then one night out I caught him giving me the eye, so out of a mix of boredom and curiosity, I let him kiss me. And it was pretty damn good.

On our one attempted formal date, we actually missed an entire Lucero show because we were too busy making out—at points, horizontally—at the bar next door. Needless to say, we didn't really have a lot in common except music, but we had a whole lot of fun, and continued seeing each other for a couple of months—completely bonding over the few Operation Ivy songs Rancid treated us to during their 2006 BB King's show. I certainly had no plans to declare him my boyfriend (he personified model ditz pretty well, too), there were no plans of taking him home to Mom's. He was gorgeous, sweet, easy to be around. Like a puppy. A very sexy puppy.

Then one day, Danny started getting weird, distant, twitchy. A few days later, he broke it down: I was awesome. I was "the one." He had to break up with me. It just wasn't the right time.

"OK. That's cool if that's how you feel," I said, secretly thinking, "Yeah, I'm the one—the one that dodged the bullet."

Danny was pretty surprised by my cavalier attitude (really, did he expect crying?), but ultimately relieved to let me know. Right after that, we held hands all the way to the bar and pretty much carried on the same way we had before our "talk"—until he moved 1,000 miles from NYC soon before I left for Atlanta.

The cool part? Danny and I are still pretty friendly, communicating electronically and whatnot with some degree of frequency. He still maintains I rule. So when an echoing experience coincided with one of our online chats, I felt comfortable enough to ask him why he felt the need to break up with me when he did. His answer wasn't surprising: "I thought you were so awesome, but it scared me to think that I met you when I did. I just wasn't ready to commit."

This information overlapped well with a girlfriend's long-standing theory about confirmed bachelors and players: It's never really about the woman. For them, it's a matter of feeling their own biological need to settle down—and it's likely that whoever happens to be on his arm at that point will become wifey. They'll only be ready when—or if—they grow up.

So I guess this is turning out to be a cautionary tale for the ladies. Don't be awesome (or at least TOO awesome) because it scares boys away. Instead, focus your energies on other things—work (if you still have a job), art, learn a new language... then travel to that foreign country and fuck a native. Just don't be awesome.

Is this why a book called Why Men Marry Bitches exists to haunt me every time I pass by the bookstore at Newark airport?

The Hunger

Like PJ Harvey sang on "Maniac," I need a man. It's getting bad, too. I think I realized things were getting desperate when I dubbed the now-familiar Hare Krishna guy I constantly see at the Union Sq. station, "the cute one." I might've actually blown him a kiss the other day. There he was, passively trying to sell books on karma and vegetarian living, all the while getting sadly shown up by those damn Scientologists and their bullshit free stress tests.

Then there are those times I catch myself browsing at craigslist's "Casual Encounters" section. Though I don't think I could ever go through with meeting a total stranger for the express purpose of extracting orgasm, it's nice to catalog shop through the various peen photos. Incidentally, I think all social-networking sites should adapt this policy of showing dudes' cocks because there are few things more frustrating than groping some guy's package on a third date only to realize the situation down below is shrimpy at best.

How did it get to this point? Good question. Besides the fact that grieving, unemployment and moving probably aren't aphrodisiacs, I am one picky motherfucker. And I scare boys easily. I guess I can't do shit about the latter. Hell, even Candace Bushnell wound up marrying a goddamn ballet dancer. Seriously, I can't hide my ability to out-curse, out-reference obscure metal bands and outnumber the amount of vintage Voltron sets the average Joe Six-Pack owns (and for the record, I own three complete Voltrons, including one that came with mini action figures of all five pilots). All at my own detriment.

So what's a girl to do? Fuck, if I knew, I'd probably be getting some sexy time right now instead of staring at html on a laptop screen. Got suggestions? Holler... Or send pics.

Dating Don'ts: Half-Ass vs. Dumb-Ass

I am about as far away from a "Rules" girl as you can get, but I'm still a believer that men should be the ones to approach us and initiate courtship. Not too hard, because desperate guys never have a chance with me. But c'mon, show me something that'll convince me to date and/or go home with you. Recently, I've come across two VERY different approaches dudes used. Both failed. Behold the scenarios:

CASE 1: Not Aggressive Enough

DUDE BREAKDOWN: I'd definitely date him under the right circumstances, but I never quite got any signals he was into me, until...

[Reminiscing about the last time we met socially]

"So, umm, last time we hung out, did I hit on you?"

"No..."

"Good, because when I hit on you, I definitely want to be sober."

That was it. Did dude proceed to take the initiative and hit on me at that point? No. WTF? Maybe he'd prefer that my assistant call his astrologer to figure out the perfect time when Capricorn was crossing Uranus for this cosmic event to occur.

He did, however, ask me to marry him the next (drunken) time I saw him.

RESULT: Bummer for him, because there's something about him I like. I guess I'll just have to console myself with these nude pix my model ex-boyfriend keeps sending me. Eleven hundred miles and lots of memories of getting it good from me still has him craving more. Not braggin', just sayin'.




CASE 2: Are You Fucking Kidding Me?

DUDE BREAKDOWN: Like En Vogue, he's never gonna get it.

Around the same time, I bumped into an acquaintance of an acquaintance who started hitting on me hardcore, obnoxiously and unabashedly. And in shitty, Game-like manipulative ways. First, he tried to get me to open up about Erlene's passing. Cheap way to get a girl to lean on your shoulder, eh? When that didn't work, he tried to get me drunk, encouraging me to drink whiskey from a bottle. Shit, I'm surprised dude didn't "neg" me. He might've, but I probably blocked it out because his obnoxiousness only encouraged me to get closer to my real boo, Jack Daniel.

Finally, he got down to the point:

"You're coming home with me."

"What?"

"C'mon, I live on the Upper West Side. Let's go."

Was he kidding me? Did he REALLY think I'd drop everything and go make sexy time with him? With no work put forth? Funny, he didn't look like he had a million bucks in a bank, nor were his pants bulging enough to reveal a trouser monster—if I get my choice at Subway, it's always going to be the foot-long. I've had Horsecock, and you, sir, are no horsecock.

RESULT: I ditched the party like I was Keyser Soze. After describing the night to a mutual friend, I was told Bachelor #2 had once also told a woman that he wanted to "penetrate" her to her face after just meeting her. If drinks weren't so damn expensive, I wouldn't have blamed her for throwing one in his face. Hope he's happy on the UWS with his hand. What Would Mystery Do?

So what's my point in all this? Not sure. Maybe I'm still reeling from these two polar extremes. Maybe I'm like Goldilocks, who needs to get hit on just right. Or maybe I'm just like my mother, she's never satisfied. Why do we scream at each other? Probably because we're too dysfunctional to get laid.