It's a small world after all....

I'm always commenting that Denver is small. Small, small, small...and we all tend to hang in the same circles. This can be lots of fun when navigating the ex-BF scene. Luckily, I don't have too many of those exes that are painful/embarassing/horrible to run into around town. However, there is always the chance that you might run into an ex while dropping off a current fling in the morning...because why wouldn't they live in the same building??? I digress...

A recent story that I enjoy involves my new roommate, actually. She mentioned she was thinking of trying onilne dating so I gave her two words of warning. 1. people are mostly weird. 2. You will date someone that has previously dated a friend/co-worker/roommate/etc. It's Denver. Denver is that small.

I begin to tell her about this blog and about some of my finer moments of online dating. I was explaining the akward, uncomfortable, and strange texts I was recieving from "Are you Naughty?" (see below) when she blurted out..."WAIT, OMG, you know ____!" You see, as I was telling the story she kept thinking it all sounded familiar until coming to that lightbulb moment where we dicovered that "Are you Naughty?" is her old roommate, the one who was horribly gross and was asked to leave (kicked out)...thus making the room available for me.

Yep, folks, Denver really is THAT SMALL. Denver can be small in very good ways too, like this past weekend when I ran into two kids from my old neighborhood, a friend from Junior League and my new roommate totally unplanned and all at the same bar.

The adventure continues! I wonder who I'll run into next...

Are you naughty? (December 2009)

Alright, around the holidays it’s just too easy to make the “naughty or nice” jokes. It’s flirtatious and fun. It can also be taken too far, too quickly. Like when you’ve never met the person before. So dating around the holidays is weird and awkward. People have hectic schedules, people are out of town, work is busy, work is dead, etc. So I emailed Omaha (as we’ll call him) through match a few times before giving him my phone number. We began texting as well. Nothing out of the ordinary, just the get to know you type stuff. We planned to meet up when he got home from spending the holidays in Nebraska. I was on the way home from a friend’s house late one Saturday night when the texts started pouring in from Omaha. They started out innocent enough. Asking about my holiday, what I was doing, what I was wearing (???) before turning, well, downright inappropriate. Before too long he was asking me to send him dirty text messages. That’s not how I roll. Especially if I’ve never met you. I told him to grow up. I stopped returning his texts. Yes, this stuff really does happen to me.

If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry.

Go ahead, you can touch it if you want. (December 2009)

Maybe I’m being way too kind by giving men “the benefit of the doubt”. Chances are if I’m getting a weird vibe from them on the first date, it’s because they are weird. Also, I might need to stop dating Texans. Neither her nor there. So date one with Texas Meathead took us to the local sushi joint with a bar in the basement. Drinks were $5. I had two. Guess who paid? I did. Strike one. I also had to walk to my car alone that night. Strike two. But I was flattered when he texted the next morning, so I agreed to a second date. *Note: I had a bad vibe from the start of date 1. Ladies, trust your instincts.* For our second date he suggested Mexican food and margs. Perfect, I’m on a mission to find Denver’s best marg. He suggested Lime in hip and happening Larimer Square. Apparently on Friday nights this restaurant should be called “Club Lime”. Really Lime, techo and house music at 8pm while people are eating? Come on, you’re better than that! Or maybe not. So at some point early in the evening I was asked by Texas Meathead how many times that day I had worked out. It was Friday, I was tired. I did not get up early to go to the gym. I worked all day. I said zero. You would have thought I said I kick puppies for fun with the look I got. You see, he’d been to the gym three times that day. He proceeded to flex his bicep to prove it. He also said “go ahead, you can touch it if you want to.” I didn’t want to touch it. I wanted to vomit in his general direction. Then when our food came (which was a piss poor excuse for Tex-Mex, at best. I seriously think I’ve had better food at Taco Bell. But I digress…) Texas Meathead was so focused on shoveling food in his mouth that I’m pretty sure he didn’t take a single breath for 5 minutes. That’s how long it too him to eat his food. 5 minutes. On a date. I thought maybe I was confused and that he had entered us in a speed eating contest. I half expected him to slam his marg then beat his chest while proclaiming “Meathead full”, followed by a belch. So at this point Texas Meathead goes to the bathroom and I strike up a conversation with a nice gentleman at the bar. Texas Meathead didn’t like that one bit because before I knew what was happening he told me to get my coat, stormed out of “Club Lime”, and marched through Larimer Square. At this point I decided he was ridiculous, so I stopped walking. I was left on a street corner with my mouth hanging open as he stormed off in the general direction of his car. Date over! At least he paid for the crap food and horrible margs!

If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry.

The boyfriend. (June 2009 - December 2009)

Since I’m still looking back at this point, now’s the time I can tell you about my last boyfriend, The Lawyer. The Lawyer from Texas (hold on to that nugget because you’ll notice a theme.) The Lawyer taught me a lot. He was nice, he liked me, he called when he said he would, he held doors, he held my hand. He showed me exactly how I should be treated. He genuinely was a nice guy. We met online at a very weird time in my life. I had been laid off from Dream Job in Oregon and decided to move home to Denver. The first two things I did were booked movers and updated my match profile with a Denver zip code. I met The Lawyer almost right away, but wouldn’t be moving home for about another two months. We started exchanging emails about once every 3-4 days until I was back in Denver. Our first date was your typical drinks at a bar, but we stayed out much later than planned just talking. We went to a Rockies game that following week, then went out for sushi the week after that. It progressed from there and the first two months were simply fantastic. He was thoughtful. He was (is) ambitious. He had (has) a good job. Then something changed. I can’t pinpoint it, but it was about half way into our four month relationship that something was different. I knew it. I shouldn’t have stuck around for another two months waiting for the other shoe to drop. I should have trusted my gut. Things didn’t get “bad” per say, they just were not the same. So I finally decided around the end of November that I’d get through the holidays, spend New Years Eve with him…and that would be the make-it-or-break-it point. No need to wait until NYE, he did the breaking right after Thanksgiving. He’s “too busy”, but breaking up is the hardest thing he’s ever had to do. (GAG) Well he’s had a pretty fantastic life then if that’s what he considers “hard”. Good for him. (No really, I don’t have hard feelings and I’m in the process of seeing if we can be friends. I miss his friendship a lot.) It worked out though, because I was able to return the Xmas gift I bought him, buy a new outfit for me, and wear it out to the bars that Saturday night. Of all the gin joints in all the world…we had to end up at the same damn place that night of course. Denver is so very small sometimes. I know I saw him. I know I spoke to him. Hell if I know what I said, I was hammered from all the guys buying me drinks because I looked hot in my new clothes. And he was dressed like an elf. Happy holidays, I win.

Adventures in Dating: Denver Take 1 (January 2002 - June 2003)

I guess I could back up even further to Fort Collins or Boulder, and entertain you with stories of dating while in college. Although I really don’t count random fraternity guys buying me nachos and a Presidente Margarita at Chili’s “dating”…even if said frat guy did happen to pick me up at the Kappa house and we sat at a table for two. So I’ll just begin (from what I can remember) with my post-collegiate stories. I’m pretty sure I’ll remember the disasters better than the semi-good dates. Let the games begin…

What I do remember from dating in my early 20s was how random I was. If a seemingly nice guy was interested in me, I wasn’t interested in him. If a totally unavailable and inappropriately young guy wasn’t interested in me at all…boy was I chasing after that! So here are a few notes from what I can recall:

**I was encouraged not to date anyone affiliated with the professional sports team I worked for. Who do you think my main targets were???

**If you tell your boyfriend (and I use that term very loosely) where to park in downtown Denver, you should also try to remember where that not-so-secret location is at 2am. It’s also not advised to chase tequila shots with several Rio margs. Bad night.

**Even if your boyfriend drives a Jeep, when the authorities say to stay off the roads, stay off the roads. Otherwise you will be snowed in with someone you really didn’t really want to spend all that much time with, even if he is your boyfriend. Lesson learned the hard way!

**Massachusetts accents are cute when you live in Denver. But, that doesn't mean you should date someone just because of their accent. Unless they are English...

I'll add more stories as they come to mind. Apparently the alcohol has in fact impaired my memory. Go figure!