online dating

Man/Boy #41, Not Your Sugar Mamma

Published April 6, 2013

I’m not sure what’s been happening lately, but all of a sudden there are a bunch of youngsters asking me out on dates. Currently, there are emails from three men under age thirty in my inbox on OkCupid. Can I call them men? Should I call them men? I don’t know. What is going on? Is there a MILF challenge trending on Twitter or something? Are they all ganging up to bag an older woman this month? Where is this sudden interest in me coming from? I don’t know. I’m completely confused. Men my own age don’t seem to be interested in me, but suddenly young boys my sons’ ages are.

You’re probably thinking, “What’s the problem? You go girl,” but dating men significantly younger than me has always been a challenge. It’s quite simple. I always start thinking about what my sons would think if I brought home a date who could be their brother. Granted, I have never asked them how this would make them feel. I just think they would think it was weird and wonder what the fuck I’m doing.

Just as I so often wonder what the fuck I’m doing.

So, what’s a…um…girl…to do?

Well, I made a date with one of the youngsters; that’s what. What the hell? You only live once, right?

Man #41 contacted me through OkCupid, “Hi! You are very beautiful! Can we get together to see if we have a connection? We should do coffee, a movie, happy hour, or something fun together. I’m a massage therapist…You can call\txt me any time…When are you free to get together? Hope your having a great day!”

Oh dear, another massage therapist. Ignoring the fact that he doesn’t know how to use you’re in a sentence and that his message sounded completely canned, do I dare?

He was cute, and I needed a date. At this point, I don’t have anything to lose. A while back when I passed up an opportunity for sex with a much younger man, I got chided for not taking the boy up on his offer, so I decided this time I would go for it and at least agree to a date.

We met at Sonrisa. (I know, again with the Mexican food.) He wanted to meet at 10 p.m., but I told him that was too late. Could we meet at 9 p.m.? Grandma’s gotta get in bed by eleven on a weeknight.

I arrived first and received a text from him that he was running late. This seemed like a passive-aggressive way to get the meeting time he wanted, but I made myself comfortable in the bar. I ordered a margarita and started slowly noshing on the complimentary chips and salsa. Before long, Man/Boy #41 arrived, and I was immediately uncomfortable. He looked younger in real life than he had in his profile picture. I wondered if he was even legal. What does one do in this situation? Should I ask for his ID?

Luckily, the waiter did this when he took his drink order.

Whew! At least he was 21. The waiter looked at Man/Boy #41 and then looked at me. I wondered what he was thinking. The waiter looked like he was my age. I’m sure he was wondering what I was doing with this youngster.

There were so many things wrong with this date I don’t even know where to begin. First, Man/Boy #41 had atrocious manners. He was very grabby with the chips, grabbing full handfuls at a time and chewing with his mouth full and talking while he ate them. He was also very talkative, telling me all about his job, how bad it sucked, and about how his mother died, leaving him with a house he couldn’t afford. He talked a lot about not having any money, and I got the sense he was looking for someone to help him.

I’ll admit; on one hand, I felt sorry for him. He seemed very young, lost, and in a very tough spot, but on the other hand, the whole scenario made me very uncomfortable. First of all, I’m done rescuing men. I have no patience for it anymore. It’s a thankless job, and I expect any man I’m with to have his shit together. Second, Man/Boy #41′s bad manners, the way he talked, rather loudly I might add, and the way he ate the chips made him seem like a twelve-year-old. It didn’t help that the waiter kept looking at us like he was trying to figure out what was going on. I couldn’t help but think that I’ve raised my sons to have much better manners than this. In a similar situation…God forbid…my sons could probably hold their own on a date with a woman in her mid-forties, but Man/Boy #41 could not. The thought, “I’ve raised three sons, and I’m not raising another one,” went through my mind.

Then he started talking about how he was a massage therapist, and he could give me a massage if I wanted one. Really? Again with the massages? I just need to stop here for a second and ask a question.

Are women really falling for this massage bullshit? They must be, or it wouldn’t be such a popular ploy. Can I just say? If I want a massage, cheap as I am, I will pay for a professional massage. I don’t want a massage from a man who is just trying to get in my pants. During a massage, I like to relax. I can’t relax if I have to worry that in mid massage I’ll suddenly find a finger in my cooch.

“Oops, I don’t know how that got there.” Really? There’s nothing I hate more than having my intelligence insulted. Do men honestly think this is a good way to ask for sex? Like women don’t see through the massage tactic? Or is it just me with my superior intelligence who gets this? Do other women simply say, “oh, a massage sounds nice,” and then wonder why there’s a hard-on in their ear halfway through the massage?

I doubt it.

No thank you. I’m not interested in a “massage.”

As soon as my margarita was finished, I asked for the check, paid my portion, and stood up to leave. Sugar Baby Wannabe suddenly stood up too and blocked me in the booth under the guise of trying to give me a goodbye “hug.”

Oh for fuck’s sake! This was IN the restaurant!

“Back up,” I said, “I need to get out.”

He moved and then insisted on walking me to my car, which was actually parked very close to the front door of the restaurant. I had been lucky in scoring “rock star parking.” Our waiter and another man from the kitchen were also outside smoking, so we again received weird looks from the waiter. This time, however, I was glad he was there.

When I got to my car, Man/Boy #41 was suddenly all hands again. It was like he had tentacles. In an instant there was a hand on my breast and he was trying to pull me in for a kiss. I pushed him away with some “wax on, wax off” arm blocks, and got in my car. Most of my dates end pretty calmly, but at 5-foot 10-inches tall and 240 pounds I am not afraid to knock somebody’s fucking block off if I have to. Plus, I’ll play dirty. I WILL fight like a girl, which means a man’s groin, instep, and eyeballs are all fair game.

What part of, “No, I don’t want a massage,” did he not understand?

The next day I received a text message. It read, “Do you think we could get together for a massage and sex? I would really like to eat you too. The worst thing that can happen is you will get an awesome massage and some awesome orgasms. ”

Seriously. I can’t make this shit up.

“No. I don’t think so,” I said.

“Plz. Just once. I would love to give you at least a massage. I’m a master at necks, backs, shoulders, arms, legs, feet and everything else. U would love it….

…No charge either. Will you plz reconsider?”

“No.”

Posted in The Men | 30 Comments

Doing What You Love

Published March 31, 2013

Since my date with Man #39, I’ve been feeling less enthusiastic about dating, especially online dating, so I’ve chilled out on seeking a date and tried to focus more on doing what I love. When it comes to finding love, those are the words of wisdom one most often hears. “Do what you love and you’ll meet someone with common interests.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

After I mentioned that I thought I needed a dating coach, one of my dating coach Twitter connections reinforced this point by again telling me to start doing what I love. So, that meant I had to think about it. What do I love to do? I don’t know. I guess…

I love to sing.

I love to play piano.

I love to write.

I love to cook.

I love to dance. (They don’t call me the Dancing Queen for nothin’.)

I love to get in my car and drive someplace scenic for no reason.

I love to curl up in an armchair on Sunday mornings with something to read and a strong cup of coffee.

I love walks with Thor.

I’ll probably think of more things I love later, but that’s a pretty good list for now. When a list gets too broad it starts to look like one of those online dating profiles where the person is trying to be anything and everything to everybody. I’m not anything and everything, and I don’t want just anybody. There are a few select things I love to do. In fact, just writing the top two items on this list made me want to stop what I’m doing and start doing them. (Except that I’m currently doing the third one so that held me back.)

So, with this whole idea of doing what I love in mind, I recently signed up for a few Meetups. I can already tell that I will need to remove my name from some of the groups I joined and refine my selection of activities. Some of them sounded better than they really are. Some of them have tons of members, so it feels intimidating to go if you don’t know anyone. However, I went out to the Azteca in Lynnwood on Friday night for a karaoke Meetup.

When I initially got to the bar, I didn’t see my group. My go-to move in these situations is to take a seat at the bar and wait to scope things out and figure out my next move. I took a seat and ordered a margarita. There were a couple of men sitting near me at the bar, and pretty soon one of the men leaned over and asked me if I was there for karaoke.

“I am,” I said, “Are you?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“What’s your go-to artist,” I asked.

“Jason Mraz.”

“Nice.”

“You?”

“It depends on what they have. I’ve never done karaoke here before.”

“Oh, they have everything. The guy just pulls things from YouTube.”

“Perfect. Well, then probably Carrie Underwood or Lady Gaga,” I said.

“Cool,” he said, “Are you pretty good?”

“Well, now that’s a loaded question. I don’t know. I do ok,” I said, “I’m supposed to meet a group here, but I don’t know where they are.”

“Oh, there’s a big group of people in the back,” he said, “did you look back there?”

“No.” During the course of our conversation, the bartender had placed my margarita in front of me. Instead of getting up with my drink and wandering around the bar looking for the group, I decided to check in on the Meetup website, and send the Meetup organizer a message asking where the group was meeting. Within a few minutes a short, energetic woman appeared and introduced herself as the organizer of the Meetup. She told me they were, in fact, the group in the back of the restaurant. I said goodbye to the man at the bar, grabbed my margarita, and followed her to the back of the restaurant.

When I got there, there were twenty women and no men. That’s right, no men. Figures. Where are the men? Probably at home watching TV. So much for meeting members of the opposite sex. (Sigh) Oh well, you snooze you lose dudes!

I got there right as the karaoke DJ started, so I put my song in. The next thing I know he goes and calls me first, so there I am, alone, with a group of total strangers and I have to put myself out there first. This goes against every introverted fiber of my being. I got up and started singing. I was shaking at first, but I soon got over my nerves. Now, I’m no Adele, but this is the first song I sang.

Let’s just say it got things started right. There were some really great singers in the group, and it was a lot of fun getting to know all of the women. The Meetup organizer was a lot of fun. She was afraid to sing a song by herself, so a bunch of us eventually got her up on stage to sing “It’s Raining Men” and “Push It.” I eventually got called up to do a second song, and this time I sang “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood.

If I’m hoping to meet men by doing the things I love I might want to pick less dysfunctional Country songs…but anyway.

After I sat back down, one of the women in the group came over and asked for my business card. She said she had a friend in a band and they needed a vocalist. I gave her a card, but I don’t really expect to hear from them. Things like that never happen to me. I wish they did, but they don’t.

The man I had met at the bar got on stage and did his Jason Mraz songs, and he was pretty good. I later asked him if he knew any Lady Antebellum songs in the hopes that we could do a duet. (And no, I did not get his number. He was a cute, little man, but WAY to short to ride the ride.) Unfortunately, he didn’t know any of the duets I know, so we didn’t make music together.

When, I finally got in my car to go home, closing time, I was so energized. I wanted to keep on singing. It’s amazing what singing does to my mood, how it just makes my whole body feel happy.

I thought my singing was finished for the weekend, but then, yesterday, Lauren asked if I wanted to go see Michael Nesmith at The Neptune. She had an extra ticket. Now, I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing like a Michael Nesmith song to make me want to sing. As the concert drew to a close, I leaned over and asked Lauren if she would be interested in going to sing karaoke afterwards.

“Hell yeah,” she said enthusiastically.

After the concert, we made a quick stop at Dick’s drive-in and then headed up to Kona Kitchen in Maple Leaf. I had been there once before for a friend’s birthday party a few weeks earlier, and that was when I discovered they have karaoke on Saturday nights. When we walked in, there were very few people there and nobody was singing.

“Oh, this looks intimidating,” I said. It’s funny how I would rather sing in a crowded bar than in one where there are six people staring at me, but it’s true. After a couple of bourbon sodas, I got up and did the same two songs from the night before, and because it wasn’t crowded I got to do several more. Including this on by P!nk. How awesome is she?