Love (and War)

About a year ago, I wrote a rant against the physical activity first date. I am unathletic. I am also intensely competitive. Physical activity first dates bring out the combination of these two unhappy unbecoming traits and don’t exactly poise me to be my best most dateable self.

Since that moment of self-awareness last spring that followed a disastrous date involving Frisbee golf, I’ve successfully avoided physical activity with romantic partners entirely. I’ve made my unathleticism part of my charm. I’ve stayed firmly planted in the realm of coffee, drinks, and dinner. I even had a boyfriend for a couple of months that never so much as saw me wearing workout gear. I’ve learned, I thought. I’ll never have this horrendous problem again.

Unfortunately, kind of like world political leaders, I am doomed to make the same mistakes over and over and over again. I’m destined to never learn. I’m fated to repeat my actions with expectation of a different outcome. Insanity. Cool.

About a week ago, I had the makings of a pretty epic first date. Over a cup of Fair Trade organic coffee, a nice young man and I discussed our backgrounds, livelihoods, and the political and philosophical ramifications of the global food system.

Like most girls, a good heated discussion about political economics goes straight to my heart and loins, and something about the way we ranted and raved about the USDA, permaculture, processed food, Michael Pollan, and urban gardening for two hours as we sipped sweet black nectar of the gods left me wanting more. So instead of cutting the date short at the natural breaking point, when our cups lay empty and the discussion had come to a peaceful close, I suggested happy hour.

My venue of choice was a new restaurant in town that sources from yard gardens and cures its own meats. It’s located on The Hill, a college-heavy area of Boulder approximately 1 mile from my home and our coffee shop of choice.

The Hill is named aptly because of the elevation gain one must surmount in order to crest its peak and partake in its offerings. Given that elevation gain, I wanted to drive. Naturally (this is Boulder, peoples’ republic of reducing the carbon footprint), my date wanted to bike.

I took pause. I envision biking as a romantic activity in which I don a sundress and have rosy cheeks and flowing hair. In reality, though, I have biked one time in the past two years, and it was more aptly characterized by spandex, sweat, and chafed thighs. My cheeks were rosy enough, but only because I was wheezing like an asthmatic after encountering a mild grade. That scenario is not cute.

On the other hand, our destination was a mere mile away. I could wear my street clothes. And this wasn’t a competitive activity; it was just a meandering ride down the peaceful Boulder roads to a peaceful Boulder restaurant. How bad could it be?

I found myself nodding in agreement to the no-car plan, and we trekked over to my house to retrieve my bike, rusted and forlorn in the spot on my porch it’s inhabited since I brought it to Boulder almost a year ago. I awkwardly maneuvered it through my apartment, ignoring the eyebrow raise of my beloved roommate, and toddled down the steps to the street.

My date was eagerly awaiting my arrival, grinning at me from where he was sitting jauntily on his seat, one foot on the pedal and one resting easily on the ground. I took a deep breath, convincing myself that the phrase “like riding a bike” had to have come from somewhere, and lifted my right leg.

Rrrriiiippppp.

Apparently, street clothes and biking don’t mix for this girl. Apparently, I should have swapped skin-tight jeans for spandex. Apparently, I was now dealing not just with exercise, but also with crotchless pants. On a first date.

Horrified, I looked up to see if my man of interest had noticed my blunder. If a flicker of horror crossed his face, I didn’t see it. It seemed that, somehow, I’d gotten away with murder.

But then there was the age-old dilemma: Change pants or stay the course? I’m admittedly an expert at disguising assless chaps, but was this something I wanted to deal with when I was trying to flirt? Was this putting my best foot forward?

Of course it was. Not wanting to raise alarm, I decided to carry on sans new pants, and I followed my date up The Hill. 10 minutes and about a 1000-foot change in altitude later, he gracefully pulled his bike into a rack in front of the restaurant, smiling, chattering, and reflecting on how good it feels to soak in the mountain air.

I did not respond. My own cycle wobbled a bit, forced forward jerkily with all of my intention, and I dismounted to put my head between my knees (but not too deep, for fear of aggravating the aforementioned wardrobe malfunction).

Sweaty, panting, and secret hole the size of Texas, I finally climbed the steps to happy hour, convinced that an ice cold glass of rosé would never taste so good again. I mopped the sweat from my brow in the bathroom, tried to salvage my hair style, and stood on tiptoes to try to see just how much of my private parts were visible (certainly some, if one looked close enough).

It took a few minutes to rekindle the conversation, what with my shortness of breath and heightened awareness of my naked thighs, but I pressed on in the name of pork and social grace, taking solace in the fact that it would be dark outside when we made the all-downhill trip home.

I’m not sure why I continue to press on, solving the problems of my own social shortcomings at precisely the moments I want my interpersonal aptitude to shine, but I give up on learning. Hopefully, to someone out there, awkwardness is, simply, adorable.

I love dinner. I also love dating. I hate the combination of these two things in a first romantic rendezvous.

I realize that this is likely baffling. After all, restaurants are my game. They’re my one great talent. Choosing an eatery for a first date should be my chance to hook, line, and sinker some sexy male for at least a round two. Exposing a potential lover to a mind-blowing meal should be my infallible way to make an incredible first impression. But the stress of the actual event is enough for me that I instead suggest coffee, drinks, or even, god forbid, ultimate Frisbee. Anything to take the focus off eating. Of course I’m going to tell you why.

I’m a modern enough woman. I don’t subscribe to the old adage that ladies should order salads and eat but one crouton on a first date. I don’t think any man out there is begrudging me my appetizer-entrée-dessert. And I don’t think ordering fatty pork is a deal-breaker for many guys (and as for the exceptions, well, I don’t think it would have lasted long anyway).

It’s not so much that I fear my lack of adherence to an old dainty girl societal norm will kill romance (uh, let’s face it, not even my left pinky is dainty, so I’m not getting asked out for that in the first place), it’s more that I acknowledge that my eating habits can be, well, frightening.

For starters, any place I’m going to suggest is going to have at least a weird thing or two on the menu, including but not limited to fried pigs feet, frog legs, snails, shrimp paste, head cheese, fatty duck liver, veal tonsils, kidneys, beef tongue, bone marrow, raw fish (hey, that’s weird for people who grew up on mac & cheese and peanut butter & jelly alone), whole fish, oysters, and raw beef (mmmm… carpaccio). I’m definitely going to want to order those weird things—in mass quantity—in addition to any type of food on the menu that I’ve never before experienced (odds are slim that this will happen, but I don’t want to discount the sudden rise of Asian food in the greater Denver area).

This doesn’t bode well for first date sharing, a key element for me in building romantic rapport (hey, if we can eat together, it’s gonna go a long way to my heart). This also doesn’t bode well for building respect: my new dining companion, if not utterly repulsed by my choices, will be questioning my sanity and future ability to keep my girlish figure; I’m going to be sitting there irritated because my date is focusing on the French fries and forgoing entirely the foie gras. It’s not that French fries are inherently inferior, especially when fried in rendered duck fat, it’s more the principle of a lack of appreciation for unique experience.

Beyond the weirdness of my taste, though, there’s the sheer quantity of food I can consume. This girl is an eater, especially when she’s out on the town. As such, I’ve been known to eat two dinners in one night. I’ve got a history with ordering more than one dessert for myself if I simply can’t make up my mind. And more than once, I’ve closed my check only to reopen it to let a couple more courses grace my table as accoutrements to my “after-dinner” drinks.

This is uncomfortable when I’m out with a non-eater. This is rough when I’m carrying my weight and then some in the shared appetizers game. This is awkward when my date has eaten three bites of his vegetable-based soup, declared he’s full, and I’m staring at my spit-shined empty plate, deciding whether to ask, “You gonna eat that?” And this is epically stressful when I come to the end of my savory courses, picking up steam into the sweets, and my date decides to decline dessert. I have a second stomach for dessert. When I have to skip it, I brood.

I admit there may be a psychological problem at play here, but this is why dinner is best saved until at least date 3. No use exposing the mediocre matches to my ravenous appetite and bizarre preferences. Better to let them think that I’m normal and charming instead.

And hey, my mom always told me to keep some things sacred. I think she was talking abstinence, but as I adamantly maintain that I’d choose great food over great sex (almost) any day of the week, I think it’s best to leave this, too, shrouded with mystery until we’re comfortable enough with each other to make it really special.

Oh, faithful readers. I love you so so much, especially when you think I’m funny or when I want to bitch about something. And right now, I want to bitch about something. I need to tell someone, my loves, and you are the perfect people.

I am having a particular kind of week. I am having the kind of week that makes me want to throw all of my valuables into my Audi “impulse purchase” A4 and drive 2000 miles away from Boulder to a place where I know absolutely no one and, thus, can stop having the kind of week that I’m having. I will reinvent myself and dress only in classy black clothes so as to emanate an air of mystery, sitting alone in coffee shops penning poetry and tending to my herd of cats. And I will never grow my social network to what it has become in Boulder.

Let’s begin with Valentine’s Day. You may recall that I went into Valentine’s Day feeling absolutely fine. I had no broken heart, no unrequited love of which to speak, no ill feelings other than the general squeamishness I have for kitsch on any holiday. I had a delightful single people brunch that was much more 10 people making jokes and drinking mimosas than 10 people lamenting their solitude and taking shots. I had a night at work that made me feel good about my ability to do my job.

And then my “ex” came in to my place of work to have a drink. And by “ex” I mean subject of the blog entry titled “Pathetic.” And by “came in to have a drink” I mean brought the girl he’s dating who I KNOW FROM HIGH SCHOOL. So what did I do? Naturally, I engaged in an “OH MY GOD HOW ARE YOU I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN SO LONG” kind of conversation, didn’t make eye contact with him even one time, and then sidled on up to the bar to have a drink or 5 with a couple of the regulars, 1 of whom is the kind of person who shouldn’t intrigue me but does.

After several minutes of slightly awkward conversation that I couldn’t comfortably settle into because of my ugly work shoes, my roommate thankfully showed up to haul me off to some stupid anti-Valentine’s Day party where we drank ¼ of an unsatisfying IPA before bailing. As the night was continuing to slip downhill, we headed home, only to find ourselves binge-eating sweets and filling out the ENTIRE eHarmony questionnaire TOGETHER for ME. WHY? WHY? Well, because someone I know was recently successful on the site, and I wanted to see who eHarmony matched me up with. So after a resentful hour of filling out 9 million questions about things that are important to me, my matches FINALLY popped up. Guess who was number 1? The regular who I shouldn’t be intrigued by but am. Fuck you, eHarmony. I deleted my account immediately. What a waste.

And then there was tonight. Do you remember the Super Bad online first date? Here, allow me to refresh your memory. Sadly, the super bad online first date blog post is not the end of that storied tale. You may have noticed I’ve become a little gun shy in my recent posts on this forum. That’s because my super bad online first date FOUND the super bad online first date entry and wrote me hate mail. Heart-wrenching hate mail. And it made me feel like a really, really, really bad person. Here I am, writing things I like to write to make other people in the world laugh at my misfortune, and I’m ruining lives. I’m making it so some young man will never date again. I’m responsible for the crushing fall of some guy just trying to make it in the world. I am a bad person.

In that entry, I noted that the last person I want to see on an online first date is a current or former fling or a guy that I think is cute and want to think I’m cool. Guess who the last person I NOW want to see on an online first date is? Oh, probably the guy that hates my guts because I talked all about our super bad online first date to the whole entire universe. Probably the guy that has every incentive in the world to make any future online date in which he sees me taking part as miserable as he possibly can. I think you know where this is going.

Maybe it’s my fault. After weeks of technological exchange with an interesting young man, I agreed to return to the scene of the incompatibility crime for a cup of coffee. It was a good set up. He had some writing to do, I had some writing to do, we thought it might be nice to spend the first hour of our real life acquaintance in complete and utter silence crafting things in the written word.

I arrived early, so as to spend a few minutes typing hastily on my laptop over a large chai tea and noted that the band was pretty good. Win. And then I looked closer at the MEMBERS of the band. Who’s playing the drums? “HI MY NAME IS —-.” Yep. Yep. Our eyes met for a few horrifically awkward seconds and the panic attack started. What was I going to do? Stand firm? Lie in the bed I’d made? Pretend it wasn’t awkward? Hell no. I gulped down my large chai, effectively burning my throat and esophagus, and began the frustrating quest for another coffee house that’s open late.

This town is too small. Get me out of here.

Oh, big surprise, this is a Valentine’s Day post. You didn’t really expect to hear silence from me on such a controversial day regarding love, did you?

Here’s the shocker, kids: I like this holiday, and I’m obviously going to tell you why.

No other holiday divides the universe quite like Valentine’s Day. No other holiday demands the entire population put a stake down on a side of the great love debate. No other holiday evokes warm toasty feelings of optimism in some and fiery burning hatred in others. And that, to me, is fascinating.

This isn’t merely the swinging singles vs. the happy couples. There are plenty of singles that rush out to fill shopping carts with candy hearts and cute little cards, dressing in pink and red and buying themselves roses. Likewise, there are plenty of couples that would rather sit at home eating Chinese food and Ben & Jerry’s than hit the saturated and overpriced restaurant scene on the day of love. The division is more like the hopeless romantics vs. the jaded cynics, and there are members of both parties in all relationship statuses.

I have to say, I get both sides. I grew up in a pro-Valentine’s Day household. Come the morning of February 14, my place at the breakfast table would be set with chocolate, Sweethearts, and pink and red hued kitsch (namely, clothing to wear to school). Valentine’s Day was as good as Halloween, only with better sweets: we were allowed to gorge ourselves on Cadbury until we barfed or surrendered. The holiday also satiated my arts and crafts itch; rather than take the easy route and purchase the popular cards with kiddie jokes on them for my friends and classmates, my mom would help us make cleverly embossed works of art. Plus, a few Valentine’s Days brought elementary school love letters and roses from “secret admirers.”

What lessons did I take from those Valentine’s Days in my formative years? February 14 is a magical day on which anything can happen. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I secretly hope for a creepy letter from a long-lost love, if only so I can bask in the glow of how desirable I am. Even sans heartfelt declaration of obsession, Valentine’s Day is also a day on which I’m allowed to gorge myself on quality chocolate, and the calories basically don’t count. Plus, red is my color. What’s not to like?

On the other hand, Valentine’s Day is a Hallmark holiday, and I’m inherently opposed to specialness as propagated by greeting cards. The jaded cynic in me acknowledges the stupidity in meaningless tokens of obligation (see also: Christmas). The lover of aesthetics in me hates cheap kitsch. The marriage of these two things makes me slightly nauseous every time I step in a national chain capitalizing on the momentarily looser wallets of America’s lovesick.

Quite frankly, romance should be spontaneous. Secret admirers take note: if you’re going to shower me with presents and expensive dinners, I’d rather you do it on a whim because you’re feeling especially mushy about me, not because it’s February 14. And I’d rather those gifts and dinners be things you know I’ll like rather than something society says you should give me. Roses die (actually, I think they’re already dead), candy makes me fat, and generic restaurants incite within me feelings of intense discomfort and rage, but an authentic tongue taco and a mix CD… now that goes straight to my heart (get your head out of the gutter, I’m talking about Mexican food).

Both of these sides of my personality manifest on Valentine’s Day whether I’m single (usually) or coupled (very very rarely). But when I’m single, I love the sympathy from my not-single friends, who speak to me with the ginger tone usually reserved for someone who just lost a close relative or tried to commit suicide:

“What are you doing for Valentine’s Day?” they’ll ask delicately.

“Oh, nothing. I’ll probably just watch a chick flick, eat some Haagen-Dazs, and think about how someday I’ll find my other.”

“It’s good to hear you’re getting through it. You’ll find someone soon. Probably when you least expect it.”

(sighing for dramatic effect) “I know. It’ll happen just when I’ve given up looking.”

“That’s the spirit. Good for you! Good. For. You.”

Likewise, I wholeheartedly enjoy the bitterness from my fellow bachelors and bachelorettes. I’ve been single for the past 4 Valentine’s Days. On each of those, I’ve had a wealth of anti-Valentine’s Day options from people who’ve opted to rechristen it SAD (Singles’ Awareness Day) Day. SAD Day options are numerous and entertaining, and oft revolve around some sort of judging activity: going to a good restaurant and judging the couples on dates, going to shows and judging the couples on dates, going to coffee shops and judging the couples on dates, going to the bars and judging the couples on dates, judging, judging, judging, all because those Other people are wrapped up in loving romantic bliss.  Then everyone drunk dials an ex and eats their feelings.

The final analysis? When it comes to the day itself, my feelings about love and romance basically neutralize each other, and I experience no emotion toward the holiday whatsoever. However, given the fact that I enjoy conflict, I engage zealously in the stand-off between the different sides of the fence. So, yay, Valentine’s Day. Controversy. Loneliness. Optimism. Emotions. Hooray.  Let the games (and meltdowns) begin.

Okay, online dating, I want the millions of hours of my life back. Given the right diversion, I can be a pretty epic time-waster. Online dating is the right diversion. I am now horrified at the amount of time I have wasted.

Part of the problem here is the incredible aesthetically pleasing forum that is OKCupid: I highly recommend this website filled with endless diversions and interesting activities aimed at finding you your soul mate. Admittedly, I couldn’t care less about finding my soul mate, but lord knows I like to reflect on how clever I am (it’s probably telling that my profile is ALWAYS in my 6 most recently viewed), so crafting a profile and taking personality tests and generally being analyzed and validated are right up my alley.

Probably 75% of the time I spend signed in on OKCupid, I’m doing things to “find out” what my dating personality is, discover what qualities I should look for in a mate, reaffirm what qualities are great about me, and note where the most matches for me live (Massachusetts… score another point for Boston). Being a hyperanalytical person, these answers are somewhat obvious to me anyway, so it’s not like I’m actually self-actualizing or learning anything new. The supposed advantage to this extensive personality testing is that the site takes all the aggregated information and matches you accordingly, suggesting men who might find me attractive or might be exactly the same. Unfortunately, when I’m left to my own devices, I look for guys that are hot and smart, regardless of their calculated compatibility. So, as with the real world, I’m pretty much stuck in my type-defined crapshoot: maybe I’ll roll an interesting socially-apt stud-muffin, maybe I’ll come up with a Jesus-loving D&D geek. Equal odds.

Validation I also receive: getting ranked highly by a member that I also rank highly generates an email telling me of our mutual interest (I wish this was a feature of real life… someone should create a live social network that could be tapped into by mobile device at a bar that allows you to publicly rate the person across the room, thus cutting to the chase instead of making coy eye contact all night and never initiating the approach). I can see who views my profile excessively and adds me to their favorite list. And I receive awards from other members telling me how brilliant my profile is. This feeds my ego. I like that. All of these little things keep me checking back, rat-at-the-feeder-bar style, for more proof that I’m awesome and everyone ever wants to go on a date with me.

Another chunk of my time is spent searching, which is delightfully like Build-a-Boyfriend—I can literally filter by everything I want (though I wish there were “hot” and “smart” filters). It’s information overload, but the sea of fish is large, and I am ready to swim. I’ll start with a local search, seeing what babes exist around the Denver-Boulder area. I’ll inevitably get frustrated, having thoroughly perused most of those, and I’ll cast a wider net to, like, the world. Then I’ll spend hour upon wasted hour clicking through exotic men in Boston, New York, San Francisco, London, Los Angeles, and a myriad of other glamorous cities with some sort of hope somewhere that one will think I’m cute, write me a devilishly charming message, keep up a romantic correspondence…. And then probably never talk to me again. Come on, all I really want is an email saying you think I’m cute even though we live thousands of miles apart… is that so hard?

I’m not the initiating type as first online dating emails aren’t my writing forum, so when I do find someone who interests me, I spend several hours excessively clicking on their profile so they’ll see me in their recent viewers and, obviously, get in touch with me. Again, hours. Stalking ain’t easy.

All of these are means to validate me and so constitute the majority of my time on the site (and, arguably, the reason I spend an unhealthy amount of time trolling the web). Letting it come to me doesn’t really help, though, because I still have to sift through all the first communications from dudes to find the ones that might be worthy of a response (namely, the guys I looked at obsessively BEFORE they sent the email). I doubt it’s just me with this problem. I’m sure all women and a lot of men have the same issue. The sheer quantity of communication is stressful—even if there are a couple of people that I’m interested in, I don’t always have the time to wittily respond (and since blatantly ignoring communication is socially acceptable in online dating, I usually don’t). This doesn’t really shave any time off the whole ordeal, though, because with all the crap, I’m living in perpetual fear that I’m going to miss someone really good because I simply get frustrated with all the bad. Therefore, I carefully comb my inbox looking for diamonds in the rough long after the messages have been sent and ignored.

A sampling of my inbox:

1. Hey, how r u?

Seriously? Obvious problems with abbreviations aside, what do you expect to be my response to that? “Fine.” End of conversation.

2. I see you like kids and dogs. Will we have one together? I think you might be my soul mate.

First of all, absolutely not. Second of all, the only reason I said I like kids and dogs is because I’d sound like an ass hole if I didn’t like kids and dogs. Seriously, who doesn’t like kids and dogs? Third of all, if the basic information section of my profile is the only thing you found to talk about, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say we don’t have much in common.

3. (Long, convoluted rambling followed by 19 questions I’m supposed to answer to “make conversation”)

I am not your therapist. I am also not your test audience for your experiment with the use of the written word (maybe you should get a blog… I hear then people have to read your convoluted ramblings whether they like it or not). And your 19 “deep” questions demanding paragraphs about everything from my life in Buenos Aires to my thoughts on heart vs. head overwhelm me to the point that I’m just going to ignore this message, no matter how much potential I initially thought we had.

I can only imagine how much MORE exhausting this part is for guys, who probably aren’t on there for all the self-validating reasons I’ve just presented. Like in the real world, the pressure is definitely on the male to initiate. Filtering through a million profiles and then crafting an appropriately witty email that may or may not get a response sounds wretched and degrading. I applaud your motivation and initiative. I’m (a little) sorry I very rarely respond.

If all of this was leading up to something, like me discovering the man of my dreams who’s going to whisk me off into the sunset and warm my stone cold heart, maybe I could justify it. But I’ve already established I couldn’t care less about that, and with my limited time left in Boulder, that’s about as likely as sweeping change in healthcare. So instead I just get the obvious opportunity cost of responding to people when things aren’t going to work out in real life. Several of the meetings I’ve had have been just a case of two nice people with no real chemistry on any level. These range from painfully awkward to pleasantly dull. And in my head, I can’t help thinking, hey, thanks for the lack of climax. Good thing I spent all that time writing clever responses so we could meet in real life and never talk again.

Oh, sure, I’ve had some uncharacteristic success, what with the whole Tyler saga, etc, but seriously, save me from myself. I probably could have discovered the cure for the common cold or solved the world-poverty problem or built a multinational corporation in all the time I’ve spent on OKCupid. That’s depressing. I cannot BELIEVE these are the days of my life.

Woops. I’m in Chicago. Can you guess why? I’ll give you a hint. See the Seven Day Love Affair. Where was he moving? Woops. Chicago. Woops. At this point it seems silly to keep his identity anonymous since he’s become a major character and knows I’m writing about this, so I will henceforth refer to him by his name, which is Tyler.

Late Monday evening, amidst talk about experience whore-dom, Tyler suggested I hop on the next plane to Chicago and come meet him. He has a handy little perk that allows him $60 roundtrip buddy passes from Denver to Midway; chump change when you consider most people spend that on dinner and a night at the bar (or, uh, just dinner OR just a night at the bar). I agreed to see if I could come Wednesday morning for 48 hours. Tuesday night, about 4 hours before I needed to leave for the airport, I booked the ticket.

I’ve taken spontaneous trips before, but flying 1000 miles to hang out with some dude that I met online and was supposed to have just ended a seven day love affair with is somewhat crazy by anyone’s definition (including mine). Apparently, I was lying when I said I wanted this neatly buttoned up on my dating resume. Apparently what I meant by that was I wanted to make rash decisions and be eternally suspended in some weird gray area. Apparently I have no willpower when it comes to certain things. Cool. And okay, those of you who have known me forever are rolling your eyes at how NOT surprised you are. Fine.

I arrived in Chicago a little before noon and realized what winter temperatures in this place feel like as I plodded up the jetway. I’ve visited Chicago in the winter, but I guess it was during a heat spell. This was like the arctic tundra. Since I’d thrown things in a bag at about 4 am, I wasn’t appropriately prepared for this event; I didn’t have socks, for instance. I learned why people complain about the Chicago winter as I stood without socks waiting for the above-ground train. Not good times.

Tyler’s school is located on the IIT campus in an area of Chicago where the administration actually tells the students not to venture (specifically, they’re not supposed to venture south of 35^th street… so of course the first thing I wanted to do was venture south of 35^th street). Tyler picked me up from the train and then romantically scanned me into the dining hall for lunch. The dining hall felt like a totally normal experience when I was a college student, but being 3 years removed from it (and about 5 years removed from the days of actually eating in the dining hall) had me reflecting momentarily on just how weird the whole concept is. Welcome to Taco Thursday… it’s like summer camp.

The afternoon passed mostly uneventfully other than my brief reminder of roommate politics in, uh, social situations, and then I browbeat Tyler and his friends into watching the State of the Union address and drinking bourbon. In order to execute this plan, we had to hit a liquor store on the aforementioned 35^th street, famous divide between the semi-safe and semi-sketchy. Though the three block walk threatened to eliminate my extremities due to frostbite, it gave me a taste of the local neighborhood, which was full of check-cashing spots and ethnic diversity. We purchased Jack Daniels in a store that kept everything behind the counter, presumably to prevent theft. I was reminded of my old neighborhood in Brooklyn to some degree, except that my old neighborhood liquor stores also had a cage for the clerks so they didn’t get shot. Yay, gentrification.

We headed back into the fray only to immediately pass a soul food place. I don’t remember exchanging words on dinner plans; we just made the turn to the right into Mama Lou’s because it seemed like the only thing to do on a freezing cold Chicago night when the rest of the plans included bourbon and the State of the Union. The man behind the counter spoke and worked slowly, and I noticed some sort of fungus growing on one of his fingernails. Probably not the safest bet for food in general, but definitely a good sign for soul food. We waited patiently (?) as the woman in front of us, clothed head to toe in the color brown, ordered her dinner, making conversation with everyone around her, including us.

“Say, you kids go to school at IIT?”

“Yes,” we (I) lied.

“Figured. Anytime you see white folks round these parts, they go to IIT. Least ya enjoy our food. Where ya from?”

“Colorado,” we replied in unison.

“Coloradians! Coloradians in the HOOD! You be sure and remember that. You in the HOOD!” She laughed then to herself, and took her bags, walking back out the door and into the winter, and we were left to contend with the choices in front of us, which had suddenly become more appealing now that this woman had given us permission to view them as authentic ethnic foods from the Southside.

Chicken smothered in gravy seemed to be the way to go, coupled with garlic mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese and a good healthy helping of peach cobbler. After a treacherous return trip, we were burying our face in huge chunks of messy chicken and licking our fingers. No dainty eating for this girl. I may or may not have eaten the gravy with a spoon.

The State of the Union viewing was, naturally, a group event, and the more bourbon we consumed, the smarter we got, so I ended the night in a political discussion with Tyler’s roommate about the implications of global warming on democracy. This made me more than a little nostalgic for my college days, which is probably the last time I got drunk and discussed political issues for hours on end. I’m sure that wasn’t annoying for others in the same room at all. Oh, liberal arts. How I miss you.

The next day’s events aren’t exactly story-worthy, other than a trek up North that was supposed to be for blues but ended up being for weird fusion sandwiches made of Asian noodles, hot dogs, meatballs, and other things that shouldn’t have worked together but did.  Over our surprise feast, we discussed the implications of my journey, affirming the fact that we’d achieved an uncharted level of honesty with each other and that neither of us wanted to give that up for anything.  It was a strange conversation, simultaneously acknowledging the potential of our future while very much defining that we were in a gray area.  While continuing anything should be almost impossible given the circumstances, the entire relationship is unnaturally natural; there’s no accommodating, no compromising, what we want is simply compatible, at least right now. In a sense, it allows both of us to have an incredibly selfish relationship, living how we would anyway, while knowing that it’s just that quality that the other appreciates.  And that brings me back to a topic I’ve explored for awhile now:  are we really looking for “The One,” or are we looking for the person who’s going to accept our selfish desires and accommodate them while not sacrificing their own?

And then we were one of those gross PDA couples that I oft make fun of on the train, not overtly making out or anything, but stealing kisses when we thought no one was watching, behaving like teenagers or the plot of a romantic comedy. Weird. Gross. I don’t like romantic comedies (uh, except for When Harry Met Sally and Love, Actually, obv), and I don’t like PDA couples. Am I going soft? That idea is disgusting to me.

Delightful and possibly implication-heavy as the two days were, there was no out-with-a-bang-let’s-confess-our-love last interaction. In fact, our last night was spent in strangely comfortable silence: Tyler reading Plato, me working on responsibilities I’d shirked and talking to friends via gchat while Billie Holiday played from the crappy speakers of Tyler’s computer, both of us exploring displaying some unbecoming habits in front of each other.

The risk Tyler and I ran throughout this whole event was that there would now be pressure to take a next step, whatever the next step to something like this is. After all, not even two weeks ago we’d discussed not hoping for any kind of a relationship. Flying to Chicago 10 days later is not exactly keeping the seven-day love affair a seven-day love affair. Would the shift in the definition of the relationship also shift the interaction, sending us backwards a step to the ever-present, albeit minor, awkwardness experienced in the get-to-know-you phase of a relationship? Would this somehow change the rules of the game, thrusting us into a complicated long-distance relationship we’d been adamant about avoiding?

Well, no. As for awkwardness, it just doesn’t exist. Somehow, Tyler and I’ve managed to skip right over the whole skeletons-in-the-closet-and-let’s-not-tell-each-other-everything-we’re-thinking phase. I chalked that up to our one-week limitation before, but two more days in uncharted territory proved it hasn’t gone away. There’s nothing in my past, present, or future that I mind him knowing, including other men I’m seeing. He’s become a confidant on a level reserved for just a few people in my life. It’s a strange place to be, a place I reach rarely, and a place I’ve never reached with someone with whom I have some semblance of a romantic relationship, mostly because my desire for that person to think I’m cool gets in the way.

Don’t misread here; I’m still not exactly banking on this interaction growing wings and taking some silly flight to Frank Sinatra’s moon. Lord knows I love an intense relationship (I can already see the comments forming in ex-love’s brains). Lord knows I love human connection. So it’s probably not really out of character at all that I went to Chicago for two days just to see where we were. It’s where we are that’s a new one for me. Somehow, our horrible timing and circumstances are what make this thing work: there’s no head vs. heart here, and there’s no pressure to make this black and white, planning for some happily-ever-after future in which we’re simply racing to the next step in conventional relationship terms. I’m getting my ideal situation: instead of fighting to keep things in a gray area so as to circumvent brutal honesty and keep living my life, I have a purposely defined gray area that allows me to keep living my life, except that I don’t have to circumvent the honesty part. Your guess is as good as mine as to how this turns out; anything’s possible at this point.

Before I start this entry in earnest, I’m going to make a big fat disclaimer: I am not so cruel as to merely online date because I want to tell-all about ridiculous situations on my blog. I am taking this whole thing seriously insofar as I’d like to have a pre-law school fling, and online dating merely gives me another avenue by which to pursue that end. However, because online dating presents a myriad of unusual situations to which I think we all secretly (or not-so-secretly) relate, there’s no use depriving myself of the material. For would-be suitors: I promise not to use names or incriminating information. And for people who think I’m toying with men’s emotions for my own creative purposes: I haven’t gone out with (and I won’t go out with) anyone that I didn’t think had potential. And now: the main event.

It’s probably true that any girl who looks back at her high school days and remembers ostracism due to smarts rather than acceptance due to looks has a thing for Michael Cera. He’s the adorably awkward Clyde to our seriously nerdy Bonnie. Or, more appropriately, the Jim to our Pam. The Darcy to our Elizabeth. The Jack to our Meg? Ew, no, that’s gross. So when I got a message from a veritable Michael Cera look-alike, there was a lot of glazing over words in his profile (especially after I saw key nerd phrases like “math” and “physics” and “eclectic musician”) as I scrambled to come up with a witty enough response to deem me worthy to go out with the hero of Arrested Development and Juno. He must have liked it, because he quickly wrote back. And then we agreed to meet.

We settled on a coffee shop near my house for a post-dinner chai. When I arrived, the place was very full and very quiet due to the experimental Irish musicians sitting in a circle on a tiny stage, hammering away on their unidentifiable instruments (oh, Boulder). My date was sitting at a tiny table next to the coffee pick-up point, ensuring an on-stage-like experience as all patrons would have to pass by our table to get a drink or get back to the seating area or exit. And he looked much less like Michael Cera in real life.

I approached. As soon as he saw me, he shot up, veritably yelling.

“OH HI LAURA, NICE TO MEET YOU, SHOULD I SHAKE YOUR HAND OR GIVE YOU A HUG?” Heads around us turned in curiosity to see what the commotion was about, and I caught a few unmistakable sidelong glances amongst friends that said, “Online first date. We’re so lucky to be witnessing this.”

I half hugged him, chest pounding and vomit rising in my throat, and went to order my chai, mustering all the poise I had to recover from the awkward feeling that was creeping through my stomach and soul. My chai didn’t quite take long enough to make, and I soon found myself back at the table, leaning back in my chair, arms crossed, trying to compensate for his intense eagerness by talking as quietly and slowly as possible.

“SO WHAT DO YOU DO?”

“Wellllll, that’s cooomplicaaaatedddd. Iii woooork at the Kiiiiitchennnn and doooo soooome freeeeelaaaancccce maaarketingggg. I alsooooo wriiiiiite.

“THAT’S GREAT MY BROTHER WRITES WHAT DO YOU WRITE.”

“Ohhhhhh I daaaabbbbbblllle iiiin a lotttttt offfff thinggggggggs.”

This was a classic case of two nice people in the same room with absolutely no surface-level interest in common. He was former 9-5er who “couldn’t handle that environment” and decided to quit to try to become a drummer in an Indian jazz band. In school, he’d studied physics, but didn’t want to do anything with it. The farthest he’d traveled was Canada and Mexico. He was interested in food and wine insofar as it was a topic I could say ten words about before we faded back into awkward silence. We hit on music for a bit, and had a band-name drop party that lasted about 10 seconds:

“I JUST GOT INTO OF MONTREAL.”

“Oh, yeah? They’re pretty good. Do you like St. Vincent?”

“YEAH, I JUST SAW ST. VINCENT IN DENVER.”

“Oh, cool.”

“COOL.”

Siiiileeeeence

30 minutes into the interaction, and I was scrambling for an excuse to end the date. And then, because my life is really, really fun, an old friend walked by. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I’m on an awkward online date, there are a couple of people that I absolutely don’t want to see: a current fling, a former fling, and a cute guy from my peripheral group of college friends that I don’t know well enough to explain the situation. So when the latter of that trio approached my table, I knew I was in for a real treat.

I’d only seen Ben once since moving back to Boulder. He was a friend that I’d run into many times since college during friend reunion tours, but we didn’t know each other well enough to hang out on our own. He’s a charming type, very smart, and very cute. I’ve never had an actual crush on him, but I’ve always wanted to appear cool in front of him. Him seeing me on an awkward online date is not something I felt was going to up my cool points.

“Hey, Ben!”

“Hey, Laura! Wow! I forgot you’re living in Boulder, what’s up?”

“Yep, just live a couple of blocks from here. I’m working with Lacey on a project, we all need to get together. She’s up here a bit.”

“Oh, that’s awesome! Yeah, we need to do that for sure. Oh, I’m sorry man, I’m Ben.”

“HI MY NAME IS —-.”

It was about this point where I stopped paying attention to our exchange and started praying to some higher power that Ben did not ask how we knew each other. That higher power either hates me or has my exact sense of humor. Ass hole.

“So, how do you know Laura?”

I tried to interject. I really tried. “We just met…” I began.

“WE JUST MET ONLINE.” Fail. Fail. Fail.

To Ben’s credit, he kept his composure pretty well. “Oh-Ohh. Cool, well I gotta run. Laura, shoot me a facebook message.” And then he was gone.

I’m fairly certain my face was some combination of Christmas colors, fluctuating violently from red to green as my emotions tried to decide whether this was the most hilarious or most hideous situation in which I’d ever been. Things kind of dropped off after that, our awkward pauses and lack of eye contact lengthening to the point where we were simply two people sharing a table and doing our own thing. When I saw my neighbor (who also fits into the Ben category) walk in, though, I decided the party was over.

“Right, so, I’ve gotta go, I’ve got an early- thing- tomorrow. Thanks for coming out, though, it was nice to meet you.”

“COOL, WELL THIS WAS REALLY FUN LET’S GET TOGETHER AGAIN SOON.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty busy for awhile, but give me a shout.”

53 minutes after the date had begun, I rushed off to sing karaoke stone-cold sober, which was remarkably less awkward than my date, and didn’t stop laughing all the way down my street. Bad with the good, I suppose.

As soon as I received the first message, I knew exactly where the night was going to end.

“I like your style,” it began, “Unfortunately I’m moving to Chicago in a week. Looking at your profile, I see you are here for new friends, long-term dating, and short-term dating. Perhaps it would be an interesting experiment to move through the levels of familiarity associated with these three stages of relationship at a hyper-accelerated pace! Who knows, if we perfected the process, we might move directly into the “winter-of-our-lives” stage of marriage where no words are needed to communicate our enduring affection while one of us does the crossword (dibs!) and the other feeds waterfowl.”

I was a goner at that point, doomed to meet in a socially acceptable and well-lit location and then inevitably make the trek back to someone’s house to sit on a couch and talk until enough minutes had passed to warrant a full-scale hook-up. Women more sane than me would have probably reflected at least momentarily on the possibility that a well-crafted email on an online dating website was just a ploy to get me out, get me alone, and then make me into a lampshade in a back alley, but as extensive personality testing reveals, I’m a trusting girl, and I’ve got a penchant for adventure. A suggestion to live life with reckless abandon for a bit, combined with a cute face and a pithy profile, went straight to my heart. So after a combined 10 minutes of instant messaging and chatting by phone, we agreed to meet for a chai at a South Boulder Indian food restaurant—or at least walk around Blockbuster making clever remarks about movies (without intention of renting anything)—until we felt comfortable enough to take our socializing to a more private locale.

I was, of course, late. I pretended this was because I’d gotten confused and driven to the wrong South Boulder intersection, but in reality, it was because I’d opted to shower and shave my semi-furry legs and marshmallow peep armpits in anticipation of what the night might hold. No use nipping the possibility of a 7-day love affair in the un-groomed bud.

He was sitting in the front of the awkwardly-tabled dimly-lit incense-perfumed restaurant doing a crossword puzzle, a prop I found somewhere between funny and overkill (besides the email, my profile suggested I wanted to meet someone who would call me out when I sneakily finished his crossword on Sunday morning) until I realized (later) that it really was a natural extension of his being. To my relief, he looked like his photos and was attractive in real life—positive reinforcement that not everyone trolling the web for girls is some perverted old porn enthusiast wearing sweats, collecting unemployment, and posing as a young successful member of society.

I approached him with what I hoped was a glowing, inviting smile, that, in hindsight, was probably a little closer to nervous beauty pageant contestant than comfortably enlightened being. We had the characteristic momentary awkwardness of a first online date: do we hug? Shake hands? Say nice to meet you? Is anyone watching us? Can they tell we’re on a first online date? Probably. I like to play the “Who’s-on-a-Match.com-first-date” game at my place of work; I assume other people do, too. We settled on an awkward hug and then took our places across from each other for the preliminary interview and accelerated get-to-know-you phase of our adventure.

Traditional dating advice suggests leaving baggage, past relationships, bad habits, nervous tics, and personality flaws out of conversation topic on first dates. But this is the 21^st century, and this is online dating, and this is instant-gratification interaction, so instead of heeding that advice, we began our real-life acquaintance with a baggage-off, covering all the major skeletons in our closet as fast as we could form letters into words and words into sentences. The baggage-off quickly progressed into a disgusting “me too” conversation: “I do x.” “Me too! I love doing x!” High Fidelity said it, but it’s worth quoting: “It’s what you like, rather than what you ARE like, that counts,” particularly on a first date, so it wasn’t long before we were raiding my wine collection for a winter white and heading back to his parents’ north Boulder home, a happily empty roommate-less place abandoned for the cold months and perfect for star-gazing, wine-drinking, and progressive, uh, conversation-making.

We stayed up all night, feeling cheesily deeply connected to one another, communicating on some disgustingly intense wavelength rarely experienced at all, let alone so immediately. I chalk this up to a combination of factors. One advantage to online dating is that it gives you a pretty good idea of whether you are going to have something to talk about with someone. When this works out correctly, it results in an instant deep-feeling connection that, when coupled with chemistry and the fact that everyone on those sites is LOOKING for a deep-feeling connection, can cause a pretty intense situation. What we also had, however, was one risk-free week. One week with which to experiment with the fabric of emotions in a relationship in a self-destructive or self-empowering way, testing the depth of human connection, before tossing it back to the universe and going on with our lives. In essence, we could act married, if we wanted, without worrying about what relationship milestone we were headed toward. The future would bring nothing; the moment was everything. Exhilarating.

After 12 hours of obsessive validation and the best, uh, sharing (?) I’ve ever experienced, which doomed me to a day of complete and utter lack of productivity, our contact progressed into the zone characteristic of month 6-12 of a normal relationship. We experimented with comfortable silences, meetings without pretense, and one member of the duo allowing the other to sleep while they worked away on a laptop deep into the middle of the night (by “work away” I might mean “play games” and “facebook chat”). We tested the waters with disagreement (particularly when it became clear how much I suck at things like Guitar Hero), but ultimately sought to make amends. We talked subtly about the true nature of our feelings so as not to let our guards down.

At one point over the course of the week, I worried that I was growing too involved, letting my imagination run wild with thoughts of following him to Chicago or entertaining an ill-fated long distance love affair based on meeting in exotic cities across the country for two days at a time. Ultimately, though, I was so romantically attached to the idea of a 7-day full relationship, neatly buttoned-up on my dating resume as something I’d done, that I couldn’t bring myself to suggest anything of the sort. Not making this into something that it wasn’t was paramount.

Our last night together found us at my house, cracking jokes about other couples and playing a few rousing rounds of Scattergories. If we weren’t actually 24, I’d swear we were my grandparents. I sent him off in the morning with a mix CD of 20 songs by which to remember our interaction and a note confirming my feelings that this had been a great week from which I had no hope or expectation of a continued future.

There’s something incredibly empowering about a relationship without pretense or respect for social mores, and I recommend it to everyone. Dating is supposed to be fun, and this experience certainly lived up to that standard. Longer than a week and it’s possible that we would have gotten on each others nerves, found each other suffocating, or realized there’d be no chance of interacting in a group setting. But as it was, this is an experience I’ll always look back on fondly, remembering the intensity of connection on all levels. If nothing else, it goes to show that there are a lot of interesting (and great) people in the world.

Online dating for a week and this is what I get… I’m sold.

I think this video is seriously rad.

Okay, which statistic in there blew your mind? The stuff on China and India? The info on today’s learners entering the job market (oh hi, I’m totally bringing that 10-14 jobs by age 38 average up)? The exponential increase of technology users?

How about the fact that 1 in 8 couples that got married last year met on the internet? Where in the HELL did they get that statistic? Don’t couples that met on the internet usually lie about their serendipitous moment? What compelled them to be honest for the Sony survey?

This statistic suggests something of which I’ve long been suspicious: everyone online dates. So I’m inspired to come clean. I’ve dabbled in the online dating sphere, and I’ve found everything from a boyfriend to new friends in a new city, which is not a terrible outcome for something once reserved for serial killers and anti-social nerds frequenting chat rooms and myspace.

Internet dating certainly seems easier than real life; it’s like going to a party where everyone’s wearing a sign that confirms they’re single, lists what they’re looking for, and gives a couple of key interests that facilitate easy conversation. This is like socializing for dummies. It’s impossible to fail. Except that as the numbers increase on these sites, it becomes remarkably like real life in that I’m wading through a pool of mediocrity to find a diamond in the rough. And with millions of users, I think it’s about as likely that I’m going to meet someone quality online as it is that I’m going to meet my future husband squabbling over vegetables in the produce section of the grocery store (and I’m sorry, which is the more romantic story there?).

As much as I like to complain, though, I oft find myself browsing Match et al looking for that profile that sucks me in and makes me sign away my $35 for another month so I can exchange a few witty emails with someone and probably never speak to them again. It’s been awhile since I pursued this end, what with my happily single status, but I may be ready to give it another go. After all, I’ve got some months ahead of me before law school, and I’m freakin’ tabula rasa when it comes to dating right now—no boyfriend, no big crush, just happy old me and my metaphorical cats.

As I prepare to enter this game again, I find myself thinking about how to craft the perfect profile. How do I define me in some choice words and colorful examples? What interests best sum up my vibrant personality? And where is the hottest picture I have? Arguably the answer to the third question on this list is the most important. David Sedaris may have said, “If you’re not cute, you may as well be clever,” but clever ain’t gonna cut it if no one clicks on the old profile (up next for discussion: is online dating making us EVEN MORE shallow?).

I’m not sure why I put effort into it at all. 80% of male profiles read like one of the three following bad examples:

1. HI BB! HOW R U 2DAY? IM JUST LOOKIN AROUND HERE 4 A GOOD GIRL. U LIKE MY MUSCLES? THEIR BIG. I GO 2 THE GYM A LOT. I JUST WANT A GIRL TO TREAT REAL GOOD. I OPEN THE DOOR 4 MY LADYS. I TAKE GOOD CARE OF THEM.

First of all, why are you writing in all caps? Are you shouting? I suppose I shouldn’t expect a dude to be an eloquent wordsmith to be a good boyfriend. But, for better or for worse, we’re living in an age of text communication. Learn to write. Nothing says “I’m dumb” like “Hey bb how r u 2day?” And nothing makes me want to punch someone in the face more than 9 million spelling mistakes in an email. I’m only looking out for the guy’s future interest.

2. I’m looking for a nice girl. I’ve been burned a lot by women, and I just want to find someone to settle down.

Oh, heyyy bitter-with-baggage-seeks-same. I’m sorry, would you tell a girl that at the bar? No, because she’d immediately decline your drink. Guess what? It works the same on match.com, only she doesn’t even have to waste time making small talk.

3. I’m a laid-back easygoing guy equally comfortable going out for a night on the town or curling up on the couch and watching a movie.

Really? You mean you’re so flexible you like to go out OR stay in? Why didn’t you say so? I like to go out, too! And I like to stay in sometimes! We have so much in common! We’re soul mates! We can probably talk or not talk for hours!

Occasionally, I happen upon someone who manages to express a promising sense of humor, a reasonable intellect, and a remarkable aptitude for grammar. Sadly, though, I know from my days of writing training materials that 93% of communication comes from body language and tone of voice. This means that what a person writes in a profile constitutes about 7% of what they’re going to actually be like in real life. The most articulate person in writing may have a lazy eye in real life. Or be unable to talk about anything other than Dutch and Flemish art. Or have a nasal voice. Or talk so slow I find myself trying to finish their sentences to move things along. Need further proof? Look at me. Trust me, I’m better in writing.

Aside from the pitfalls of expression through the written word, I guess there’s still that possibility that people doing online dating are lying in their profiles. I am always baffled by this phenomenon. You mean we’re not all a bunch of overgrown teenagers just looking for validation? Fine, I might say that I work out 5 times a week, which is really only true if by “work out” I mean “take the stairs instead of the elevator.” And, okay, sometimes I list things like “outdoor adventures” in my hobbies, and by “outdoors” I mean “patio” and by “adventure” I mean “happy hour.” But that’s just error in interpretation, right? That’s not prohibiting me from finding my soul mate, is it? It’s just making me more relatable, especially in the great athletic state of Colorado, obviously.

I mean, if I were totally honest, my profile would read like this:

“Hey guys, what’s up? I’m a total fart in the wind. I’ve had 9 different careers, lived in 4 different cities, amassed 100,000 airline miles, and dated about 30 people since graduating from college. I think this is pretty rad, actually, because it means I’ve done more cool things than you. I’m settling down, though, and becoming a lawyer. That is, unless my book deal comes through or someone invests in my latest business plan.

My most recent relationships have all lasted somewhere between 5 minutes and 6 weeks, and I like to leave things comfortably in a gray area in case something better comes along. If you decide to get in touch, there’s a good chance I’m going to think you’re dumb. There’s also a good chance I’m not going to want to introduce you to my friends. But that’s okay because I’m not really looking for a boyfriend right now, just a cute dude to make me feel pretty for a little while.

If I like you, we can date for a bit, then I’ll move to law school and obsess over you for a couple of years as the one who got away. Sound good? Drop me a line!”

It’s still up in the air as to whether I’ll actually embark upon this journey again, but if I do, I think I’ll keep a play-by-play going here. 1 in 8. Everyone’s doing it.

The game of dating is ridiculous enough when it’s just about 1 boy and 1 girl, but there’s a periphery dynamic that should never be underestimated in making it even more complicated: the ex factor.

I’m not talking bitter with baggage seeks same. Obviously, dating the dude recently split from his pedestal girl presents its own set of ghastly challenges. I’ve had enough of convincing a current fling that I’m not the same kind of crazy as his last girlfriend to last me for an entire lifetime. Likewise, if I have to hear one more time about a dude being “unavailable” because he’s not over the ex he broke up with 4 years ago, I’m going to light someone on fire. I get it. She was beautiful, witty, charming, smelled nice, had good lotion, and has a successful career in HR. We all have that person. But are the rest of us sitting around and becoming either celibate monks or love-less prostitutes over the relationship that probably wasn’t THAT great anyway? No.

The ex factor I’m talking about, however, is the required interaction everyone has with the array of exes they’ve dated. This ex factor complicates relationships, but it also provides very real drama in single life.

Few human interactions are more fraught with danger than the obligatory catch-up drink with an ex flame. Depending on the ex in question and the nature of the prior relationship, this customary social event can resemble a wide variety of experiences including but not limited to Guantanamo torture, a quick draw duel, or a snuggly blanket. But even if I’m lucky enough to have the blanket situation, I’m always pretty sure I’m gonna get a rash of some sort from the interaction (and, no, not in that way… ew).

There are really only three reasons to plan an interaction with an ex: desperation, desire to tell the former significant other about how great my life is (especially when that great life includes a new great man friend), or the ex experiencing one of those two situations and thus berating me into meeting for a drink. Not one of these is a particularly pleasant reason to plan a reunion. All three of these foreshadow a convoluted interaction.

The desperation scenario is the main source of ex factor drama in singlehood, and it usually stems from a slew of confusing emotions plus a period of time in the barren desert of not dating. As time increases since my last romantic interaction with a male, I find myself reflecting on my exes, trying to dissect what went wrong. Inevitably, I’m unable to put my finger on the problem in at least a few cases. Maybe the timing was wrong, I’ll think. Maybe we’re right for each other but I didn’t give it a chance. I should just call him; no harm giving it a shot. When I’m trying to decide if I’m going to go through with a desperation-motivated meeting, I spend several hours feeling guilty, strangely vindictive, coy, and shameful, usually all kind of at the same time, over opening old wounds just because I’ve been experiencing a romantic dry spell. This oft results in a lot of phone tag and rain-checking.

Eventually, I decide to “live life with gusto” and go for it, which of course results in a highly unsatisfactory interaction. If he’s as desperate as I am, we make small talk for awhile, going through the key points of life since we were last beneath the sheets or out on dates, and remember exactly why we didn’t connect. And then we either drink enough to forget our lack of romantic spark and do the deed, or neither of us gets up the gumption to make a move and we both leave frustrated and dejected that we couldn’t even score that one. If he’s not as desperate as I am, I get more and more aggressive as the night proceeds, usually only stopping when he firmly tells me he’s not interested. And then, hey, frustration and dejection. Cool.

It gets even more complicated when my motivation is gloating about my happiness, usually because it brings another romantic player into the mix. The initiation of an ex interaction of this type initially comes from a more secure place. I think, what a delightful young fellow, that ex-love! I wonder what he’s up to these days! My life is wonderful, and his probably is, too. We should get together and talk about how wonderful our lives are! Maybe our significant others could meet! Maybe we could take an adult vacation to a Sandals resort in the Caribbean!

Nice, right? Except that in the back of my head, I’m reflecting on the power dynamics of our former relationship and subtly positioning myself to keep the upper hand. Not so nice. My approach with setting up this kind of meeting is more aggressive: facebook wall posts, text messages, voicemails that start “How ARE you?” The badgering gets so persistent that my poor boyfriend-past finally runs out of excuses, breaks down tortured witness style, and agrees to a drink. And then we spend an evening in subtle competition trying to out-life each other, feeling, in the end, both self-righteous and a little insecure. Occasionally this interaction completely backfires, my significant other having done way more cool things than me since our last meeting, and then I spend the night irritated at him, irritated at my current fling (who I’m sure is then so glad he pretended he was so cool about me meeting my ex out), and irritated with myself for putting myself in an ego-deflating situation.

Being on the receiving end of an aggressive attempt to reunite is possibly the most dangerous place of all. When the ex is the one pushing for the happy catch-up, I find myself analyzing his intentions with the careful obsession I normally reserve for a new crush. First, I have to determine whether he’s desperate or whether he wants to tell me about his great life. Then I have to assess my life state, deciding which game I want to play. Finally, I have to time all interaction so as to not appear too interested, thus preserving the nature of obligation and the upper-hand. And even my careful detective skills can lead to wrong conclusions, setting me up for a night of aggressive pursuit when I thought we were going to be talking about our careers, significant others, plans to buy dogs, and general level of life-perfection.

With every interaction, there’s always a risk of bad decision, and that’s what the ex factor really is. After all, the attraction and [perceived] connection has been there before, who’s to say a beer or 10 won’t bring it back? 9 times out of 10, morality and text messages from a current fling keep me on the straight and narrow, but life gets a lot more complicated when I go in to the game ready to gloat about my new love interest… and wake up in my ex’s house the next day with an inexplicable rekindled crush, having drunkenly justified this action because I’m not yet official with the new dude. Suddenly, I’ve derailed a future relationship and reignited a lot of disgusting emotions that will probably send me down the road, listening to Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel” and living in a moment of blinding nostalgia.

When does this end? Why do some moments of my life turn into some weird ex vortex, where I’m unable to escape love (or lust) long lost? I thought the games died with the relationship. Apparently that’s only the beginning. Hooray. Let the games begin.