Today is going to be update day so let's get started with this video of Gracie Lou having some puppy play time. This just goes to show that despite her emo pictures she's not always depressed and dark.

Dean and Deluca?

I’ve spent 95% of my adult life on a college campus where relationships begin over heavy drinking and a random hook up that turns into a 3 year thing that sometimes goes somewhere but usually leads nowhere. So the world of dating is very new to me. Men planning things? Paying? Flirtation with strangers? Gwat??!!

So I went on my first date a few weeks ago. The guy worked in a school and I know I said I was only looking for ibankers but he seemed nice. He called me "adorable" in an email which I should have known was a warning sign. I'm an adult! not a child! And then before I knew what was happening I was being invited to a date at a Starbucks in a heavily populated part of the city. We’re in the most awesome city in the world and you want to go to a Starbucks?! I talked it over with a few people who said that maybe he was just wanting something very neutral. But really we were trying to make chicken out of chicken shit. Is that even a saying? I have no idea.

so there i was on a Wednesday night walking into the most bland looking, empty starbucks at 7pm. I was embarrassed to see myself there. I saw the guy and of course, classic online dating scenario...he was way shorter than he listed himself as being and was balding. But I could see how the pics he took of himself were from good angles and from those good angles he could almost be cute. But from real life angles he was just kind of sad. and i'm not even that into looks but as i soon found out, he really didn't have the personality to make up for his looks. If someone is REALLY hot and you just want to stare at them you can forgive them a terrible personality.

so that was problem number 1. then this little exchange happened

him: did you even know there was a starbucks here?!

me: (confused because there is a starbucks EVERYWHERE! In fact there was one literally around the corner) um....no?

him: yeah can you believe it! there is one right here!

me: um...yeah

He was genuinely surprised and excited about the starbucks in the middle of nyc. ??????????????? As you can imagine it all just went downhill from there. He was really awkward and just stood at the entrance staring at the part of the bar where they serve your finished drinks. I said to him "should we get in line?" His response was jarring "oh i didn't even see a line. I wasn't sure about how this worked." Now did that mean he didn't know how this particular starbucks worked or how any starbucks worked? because THEY ARE ALL THE SAME!! MY GOD!! they are designed to be like catholic mass, identical and easy to follow no matter where in the world you are!

He was a guidance counselor and said he related to the ADD children he worked with. hmmm. He'd gone to a local CUNY school, which i'm not judging, but he was also from manhattan and had never left. he said "i have everything i need here. i can go to the movies, get whatever i want 24/7 from the local corner store, anything else i can get online." oh like CULTURE and AN INTERESTING PERSONALITY!? and he came from a wealthy family so it's not like you can attribute his lack of world savy to being low income or something. he also said that he was sorry for acting so tired because Wednesday's were his longest days. Yet he suggested we get together on Wednesday...

other strange things he said. "do you go to the movies?" obvi i do but when i asked him to elaborate he said he liked "all movies." hmmm. "do you like to work out?" no, not terribly but i said i do specific things occasionally. When asked to elaborate he said he "works out all the time and does everything. that's the only other thing he does other than work or movies." and he didn't look like it, let me tell you. It's just very strange when a person has no sense of humor. strange. So of course i had my back up plans and met the slammers for falafal. And he even texted me a few days later saying he had a great time and wanted to get together again. unfortch before i could write him back to say thanks but no thanks i lost my phone and with it his number. point taken, world.

It was just really random and sad. And while most people would lose faith in humanity after such a date and say things like "i'll never find someone! wah wah wah" i had a different take on the situation. If the majority of the women that are in my dating pool are as boring and uninteresting as this guy then there is like NO competition. I don't want to bag the boring men. I want the interesting fun men because i sort of think that i am interesting and fun. And if the interesting and fun men are going out with women who are as boring as this guy then i'm going to KILL in the world of dating! I can seriously have a conversation with a wall so talking to strangers is not a problem. And lesson learned, i will stick to my plan of wealthy men. because let's be honest, i'm not looking for anything long term.

in the next entry...when "w's" become "v's": my date with an indian man, dot not feather.

"Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever"

So at the ripe old age of 28 I have realized that although I am attracted to tall white men and Indian men the kind of people who share an attraction to me are neither of these groups. I have narrowed my type down to a very specific group of men: short, hairy, half italian half mexican men. yeah, it's that specific. I don’t know what it is about those Italian boys but they love me (sidebar: their mothers HATE me. Not sure why). So when I got on match I thought that things would pretty much mirror real life.

Oh how wrong I was. My first few day on match I listed myself as Hispanic/Latina. I didn’t say that I was Mexican, I just left it at that. In a curious case of events I started getting winks galore from black men and Indian men. Now hear me out, I would gladly date either of these groups and have tried but failed miserably. Let us not forget the Mexican/Punjabi Indian in college who I never met but was sure was my soul mate. Indian men, despite my very in depth knowledge of the culture have never actually pursued me in real life even when i throw myself at them. And black men have absolutely no interest in me. My assumption has always been that men of color feel like first they’d rather pick someone in their racial group and if they are going to date outside of it why not just go for a white girl or an asian girl. Men almost never say “I want me a nice, educated Latina woman with a phd! Yes yes that's the girl for me! i choose the short, mexican, smart girl!” Ask around. It NEVER happens. I assume it’s because it’s seen as dating down.

So back to all of these Indian men who were hitting on me online when i was Latina…They were kind of sad and tragic and had names like “lonelyboy” and stuff like that. But the black men were sending me messages calling me baby and asking me if I salsa danced. I took me a second but I realized that the meaning of the term Latina is quite different on the East Coast. On the West Coast it means taco trucks and cleaning ladies and spicy food and salma hayek. But on the east coast Latina means Puerto Rican or Dominican or loud or salsa or a curvy body or J Lo. Am I J Lo? I think not and my junk leaves much to be desired. So in the interest of not lying to these men I decided that perhaps I should change my status to White because culturally despite my hatred of the terminology I am indeed “whitewashed.” Is this lying to say that I’m white? Well if you believe like me that race is socially constructed than you can say whatever the hell you want.

Being a social scientist I decided to leave my profile exactly the same except for changing my race to white. All things being equal, what would people think….The results: I was still getting hits from the Indian men but his time they were more attractive less pathetic ones. Ibankers!! Consultants!! On top of that I was getting zero black men winking at me and more white men. In fact the education and income level of the men also rose. I was getting men in the 100K plus bracket who were lawyers or had gone to b-school. Very interesting indeed!

But then it felt a little bit like lying and for the sake of the experiment I took it a step further. I changed my race to “other” and left everything else the same. Well you will never guess what happened. No black men at all, the white men abandoned me and the only group that was pursuing me was Indian men. VERY INTERESTING!

So yeah, I’m not really sure what to assume about all of this because when it comes down to it have I ever actually been able to bag an Indian man? Absolutely not.

the next experiment i'm conducting will be changing my height from 5'0 to 5'2. I've noticed that men seem to list 5'2 as their cut off. Like 5'0 is dauntingly small or something. so we'll see what happens. just appreciate that i am sacrificing my dating life for the cause of science and your entertainment!