...or was he?

Sorry kids, I have no tales of alleged depravity to tell. Despite the advance disclosures piquing my (e:twisted,40182) interest, I couldn't bring myself to ask the guy sitting across from me for specifics. At least not at Starbucks over a Tazo tea. Although I'm sure the Market and 10th Street crowd has heard it all.

He did give me a golden opportunity when he asked if there was anything else I'd like to ask him. Since he had wisely ignored the question when I asked it by email, I decided to do the same and instead referred back to the only other question I had asked. Yes, he does have a grill. But it's inconveniently located in Oakland, NOT Hayes Valley as one would assume from the location indicated by his post. (I really hate that. But at least he works near Hayes Valley, so I let him get away with it.)

Anyway -- long story short -- I don't see myself traipsing over to Oakland for an impromptu BBQ. (Or taking him up on his offer to bring his grill to me. If I had a place to grill, I'd get my old grill back. But right now, the only feasible grilling spot would almost certainly set the house on fire. And I didn't go through hell to get the place the way I want it to burn it down.)

I also don't see myself exploring whatever his perception of "strange ways" might be. There's just no attraction there. And he didn't strike me as someone who would have much to elaborate on the topic. (Although as he put it in his email this morning, "do psychopaths ever look like one?" True enough! Whatever that means.)

Now, I know what you're thinking (or would be thinking if you had read his whole post). How did I distill his heart-wrenchingly epic self-portrait down to those two questions? I admit it, I'm a woman of simple needs. And right now one of those needs is grilled meat. You have no idea how far that could get you.

I do have my limits though. Ok, maybe I let my imagination run away with me, especially since his post was extremely tame by craigslist standards. But when I got the reply back from "nursemalenurse@somewhere.non," my first thought was naturally, "oh, he's a male nurse." THEN I started thinking, wait a minute. Maybe he just likes to impersonate a male nurse. Or impersonate a male impersonating a female nurse. Or maybe he's a male who likes to nurse. Or maybe male nurse is code for something I never even dreamed of. Yeah, that's probably it.

Well, turns out he is indeed a male nurse (rehab and detox). Don't know about any of the other stuff, but as you can imagine, from there it was a short jump to all kinds of other possible conclusions hidden between the lines. As I've written before, I'm not big on [inlink]twisted,36385[/inlink] labels, so clues like that are likely to go right over my head. I may have overcompensated in this case, though. Still, as much as I love animals, if you're looking for a partner in bestiality, I'm not the girl for you. That much I know for sure. (What you do on your own time with a consenting animal is your own business, though.)

Back to the posting board!

For reasons I'd rather not go into right now, I found myself taking the OK Cupid personality test again. I wasn't expecting or looking for a different score, but was still surprised when I got exactly the same result as (e:twisted,36664). Maybe there is something to these tests after all? Anyway...

Even though it's been more than a year since I first took that test and filled out my profile, I picked two of the same adjectives to describe myself (philosophical and observant). I was completely stumped to think of a third one though, so I finally picked "indecisive." (That should get me lots of dates!) I wish I could say that was just an inside joke, but lately it seems all too true. It's not that I don't like making decisions, it's just that I hate closing out my other options. And that's pretty much what a decision is, after all.

Which may be why I'm still squarely situated in The Window Shopper camp. Although I really haven't had much time to do any window shopping since I moved to SF, which is a crying shame. I was just thinking how a little recreational shopping could be just the thing to celebrate finally moving into my own place and getting all my crap out of storage and getting my life back instead of spending every weekend at Home Depot. (I still have a few more Home Depot weekends to go, but the end is in sight.) As much as I love my contractors, I'm really ready for them to go away. It's like having four boyfriends wake you up at 7am every morning for the same thing -- just not the thing you want right at that moment.

Anyway, in a bout of sleeplessness left over from the nine hour Italy time difference, I was trying on a few imaginary candidates for size. (Let's face it, there are always options. Maybe options you shouldn't exercise, but there are worse ways to lull yourself back to sleep.) In any case, my mind is running through the drill when all of a sudden I flash back to one of the OK Cupid questions. Something like, "do you imagine breaking up with someone before you've even gone out with them?" Of course I answered no. Well, in the cold dark of night, turns out one of the scripts my mind plays out is the break-up scene. I know that sounds terrible, but I guess I want to have an exit strategy before I get involved in anything. Sometimes there's a good reason for that, like if you're thinking of dating a coworker or a neighbor -- someone you're going to have to see every day even if things don't go well. Better make sure it's worth getting into, and probably smart to lay the groundwork to get out gracefully. But I think I do it regardless. Which might be a tad cynical.

I honestly didn't know that about myself. So much for my powers of observation, haha.

p.s. -- The Kaiser Chiefs were fucking brilliant last night (new user sound). The Good The Bad & The Queen are on tap for tomorrow and Arctic Monkeys on Tuesday. Maybe that's enough distraction for now.

Ok, get this. Another craigslist style non-love story.

So this guy seems interesting from his post -- down-to-earth, enjoys going to "alt bands kind of concerts." So we decide to meet for a beer at Lucky 13. I recognize him from his photo, although my suspicions raised by the blur-motion over-flashed quality bear true. Just goes to show the mind fills in what it wants if you leave something to the imagination. Anyway, he's not bad-looking, and god knows I'm no grand prize. So we get a couple beers and settle into a table by the jukebox.

I"ll just cut to the chase here instead of boring you with the middle part.

The next day I send him the "nice to meet you" email, thanking him for the beer and saying next time it'll be on me. I was a little conflicted about that, because I didn't feel any sparks and couldn't tell if he did. So I'm not sure if I want to give the green light, whatever that means.

Let me just back up here and say, no one could have been happier if our eyes had locked across a crowded a bar, and we spontaneously abandoned our still foamy Racer 5s, hopped on his motorcycle and dashed back to his place to screw our brains out. But it didn't happen that way. Sigh.

So, back to reality.

He writes back:

Hey Lisa - Thanks for the email. I like the music and tech connections, but I gotta admit that when you left I thought you weren't interested, while I would have been happy to go to one of our places, get high, and listen to music. :) Perhaps I should have suggested that.

I have plans for tonight and have work going on intermittently through the weekend, but if you wanted to come over and hang out for a bit, that would be cool. Give me a call tomorrow or send your #. Ending with his number.

So I'm thinking we're on the same page, and this is a good opening to keep the expectations on track, whatever that means. So I write back:

Hey Jeff - I'm not sure exactly how interested I am, to be honest. I'm a bit of a loner, and I tend to think too much (a habit I'm trying to break). It's a combination that has made it very easy for me to talk myself out of things in the past (another habit I'm trying to break). All I'm saying is, you seem interesting, and I'd like to get to know you better -- even if we just end up being friends, or another craigslist story. That's enough for me for now, if it's enough for you.

That being said, listening to music and getting high sounds like a great way to get to know each other. I have to tell you though, I'm a lightweight in that regard and prefer to stay that way. But a little goes a long way, and I'd be happy to join you some time. btw, I'm not telling you this as a set-up to take advantage of me. ;-)

So he writes back:

Well OK then. Pretty much what I perceived. No worries at all.

Can I be somewhat crass, and suggest that I really wondered, as I was sitting across from you at the bar last night, if we could just be lovers, knowing that we could also occasionally do stuff together outside the bedroom. Something about you stirred the carnal within me, and I wondered if we could speak better with our bodies than our words. I would like a regular lover without much in the way of strings. I'm safe and clean, selective with women preferring quality over quantity. It might just nourish all that each of us needs.

Give it a thought, then stop if it stirs something else and give it a go. We could have fun.

So a few things immediately run through my mind. First, I'm relieved the guy was at least attracted to me enough to make the suggestion. Second, that sounds like a refreshing and appealing idea -- I just wish I felt more of an attraction in return. Third, wait a minute? Is he saying I'm a boring conversationalist? I think I'm offended by that! ;-)

Ok, so maybe I do think too much. I'm not one to kiss and tell (although everything up to that part is fair game, apparently), but I think it's ironic I haven't even kissed the guy, yet here I am blogging about whether or not I should meet him for a sex date tonight. Is that weird or is it just me? Don't answer that.

UPDATE:

Ok, THAT was a bad idea. Don't ever let me do that again.

I made first contact with a guy I met on craigslist last night. First off, the pre-game was flawless - short, quick, to the point - just the way I like it. Three email volleys over one short hour and we had a date set up for the next evening. Anything longer than that is just asking for trouble. Besides, why should I type my life story when I can tell it to you over a nice beer in a dive bar?

So I can tell right away he's practical and realistic - which might sound boring but scores very high with me. I get to the bar first, which lives up to it's description, so there's another point in his favor. I do a quick walk-through and don't see anyone matching his description, so I order a beer at the bar. A table full of bike courier types taking full advantage of the all day Monday happy hour immediately call me over. I can't understand a damn word they're saying, but there's much fuss over the scarf I wore as my identifiable feature (red carnations being out of season). So I'm thinking I must have walked by him after all, and hot damn! these guys may be drunk but they're darn cute! Although much younger than the guy I'm supposed to be meeting, so no such luck.

I reluctantly disengage myself and grab a booth at the back of the bar to wait. Mr. Practical shows up right on schedule within the 15 minute window he gave me. He gets a beer and the life storytelling begins.

I won't even go into all the unexpected commonalities we turned up over two beers, like moving here from Boston 4-5 years ago, working for rival tech publishers - which gave us the context to appreciate and the ideal positioning to launch into the Internet age. Seriously, if you weren't in the thick of it at that time there's no way to describe it.

Oh yeah, and this is for (e:Paul). When one of the IDG companies he worked for went belly up in the dot com bust, he bought their assets - including two $100k Sun Servers - for a mere $1,000 total to start his own business. Sorry - he already resold them so I can't get you any deals.

Plus he has a Border Collie he adopted from the SPCA. 10 points for that.

So it's like, Bingo!, right? But there was no chemistry - from my side anyway. Is that too much to ask for? He seemed to be into me - walked me to BART, kiss on the cheek, maybe we can catch some live music later this week - all that. Or maybe he's just more realistic than I am. I just don't know any more. If only there were some DIP switches to make that part work it would be so much easier.

So now I have to write the Dear John email (yeah, his name really is John) in response to his email asking me for my phone number. I'll tell him I enjoy hanging out with him, but I don't feel a romantic attraction which I know is what he is looking for. But if he's interested in doing things together as friends, I'd be up for that.

Sounds harsh - it's not like he's butt-ugly or anything, so can I really know I'm not attracted to him this quickly? I once talked to another craigslist guy who was trying to get over his ex. He told me she wasn't at all his "type" physically, so he was surprised he fell for her so hard. I told him attraction is a subjective thing - when you grow to like someone/something, your impression can change too. Maybe the first time you looked at sushi you thought "that can't possibly taste good!" But after trying and liking it, all of a sudden when you see sushi you think "my god! that looks so delicous!" He got that.

Still, since we're talking about a men for women posting I'd rather go on the record with how I'm feeling right now. If we do continue going out and he turns out to be sushi - or I become more realistic - there's always the option to update later.

Back to the bingo board.