I recently was dating someone exclsuively. For 21 days. It ended Thursday.

Correction: I ended it. Well, at least I’m the one who pulled the ‘break-up’ trigger.

Let’s back up 21 days to the 1st date, shall we?

***

Had a great phone call with Leigh — one of the best in recent memory. She was sharp and funny. Her pictures were hard to read, but clear enough she was attractive. She was a nurse. And worked weird hours — 4 days on, 4 days off. Oh, I can deal with that — I can hang with her the “free” four, I thought naively.

She lives a bit far, in another city, but one next to LA and meets me halfway for a drink. She’s right on time and OMG, really, really attractive. Redhead — BUSTY — which I didn’t really know about until I saw her in person — blue grey eyes, black leather boots.

During our date, she put her hand on my arm and at one point, reached over and touched my cheek (this is why to ALWAYS sit at the bar) — which has maybe happened 2X in 20 years.

We had a great time, concluding with a kiss on the escalator and more kissing in the parking garage.

***

2nd date: 4 days later – I drive to her city and surprise her with bowling. I propose kissing when we hit a spare and french kissing when we hit a strike. This makes the game even more exciting. 2 1/2 games later we are back at her house and probably go a little too far than we should have on a 2nd date. And I end up sleeping over. (She did live 30 miles away and it was 1am or something.)

***

3rd date: A few days after that — maybe 4 or 5 — she comes by after work. At about 9pm. I feed her and we go to bed. She leaves in the AM.

****

4th date: She comes over and makes me this amazing dinner — organic rosemary chicken with risotto. She’s a bit stand-off-ish — not as affectionate. Yes, she’s busy making me dinner, but I feel something’s amiss. Then she doesn’t sleep over (which I had assumed she would). She makes dinner, we make out and she leaves.

****

Between the 4th and 5th date, she calls me and there was a mini-crisis and even when the crisis was over, was really mean and mouthy to me. Example: “Hey, sorry I’ve been the girl lately (I was the one who liked talking about the relationship, where it was going, blah blah)….” and she snaps, “Oh, you mean for the last 41 years?”

I felt all the good will and love for her fly out of my body. It was like she hit me in the balls. With words. Really without good reason.

It really stuck in my craw…

(to be continued)…

Sometimes people have Aspergers. Sometimes I end up on dates with them.

Yesterday I talked on the phone with a really cute, nerdy girl who had I been e-mailing and IM’ing on match — once we started talking, the red flags began to go up — she began to take over the convo (“Where do you live? I live in Silver Lake!”) get really excited about small details (“There’s all these handwritten signs around here and a guy with no teeth who sells corn from a trash can he wheels around on a cart and also…”)

Uh-oh. I think she asked me one question in a 25 minute conversation — where I lived.

And when I got off the phone it started to make sense more — especially her job, academic researcher. And she sounded like a hyper 12 year old, not a 35 year old woman.

Anyway, that wasn’t the worst one.

In early 2010, I went out with a woman who was a well established film director in her native county (actually kind of famous, like had magazine articles written about her) — we had talked before meeting and she did talk a lot and wasn’t picking up my vocal cues but I just chalked it up to her being nervous and the Skype we were using instead of the phone.

We met at a cafe in Venice — and she was very striking — and tall — BUT TALKED NON-STOP FOR AN HOUR AND FIVE MINUTES. And maybe asked me one thing (that had a short answer). The last 15 minutes were her telling me EVERY DETAIL about the new screenplay she was writing. So LA. Sooooo Asspergers. It felt like my face was on a stairmaster — just the barrage of little words.

I drove her to her car where I noticed she seemed to want to kiss me and that she had what seemed to be a small cold sore growing on her lip. I hugged her, she got out and I drove home and took a nap.

The sad part is, MONTHS LATER (like 4 or 5), she e-mailed me a long-ish letter (a couple of paragraphs) and asked me if I wanted to be FRIENDS. This just crushed me. This girl is so alone, so lonely, she reaches out to a guy who didn’t call her for 2nd date months earlier?

I didn’t know if I should reach out with a polite, no thanks (where would I begin?). I was dating someone at the time and ran it past her and she said forget it.

So I did. I still feel a little bad.

Anytime I hear “Hey Ya” on the radio — sometimes even on a date if it’s played in a bar — I can’t help but snap back to the night this laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadddddy gave me a little case of something-something. Nothing major — in fact, it’s so minor I hadn’t even heard of it. And kids give it to each other with wet towels or something. It went away and will never come back.

What happened was I was on a 2nd date with my second tall woman (5’9) at her house in Nov of 2003 — Nov. 1st to be exact. We made out for hours and watched SNL (OutKast was the musical guest) and when it got to be around 2am, I asked if I could sleep on the sofa not wanting to be on the road that late. She kept saying, “If you stay here we are going to sleep together.” I kept saying, “No, I just don’t want to have an accident driving home (she was about 25 miles away) and I will be here on the couch.”

After a bunch of back of forth in this arena, we start making out again and then at some point, she goes, “Let’s have sex.”

Oh! Okay…we have sex — with a CONDOM — she doesn’t seem to be enjoying it and I don’t get off.

In the morning, I’m thinking I’m going to get off, but no, she rushes me out of her house.

Then I get an e-mail saying she had fun, but doesn’t want to have sex or see me again.

About a week later, I notice a little something-something (not crabs or a rash, btw) and go to the doctor. He’s like “You got an STD.”

I freaked. ‘What — I’m so low risk! I wore a condom.”

“It was in her crotch.”

Damn that 70′s bush she was rockin’!!!!

Then I find out the medication isn’t covered by my insurance — so that turned into a $325 date.

And the doctor encourages me to let her know.

I didn’t want to call or send an e-mail.

So I wrote something on a 3 x 5 card (“Hey, hi, remember me…listen, I just went to the …. “) and put it an envelope and mailed.

Exactly 1.5 days later (probably as soon as she walked through the door at 5:32pm), she calls.

I let the machine get it. And I erase it w/o even listening to the message.

My 2nd date philosophy is a simple one: If they were attractive enough, nice enough, interesting enough (or interested in me), I’d ask them on a 2nd date. Maybe I wasn’t / I’m in LOVE, but thought/think that’s there’s a little something there, I initiate another get-together.

I like to give women a chance I think a lot of women don’t give me.

If I was bored or sensed they were bored or not interested or they weren’t cute enough, I wouldn’t / I don’t.

I have a feeling that women (ok, a generalization) don’t operate like this — if they didn’t feel butterflies or didn’t see you as their future husband during the coffee date or don’t see you ravaging them in bed, they don’t bother. Too many buses coming down the pike to bother with any one particular bus.

I did have a date about 2.5 years ago that went so well, I actually walked away thinking “hey, I think that girl will be my next girlfriend” and was absolutely dumbfounded when she didn’t go out with me again (she pulled the “2nd date shuffle” on me). About a year ago and wrote her and kindly asked her if she remembered me and that I was having a hard time getting 2nd dates if there was something I did that turned her off.

Her reply:

Honestly, I don’t remember that well.  I know you didn’t say or do anything wrong – I would remember that.  I think I was exhausted by dating at that point and a little bit burned out on the process.  I was going on about three first dates a week and expecting some miracle or lightning bolt to happen on one of them.  I rarely went on any 2nd dates – because I didn’t hear back from people or I was too tired to respond to someone – and eventually just cancelled my membership out of exhaustion.

Three dates a week? That’s even too much for me and I date pretty frequently.

A few weeks back, I was contacted by the Dr. Phil show — they must have really wanted me — they called and e-mailed within minutes of each attempt. (I had written them in the Spring thinking it would be interesting to have footage of me on the show for my one man show regarding dating).

When they had initially e-mailed me back in the Spring, I had written them back and said I wasn’t so much interested in being a guest per se, but rather as a comic / panelist when they have these “Men Vs. Women” men’s panels occasionally. I wrote saying I know they tend to have celebrities like Jon Lovitz on these panels, but also not famous comics like Kirk Fox. Maybe if someone got sick, maybe I could fill in and listed my credits.

Didn’t hear back.

Then in mid December, they called and e-mailed me for a show called “Dating Disasters.” I wasn’t on board and this little casting P.A. was pissed. “But you e-mailed US” “Usually people are excited when the Dr. Phil show calls.” I reiterated my interest in being a panelist rather than a guest and she screeched, “Wait a minute — you’ve had 250 dates and you want to be on the show AS AN EXPERT!?”

She had a point, but I did say, “If someone threw 250 baseballs at you, you might get good at hitting them. I’m good at first dates.”

When she continued to badger me, I said, “Look, I LIVE here. I used to be in the ‘Business’ – I get it – I know how things work.” It got a little contentious. “Well, I won’t take any more of your time,” she said.

***

Well, the show aired on Wed — it was called “Why Am I Still Single?”

The guy they chose needed the help (and maybe publicity) way, way, way more than me. He was a true sad sack with NO balls or personality (or hair, sadly), 39 years old, NEVER had a girlfriend (and wasn’t bad looking in his 20′s — they showed a quick photo), did stupid “stunts” like I did (stood out on the street in a costume with a sign begging for a wife — a little different, but still). Think he only had sex once (from a woman who admitedly felt sorry for him).

The guy had NO spine, nooooo confidence — he really needed a lot more work than the show could offer (weight loss, therapy, trainer, stylist — guy totally needs to wear some kind of english cap or something). It wasn’t so much a man as he was a wounded and beaten puppy in a man costume. He all but shook in other people’s presences. Granted, he could have been nervous being on TV, but it was much more than that.

He went on two dates which they filmed for the show — one with the sassy, kooky, former heavy lady who had been on the show before (and left at the altar maybe 20 minutes before her wedding) and a very attractive blond. The Blond said very nice things about their date, but you could tell she would never FUCK HIM and seemed to be hoping he or the show wouldn’t ask her for a second date.

He also revealed that his mother abandoned him as a child and basically never came back (and is still MIA) — he had “I AM UNLOVABLE” all over him. I could smell it from my TV screen.

The day after a 3rd date with a Hipster Redhead I had a lot of pop culture stuff in common with, Wed. Dec 14th, I woke up feeling miserable — back killing me, head throbbing, throat sore. Followed by chills, fever.

I felt so shitty that Thursday night I took a Tramadol (or maybe a few) which literally knocked me out until Saturday. Friday just went bye-bye.

And basically it went on like this in varying degrees until like yesterday — 3.5 weeks.

Being sick really put a crimp in my dating life — I think The Hipster Redhead lost interest (I was kind of annoyed she didn’t offer to get me anything which might have made me like her more), despite the fact she wanted to have sex with me the night before. (I said it was too soon for me — I’m such a girl now!)

And I really had to work hard to keep an English Girl’s interest going — texting her to hang in there and calling despite my having coughing fits. It’s a shame because she had nothing to do those last 2 weeks of December and we could have really gotten to know one another and hung out in empty LA.

A Drunk Cougar who hit on me on Dec 10th as I waited for take out across the street wanted to have drinks and / or lunch with me after Xmas and I couldn’t (especially since I wanted to kiss her and I could barely get out of bed). It seems like she’s moved on.

So now, finally, I’ve come back into the world of the living.

2012 will be the year I find a LTR girlfriend! It has to be!

She emailed you.

Today, 8 hours ago

I like to change things up, depending on my mood and what I have to do each day. If I’m going to a band rehearsal I will probably rock the Joan Jett look, if I am teaching (which most days I am…) I dress like a teacher – trying not to look at all attractive so that the little boys don’t have crushes on me. I would probably say that I lean toward the goofy Star Wars pic of me though. That is me at heart. The rest is just part of the game.

So where are you from on the East Coast??

-Francine

1 HOURS LATER:

Today, 7 hours ago

I have to be honest, I don’t know why I am on this website. I have no interest in dating anyone. Well… at least my conscious mind is telling me that. Silly I know. You are totally right about all of those girl bass players. They rock! I just found out the other day that there is this woman bass player (Carol Kaye) that recorded soooo much stuff. She was the studio bass player for most of the Beach Boys albums. Crazy. – Francine

1 HOUR AFTER THAT:

She emailed you.

Today, 6 hours ago

I’m not really sure… maybe b/c I was burned so bad in my last relationship that I have no desire to be with anyone or perhaps it’s because I am convinced that I am going to be traveling soon and constantly have this unsettled feeling, or maybe I just haven’t met the right person. Who knows. Sorry!! Good luck with your search. You seem like an amazing guy, I just don’t want to lead you on.

Another weird story.

I went to a speed dating event in fall of 2008 — a “Cougar” speed dating event — it turned out to be a lot of Plain Janes and heavyset and black and Asian women in their 30′s and 40′s and very few men.

The first woman I was matched with was an angular, slightly uptight woman in her mid- 40′s. Think Meryl Streep’s odd sister. Hair up or pulled back (not a good look for a dating event). Her name was the name of a very popular nonsensical children’s song in the 60′s — like “Mahna Mahna Ma.” Apparently her older sister couldn’t stop singing the song and kept pointing to her — as a newborn — and her parents just named her “Mahna.” It was the Sixties and it sounded vaguely exotic so they went for it.

I happened to know the daughter of the guy who wrote the song she was named after and mentioned it straight away which got her attention.

She was an odd bird, this woman — an artist who made weird things out of balsa wood and painted them. Recently divorced, she was living with her sister and their kids. There was something vaguely attractive about her even though her features were bird-like — she was pretty witty which was a nice change.

Then our 3 or 4 minutes were up and the speed dating went on. When it was over, we ended up walking out together and she was 5’10 (something you don’t notice at speed dating where all the women remain seated.). I walked her to her car. She awkwardly gave me her number.

We made a date. She meets me for coffee across the street and wow — she looked amazing — her hair was down, she was wearing a tight white stretchy shirt and was unusually busty — something I hadn’t noticed before. She was still a little weird — I couldn’t put my finger on it — definately some depression in her history (I think we both might have bonded over that)…

I thought about it for a day and then sent her an e-mail. I was attracted to her, but she seemed weird and our rhythms seemed off. But I wanted to fool around with her. So, I tried something that strangely worked before — I sent her e-mail that said I was attracted to her, but felt we weren’t boyfriend/girlfriend material, but still strongly drawn to her and didn’t know where she was in her life and didn’t mean to offend her, but if she wanted to “explore” that purely physical attraction, I was game.

She e-mailed me back — she was in!

We made a date for her to come over my apartment. Here’s where it all went wrong.

She shows up, hair pulled back or up, wearing a smells-slightly-musty old lady sweater. As soon as she came in I felt there was something wrong. She sits on the couch, I ask her if she wants some wine? She says yes, I go into the fridge a take out a bottle of white.

I hold it out to her and ask if white is OK.

Her response: “Is that the wine you use to get women drunk with?”

You know those stories where a guy is on a date with a woman and she’s willing / about to sleep with him and then he says something so incredibly stupid, her libido takes a nose drive and she is done, done, done. All her good feelings and desire for sex just gets wiped clean like a shaken Etch-A-Sketch? Well, that’s exactly how I felt. It just flew out of me. I totally got that.

“Um, no….it’s the wine I cook with.”

We sit on the sofa and she moves to the OPPOSITE END of my 8 foot couch and we watch the documentary “King of Kong.” She’s being really prickly, she’s like a few feet away from me, I don’t know what’s going on, so I figure I’ll let her drink her wine to come off the ceiling.

About 20 minutes in, she pops: “Hey! I don’t get what’s going on here — you invited me over to fool around and we are just watching this movie!”

Kinda expecting this, I said very calmly: “Look, I don’t know what’s going on either — you’re sitting on the other end of the couch, you made that crack about me getting women drunk — you don’t seem like you want to be here at all.”

She acknowledged this — said she was nervous, said she wanted to be there.

I said, okay, well, let’s kiss and see what happens.

We are standing up at this point and I kiss her — and NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. Plus I got a wiff of that sweater.

“I’m sorry, I’m not feeling it” I said or something like that and she literally fled my apartment. Like within seconds of me saying that.

I’m not proud of all this, but I think this woman, conciously or unconciously sabotaged our make out session. The hair, the sweater, the wine crack, the couch distance. I mean, if you were going over someone’s home to specifically sexually “explore” with them, wouldn’t you dress a little sexy? Act a little sexy?

Luckily, I don’t hear that 60′s kid song much.

When I was in my 20s and 30s, I had always (mistakenly) believed being thin was a “plus.” I was not fat (which is quote, unquote “bad”), so the opposite — skinny — must be attractive to women, no? No. I was sooooooooooo misguided in this thinking, as I was in most matters regarding women and dating.

At 30, when I moved to L.A., I weighed about 125 pounds at about 5’7. I was within my BMI, but just barely above being underweight — 6 pounds less and I would have been on the cusp of underweight. At present, 11 years later, I weigh about 142 — I gained approx. 17 pounds in that time. I still am within my BMI, but more so in the middle of the range.

Women, I’ve found, do not find skinny sexy. Perhaps on a tall / taller man they do (height, I’ve discovered, seems to compensate for a lot).

I’ve had a handful of women not want to date me because they said they weighed more than me — something that had never crossed my mind until it was brought up. I had no problem with their weight, body or shape, sooooooooo….. clearly, I knew NOTHING about women.

Women want to feel small, safe, protected, petite, tossed around in bed and thin, skinny guy — no matter how much he likes her body, her shape, her curves, he is often ‘fuck out of luck.’ (There are women who don’t have this issue — they are few and far between).

I’ve discovered women would even prefer you to be a little heavier, even bordering on overweight. I can’t tell you how many women in my building (all of them, but 1) and in L.A. have these potbellied boyfriends. I’ve never heard a woman think John Goodman or Jack Black is unattractive — their weight is a non-issue (they are celebrities and comics, but that’s a whole other rant…)

So lately I’ve been exercising, lifting weights, doing push ups at least 10 – 15 minutes a day. I’ve been doing this for about 10 days. I’m curious to see if this makes a difference in my dating life.

This must happen to women all the time — men trying to sell them the romantic equivalent of The Brooklyn Bridge. You know, a proposal that feels a little hinky, a little off, pretty much a bad deal for anyone except the seller.

I’ve had a few of these offers in the last few months.

First, was the Mormon Girl — an adorable blond blue-eyed ex-Mormon I met at a BBQ this summer. On our first, fabulous date (she dressed up, was quite charmed by me), we had lunch when she sprung it on me that she “had a live-in boyfriend” (who she thought was gay) and was still married to her Mormon husband, but had broken up with him 5 years earlier.

(We started dating — well, getting intimate — when she said she started sleeping on the couch.)

But the problem was (well, one of them), she would not sleep over — or let her boyfriend know she was dating. And she lived an hour away. So I’d see her for 1/2 a day once a week. And then I found out that her and husband weren’t even separated and she couldn’t divorce him because “he was family.” Oh, and they hung out at his house EVERY EVENING. A piece of information I really could have used 7 weeks earlier.

So basically, she wanted to date me, but didn’t want to disrupt her “other life” (boyfriend / husband) — she wanted to live in the same house as the boyfriend, keep him the dark, hang out with her husband, keep him in the dark (he didn’t even know she lived with another man), wanted to sleep with me, but not sleep over — if you flipped the gender, I was basically The Mistress and my lover had a million excuses not to be with me for real (“What? I gotta leave my live in girlfriend? And move out? And move into an apartment? And divorce my ex wife who’s my ‘best friend’? Come on, that’s not fair to ask of me…”)

When I got upset about finding out about her husband’s daily hang outs and was bothered about she didn’t mention that at all in the 7 weeks we dated, she broke up with me (let the irony seep in like butter).

Then today, on Match.com, a GORGEOUS blond woman winks at me. Her screen-name was “BlondieAussie.”

Read her profile — she lives in Australia, but is here on holiday. And looking for an American guy. But has 2 kids. In Australia, I’m guessing. That she has “sometimes.” Which means there’s a dad Down Under. With joint custody.

So I e-mail her for clarification.

This is what comes back: “I love the states. If I made a connection with the right guy it would depend on what we both wanted to do. I would be happy to live in the states.

I have two daughters. 6 and 3 1/2. They are my shining stars. They came with me and had a blast. We stayed in Santa Monica and hung out in that area a lot. Getting to know a guy online is def not my preference however I am looking to find someone I connect with and if that is what it takes then so be it!”

So when I ask for even more clarity, regarding the kids and their dad and if she’s looking an American dude to move THERE (since there are two young kids involved), get this back:

OK so here it is – It is important for me and my career to keep moving forward and Sydney’s arts industry is very limited. I am looking to move OS. My sister, her husband, her son and now daughter are in LA and we are all very close so it seems like a good option.

I do have joint custody but I am the primary carer. Yes I would need a good reason to move permanently to the states and yes I would have to go through the legal system to do so. It may need planning but it is not impossible. OK it’s not as easy as picking up a Sydney guy in the local bar but I am not finding what I am looking for here so I am willing to make an effort to look further.

Okkkkkkkaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy…like I said, not much in it except for the seller.