7 months into a serious relationship, I’ve been having little epiphanies about my single life…perhaps I’ve gained some distance and wisdom on it, rather than reporting from the eye of the Dating Hurricane.

I believe a bad date happens because of at least one of 5 elements:

1. BAD INTEL: You go out with someone and you find you missed important info or weren’t given it. For instance, my friend was set up with a guy with a missing arm – and no one thought to give that poor girl a heads up, “Hey, by the way, he’s missing a major appendage. FYI.” That’s a severe example, but it can also be when someone posts unusually flattering pictures of themselves or their pictures are blurry, far away, in dark bars, etc. and you hope for the best (I’m sure she’s hot and she’s just had terrible, terrible luck being photographed)…which brings me to….
2. LACK OF DUE DILIGENCE: You didn’t vet this person enough before you agreed to a date. Maybe you didn’t talk to them on the phone and relied on your “text chemistry” or “e-mail banter” or how much you seemed to have in common (on paper). I had one of the worst dates with a girl who seemed perfect for me – quirky, young, into pop culture, but she had blurry / far away / sunglasses on / no smiling photos (see Rule #1 above) and we never talked before meeting. I could have caught her weird, socially awkward personality on the phone and wouldn’t have suffered through a painful, painful dinner I, of course, was on the hook for.
3. DIDN’T TRUST YOUR GUT: An acquaintance of mine had a terrible date with a guy who was verbally abusive and mean the entire night. When I asked if she talked on the phone with him, she said she did and there were no red flags. None at all. When I pressed her, she finally admitted he was really sarcastic when they had talked. Perfect example of ignoring a red flag. I talked to dozens of girls who were boring (but nice) and hoped for some kind of personality miracle when we met for coffee and it never happened. People don’t make huge personality shifts between the phone and in-person.
4. IGNORED STANDARD DATING PROCEDURES: Evan Marc Katz had a recent blog about the 10 worst dates people had and more than half could have been avoided by sticking to common sense stuff when meeting a stranger (especially a male stranger) – like always meet in a public place. Many of these people were coming over strange guys’ homes on date 1 or worse, inviting them over to their home (“So, if you don’t want to assault me on Date One, here’s where I live so you can do it at your convenience.”). One even robbed some lady in the middle of the night when he asked to sleep on the couch. In his blog, there were a lot of bad situations that wouldn’t have happened in Starbucks on a Saturday.
5. BAD SURPRISE: These are cases of just bad luck – wrong place, wrong time — just couldn’t have seen it coming. Like when my validation ticket failed and I couldn’t get out of a mall parking garage and cars were backing up behind me honking and my date shut down (granted, she could have been nicer about it) or when a date took me to a party where the host attacked me with garlic baked squash or when I met a girl at a diner and her devastatingly handsome ex-boyfriend (or ex-or-current lover – I couldn’t tell) happened to be seated next to me at the counter when she walked up and then was rattled to the core for our entire date…while he ate his meal right around the corner from our booth. And then came over to say goodbye. And they kissed on the lips.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl: A stock character in films. Film critic Nathan Rabin, who coined the term after seeing Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown (2005), describes the MPDG as “that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”^[1] MPDGs are said to help their men without pursuing their own happiness, and such characters never grow up, thus their men never grow up.^{[2] A prime example is Natalie Portman‘s character in the movie Garden State, written and directed by Zach Braff.[1][2][3] Kate Hudson’s character, Penny Lane, in Almost Famous has been called a MPDG.[2]}

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A few months before I met R., I received an e-mail on Match whose headline read: “Your Profile Was So Funny, I Peed in My Pants. Seriously.”

That got my attention! And it was a technique I used too — a personalized, often long, subject headline.

Then I clicked on her profile.

She looked like a model. In ALL her pictures. I kept looking at the pics so see if they were old or photoshopped or what. Nope. They seemed legit. A 5’10, blond, blue-eyed, bone-structure-to-die-for, Brooklyn Decker / Heidi Klum-ish 33 year old. Never married. With no kids.

My DREAM GIRL.

And her profile was funny too. Quirky.

This is it. I hit the jackpot. A quirky girl who looked like a model.

After few hilarious e-mails back and forth, we talked on the phone. For 90 MINUTES. And it felt like 5 minutes.

Great, easy laugh. I think i even laughed really hard, which is rare.

We talked a few times before our date just because it was so much fun.

Some things came up in the convos: Never had a long term relationship. Even one that lasted THREE months (Hell, at least I’ve had that). Lived in a really bad, bad neighborhood in a studio apt. for the last 10 years. Had a job dog sitting.

Hmmmm.

Date 1: She meets me at a tiny sushi place in mid-Wilshire. Is GORGEOUS. Like wow-goregous. Sky blue eyes. Bee-stung pouty bottom lip. She was making MY DNA-TWITCH under my skin. Didn’t seem to know how to dress. Wore a bulky weird colored Cosby sweater, mom jeans and tennis sneakers. Her hair was long, but unkempt. Perhaps she dressed down so she didn’t get hit on and cause traffic accidents.

We had a lovely time. She was a bit nervous, but loosens up. I walk her to her car. I kiss her (I had to tippy toe it). She’s allowing me to kiss her but not really kissing me back. I suddenly stop and step back and say, ‘I bet if I drew you, it would look just like you.”

I don’t know why I say this, but it flips the script.

She gets all excited and opens her trunk and finds a pad of paper and a pen and wants me to draw her right now, in her car.

Okay, sure.

So we sit in the parked car and I draw her and talk just inches away from one another.

When I’m done, it sort of looks like her. It’s close — if I had a pencil, I could have made corrections.

I show the picture to her. She says, “It looks just like my mom!” (She was descended from the MAYFLOWER BTW)

Then suddenly we kiss again and everything clicks. We totally have a total make-out fest in her car.

TO BE CON’T.

Back in the pre-internet / pre-e-mail days, getting a number meant nothing.

You had no other option but to ask for a woman’s number and unless she said “Actually, let me get your number” (which meant she didn’t like you, duh) you got a number.

I imagine it was much easier to give a guy your number and then just ignore his message when he rang then say ”No, sorry, not interested” (most women were never, ever that mean — to your face) or deliver the ‘no-let-me-get-yours’ salve.

It meant so little that when I got a woman’s number, I would wait a day or two, then call it, leave a message (on an answering machine!!!) and then immediately throw it in the trash so I wouldn’t bother her again (and so I wouldn’t be reminded of her / the rejection / be tempted to ring it again).

I say all this because until recently I would get really, really annoyed when I would exchange a bunch of promising e-mails with a woman online, ask for number, get it (often with an encouraging note to call), call it and then get blown off (no returned phone call).

I found this rude, especially when they could have just faded away / ignored me when I asked for their number. The medium’s perfect for that, unlike a face-to-face.

I would just imagine them listening to my message and then snorting in disgust and/or immediately deleting.

BUT ALL OF THAT WAS IN MY HEAD.

Then I realized I had my own dating rule floating around in my brain no one knew / could know about: “Women who don’t call you back after they give you their number on Match are rude, insincere, game players, not serious about finding someone” etc.

When I took myself out of the equation and stopped taking their unresponsiveness personally, I understood that getting the number still / just means nothing — the women are still in a state of PRE-INTEREST. I was putting much more weight on it than women are / do.

They might of have lost interest, didn’t like my voice, started dating someone else, Googled me when my name came up and found this public radio story I told about dating, got busy, meant to call me back but then a guy they liked more reached out, who freakin’ knows.

And like the El Paso girl once told me, “The right woman will think, ‘Whoa, whoa — I have to do everything in my power not to let David / this guy get away.”

I’ve been online dating on-and-off (but more on) since 1996.

I’ve read THOUSANDS of profiles. Really. Maybe upwards of 20,000 THOUSAND. Let that sink in for a minute.

And frankly, I don’t think I can read…one…more.

Mainly, because 99 out of 100 of them read exactly the same.

You know, the “I’m looking for a partner in crime, I work hard, play harder, my family and friends are the most important people in my life, love football (Go _________ !), I’m equally comfortable in a little black dress as I am in sweats and a T shirt, love love, love to travel!, You must love dogs (at least my dog!) No games!….”

As a marketer, I imagine ads for soft drinks — Coke, 7-Up, A & W and they all just have a picture of the can and every ad says: Great Taste! Refreshing! The Best Soft Drink on the market!

Generic. That’s the worst thing you can be in advertising. The principle that drives all advertising and marketing is the U.S.P. A unique selling proposition “is a description of the qualities that are unique to a particular product or service and that differentiate it in a way which will make customers purchase it rather than its rivals.”

I suggest that people use an unique emotional selling proposition (an ESP) when composing their profiles. Something that they emotionally provide that is different than the girl in the box below and above. I’m nurturing. I’m warm. I listen. I support. “I’m hot and I like Arcade Fire and the Gators” does nothing for me (at this age.)

And the example above is the the boring, but safe essay. There’s also the I don’t like writing about myself, don’t e-mail me if you.… types of profiles.

The subtext of 99% of women’s profiles is this: I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO BE DOING THIS. This is annoying. I shouldn’t have to work this hard. I should be married already. This is stupid.

This is another thing, most profiles are EXCLUSIVE rather than INCLUSIVE.

I’ve read hundreds of this: “Don’t e-mail me if you hate your mother” but one of this: “Don’t worry if you are not close with your family, there’s always an extra chair at our family’s dining room table”

I almost fell out of my chair when I read that (and I wrote her).

What about instead of writing about how much you love your dog (a waste of space), why not write: “My dog loves to play with other dogs — do you have a dog he/she can play with?”

Match.com and Evan Marc Katz charge about $39 to re-write your profile. Such a bargain I can’t get my head around it.

Do you have a case of The “Pricklies”?

This term came to me while watching “Tough Love: New Orleans” and more specifically, one of the women, Donna.

Donna is a perfect example of a Prickly Girl — someone who is easily turned off by most men and most men’s appearances, senses of humor, opinions, interests, etc. Pretty much anything not only turns her off, but she will react with a weird hyper-sensitivity to the things they don’t like about a guy.

If you told a bad joke, mispronounced a word, didn’t open her door fast enough or made a harmless sexual reference, The Prickly Girl will react like she was assaulted.

They tend to get AGHAST! at very minor things guys do and take them as deep personal slights.

Her date didn’t wash his car before he picked her up — AGHAST! How dare he disrespect her like that (he probably meant to, just forgot and didn’t realize it until he approached his car to go on the date). He let the bill sit on the table for 10 minutes before he got it — AGHAST! He didn’t offer to pay for her valet (but everything else) – AGHAST!

Basically they have a weird, archaic Rule Book in their head a guy will break through the course of an evening.

Tough Love’s Donna was on a date with an average-looking guy and she said “I looked at his hands and I couldn’t imagine those hands on my breasts” (His hands were probably fine) and when he went to get the food, she had to compose herself TO KEEP FROM CRYING. And she’s FORTY.

(Oh yeah, she forgot his name, btw — his FIRST NAME — and it was their 2nd date)

An ex-friend of mine — the one who dropped a DOCTOR because he couldn’t give her script notes was / is a perfect example of The Prickly Girl. (See 1st blog post).

I’m convinced an author of a very popular book about single women is one (She might even admit this. Maybe). She refused to date a guy because he wore bowties in a few of his Match.com pictures (and later was charmed by the reasons why he wore them).

Pricklies will always be single. No one — I repeat, NO ONE, will measure up to the imaginary guy they have in their heads.

Jerry Seinfield (the character on the show) is probably a Male Prickly — he would obsess over small details / quirks about a girl and eventually dump them over it (The Two Face, one pea at time girl, Man Hands, girl who always wore same outfit, etc.) Except Jerry wouldn’t break into a sweat and cry because the other person was, well, a real life human with their own quirks (he just would dump them).

Recently I went out with a very striking woman (who found ME on Facebook and tracked me down) who refused a date with me (we were with another person at an art show) who sorta kinda later admitted that she didn’t go out with me because of the way I cut my appetizer into small bites and because there was crumpled dollar bills in my pants.

She felt QUOTE “maybe you are just a little tightly wound.” When I pressed her for details, as I felt very relaxed and loose that evening: “I felt a general sense of tension within…little things that may indicate how someone feels about themselves….a posture, and ease or dis-ease..” (The only examples she could point to was the cutting of my chicken and the crumpled bills — not like I yelled at the waiter or anything.)

She’s 42. Single.

Prickly, prickly.

It’s funny I haven’t written about this earlier….

As a 5’7 guy, I realize I am probably limited in my dating pool.

I imagine if I was 5’10 (or even put 5’10 in my profile), it’s likely my response rate would be higher. I would have probably been more successful at singles events, where often I am one of the shorter / shortest guys. Hey, if I was placed in a room of mostly slender women, I would probably gravitate towards of any of them than the 2 heavier girls if I had that choice. Or a roomful of busty women vs. the two flat-chested women. I totally get it.

As it is, I have (currently) a 1 in 4 Match.com response rate (for e-mails, that doesn’t mean getting a number or date), so I have little to complain about. That’s probably much higher than the average.

And I have dated / gone on dates with women my height or taller. Physically (or otherwise), it hasn’t been an issue. (My sister-in-law might be 3 inches taller than my brother — without heels — but they met when he was in a rock band…)

It does make my head want to explode when I see a woman who is 5’1 put 5’11 as her MINIMUM guy height (Come on, Ladies — and Carrie — this must make you crazy too — they are fishing from the pool you need!!!). Even in her tallest heels, a 5’8 dude will be taller than she is.

Last night I ‘winked’ at someone on e-harmony who is 5’8. She winked back. In a note I sent, I clarified that I am 5’8 in shoes and 5’7 soaking wet. (Putting that I am 5’8 is my only fudge on my profiles — when I show up on a date, technically I am 5’8. I only mention the discrepancy if the woman is taller, where that 1 inch might make a difference.)

She wrote back saying that might be an issue as she is 5’11 in heels.

Then, later that night, I had an epiphany.

Women want their men taller or as tall as them in heels. I get that. But why? Because it LOOKS BETTER. It’s more aesthetically pleasing. Meaning, they want men to go with what they are wearing like a fashion accessory.

I would even say that you want the guy to be taller when you dance, but women often take their shoes off to dance (do they during a slow dance?).

Why can’t I wear lifts when you want to wear heels? No one would know and me being an “accessory” would match.

A guy wrote a great article which has been taken down called “Do Single Women Love Heels More Than They Love Love?” — the website is down but here is a link to the Facebook excerpt of it.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150303327329341

As an ex told me, “Dating is about going out, relationships are about staying in.” (She is now engaged to a great, stand-up, sweet guy prob. exactly her height)

And having been in a few relationships, there is more staying in than going out — more dinner cooking, reality TV show watching, movie / DVD watching, more hiking, farmer market visits — much less times she is in 4″ inch heels.

So the 2X a MONTH we go out to a nice restaurant or wedding or an event, why couldn’t some dude do the SAME EXACT THING YOU are and be artificially taller? And be a great guy who listens and fulfills you emotionally and sexually the other 90% of time being almost the same height?

It seems to make more sense to find a great guy you can make TALLER a couple of times a month then finding a tall guy / a certain height want to match you fashion-wise who is funny, sexy, responsible, smart, stable, etc…..

Nicole Kidman once cracked when splitting with Tom Cruise, “Now I can wear heels” (Actually, she always wore heels when with him, but whatever…) — and who did she marry next? A GUY THE SAME DAMN HEIGHT as Cruise (Keith Urban is 5.8ish).

I go out on a lot of first dates and I only ask out a few for a 2nd. I’m sure a lot of women have thought, “Oh, I thought we had a good time — I don’t get it….”

1. You Date-And-Switched-Me: You were deceiving with your pictures, mainly about a body part you wanted to downplay, most often a giant booty. Or bad teeth. I recognize the signs now — hiding behind friends in group photos, holding a coat in front of your frame, weird angles (from high above). And the multiple pictures of you smiling the Dustin Hoffman smile in close ups and ONE open mouthed smile, but a block away. Or you showed up with a pixie cut after your pics all have long hair.

2. You were really attractive — maybe even out of my league — but I didn’t see us as a couple. Mainly, because it felt at the end of the hour, we had exhausted the conversation. At minute 65 we would just be staring at each other. And day 65. Just not enough in common — enough to get us through a handful of e-mails, a 15 minute phone call and a 30 – 60 minute face to face, but then it just fell apart (for me). Our relationship had a 60-80 minute shelf-life.

3. You tapped out – You were so disappointed with me that you just went catatonic, stared at the table, muscled through the 30 – 60 minutes, answered in short answers, refused to verbally participate. It was like being on a date with Robert DeNiro in AWAKENINGS. You didn’t want me to ask you again anyway.

4. You openly didn’t give a shit – The woman who dressed for the gym (see previous post), the woman who met me while walking her dog; you dressed so causally it looked like you were going to mow the lawn — I could have been your future husband and you treated it as if I was just an errand you had to run on a Saturday.

5. You were nice and cute, but I didn’t see us kissing or getting passionate. When I tried to think about that, it was like trying to tune into a radio station that was out of range and all I got was static.

6. You smelled funny. I’m going to write a separate post just about this soon — You didn’t smell BAD, our chemistries didn’t mix (or you were wearing Patchouli oil or some Hippie shit). It hit me as soon as we hugged — you smelled OFF. Not bad, but off. Musky. I don’t know — I had a fun time with you and I loved your look, but my DNA was screaming “Nooooooooooooooo! Not this one!”

7. We kissed and….NOTHING. This is related to number 6 — I kissed you — maybe for a long while — and I felt NOTHING. No spark, no tingles, no erection. This is frustrating because I really liked you — and your look — but the chemistry isn’t there. It was like kissing a piece of paper.

8. You didn’t look as good as your pictures. You didn’t deceive me on purpose, but the pictures weren’t a good representation and you are probably unaware that you don’t look like the pictures you posted from your Mexico trip 3 years ago. Perhaps you’ve had some hardships (divorce, death of a parent, lost your house) and it shows, but in your mind you still think you look like you did only two years ago. Or there were things I didn’t notice / couldn’t have noticed — bad skin, an unusual amount of peach fuzz, looked older, grey-er, heavier.

9. You didn’t shut up. You might have had Aspergers (see previous post).

10. Bad breath – I have an earlier post about this — but this just assaults most of my senses. I remember I went out with a stunning, curvy Persian girl (who actually went into shut down mode — see #3) who’s breath was so bad, I had to keep myself from gagging and all the while imagined acid was being misted on the right side of my face as we talked.

10. A combo of any of the above.

(There’s so much insanity in this profile – I don’t even know where to begin. It does sound like she blew a great thing because she wanted to be taken care of AND cheat? WTF???? She’s 50, BTW.)

I have another site that my family helped me with since you can be anything on the internet you want to be, but this is the real me! 
This is difficult as I don’t really have any close friends to describe me and not easy to describe myself. I just moved back from Bend, OR where in 4 years I didn’t develop one friend other than my fiance.

He just took all of our kids on a private yacht in the Bahama’s this February and that made me smile alot! 

He’s a super nice man, but didn’t like me having other guys over for dinner when he was gone a week after our Bahamas trip and while we were planning to get married.

He’s given me $2000 in free counseling, but I’m not interested in figuring my life out or commitment right now…just moving on! 

I have 4 great kids and the last 3 are in various stages of college. My mom left us when I was 7 so have pretty much been on my own ever since after divorcing 12 years ago. 

I’m not interested in marriage or long-term relationship.

My fiance was a man who gave me everything including unconditional love that I’d never had, was going to fund me thru Grad School and pay for my kids college and loved me more that any man, but commitment and long-term relationship aren’t for me. I’m not really a one man woman.

The guy I’m looking for has to be flexible, a guy of means, some one who doesn’t mind me seeing other guys and accepting. 

Currently, I’m living with my sister in Manhattan Beach and sharing a bedroom with her and our mom lives with us and my sister’s 2 girls. I’m spending my dad’s inheritance until I can find a job, but have been unemployed for 6 months.

I’m trying to be positive, get my credit rating over 400 and out of debt. IMy sister and I go out to bars in South Bay area as her husband is currenty out of town and I’m trying Match as I lucked out and met my X fiance on this site. 
I love to laugh and don’t take much serious. 
I’m passionate about my kids.

Two interesting things happened in the last two days — two incidents where I expressed my displeasure about someone’s dating behavior — TO THEM (and not to this blog or 3 of my friends).

I usually let these kind of things slide and take the high road and go out in a way I think is classy. (“I will not dignify that with a response, ma’am!”). Plus, there’s sooooooooooo much bad behavior and my job is not to be Dating Infraction Cop — I’ve got too much other things to do and pursue other good “leads” to be concerned with having the last word.

And also I never want come across as “The Angry, Burned Guy” and give Match.com and guys dating online a bad name.

But Carrie and my BFF Mindy and two particularly outrageous acts inspired me in the last 48 hours.

1st STORY:

An attractive woman e-mails ME on Match.com. Her headline “Warm and Kind.” Nice profile. Great pictures / great look. Lives nearby in Santa Monica. We e-mail back and forth for 1.5 weeks or so. She VOLUNTEERS her number. I e-mail and say I will call that evening. At 10:30  I write and apologize for it slipping my mind and I will call the next day. She writes back ‘no prob’ and gives me a specific time to call (after 6) where I will have quote “her undivided attention” (she is driving to the desert). I call at 6:15 and it goes to VM. AND SHE DOESN’T CALL ME BACK the whole night.

Alright, maybe that was bad timing, phone died, whatever. She calls days later (and I think she called during lunch even saying something like “Ohhh, maybe you are out at lunch”) and tells me to call again, a specific time and day. That day and time comes and AGAIN, RIGHT TO VM and no returned phone call. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Okay, I’m done. This is stupid.

Then last night (maybe 6 days after the last attempt), I was looking at my diminishing “prospects” and thought, hmmmm, maybe I should try her one more time. She was really cute. I call at 6:30 and GET HER (OMG!)

ME: Julienne?

HER: David?

She sounds taken off guard — I don’t think she meant to pick it up and prob. looked the caller ID quickly.

ME: Yes, hey — did I catch you at a bad time?

HER: Yes, I’m still at work — can I ring you in 45 minutes?

ME: Sure, of course. I’ll be here.

45 minutes comes and goes. THREE FUCKING HOURS LATER (after I called, 2 hours fifteen after the 45 minutes) at 9:30 the phone rings while I’m on with Mindy — I click over and it’s a TEXT TO LANDLINE MESSAGE.

ROBOT VOICE: Sorry-David-I-forgot-I-had-dinner-with-a-girlfriend-can-I-call-you-after?

Okay, this is a steaming pile of bullshit on so many levels. At 6:30 you forgot you had dinner with a friend? And if this lie WAS TRUE, you couldn’t call me in the car on the way? Or text this pathetic lie at 7:00? Or even 8? And like she’s really going to call at 10? Like she’s still at dinner at 9:30?

Mindy says “Text back ‘Don’t bother.’”

ME: It’s not me right? She’s playing games, right? I am nuts?

MINDY: She’s playing games. I know — ’cause I’ve been HER.

So I text back on my cell: “It’s okay, don’t bother, good luck, David.”

THEN MILI-SECONDS LATER A RESPONSE:

“Wow, I was totally wrong about you. Thought you were easy going. Good luck to you. Sounds like you’re the one who needs it.”

I so wanted to write back: Say hi to your imaginary friend for me. Mindy says in a few weeks she’ll wonder if you were ‘The One who got away.’

I had an interesting date last night.

A woman had written me a very lovely, very flattering note on Match about a week ago. She was cute. Not traditionally beautiful, but really, really cute. A real girl next door. She even compared herself to the girl next door and Pam from ‘The Office’ in her profile. She had been a teacher.

We talked on the phone. It was okay — not bad, not great. Unremarkable. But okay. I think we even talked for 45 minutes. Aside from one story she told about teaching, I don’t recall anything else from our talk.

Now, a few days before I had first date with a 5’9 blonde (let’s call her “The Mayflower Girl”) and our first phone call was an HOUR TWENTY — and flew by. It was very sparky. And Mayflower and I even talked a couple more times before our date on Tues. Which was great. And we made out in her car.

I remember thinking to myself, “I should just ONLY go on dates with women I have THOSE kind of conversations with. Long, sparky talks.’ ‘Cause historically? Those women are the women who become my girlfriends. All the other she-was nice-enough-good-looking-enough-talk-was-okay ones really go nowhere. They just don’t.

So I meet this one last night in The Valley. Let’s call her ‘The Nice Teacher.’

She’s right on time. And looks like her pics. And we have a nice time. And it lasts for 90 minutes. And it’s fine.

But I keep looking at her and trying to figure out why I, well, why I don’t want to have sex with her.

She’s cute. And has a nice body. And nice hands. And a kind face. Blouse could have been nicer. And her hair could be longer (both easy tweaks). And she’s an easy laugher.

But every time I went to think of her naked or us having sex or kissing, it was like tuning into a radio station just out of range and all I was getting was all static.

And I was having trouble thinking of things to ask her. Usually I’m an ace at keeping the convo flowing, even to the point I feel like I’m giving CPR to a conversation — but I kept drawing a blank.

But she asks a lot of questions and seems interested in my anecdotes and answers.

I walk her to her car. She drives me to mine. I’m wondering if we are going to kiss. I land just right of her mouth.

I drive home and realize, ‘Huh, I think I’ve been out with women who probably have felt the same exact way about me — he’s cute, charming, good on paper, paid the check, but there’s just something missing I can’t put my finger on….I feel like I should give him another chance on principle, but I can’t deny my gut telling me to move on and wait for A SPARK with someone else….”