Introducing, Cleavage

While cooking dinner the other night, I had one of those random "aha!" moments – totally out of the blue and potentially life changing.

Image: Bosom Button http://www.bosombutton.com/
Not a product I've ever had the fortune to need.
But the image reminds me of Cleavage.

I think it started after I had an enjoyable chat on the phone with my friend, Cleavage. Cleavage and I met quite a few years ago -- actually the last time I set myself on a friend-making mission. Back then I was not a gimp, so I chose tennis (instead of beer) as my hobby (and the gut's showing it, believe me) and joined a league. Cleavage was one of my first matches and I could tell right away she would be fun to know as a friend. After a few matches and amusing netside chats, I made my move with the old "we should hang out sometime" line.

I know it's weird to describe trying to make a new friend as something akin to a guy scoping out a chick, but that is exactly how I see it (without the sex part). See, I've never been that kind of nervous when it came to dating as an adult. As an adolescent, well, that’s another story. In middle school I was totally boy crazy and, because 12 and 13-year-old boys are the biggest pussies on the planet, I had no choice but to do the work myself.

I orchestrated the moments I would pass him in the hallways. I knew where I would sit in proximity to him at lunch. If I needed a date to a dance, I did the asking. And I issued the appointments for post-dance, behind the locker make out sessions (one middle school boyfriend, who went on to become a notorious ladies man in high school, recently admitted that he broke up with me after a week or two because I scared him with my make out request. Apparently the girls back in his home state of Wisconsin were nowhere near as aggressive.)

By the time high school rolled around, the boys were starting to catch up and the ball was heading in to their court. Not that I was volunteering anymore. It only took a few weeks of high school for me to realize I was no longer in my comfort zone. The popular junior and senior boys immediately snapped up all the cute, blonde girls I was friends with in middle school. The skater dudes veered off to the far side of the quad to hang out with all the other skater dudes. The surfers talked nothing but waves, and ditching classes to catch waves. The stoners went under the bleachers, the cheerleaders were watching football practice. I wasn’t any of those things.

I ended up sort of floating in the middle - part jock, part honor student, part partier, and really pissed off at life. Boys at school just did not interest me. I had plenty of male friends, and even made out with a few, but all I wanted to do was graduate and get to college. Basically, if a boy was genuinely interested in me, I did none of the heavy lifting like I did in middle school. Needless to say, I graduated a virgin.

Back to Cleavage, who bought my line and has been my friend ever since.  Sadly, we never got to that "good friend" category because, a few months after we met, she starting dating a guy she met after I encouraged her to try online dating. They got serious fast. He moved in, they bought a house and got married.

I was there along the way but probably not like I would've been if we'd been single girlfriends just a little longer. It’s funny because the only reason this thought ever came to mind was because her husband came up to me one night during their courtship and said, "I feel kind of bad, DT.” I had no clue what he was talking about and asked him why. He responded, “I feel like I interrupted your and Cleavage's friendship.” I thought about it for a second and could see what he meant, but how can you begrudge somebody lifelong love and happiness? Besides, I liked him and was happy for them both.

Still, Wine Guy wasn’t all that comfortable hanging out with their circle of friends, which I understood (they were pretty heavy partiers). I didn’t have a lot in common with their group either. So Cleavage and I mostly saw each other every few weeks, sometimes months, for “girls night.” With no one else around, we always picked up right where we left off – and that’s how it’s been for the last five years.

And then, a few months ago, she invited me over and told me she's leaving her husband. A total shock to me. Apparently they'd been having problems and, even though I witnessed many of the incidents, I assumed they were perfectly happy. (That is one of my nastiest habits - assuming everybody else's life is supremely happy and "normal," and I'm the one who’s doing life “wrong.” But it doesn’t last long because, every six months or so, someone lays a whopper on me like Cleavage did and I’m reminded that nobody’s life is “perfect.”)

I was not happy to hear this news. I liked her husband and I'm pretty sure he liked me. And since I'd known them as a couple longer than I ever knew her, "they" were my friends. But after she laid it out all for me, I understood why she was throwing in the towel.

I'm not gonna lie. I was pretty damn excited to have a new single friend to hang out with. I remember how much fun we had hanging out, cracking each other up, flirting with boys in bars. I can honestly say I haven't done that since.

With a fresh marital separation and all the drama that entails, it's still too soon to dive in to manhunting, but we have put each other on the regular phone call rotation. It probably doesn't mean as much to her, but I currently have only one friend who meets that qualification and she lives 3,000 miles away and has a 3 month old baby to care for so, yeah, I'm jonesin' for some girl talk. Funny thing is, I loathe the phone. Avoid it at all costs (talking - not texting or emailing). But I have just enough patience for that one, gabby call per week. And now I have a standing appointment.

It was after our last appointment, while I walked my dog around the neighborhood, that I had my random "aha!" realization. After we hung up, I started making dinner and I suddenly said out loud, "So, I'm lonely." It wasn't a sad thought or anything negative at all. Just a statement of fact. I've spending a lot of time alone the last few months and, some of that time, I don't want to be alone. Those are the times I am lonely.

I sat with that a minute as I dredged my chicken (I can't believe I just typed that as I am so new to cooking). With the meat sizzling on the pan, I stepped away to the dining room table and had a second, less random thought.

I am lonely. But I'm also happy.

Until that moment, it had never occurred to me that I could be both.

So, Cleavage and I are meeting up on Saturday night for dinner, cocktails and a horror movie. I haven't done that in decades. In a few more months, maybe we'll take our friendship to the next level and go out and flirt with some boys. I've told her of my plan, saying, "With your blonde hair and big boobs, we're gonna get so many guys!"

She laughed heartily and enthusiastically, showing me she was neither offended nor uninterested in my proposal. That, my friends, is a girlfriend.

Dismissed.

Bland Beer

Here's what happened on my visit with Beer Guy last weekend. I went into it with friendship as my expectation-- and a dash of potential for something more. By the time I entered his home and set the chips and salsa I brought down on the kitchen counter, I knew this would be a relationship with no extra spice.

After giving me a friendly hug, the first words out of his mouth were, "The reason I disappeared for a few months was because I got pretty hot and heavy with someone soon after we met." That much I'd figured. Then he added, "But she broke up with me on New Year's Eve." Ah. I was going to be the shoulder for leaning. 

Honestly, that disclosure let me loosen up and we ended up spending the entire afternoon on his deck, drinking beer and swapping romantic mishaps. I was holding back the "buddy" stuff at first, thinking it couldn't hurt to leave a little room in case something in the ether shifted. But the more he told me about his relationship with his most recent ex --a relationship he clearly still longed for--I was pushing him further and further into the passive, possibly wimpy category and, as I've discussed already, those qualities are no longer on my checklist for potential partners. 

It seems she was passive aggressive, needy and extremely immature. And he wasn't even trying to paint her in a bad light. He clearly still wanted her back and was just describing the relationship to me. Hearing this elicited the same reaction I have when the protagonist in a movie is in a relationship with an obviously horrible person. I know we're supposed to be rooting for them to find happiness elsewhere, but all I can think is, "What an idiot. Why would they be with this person in the first place?" I have a hard time respecting someone who is willing to put up with such awful behavior just to be in a relationship. (The most recent example I can think of is the relationship between Owen Wilson and his bitch of a girlfriend Rachel McAdams in "Midnight in Paris." But I still loved the film.)

The more Beer Guy told me about his three month excursion into "love," the more red flags popped up. This down-to-earth, nice-seeming guy seemed out of place, scared to be alone and obviously looking for someone to cling to. Maybe a few years back that would've appealed to me because, of course, I used to feel the same way. But no more.

Still, we had a pleasant afternoon of swapping stories and ended up going out to dinner as well. I'd hang out with him again. Like I said, I'm looking for people to pass the time with after too many days of being alone. But I don't think I'll pursue a regular friendship with him simply because I know that the moment he latches on to his next girlfriend (which shouldn't take too long, he's handsome, nice and owns a beautiful home with an ocean view), I know I'll be ancient history. 

I have to say, dating is a lot less painful when you aren't willing to sell yourself down the river just to say you have a relationship. More to come....

Dismissed.

The Yeast That Bonds

While 2011 had its low points, the year was a significant improvement from 2010. In addition to exiting a relationship that was running on fumes, I accomplished most of the goals I set for myself, including:

1. Building up a solid archive of published feature stories to advance my freelance writing career (I published one or more story every month, and talked to some incredible talent in the process).

2. Finally began healing after four years of pain and suffering; while I am not exactly where I'd hoped (and probably never will be), I'm at peace with my state of being and am embracing what I can do instead of lamenting what I can't. I'm also back to the weight I was when I first went under the knife in 2008.

3. Most importantly, I made some new friends.

While numbers 1 and 2 undoubtedly signify major life moments, the third easily took the most conscious courage and determination. If you think dating is warfare, try making new friends in your late 30s. At times it felt apocalyptic. At this point in life, the majority of people I'd be friends with are hunkered down in their bomb shelters: husband, kids, mortgages, in-laws. I can't even imagine how they juggle it all. I have two jobs, two pets and rental unit and I feel constantly overwhelmed.

After I'd moved into my new place and got past the euphoria of shedding the weight of a dead relationship, it became immediately clear that I had no friends. Wait, a clarification. I had no friends, other than Wine Guy, to casually hang out with. When it came to emotional meltdowns or family emergencies, I was blessed. I even had one or two women not saddled with husband/children in my social rotation but, being active women, they had full schedules. One date every couple of weeks does not a social calendar make.

I'm not opposed to alone time. In fact, I cherish it. But when it becomes the everyday routine, it doesn't feel like something worth cherishing. It's kind of like smoking pot. If you toke up every once in awhile, it's a kick. But once you start wake-and-baking, you're just living in a foggy brain. Nothing special about that. Trust me, I know.

A friend (one of my NEW ones, thank you very much) recently shared with me something she'd heard about introverts versus extroverts. We'd started to fill in our backstories and it soon became clear that she was, in fact, quite an introvert. Being that I have a blog where I spill my deepest, darkest, I think you can guess which one I am. She told me that introverts are energized by time spent alone, and being social -as fun as it can be-ultimately drains that energy. Whereas extroverts are energized by socializing with others and, while they might enjoy their alone time, it ultimately saps them. Having been in serious relationships with two introverts, I can testify that this is the most accurate description of the two types I've ever heard.

Desperate for a social charge, I decided to make my move. I have no problem suggesting a date with a potential romantic interest. But when it comes to establishing a female friendship, I feel like a 14-year-old boy at a middle school dance. I started with acquaintances who always seemed like they could be friends if one of us ever made the gesture. And that seemed to pay off, as it did with Introvert (whose boyfriend I also now count among my friends).

As with dating, I soon discovered there are only so many friends you can meet "in the wild," so I took my hunt to the online friend corral, Meetup.com. It's something of an overwhelming experience at first, trying to pick the activities you're interested in that might cough up some like minded friends. I settled on craft beer, something I'd become a little too knowledgeable about over the last two years, and also a really big thing here in San Diego.

The first beer meetup I went to was last summer at a local microbrewery where we had a tour of the facilities, followed by a ridiculous amount of tasters. I arrived a little early and found myself talking to a seemingly nice, normal man about my age who'd just moved here from Tennessee. Understand, I was not here to find a date and, as cute (and single) as he was, I was mostly excited by the fact that he had only lived here a few weeks, knew no one and, more importantly, had yet to discover the many terrific brewpubs tucked in all corners of the city. He clearly knew his beer and had a lot of free time so I was excited by the idea of having a companion to hit up the pubs I would visit more often if I had someone to go with.

I was careful not to monopolize his time throughout the event and made an effort to talk to other people. I didn't want him to think I was only there to snatch a guy - because I wasn't. But he was by far the most friendly person there so we ended up talking quite a bit. I had a great time and he seemed to as well. Eventually someone else started talking to him and then he left rather abruptly, which bummed me out a little.

But my spirits were lifted the very next day when he sent me an email through the Meetup site saying how nice it was to meet me. I wrote back saying the same and suggested we get together for some beer tourism the following weekend, to which he replied he was unavailable. I gave him my regular contact info and said to let me know when he was free.

When he didn't get in touch after a week or two, I grew irritated. There was no doubt that we hit it off as friends. I had something to offer him - local knowledge about an interest of his, as well as companionship (he made it clear he knew nobody in town). The only reason I could think that he wouldn't follow up was because he thought I wanted something romantic when he didn't. Exactly how the fuck are you supposed to make friends with someone who happens to be a man if you are going to be judged as some man-hunting cougar? So I went back to the Meetup site and joined an all-girl craft beer group, where I've made a few potential friend connections and, most importantly, avoided feeling like I'm on the prowl for something I'm not (unless an obvious opportunity presents itself, of course).

So you can imagine my surprise when I got an email from him earlier this week, almost six months since we'd last communicated. He commented that the beer Meetup seemed to have disbanded, implying he was hoping to run into me at the next event. But since there were no more events, he'd made up his mind to get in touch after the holidays. Apparently, someone gave him a Beer of the Month subscription for Christmas and, well, he needed help plowing through his supply. Might I want to get together? He even proposed a few possible dates and times which, I've learned, indicates purposeful intent in guy speak. Impressive.

So this Saturday afternoon I'll be on Beer Guy's deck toasting in the New Year. Hopefully he'll be yet another new friend (and one that I wouldn't mind kissing). I like beer better than wine anyway.

Dismissed.

Generic New Year's Greetings

It's a quiet late afternoon on New Year's Eve. I've spent the day much as I've spent the majority of this holiday break, by myself with little to do but take my dog for a walk, watch a movie, nap, tidy up and check Facebook. Much of the time it feels like heaven. But sometimes it feels like hell.

While my New Year's Eve plans feel entirely acceptable to me, I realize that many of you will think me pathetic. Trust me, I sought out other options first -- even ones that didn't seem all that appealing. But my friends who are in town and without children either already had plans or just felt like staying home. I considered spending the evening home alone and probably would've done so if most of my forced holiday vacation wasn't exactly that. Too much solitary time does not serve this extrovert well and ringing in the New Year all by my lonesome borders on dangerous.

So tonight I'm spending NYE exactly where I spent it last year -- in my old apartment with Wine Guy.

Our breakup has been almost too ideal. He helped me move (on his 40th birthday no less), we shopped for new furniture for our places together (totally confusing the sales guy), he gave me a lovely birthday present and has come with me to visit my mom who lives about 40 minutes away (she missed him).

He's still my best friend, albeit one who gets on my nerves in all the same ways he used to (and vice versa). We did recently hit a snag when he felt the need to talk about the type of women he's seen on one of the dating sites, but insists he hasn't joined. I didn't want to hear about it and told him to steer clear of that subject. But he naively insisted and, before he knew it, we were in an awkward tiff that he later profusely apologized for walking us into.

Funny thing about it is that I'm the one who's actually dating, not him. So why does the idea of him even thinking about dating upset me? Because his odds are better. I know that when he wants to be in a relationship again (after the sting of being with me for four years has worn off), there will most likely be a quality 30-something woman eagerly awaiting his email. There are lots of us. What there aren't are lots of him. Sure he has significant flaws, but he's still the person I choose to spend nights like NYE with and I know that pretty soon he'll be wanting to spend them with someone else, as he should. I just don't want to hear about it until it happens.

While tonight will be pleasant (he's cooking after all :-), I know it's something of a step backwards. This certainly isn't where I expected to be at this point in 2011. And the feeling only gets worse as I see the many posts from my Facebook friends wishing us all a happy new year, generically thanking us for our friendship and hoping that all of our wishes will be fulfilled in 2012. It's nice, sure, but ultimately it's an empty declaration, especially when the person on the receiving end feels so entirely alone.

If you're playing the world's smallest violin right now, I don't blame you. I admit I'm having something of a pity party. What else are blogs for ;-)? But I also know that tomorrow, when the sun is shining and the pressure of being alone over the holidays is finally over,  I will feel more hopeful. I will appreciate the fact that I still have two more days of leisure time before I return to the daily grind that, I just realized, has kept this loneliness at bay for most of 2011. So that I am thankful for.

And, of course, I wish everyone a happy new year, generically thank you all for your friendship and hope that all of your wishes will be fulfilled in 2012.

One of my dearest friends, a happily married Veteran friends with five (!) children, sent me this article from The Guardian that was shared with her by another of her late 30s, single friends whose romantic life has eerily echoed mine since we first met in our early 20s.

Writer Kate Bolick
Photo: Mike McGregor, the Observer

It's a loooooong article on the sociology of singledom by Kate Bolick and I pretty much skimmed over the statistic-heavy paragraphs (numbers are not my strong suit). But overall it was an interesting read, if only to hear the voice of someone else in my same situation. It actually made me feel pretty good about where I am -- and probably will be for long while.


If you're not up for reading it, here are a few quotes that really jumped out at me. 


"...all this time, I realised, I'd been regarding my single life as a temporary interlude, one I had to make the most of – or swiftly terminate, depending on my mood. Without intending to, by actively rejecting our pop-culture depictions of the single woman – you know the ones – I'd been terrorising myself with their spectres. But now that 35 had come and gone, all bets were off. It might never happen. Or maybe not until 42. Or 70, for that matter. Was that so bad? If I stopped seeing my present life as provisional, perhaps I'd be a little… happier. Perhaps I could actually get down to the business of what it means to be a real single woman.


"In 2005, social psychologist Bella DePaulo coined the word singlism, in an article she published in Psychological Inquiry. Intending a parallel with terms like racism and sexism, DePaulo says singlism is "the stigmatising of adults who are single [and] includes negative stereotyping of singles and discrimination against singles". In her 2006 book, Singled Out, she argues that the complexities of modern life, and the fragility of the institution of marriage, have inspired an unprecedented glorification of coupling. (Laura Kipnis, the author of Against Love, has called this "the tyranny of two.") This marriage myth – "matrimania", DePaulo calls it – proclaims that the only route to happiness is finding and keeping one all-purpose, all-important partner who can meet our every emotional and social need. Those who don't have this are pitied. Those who don't want it are seen as threatening. Singlism, therefore, "serves to maintain cultural beliefs about marriage by derogating those whose lives challenge those beliefs."


Happy holidays to all my fellow crazy cat ladies!


Dismissed.

This post was brought to you by Therapy.

After my third date with Globetrotter, one thing became entirely clear --- I am in no condition to be dating. In fact, I'm downright harmful to the men I go out with, if not to myself.

I've had three significant relationship failures in my adulthood and now, at 39, I can finally see what part I played in making all of them possible. I always suspected I shared a not insignificant portion of the blame, but could never say exactly what shape that blame came in. If you don't know exactly what you did wrong, how can you ever expect to change?

And that's why I went to therapy -- to find out who I am and why I do what I do. Not to judge it (at least not at first), but to wholly understand it. After almost two years of gentle cognitive behavioral therapy, much of it focusing on managing a life and relationship through chronic pain, I figured out that my bad hip wasn't spoiling my relationship with Wine Guy. It was already destroyed. The hip stuff just prolonged the misery.

Wine Guy thought I was in too much physical agony and grief over the sudden loss of my sister and nephew to be able to handle another emotional hit like a break-up, not to mention too physically restricted to handle the move physically. He was right about that. But he wasn't just being a martyr. He was being a friend by sticking by me and helping me through such an awful time. Granted, we fought a lot and neither of us were happy, but we were still taking care of each other like family. I find this oddly comforting. The whole time I thought our relationship was slowly dying when, really, a fierce friendship was holding us together.

So why did we fail in the first place? One simple reason: my impatience, which pushed me into a relationship that was doomed from the start.

This explanation is true for both Wine Guy and Only Child (Naval A-hole gets his own category called "sociopath"), both of whom I picked because they were kind, harmless men. They were also both indecisive wheel-spinners, but really nice, non-threatening ones (yes, at some point in my life I saw/see men as threatening - that's another year of therapy to figure out). Perhaps not insignificantly, they both had verbally abusive fathers and both men, at one point or another, compared me to their dads. Yeah, not good.

Why was I such a verbally abusive bitch (I really wasn't that bad. These guys were both overly sensitive too, as most of my friends will attest)? Because their indecisiveness drove me fucking insane. It made them seem weak. It made me lose tiny flakes of respect for them. That shit builds up fast and, well, I've always had a bit of a verbal temper.

Of course, when I first met them they just seemed like unusually kind men who were more comfortable hanging out with women than their own brute gender. Hence why I called both of them my "gay-straight boyfriends." It takes a little time --usually 6 months to a year-- for those qualities to start seeming weak, indecisive, overly sensitive and wimpy (at least to me).

But why, oh why, once I figured that out, did I move in with them and begin the march towards marriage, whether we liked it or not? This was the part of the blame that was hardest for me to accept. Actually, I couldn't or wouldn't even see it as a possibility until my therapist gently guided me there and placed it on my lap to be gently examined.

Ah, yes. Impatience.

I was so busy pushing the ball and chain up the mountain that I forgot to stop and notice if it was too heavy for me in the first place. Never one to back down from a struggle, I assumed this was one more "battle" I had to fight (sense a theme here?). That it was supposed to be this heavy. Besides, it would take too long to let it roll back down and go off to try to find another. I have a ticking clock here, people. So I pushed on. First Only Child, then Wine Guy (with a pause for the whirlwind, long-distance mind fuck that was Naval A-hole).

Now I see it clear as day and I can assure everyone that it won't happen again. Not the failed relationship part, there are countless ways I've yet to discover to ruin one of those--but the pushing something forward before I've checked to see if I like the way it's rolling part. I feel really solid in this realization and proud of all the work I did to get myself here.

But what am I supposed to do now that I know every relationship instinct I've followed has been flawed pretty much to the core? How am I supposed to know when the right situation presents itself without worrying about the accuracy of my instincts? How on earth did all that therapy lead me right into George "if every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right" Costanza territory (you remember that episode of Seinfeld, right?)?!

Needless to say, without an accurate compass to rely on, I'm in no condition to be dating. I learned this after my third date with Globetrotter. We're a great intellectual/sense of humor match and it's impossible not to be comfortable with him. But do I detect a little wheel-spinning there? Hmmmm. I want to jump up and high-five him when we stumble on another crazy thing we both have in common, but when he tries to hold my hand or kiss me, I feel like I turn to stone. I could see on the poor guy's face that he was sad and confused, but if he thinks my signals are mixed, he should try being inside my own head. It's even worse in here.

As I sat down to type this, I remembered having a similar panicky feeling about getting physically close to Wine Guy when we first started dating. I dug around in my Spring 2007 entries until I found the post I was looking for, My Walled Garden. I was amazed at how accurately I described what I felt the other night after awkwardly saying goodbye to Globetrotter and driving home in tears.

"I know when I've gone a little while without being - um - touched, I tend to build up walls. Then I get used to being walled in. It actually starts to feel all safe and cozy there in my little walled garden. So when potential for simple intimacy pops up (holding hands, arm around shoulder) I feel myself tense up. I can't help it. He probably feels it too."

I suppose the fact that I'm finding similarities between the two dating scenarios already should tell me me something. Globetrotter is safe and comfortable to me because I know his "type." But a safe, comfortable "buddy" isn't what I should be looking for. Shouldn't I be kicking down my stupid walls and climbing all over him? Trust me, that's what I want to be doing-- just not apparently with him.

The difference between now and then is that now I know how to emotionally nurture myself. More specifically, how to not beat myself up about it. It's not my "fault" that I froze up. That's how I felt and it's OK if I don't know why. Maybe I'm just not physically attracted to him (he is an inch shorter than me). Or maybe I'm just not ready to date. Or maybe I should stop putting myself in forced romantic scenarios through online dating and only date guys I click with "in the wild" (not that it happens a lot). Maybe it's a little bit of everything. But the one thing it isn't is something I should be kicking myself over like I was during my drive home that night.

Whatever it is, I'm glad shared it here instead of picking up the phone and calling my best friend, Wine Guy, a thought that seriously crossed my mind until I realized my phone had suddenly died. Divine cellular inspiration perhaps?

Dismissed.

Take Off an Inch

This week, I gave an inch. Literally.

Height has always been one of my dealbreakers. I think it started in middle school when I realized I'd rather slow dance with a boy while resting my cheek on his chest, smelling the fresh Tide detergent on his Local Motion surfer t-shirt (still my favorite "cologne"), instead of gazing down at the top of his head feeling like an Amazon freak.

I guiltily recall spending one 7th grade dance trying to avoid little JT as he rustled up the courage to ask me to dance. Eventually all that evasion led me right into the arms of the 5'9" new kid from "Wis-kaan-sin" wearing a freshly washed white t-shirt and enough new-to-California innocence to accept my dance invitation disguised as an escape plea because he still hadn't figured out that a boy of his caliber could skip right past the brunettes and land himself a cute California blonde. (He ultimately figured it out.)

At this point in life, I'm humbled and realistic enough to know that arbitrary boundaries such as these are never helpful, and may be potentially harmful. So, while I continue to seek out men in the higher altitudes, I still give every guy who seeks me out a fair evaluation.

And that's how I ended up going out with two men in one week who fell one solid inch below my previously stated 5'9" minimum. Without that bit of unfortunate data, both men seemed interesting, smart, funny, and attractive enough to jump to the top of my (very small) pile of emails. This is not a town where men of this caliber present themselves frequently. The "cream of the crop" in San Diego is a shirtless outdoor enthusiast looking for a 26-year-old blonde to go jogging with before they head to a Chargers game. God help me. Am I supposed to let a rare non-Diegan get away because of one lousy inch?

Sunday I had brunch with Globetrotter, a boyish father of two, who's clearly enamored by intelligent, expressive women (also a rarity in San Diego) and who's managed to make a respectable living doing something for the betterment of society. Oh, and he's half Indian. Award: Bonus inch.

Last night I had ramen and sake with Fuzzy, a mid-40s Midwestern Jew with a sarcastic streak and a soft spot for his hairless dog named, you guessed it, Fuzzy. Oh, and he's tried out every hole-in-the-wall Asian restaurant in town and is willing to give me the highlights. Award: Bonus inch.

Both dates went fine. Well, fine enough to know I didn't hate them, which is all you should realistically expect to find out on a blind date. You can also gauge any immediate sexual chemistry, though I have to admit that, for me, a strong sexual attraction to a complete stranger usually means trouble.

I have to say, both men were very different, and each brought out a different side of my personality. Globetrotter had me trying to be my best. Not trying to impress him necessarily, but not plopping down and putting my feet up either. Subtlety has never been my strong suit, so it's strange when I find myself trying to behave with any shades of it. So this was an change for me, and not an entirely unwelcome one. After all, prematurely claiming familiarity hasn't exactly gotten me very far, has it?

Fuzzy brought out the New Yorker in me, long buried under California surf and sand after all these years. We made wisecracks. We swapped war stories. We drank strong sake and slurped ramen. Not exactly romance novel material, but the rapport was something I missed from my New York days, even if it only seemed to generate unhealthy relationships for me at the time.

In all honesty, I hadn't thought too much about either date until I sat down and started writing about them after a few too many swigs on the sake bottle. First dates with complete strangers don't deserve too much analyzing. At this point I'm viewing them as successful attempts to get myself out of the house and practice my conversation skills, maybe make a friend or two. If I'm lucky, I'll get lucky.

In other words, I'll start overanalyzing after the second dates, both of which seem to be a strong possiblity -- as is a first date with an honest to God six-footer.

Happy Thanksgiving! Dismissed.