S here, blogging live from my couch on a Saturday night. Someone had a little too much to drink at her office holiday party last night (that someone was me) and is still recovering from a nasty hangover. IN MY DEFENSE, mom, I was a perfect, professional lady until some co-workers and I went out after the main event. Things went slightly downhill from there. Not Bridget Jones’s Diary office Christmas party karaoke level downhill….but not too far off, either.

PS just spent way too much of my life searching for that clip on Youtube. No dice. In addition to last night’s madness, the night before, Thursday night, I also got inexplicably toasted on a first date. Which I will 100% be telling you all about next week, so stay tuned. What I’m trying to explain to you guys is: mama’s liver needs a break. 

Never fear, though. I’m here to blow up your phones with this update while you’re all out doing really cool shit and living your lives. My neighbors upstairs, for instance, are throwing what sounds like an amazing Christmas party. Meanwhile, I’m rocking Old Navy candy cane flannel pjs (#blessed) and working towards my December goal of watching every single Hallmark Channel Original Holiday Movie of 2013.

You probably thought that was a joke. Oh ye of little faith. Here’s why these movies are so great: If ABC Family is the luxury vehicle of original Christmas programming, and Lifetime is the nice, mid-level sedan, then Hallmark Channel is like… my 2006 Hyundai Elantra. Basic, made cheaply and efficiently, and f*cking fantastic. Here’s what I’m currently enjoying:

Oh hey, DJ Tanner. Lookin’ hot in your budget ski resort wardrobe. Good for you, girl. 

Anyway. Sad singleton cliches aside, let’s get down to business. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading this week’s worst date ever contest entries as much as we have. And now…. it’s time to vote! We shared five entries in total. Please vote for your favorite in the poll below. We will leave the poll up until Friday, the 13th (dun dun dunnnn) and announce our three winners then.

If you missed any or all of the stories, you can scroll down to read them or click here:

• Entry #1: Dental Drama
• Entry #2: Cheap Date
• Entry #3: Unwanted Physical
• Entry #4: Six Hour Date
• Entry #5: Ponytailed Carnie

Thanks again for reading, participating, and making us LOL with these amazing tales of terror. Happy voting, and happy Saturday night, from me and the Hallmark Channel. 

S here, coming at you with my last post as a 28 year old. That’s right, peeps. As of midnight tonight, the sun will officially begin to set on my 20s and I’ll be staring 30 in its mean, spinstery face. Woohoo! Also, a friendly reminder: if you haven’t already, please vote for your favorite worst date ever story here. Voting ends Friday!

Speaking of being a mature adult… do any of you loyal readers recall this lovely tale of first date tipsiness from L? Well last week, as I mentioned, I walked (or should I say stumbled) a mile in her shoes on a first date of my own. Allow me to explain, and by explain I mean post a screen shot of the text I sent D when I got home:

It’s a testament to our friendship and to the bond we share that D a. did not bat an eyelash at the fact that I got drunk on a first date and b. was on her way to getting sauced herself after a rough day at work. Meanwhile, somewhere south of us, L was also out drinking heavily. Can you say cosmic connection?

Anyway, a little background on said date. The guy is M, a 36 year old high school teacher from Jersey. M and I had been messaging back and forth for a a few weeks. Things I liked about him: he’s an avid traveler and spends every summer at his family’s beach house in Italy, traveling all over the country and throughout Europe. Yes, you read that correctly. Summer beach house. In Italy. Um, hi. Sign me the f*ck up for that. He also teaches history, which is hot. And is 6’3. HOT. 

Things I wasn’t crazy about: he tried, from the moment we exchanged numbers, to CALL ME. There are few things I hate more than a phone conversation with a dude I’ve never met. I mean, what kind of sociopath wants to voluntarily talk on the phone with a total stranger, unless that stranger is a Comcast customer service team member and the cable is out? Even when the guy has a delicious British accent, it’s still inevitably the most awkward interaction ever. I successfully dodged the first few of M’s phone requests, hoping he’d take a hint, but he KEPT ASKING. I had to actively restrain myself from pulling a Regina George and shutting his Gretchen Weiners bullshit right down:

And then send him this insane little memo just in case he still didn’t get it:

Instead, I consented to 20 minutes of chatting the night before our date which was, AS PREDICTED, moderately awkward. I hate being right all the time. (Lies. I love it).

The night of our date rolled around, and mama was pretty grumpy. Here’s why:

• The weird phone prelude freaked me out
• I’d had a long ass day at work
• the weather was disgustingly wet and humid, causing my hair to do some pretty unique things

I was just not feeling it. It was one of those days where I I wanted sooooo badly to go home and lay on my couch (aka pretty much every day), but I hate people who flake on plans last minute (ahem) so I dragged my salty self over to the bar.

How did the date go? Glad you asked. Conveniently I text-vomited a full summary to poor, unsuspecting D, which I will again post for your viewing pleasure:

In case you haven’t noticed, yours truly is quite the drunk texter. I recently claimed (to no one who cared) that I live by the following motto: “When the drinks start flowin’, the fingers get goin’.” I mean, what? Also, it’s almost too easy, but…

Sorry/not sorry. Back to the date. I swear, I have never had my ear talked off by a man like I did with M. From the moment we met he was a Chatty Cathy, going on and on about his job, traveling, friends and family. This was actually a welcome development at first, since I usually have the EXACT opposite problem with dudes and have to essentially perform my own one woman show just to keep the awkward silences at bay. So honestly, up until the end of the night I truly enjoyed M’s chattiness. He was smart and interesting, not obnoxious or annoying.

It wasn’t until we arrived at the aforementioned whiskey bar and I was well on my way to being fully drunk that I realized… M had asked me almost nothing about myself. Literally almost nothing. In all fairness, I’m not exactly a shy wallflower (shocking, I know)  and can hold my own in a conversation, so there were plenty of times when I interjected with something and M listened with interest. So I guess it wasn’t that bad, just… weird. Anyway, on to my drunkenness. We had already had a flight of (delicious) beer at the first bar we went to, and then after revealing to him that I’d recently acquired a taste for whiskey, we decided to trek down the street to a whiskey bar for a “nightcap”. Except we walked in and it was like a budget remake of the Great Gatsby up in that piece. Champagne was a-flowin’. People were dressed in period garb. The normally wildly over-priced drinks were dirt cheap. You can guess what happened next…

Mama got sauced. M had to drive and is also gigantic in stature, so he was essentially fine, but I had 3 more BIG mixed drinks and a glass and a half of champagne. By the end I could hear myself slurring my words and also started to make best friends with our neighbors at the bar, something I only do when drunk. At one point the nice lesbian couple next to me discretely whispered, ‘is this a first date?’ and I practically shouted, so the entire (tiny) bar could hear, “It is a first date! Are we that obvious??” Smooth, S. Smooth.

Smart cookie that I am, I decided that we needed to go before I (further) embarrassed myself. I could at least tell through my haze that M seemed bemused rather than horrified by my antics, so I was confident that my behavior still passed for charming and hadn’t crossed over to fully obnoxious. Yet.But I calculated that I was roughly 15 minutes and half a drink away from this:

I announced that M needed to drive me home (in hindsight I was in no state to accept a ride from a strange man but hey, I obviously lived to tell about it. Calm down, mom.) M said he had a great time and would love to go out again (heard that one before!) and then went in for the kiss. It was a bold move, but drunk S was into it. It was actually a really nice first kiss, probably because we were in a warm car and I had a buzz on. But nice nonetheless.

The next morning, hungover and a little embarrassed, I went over the date in my head. And started to get annoyed by M’s apparent lack of interest in my life. I called in some experts, wondering if this was a red flag, but multiple sources told me he was probably either a. nervous (this seems most likely to me) or b. having a REALLY good time and was comfortable enough to open up. Either way, he didn’t berate me or lose his car, so I’m giving him a pass.

M and I have a second date set for Thursday. Let me tell you, there are few things more awkward than dating someone new right around your birthday. You feel like a weirdo not mentioning it at all, but you don’t want them to misunderstand your mention as a request for them to acknowledge it. I am probably ultra sensitive about this because last year I was in this very same position… I’d been seeing a guy briefly, it got out that it was my birthday, and he made a big fuss about it. Basically he INSISTED that we go out to dinner to celebrate even though I was super uncomfortable and told him ‘yeahhh we’re not seriously dating, that is sweet but really not necessary’. But again, he insisted, so I relented, thinking I’d at least get a nice dinner out of it. Then, the night of said dinner rolled around (also the day after my bday!) and this douchenozzle texts me to tell me 1. he was cancelling dinner and 2. didn’t want to see me anymore. Like I’m sorry, WHAT? I NEVER WANTED TO HAVE THIS WEIRD BIRTHDAY DINNER IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU LUNATIC.

Anyhoodle. Clearly I have birthday date PTSD after that bullshit. So when M (very nicely) referred to this next date as my ‘birthday dinner’ I practically shouted him down in sheer alarm in distress. I just feel like I’m tempting fate by agreeing to this again, even if it is just dinner and even if I SCREAMED that I didn’t want any sort of fuss made over my birthday by someone I literally just met. Let me tell you, if M cancels, you poor readers WILL be hearing about it. Probably in all caps. 

Date rating: 7.5/10. M was a nice, interesting, smart, fun dude and a great kisser, but he talked wayyy too much.

Lesson learned: DRINK LESS. That is all.

It’s time to announce the winners of our Worst Date Ever Contest!!! And the winners are… 

Unwanted Physical

Six hour Date

Ponytailed Carnie

Congrats ladies! Your suffering has won you a tote.

Please email your mailing address to stucublog@gmail.com so we can send you some swag. We’re hoping that you’ll rock that shiz so regularly that Suri Holmes Cruise will beg us to create a line of children’s fashion. 

 And thanks again to all of our wonderful readers who shared their stories with us. And believe me when I say that your stories got us through some cold winter nights.

Speaking of cold winter nights, Momma has been feeling a lot of them recently, after breaking it off with yet another OKC bachelor. And contrary to what you may believe about me, pity parties/mini break ups involve more than whiskey. There may or may not have been some rocking out to this rather immature Avril Lavigne throwback:

Is there anyone out there besides me who DOESN’T hate this song? If so, holler at me, because we may be a match.

So, what happened? It’s really quite absurd, for so many reasons. Right around Halloween, I started messaging with a really cute 25 year old. I’ve always had a thing for younger guys. (No Mrs. Robinson jokes, please. I like to think of myself as more of a “Stacy’s Mom.”)

Besides, W was tall and handsome and had some solid ties to Philadelphia, my home city. While a quick read of W’s answers to OKC questions revealed that he, at most, would turn out to be a mildly intelligent jump off, I figured there was no harm in going on a date with him. At best, it’d be a Tuesday night adventure. And, if it sucked, I’d just bounce after one drink.

But here’s the thing. When we met up, it was so fun. This guy literally met every single one of the criteria that I love in a man, despite the $100 in weekly therapy and 1000 warnings I’ve received from my nearest and dearest. 

On our date, W revealed the following gems:

• He used to manage a Dominos pizza, but quit when “management was all up in his business.”
• He was a liquor distributor who went to work “sometimes.”
• He hated books because they told him “what to think” and “what to do.”

But before you shake your head and tell me just how many red flags you have already found JUST BY READING THIS BLOG POST, bear with me. W made me laugh. And, in a city full of guys who take themselves wayy too seriously, he was just such a refreshing change from what I encounter on a daily basis. And I love pizza. And liquor. So we have that in common. And did I mention I am a MESS for tall slackers wearing hoodies?

So after talking for 4 hours and closing down to the bar, we went back to my place. And if I provided you with the full details I’d have to charge you 99 cents per minute. And W revealed one more detail to me:

• He was a recovering heroin addict.

I’m sorry, what? I must have heard wrong.  Heron addict? Were you addicted to taking pictures of these water-dwelling birds?

No,  I heard properly. Heroin. The shiz that the Barksdale gang is selling on the Wire.

WMDs! Pandemic!

Now, listen. I know I sound like Yuppie McPriveledged, and while in some ways I am, in many ways I am not. I really do think everyone has a past and makes mistakes and other people’s drug use is not something I get that bent out of shape about. The heroin part was not upsetting me nearly as much as the addict part. As you may have gleaned from my previous posts, I tend to fall for addicts. In fact, I have a pretty deep history with one. And I am not gonna get all Jerry Spring/Montell Williams Special on you, but let me just say that, having a relationship with an addict is the most fun/most stressful/most ultimately consuming thing that can happen to a person. So at that moment, even though I was 100% charmed by W, I knew that I could never, ever really date him.

But yet, when he texted me the next day and said he wanted to see me again, I said yes. And we had a great time. And so I said yes again. And again. And before I knew it, I was hooked. Some might say, ADDICTED. Bah Dum Ching–even at my lowest points, friends, I never pass up an opportunity for a cheap joke. 

I knew one day it would have to end, but I convinced myself that day would be sometime next week, or after the next time we hung out. I figured, why ruin a fun thing? But the more we hung out, the more signs I started to see that the time was near. One thing that did bother me about him was that he was super flaky. I mean, he could not make plans for anything more than three hours in advance.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

And this bothered me. Why?

1) Because I’m a busy woman! I’m not just sitting around my parents’ house, waiting for some guy to pick me up and take me to the commuter rail parking lot for some heavy petting # highschool #beentheredonethat

2) Because I thought it meant that he was just not that into me. I know that his inability to make plans could have also been explained by the fact that he was a 25  year old, barely-employed drug addict. However, I took this inability personally and thought that his flakiness was just a way of dicking me around.  And, the more attached to him I became, the more the possibility that he was just not that into me bummed me out.

So the next time he reached out to me, I decided to end it.* And, while it sucked to momentarily disappoint him, and to voluntary turn down someone whose ahem, company, I was really enjoying, I am glad I ended it.

* What actually happened is I consulted no less than four colleagues, three friends over Facetime, my therapist, my sister, and two relationship blogs, and they all implored to me stop seeing him, and finally I listened.

Anyway, after a week, I recovered from the moping and was prepared to go on with my life. And there I was, a few mornings ago, checking Tacosdelish’s messages. (This is not something I do often, because, she seriously receives 20 messages per day, 15 of which are sexual innuendos mentioning food, butts, or farts.) But when I looked in her inbox, what did I see but a message from W!!!!! 

Upon reading this, I did what anyone would do in my situation. I freaked out, ceased work, started to hyperventilate, and g-chatted S an SOS message and claimed that W was “in love with Tacosdelish”. To which she calmly responded:

S:

:

S was right. This message was benign, and even if it wasn’t, who cares? It actually makes for some unbelievable blog material and a funny  ending to a somewhat depressing tale. So thank you W, for that! I hope you and Tacosdelish are very happy together. And I hope you bring a Chechen dictionary to your first date.

I’ve been doing this online dating thing for about a year now. Technically, I set up my OKC profile during Hurricane Sandy, but then I promptly ignored said profile for over a month. So we’ll call it a year. I’ve tested out a variety of sites, went on dates, met some pretty cool people (and some not cool ones), and tried new things/places. But no one has made it past a second date yet. I haven’t even been on a first date since I moved to the ‘burbs back in August. I’m batting .000 on responses to messages I send lately. I was starting to feel like this:

                                          http://icarly-official.tumblr.com/post/58840878427/oh

And the messages I do receive are either worthless or from older men outfitted in collared shirts and sweater vests standing in front of Lifetouch type backgrounds prompting this uplifting message to S:

I respect her open judgment. Clearly I was on a downward spiral. Speaking of watching crying movies, I’ve been doing that a lot lately while moping at home and occasionally stopping at the liquor store on my way home. I have a small arsenal of “crying movies,” depending on what kind of crying I want to do. Love wins in the end: Breakfast at Tiffany’s or An Affair to Remember. The world is a disappointing place and life and love are hopeless because everyone just dies anyway so what’s the point?: Legends of the Fall or American History X. Reminder that everyday, ordinary life is full of awesome things too: Up! or A Cool Dry Place. General cry for no discernible reason: Apollo 13. It’s embarrassing how much use those DVDs are getting.

I took a break from my 2 month pity party this past weekend to do one of my favorite things: binge watch off-air, complete tv series on Netflix. It was the perfect weekend for that activity – a snowstorm was headed our way Saturday into Sunday. I made a huge mug of hot chocolate and started in on Friday Night Lights. And that’s when it happened. My epiphany.

The problem isn’t me.

The problem is that I don’t live in the fictional town of Dillon, TX.

Again, I texted S. But before I got a chance to tell her the importance of my weekend activity, she hit the nail on the head:

And then she beat the crap out of the nail:

Everything she said is correct. I only had 1 thing to add. That IS my type, y’all.

Guys – I clearly just need to move to Texas. Or back to upstate New York, where I came from and where that type is plentiful.

Texas forever.

It’s almost Christmas! Queen Connie and her adorable nugget are spreading cheer, one Gap ad at a time…

Mariah Carey’s Christmas album is on repeat until further notice…

And as it turns out, love actually is all around. Duh.

So despite the fact that yours truly just turned 29, we’re pretty cheerful over here at Stucu. (I’ve been 29 for 4 months now, and honestly? Being that much closer to 30 actually does fill me with cheer. I can’t fucking wait for my 30s – I have high hopes for that decade of my life. Peace OUT 20s.) The one thing missing from this holiday season? Favorite things. No, I don’t mean these favorite things…

Although they’re pretty good, too, so long as Carrie Underwood doesn’t show up to ruin them (bitch). I actually mean these favorite things:

COME ON. Was there anything better than that decade or so of annual lunacy? The shameless, unbridled consumerism? The sheer hysteria of those audience members? Oprah’s run as a benevolent she-Santa may be over, but the memories live on in our hearts and minds, as do the most important things…the gifs. So as our gift to you, dear readers, please enjoy a list of our favorite things about online dating, coupled with some very special gifs courtesy of The Mighty O herself.

LSD’s Favorite Things about Online Dating

Good answers to profile questions

Like these:

Those two answers to “the six things I could never do without” are proof that people can get this question right. Guys consistently lose points with me when they answer literally. Everyone knows you can’t live without oxygen and air and food. DUH. Not only are those answers inane and uncreative, they tell me nothing about you. But needing shark week to survive? Requiring Steve Buscemi in your life like you require water? That tells me you have a sense of humor. Or at the very least that you have a thing for Steve Buscemi. Either way, you’re already more interesting than those other guys. And kudos to that third guy for taking control of what being a grown up means. I aspire to be more like that, and less like the grown up that I’ve become (filled with anxiety and questioning my life decisions daily). These answers give me hope for my dating future.

When you show up to the date and the person is better looking than they are in their pictures

As we’ve all learned from past experiences, showing up for your first online date requires a leap of faith. A leap of faith that the person you’re going to meet is the person he or she describes in their profile, and, their profile pictures. You’ve all heard me complain about guys being LESS attractive than their profile photo. However, the regret I feel about incidents like that is washed away by the JOYOUS SURPRISE when I meet my date and he’s significantly cuter than he is in his photo. I really do think the element of pleasant surprise greatly increases the likelihood that I’ll sleep with kiss him at the end of the date. Take note, gentlemen!

Actually hearing from a guy after a good date

One of the biggest bummers about online dating is that it really does make you cynical where planning and following through are concerned. Normal social cues like how people act and what they say have no bearing on what they’ll actually do in the online dating world. The fade away is such a regular occurrence that you kind of develop this weird tick as a defense mechanism where you no longer trust anything or anyone, least of all your own instincts. For me this includes an internal monologue, who I fondly refer to as Negative Nancy, and she sounds a little something like this:

My date: I had a great time tonight.

Nancy: YEAH OKAY SURE, HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE, ASSHOLE.

My date: I’d love to go out again. 

Nancy: I’LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I F*CKING SEE IT.

True, my internal monologue is really shrill and terrifying, but she exists for a reason. So when a guy says he’ll be in touch and he actually gets in touch, well… it’s a lovely surprise. And bonus: Nancy actually shuts up! FOR ONCE. I call that a miracle. A Christmas miracle.

The excitement before a promising first date

Not all first dates we go on elicit such excitement. Don’t get me wrong, I never dread a date – I don’t agree to go on dates with guys I’m 0% interested in. Not even for blog research. I still have some standards. But a really promising date? That’s pretty rare. Even if it ends up being a dud, that feeling beforehand when the sky is the limit – it’s the best.

Getting great recommendations for new music, TV shows, and Youtube videos

Do you know who Key and Peele are? NEITHER DID I, until a few months ago, when W sat me on his couch and showed me some awesome Youtube clips from their show. As a former public school teacher, this one is my favorite:

Dating is like having your very own Buzzfeed, or at the very least Facebook Newsfeed, or Spotify playlist. You get to hear about all sorts of new music and movies and TV shows you’re missing. I’ve had the pleasure in the last couple months of dating not ONE but THREE guys who have a full time or side career in the music industry, and that’s resulted in me becoming hipper than my 22-year old, flannel wearing sister when it comes to finding out about quirky bands or new songs. (Given my penchant for DJs and the fact that I dated a guy who literally owns a record store, musical recs have been a lovely little bonus for me as well.)

Thanks, boys. I wonder how many dates it will take to make me cooler than Amy Poehler?

The possibility of a really good first kiss

This one probably sounds obvious, but I think kissing is totally underrated. Especially in the online dating world, where people freely answer questions about sex like their profile is a US Census, and Tinder remains the reigning king of sketchy interaction. We are so preoccupied with trying to figure out if our date is a serial killer, making decent conversation, remembering not to drink too much and attempting not to put our foot in our mouth, that the first kiss can get lost in that shuffle of all the other dating insanity. But when it’s good, it can be really good. And hot. And exciting. And delicious. True, it almost certainly won’t be as epic this:

But honestly, what is?

Debriefing with your friends and coworkers 

My post date routine involves:

5 minutes after-Call S, give overview of the date, provide painstaking detail on everything that happened.

5 minutes after I hang up with S-Call one of my friends in DC (usually K or C) and debriefing the date in slightly less detail.

10 minutes after I hang up with DC friend-Call S back and fill in any details I missed in my first retelling, and (if I like the guy) agonize over if I am going to hear from him again.

The morning after-All my interested coworkers gather in my office to hear a PG-13 version of the date

The afternoon after–I go for a coffee break with a few coworkers and tell the real R rated version of the date. 

The thing is, I have truly found that people enjoy hearing the debrief even more than I enjoy telling it (which is a lot, because, if you haven’t guessed, I’m a passionate oversharer. (Duh–we have a blog). But we have a blog, in part, because people enjoy these tales so much and we are NOTHING if not eager to entertain and please.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, READERS! Here’s to a 2014 filled with favorite things, and hopefully some happy endings!

(It physically pains me not to be able to embed the accompanying clip from Bridget Jones here, since it’s so befitting. But APPARENTLY no one reveres this cinematic triumph enough to upload it to Youtube. Click here if you’d like to watch. Aaaand I’m out. Take it away, L!)

It’s that time of year again, folks. Christmas has come and gone, and in the days between now and January 1. most people are concocting elaborate New Year’s resolutions to lose all the pounds they put on through competitive holiday eating and drinking.  Due to my deep and dependent relationship with food, I am not actually sure the traditional “lose 10 lbs” resolution is going to work for me.

However, just because I’m not giving up my night cheese does not mean I don’t have some very rigorous resolutions up my sleeve, a few which are dating-related. And what better people to share them than with my co-bloggers and our wonderful readers? Here goes…

Resolution #1: Date one guy at a time

When I started dating this year, I felt like I was at a Golden Corral. For those of you who aren’t blessed enough to know firsthand, Golden Corral is an incredible, all you can eat buffet where for about $12.99 you can, “HELP YOURSELF TO HAPPINESS.” 

I mean, the slogan for online dating is more like “Help yourself to herpes,” (L, you’re hilarious as always, but THAT SLOGAN IS TERRIFYING) but you get my gist. I basically went to the buffet, grabbed a mish-mash of delicious, though mostly unhealthy, treats, and ate them all at once.  I tried the date the nice guy/ and sleep with the sex idiot combo (more than once). I tried doctors, several Booze Allen consultants (though stopped shy of Edward Snowden, dammit!), former Dominos pizza employees, and music industry moguls sound engineers.  Why is dating multiple guys so appealing?

First, instead of trying to find a guy who has all the qualities you enjoy in another person, you have the much easier task of enjoying different things about different people at once. You can have a great dinner conversation with Bachelor A, and then leave and have great, ahem, non conversation with Bachelor B. Bachelor C takes you to a concert and you talk about music for hours, but he has no idea who Elizabeth Warren is. That’s ok, because you’ll have plenty of time to discuss the next election with Bachelor D a few nights later over a nice dinner.

Second, You don’t get too attached to any one person. After the abrupt demise of my very long term and very serious relationship last fall, I was terrified (and still sort of am) of ever getting close to someone again, and then getting hurt when things ended. What better way to ward off possible attachments than to not commit to one person? Who cares if Bachelor B disappears? You were seeing two other guys, and chances are at least one of them is still around. Score!

However, my whole “I’m so damaged/ I’ll never love again” thing is getting to be like a bad Grey’s Anatomy season series that will never end.

(MEREDITH. PLEASE STOP COMPLAINING WHILE EMPHATICALLY MOVING YOUR HEAD TO ONE SIDE.)

I don’t want to be the main character in Shonda Rhime’s next TV show about some high-powered, damaged woman who keeps smacking love in the face (literally).

In 2014, I want to start to approach dating with the possibility of maybe wanting more than just a fling, and to do this, I need to hunker down and determine what qualities I really want in a boo and what I can’t abide by.  And I think that will be a lot easier and more effective if I evaluate my feelings for one guy at a time. Which leads me to…

Resolution #2: Stop worrying about what he’s thinking, and focus on what I’m thinking

For all the boasting I’ve done on this blog (not to mention IN LIFE) about having the running title of “most insecure” among my friends (vying with C, of course!), crippling self doubt and second guessing are actually habits I want to ditch in 2014. It’s kinda tiring living in a mild state of terror, waiting for the worst to happen:

So, instead of agonizing constantly about what my dates are thinking about me, why they keep asking me out, if they are only in it so they can rob me/get a job/learn Swedish/make friends with all my friends, I am going to start asking myself more, “why am I in this? what do I want? Do I really like this guy? Why or why not?”

Resolution #3: Get buzzed, not drunk

As you know, the ladies of StuCu love themselves some liquor, and I’m proud/sad to say I probably hold the title for biggest heavyweight in this category. While there are a couple great semi-valid reasons to get drunk on dates, there are also a couple of not-so-great consequences to this practice:

1. Sleeping with guys you don’t even like.
2. Not totally remembering what you said the next day. I.e., “Did I really tell that guy that I wanted to send anyone caught listening a to Dave Matthew Band songs to jail and Chinese water torture them? Right after he said his favorite song was Ants go Marching? EEEKKK” (Though honestly, if this was his favorite song, he deserved the insult. ) (Based on my highly scientific points system, this statement is completely true.)
3. The weekday hangovers. Mama’s not 22 anymore.
4. Did I mention the sleeping with guys you don’t even like thing? Cause it kinda sucks.

Happy New Year, y’all. Here’s hoping that next year, I go from this kinda single lady–

to this kind of single lady–

*Obviously I mean Beyonce, not Kelly or Michelle. (Personally, I’d take Kelly, too. Sorry, Michelle).

See you lovely readers in 2014!

Happy ’14, ladies and germs!

This Message Monday is brought to you not by an Okcupid user, but by Okcupid itself. I actually thought that this email was some kind of joke or that okc had been hacked when it first showed up in my inbox. I called L to see if she’d gotten it, too, and the following exchange occurred:

me: Did you get that terrifying email from Okcupid with the gross picture of the scorpion?

L: (smugly) Actually, I changed my settings so they can’t email me about anything. So I wouldn’t know.

me: Yeah, but this was not your typical ‘so and so messaged you’ kind of thing. It looked like a mass message to all their users. You didn’t get it? It’s absurd.

L: No, like I said, my privacy preferences prevent them from ever contacting me. You should try it.

Fast forward 24 hours…

HA! So much for L’s magical privacy preferences. Anyway, feast your eyes on the email in question from the fine people of Humor Rainbow, Inc:

I’m sorry…

Why are you imbeciles sending me close up pictures of a scorpion and its terrifying shed skin? Yes, I have heard of molting and no, I don’t think it’s awesome. In fact, I have a PATHOLOGICAL FEAR of all things creepy crawly. Also, are you not aware that single people across this great nation just survived a harrowing holiday season? A season which included the following:

• a parade of holiday engagement announcements on Facebook (I counted four on my news feed and I’m pretty sure that’s a low number for my age bracket)
• obnoxious questions from nosy family members about our single status
• smug couples EVERYWHERE posing for cutesy photo ops in front of trees and under mistletoe
  
• listening with feigned interest to what so and so’s boyfriend/husband gave so and so and isn’t it SOOOOO thoughtful (meanwhile the most thoughtful thing a dude has ever given me is flowers from Wegmans. I’m serious). 
• midnight kisses on New Year’s Eve that you have no choice but to combat by triple kissing your only other two single friends in the room (again, wish I were kidding. But it happened. Thanks, L and L!)

So, Okcupid, I ask you:

HAVEN’T SINGLE PEOPLE SUFFERED ENOUGH?

I’m just over here trying not to hang myself from my shower curtain rod because it’s Monday, January 6th, it’s raining cats and dogs, I have a hangover that was a month in the making, and essentially nothing to live for over the next three months except primetime TV and awards shows. So THANK YOU for brightening my day by comparing me to a grotesque, deadly creature that’s too disgusting and scary to even look at. And may I add, nothing puts me in the mood to “turn over a new leaf” and send some flirty messages to cute boys like staring at the dead skin of a poisonous arachnid.

Talk about insult to effing injury. Why do I even use this stupid service, again?

Oh, that’s right. Because I’m single. And also, apparently…

I actually wrote this post back in October and intended it to be Halloween themed. Fast forward to this morning when I was looking through our unpublished drafts and there it was, months old and never posted. #bloggingfail.

WELP, this is going up in January because it still amuses me, seasonably inappropriate or not.

Originally the question I posed was: is this a Halloween costume pic or just a dude chillin’ in a kilt? Here, decide for yourself and I’ll meet you down below those pale, hairy legs to discuss…

So what’s the consensus? Was this guy going as Braveheart? Or is he just super Scottish or Irish and just doing his ancestral thing? As a self-proclaimed Anglophile, I appreciate pride in one’s heritage. And it’s not like I’ve never seen a dude wearing one of these in a parade; hell, I know people who asked their groomsmen to sport kilts in their weddings. Not a huge deal. Except… I didn’t crop his face out. He did. And this is the only pic this gentleman chose to share with the Okc community.

Puzzling and mysterious. But never fear, his profile provides additional clues:

Okay, so… you’re really busy, and you really like to go commando. Got it. 

Must love kilts.

Readers! A magical thing has happened. I Googled ‘must love kilts’ purely for shits and giggs, and made a glorious discovery:

God bless Allie MacKay, national treasure, and God bless Angela Knight for agreeing with me. Apparently, the erotic fiction industry has a kilt niche that I was woefully unaware of. Seriously, I fell into an Amazon rabbit hole looking at these. Whose job is it to think of the titles and subtitles? Because I WANT. THAT. JOB.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go use my Amazon Prime subscription so Sins of a Highland Devil can arrive in time for the weekend. 

PS – FYI, loyal readers, I know it’s been a while since we’ve posted about any actual dates, but that’s not because we’re not going on them. (Okay, it’s maybe 60% because we’re not going on them). We do, in fact, have date tales that we’ll be dishing about in the next week, and we’ve got some other fun posts planned as well to get us all through this hellacious polar vortex of a winter. Thanks again for reading, even when we scare our own mothers with our shrill posts and they call us that night to nervously check on our mental states. Oh wait, that’s probably just me.

You know that feeling when you sign into OKC on a Sunday night (after a weekend of “swearing off online dating”) and see that you have 15 new messages? In the early days I called that feeling “hope,” because I believed that each of these messages would be from a nice, normal, cute guy who could potentially be my husband or at the very least, my jump-off.

However, after about one month I learned the cruel truth about the message to viable date ratio. Of the 15 messages you get each weekend, three will be from murders who aren’t even trying to hide the fact they are trying to murder you. Six will be some version of “hi hwo are u sexy grl? Free 2nit?”. Three will be from guys whose usernames are some combination of the words “dragon” and “daddy.” Three  messages will be normal, and if you’re lucky, one will be from someone who you *might* be attracted to and have something in common with. 

I’ve also learned that, apparently, men also message women on OKC for reasons other than wanting a date or even a lil something something. For example, I got a very promising message from a guy that read:

What a great intro message! Personalized (I love the League/TV), to the point, and somewhat funny! I took a look at this guy’s profile so I could craft a witty reply. It was pretty basic, except for this detail:

Now, those who know me know I love giving advice, even when I know NOTHING about the topic. So, I replied to him:

(I realize now I made a grammatical error, which I would totally judge someone for #languagesnob, so I apologize to the readers who caught that and are shaking their heads at my sloppiness and/or hypocrisy.)

But preposition mix-ups didn’t seem to bother this guy (probably because he was overcome with my wit and beauty). He responded:

Where I come from, we would officially call this bantering. And, we all know that bantering —> -love —> marriage —> babies —> co-writing our own sitcom about being a modern day couple balancing love, family, and work. (Preferably staring either Tina, Amy, or Mindy, of course). Eager to get started writing the pilot episode, I replied:

While I was busy congratulating myself on my candid, hilarious, honest response, I got the following reply:

Huh? That’s it? No, “can I have your number?” No, “would you like to grab a drink sometime?” Not even a follow-up question, like “what do you do when you’re not watching Law and Order?” NADA. NOTHING.

I understand I could have continued the conversation myself if I was DYING to go out with this guy. But I just got the sense he was more interested in getting career advice from a random stranger than actually asking me out. YOU’RE WELCOME, M, FOR THE ADVICE. Please know that if I ever hear about your successful career on the news I am going to stand at your doorstep trying to take some money/credit from you, all  the while shouting, “We want pre-nup” or something equally insane.

Meanwhile, everyone else can just call me the Sheryl Sandberg of OkCupid, since apparently my purpose here is to give career advice. Lean. In.

You guys. I hope you’re prepared to have a large chuckle at my expense, because boyyyy do I have a treat for you.

This is (to our knowledge) a first here at Stupid Cupid. Up until now, no one we’ve dated, as far as we know, has found, had access to, or read our blog. UNTIL NOW. Because (drumroll please)….

Someone I’m currently dating has found this blog.

You’re probably saying something like, “That’s funny! But come on, it’s not that bad. At least you didn’t write about him.”

Except OH WAIT. I did. Yup. Go back and read that little diddy about my first date with D, in which I called him a nerd, lambasted his Okcupid profile, and basically implied that he was a creepy stalker slash potential murderer. #facepalm

Allow me to start at the beginning, because this is truly a tale you all deserve to enjoy fully and in minute detail. I have been seeing D intermittently since our first date about two months ago. I didn’t mention him again after that post because honestly, I really do try to avoid writing about guys I go out with unless/until it’s over. For this VERY F*CKING REASON. But I made an exception this time since D was the one to break the the epic dry spell I’d written so much about.

As previously mentioned on my first date post, D works in IT and is essentially a doctorate-level internet stalker, which I respect. Or at least I did, when I thought the only thing he’d found was my last name via my LinkedIn profile. I told him about the blog almost immediately, but gave him minimal info. beyond the fact that it existed. And he never let on that he’d discovered it. UNTIL…

This past Sunday night, when D casually brought up that awful scorpion email we single mutants received from Okc a few weeks ago. You remember, the one I freaked out about? I responded with something like: “I know, wasn’t that the worst? I actually just wrote a rage-filled blog post about it”.

But something about the way D had brought it up made me pause. My Spidey senses were tingling. So I broached the subject…

As you can see, D never actually answered my question. My weird hunch suddenly turned to certainty, and then to straight dread. At this point I’m going to switch FULLY over to screen caps of our conversation, so you can live out the epic fail right there with me:

Speaking of going “Fuuuuuuuuuck” at high volume, while this was going down I promptly threw up the bat signal and woke poor L’s ass up:

Good co-blogger and friend that she is, she called me immediately and calmed me down. Meanwhile, D was finishing his epic tale of Stucu discovery…

So. Quick recap:

• This douchebag in a vagina costume is single-handedly responsible for blowing my cover. That sounds about right.
• D found the blog, followed it, and promptly forgot about it, until my post ABOUT HIM showed up on his blogroll. I can’t make this stuff up, folks.
• D has known about the blog for two months, and I had no clue until three days ago.
• D’s friends have read our blog.
• D’s mom has read our blog. (/Hi, Mrs. D?)

After my initial shock/freak out, I started to process what happened, and I realized that D was actually being incredibly cool and gracious about the whole thing. Hypocritical as it sounds, I’m not sure I’d respond so kindly if I stumbled upon some blog post a first date of mine had blown up the internet with, especially if he basically reviewed me like a summer blockbuster and RATED OUR DATE on a scale of 1-10. Especially when D started referencing older posts of mine and I realized that he’d gone back and read our entire blog, from start to finish:

I’ll admit, the one thing I was annoyed with D about was the fact that he’d kept his discovery a secret. The fact that he’d known basically the entire time we’ve been going out and hadn’t said a word about it made me feel a bit like an idiot. But after he laid down his arguments:

• We were dating very casually at first, with lots of time in between seeing each other. He wasn’t sure if he’d even see me again.
• I’d accused him of being a stalker and (only half-jokingly) asked if he was a serial killer, and he didn’t want to come off as even creepier than I’d already accused him of being.
• He was secretly hoping I’d write another blog post about him before he revealed that he’d found it.

I couldn’t really be mad. I would’ve done the same thing had I been in his shoes. All I can say is, thank God I kept my mouth shut for once in my life and stopped at one post!

Also, the bottom line is, this sort of thing comes with the territory. This is what we signed up for when we started a dating blog and put our shit on the internet. Anonymous or not, we knew this was always a possibility; I figured I’d be sharing the blog with SOMEONE eventually if we got serious enough. I just (foolishly) thought that I’d be in control of the when and the how of that reveal. Ahhh, how young and naive I was back then.

Not gonna lie, I can’t help but feel a liiiiittle bit like Bridget Jones when Mark Darcy finds her diary:

Luckily, I didn’t write that D acts like he has a “giant gherkin thrust up his backside” (don’t worry, he doesn’t), but Lord, do I feel Bridget’s horror and embarrassment in that moment. Actually, I think we all need to watch the following scene right now. Don’t ask questions. Colin Firth just makes everything better:

At least this whole thing didn’t end with me running down the street in gold zebra print knickers while a homeless man shouts after me in the snow. #smallvictories

Anyway, D continued to assure me that he was cool with the whole thing, and he was also super complimentary about the blog and our writing in general. Just when I felt my blood pressure return to a semi-human rate, another thought occurred to me: I wanted to write a post about this. I wanted to share this absurd hilarity with our readers, complete with our texts. Was D going to be cool with that? What was the protocol now that I knew he was going to presumably read every new thing I wrote? I asked him if he’d mind if I shared this story:

And we shall, D! We shall.

While L has been regaling you all with tales of her superior messaging/life advice skills, and S has been coming down from the shock of this epic discovery, I’ve just been up here in Boston doing an Oscar worthy impression of a deaf/mute on the commuter rail*, mooning over Tim Riggins, and refusing to go out or do anything that costs money since I’m leaving in a week for a vacation to France and Iceland (because that polar vortex just wasn’t enough for this winter lover). Meaning: I will not be the co-blogger upholding S’s recent promise to you loyal readers of some date stories soon.

I mean, the closest I’ve come to going on a date in the past 4 months was in early December when I went out after work on a Tuesday with my new(ish) co-worker to do some bonding over drinks. Despite the fact that S is cute and very funny, and under other circumstances I would welcome going on a date with him, it was not a date. It simply resembled a date in that we were 2 people at a bar having drinks. As we were relative strangers and work together in a very small firm, he responsibly nursed 2 beers. Meanwhile, I got a wee bit drunk on my drink of choice, Jack and Ginger, and after we parted ways ruined a perfectly good pair of tights in what would be an extremely embarrassing fashion if I had any dignity left (I lost what shred of dignity I had left around mid July, 2012). I guess it resembled a date in more ways than 1. Regardless, I continue to be unworthy of a dating blog, and there will not likely be any date stories in the near future penned by me. But I do have a new work friend, so that’s a plus at least.

Despite my serious shortcomings lately, S & L haven’t kicked me to the curb just yet. So this week I offer an olive branch with a rather delightful pic of the week.

Did I say delightful? I actually meant crude and unfunny. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of word play. I mean, when I made the switch from a droid to an iphone, it was 95% so that I could buy this iphone case:

But really? Carpet munching? If this picture is meant to exhibit the triple threat of wit, stunning physique, and sexual prowess, color me as unimpressed as the late, great, Whitney:

If you noticed that that picture was the second of 2 and are wondering what other gem he has up on his dating profile, I present you with:

Here’s hoping I get whisked off my feet by a rugged Icelandic lad and live out the rest of my days in the kind of climate few of us truly enjoy…

a

*UPDATE: I did finally manage to break the ice with CC. How, you ask. Flirty banter? A charming anecdote? No. By forgetting that I parked in Walpole that morning, which is one stop before my usual station on the way home, and then missing the stop for Walpole that evening (adding an hour to my commute). Because of course that would be the catalyst for me to finally speak to him like a human being. So although we do interact more now, including an occasional inquiry from CC as we approach Walpole about whether or not I’m there or in Norfolk (I’m now memorable at least), and enough for me to discover that he has a girlfriend of 7 years (through an actual conversation that I was a part of and not an eavesdropper to – GROWTH!), a leopard can’t change its spots. I’m still awkward little ‘ole me, who more often than not reacts to the presence of a nice, entertaining, attractive guy by pleading with my eyes for him to somehow know intuitively that I’m actually funny and charming if he could just make the first move.

Mark my words, in the next fifteen years, there will be a college course on dating, probably cross-listed under psychology and history. I mean, when I was in college, there was already a course, that, according to my loose recollection, was called something like, “Peeping under the Petticoat: Images of female sexuality in popular British magazines.” (Of course, being the gender studies junkie that I am, I think I took it.)

This hypothetical future course on dating would include, at the very least, three hours of course material on text messages, the form of communication that seems to dominate dating these days. We’ve already written about texting a bunch (texting too much, sexting, texting fails, etc) on this site. I personally HATE texting, but believe it’s one of those annoying, but inevitable things that one must do, especially when dating people you’ve never met in person with whom you want to avoid an awkward phone conversation full of long pauses, static, talking at the same time, and asking things like, “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. Can you repeat that?”

But texting too can have its awkward and frustrating pitfalls. I really think this Aziz Ansari clip says it all:

PREACH AZIZ! I hereby declare that the first college course on dating be named: Guess who is uninvited to the pizza party?: Texting and other humiliations you will experience when dating.

A couple months ago, I met a guy who was, at the very least, case study worthy for this course, if not a guest lecturer. His name was M, and he was a scruffy, tall, flannel shirting wearing, sarcastic, sound engineer. He worked at some very well known music venues in DC by night and made extra cash during the day shooting weird documentaries and promotional films for nonprofits and small businesses. Now, as I have alluded to briefly in my other posts, I am not exactly what you would call COOL when it comes to music and pop culture. I often find myself at the bar requesting a combination of Bob Seger and Whitney Houston, depending on what time of the evening it is. I get my clothes at Target (not ironically, for real) and the most recent thing I downloaded on my Ipod may or may not have been the soundtrack to Disney’s Frozen, which I sing along with while I fold my laundry.

C’mon, you’d be blasting this too.

Anyway, M somehow overlooked the lack of coolness on my profile and asked me out. After I agreed to meet, he wrote:

Oh,  how M LOVED to text. But the thing is, he was pretty good at it. Funny, witty, and could keep up with my jokes.

We planned a date for the following week, so had a full week to know each other through text. The weekend before our date, M even drunk texted me.

Now, we all know that I don’t believe in sexting before the first date. Honestly, in my early years of online dating, this may have scared me off. But M played it off well, and soon enough we were joking around.

Sometimes, M’s texts reached beyond the point of my understanding. He liked to send me pictures, which was normal enough when he was in vacation in California, but less normal when he was texting me selfies from a brunch downtown. I mean, how many selfies can one woman take before she actually meets the fellow? 

When M and I finally met, I was super psyched to find out a few things about him.

1) He was better looking than in his profile picture. 

2) He was even funnier in person than in text.

3) He had access to free tickets to any show at any live music venue in DC.

M and I proceeded to have, what I thought, was a very good date. Drinks turned to more drinks turned to dinner and then to more drinks. We were joking around like old friends by the time we finished our first beer. I swear to god, readers, it was like a movie-worthy first date. People at the restaurant were literally jealous of our chemistry. The host at the second bar thought I was M’s WIFE. 

After the date, M and I began to walk home (it was 11:00 on a weeknight after all). He lived a block away from the bar and when we got to his door, and said goodbye, he went in for a kiss. And it was a pretty awesome kiss, though it took me by surprise. And then we stopped kissing, and I turned to walk away, and he pulled me back in for a second kiss.

We were basically Kate and Leo at sunset, minus the good looks and the boat. 

We said a goodbye, and he said, “Promise me something. Never let go.” and I said, “I’ll never let go M. I’ll never let go.” And he then he shivered and floated away on a piece of driftwood. 

PSYCH, SUCKERS! What I just described is a scene from James Cameron’s Titanic. But it was almost that magical, I swear. 

The next day, he sent me this:

What IS that,you ask? I. DON’T. KNOW. I sent the image to no less than three other experts, and they were just as stumped as I was. If you can figure it out, let me know.

So I replied in the only way I thought possible. With another inexplicable picture.

Yes, that IS me giving bunny ears to the stuffed dragon in my office. And, don’t worry, the actual photo was sent right side up.

And then, NO RESPONSE. FOR 2 DAYS. I was pretty bummed. I thought the date had gone well. I thought when someone kissed you and said they wanted to see you again, they meant it. I took the absence of his communication as a sign he wasn’t interested in me and sulked around for about a day, and then decided, the chemistry between us had seem so FREAKING GOOD that it was worth one more try. So, I texted him:

The next day, he replied:

WHAT? HUH? I did not know what to make of this response. Was he flirting? Blowing me off? A little of both?

Sure enough, I never heard from M after that inexplicable text, and about one week later, he disappeared from OKcupid altogether.

Date rating: 9.5/10. Like I said, the chemistry going down would make Jim and Pam jealous. I deducted .5 for the two nasty remarks he dropped about his ex girlfriend. Ovaries before bro-varies my friends, even when the ovaries belong to a stranger.

Lesson learned: There is no way to predict what will happen after a date. People often don’t mean what they say, and they have a multitude of reasons for doing what they do. This date definitely contributed to my journey into cynicism.

**Author’s note: For those of you who are wondering about why I am blogging about something that happened around Halloween, please accept my apologies. I went on a man-bender for the last quarter of 2013, and got very distracted by W and some other gentlemen who I will write about shortly. The Chris Christie-esque traffic jam I’ve caused on this blog is one of the reasons I am trying to limit myself to one guy at a time in 2014. (Three weeks in, btw, and I am about .75 of a guy away from this goal. So TGFMA (thank god for my archives)!

Before I get to my post, I just want to point out a quick blogging fail. I missed our one year blogiversary! I feel like L, D, and you wonderful readers are just sitting at home, in your pretty new dresses, waiting to be acknowledged, while I frantically scroll through Yelp ‘best ofs’ to find a last minute place to take you for a nice dinner. Basically, I’m this guy:

Well I just want to say, I’m sorry, baby. I love you. Let me make it up to you.

(Was that creepy enough for your liking? It was? Good.)

Anyway, last week I dropped a major bomb on you Stucu readers. Thanks so much for your hilarious and enthusiastic reactions, btw. You guys make it so fun to write this blog. But today I’d like to rewind a bit and talk about another guy. TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE, the gentleman in question never found the blog, but at this point, anything is possible.

Here’s a quick refresher on M, today’s victim..err, subject: 

1. M is a tall high school teacher from Jersey
2. I got drunk on our first date, which I wrote about here
3. He has a family beach house in Italy which he visits every summer. I mean… 
4. My biggest issue with M was that he talked my ear off and barely asked me about myself on our first date.
5. We had a second date planned that was creepily booked for the day after my birthday, which based on past experience I was a bit dubious about.

So. What happened with Italian M? I’ll break it down by date:

Second Date: Creepy Faux Birthday Dinner

At a certain point I decided to stop being weird about the birthday thing and just go with it. M asked me if I had a favorite restaurant in the city that I’d like to go to, and I picked a place that was nice, delicious, but not super fancy or expensive. It also happened to be Indian, a cuisine that, at least to some people, doesn’t scream ‘sexy second date food’. Personally, I actually get a little turned on at the words ‘samosa’, ‘naan’, and ‘biryani’, but that’s just me.

M picked me up at my apartment and presented me with flowers, which was v. thoughtful and sweet. He even said, “I figured you couldn’t yell at me if I said they were just because and not for your birthday”. Haha. Cute. Also, true. 

We had a nice dinner. M aggressively ordered basically everything on the menu (man after my own heart) and we enjoyed some lovely cocktails. Although this time around, I wisely cut myself off at 2, lest he mistake me for an alcoholic and leave me a contact card for AA (SATC reference! See #47 on this epic list).

M did ask me about myself a bit more, but still dominated most of the conversation. We flirted a bit, as much as two people can flirt with a table full of curries between them. He wanted to get drinks afterwards, but I was uncomfortably full and just wanted to curl up in the fetal position in my apartment, so I declined. After ingesting approximately 90 tic tacs and a full pack of Orbit gum each to counteract the spicy breath situation, we made out a little and said goodnight. 

One thing I liked about M was his nerdy penchant for history. I liked that like he’d decided to model his Movember ‘stache after a different president every year, even though he showed up to our first date sporting a Chester Arthur:

So, with that charming nerdiness (and let’s be honest, that Italian beach house) still fresh in my mind, I said yes to a third date. M mentioned something about cooking for me, which I was fully down with, even though that meant I’d have to go to his house in the ‘burbs which could end SUPER awkwardly. One thing I disliked about M was his excessive texting and calling habits. Homeboy was a little out of control with the extreme contact, and it was wearing on my nerves a bit. Which is probably why after we agreed on a date and time for dinner, I glossed over the rest of what he was telling me (something about lesson plans surrounding the Revolutionary War, and teaching the kids how people lived back in the 18th century, blablablawhocares.) Which leads me to…

Third Date: Colonial Cooking Lessons

Oh boy, do I wish I’d paid better attention to those inane texts. I arrived at M’s house ready to be cooked a delicious meal, only to be informed of the following:

• The plan was actually for both of us to cook together (at this point, that sounded fine to me. I love to cook.)
  
• Except we weren’t, in fact, cooking for ourselves, but for M’s history students.
• And we weren’t just cooking a normal meal. We were cooking typical foods from the REVOLUTIONARY WAR ERA for the kids to try.
• M had three dishes planned that had to be ready to go for an 8 am class the next day.

My face as I was being told this….oh man, my face. I’m sure it was comical. Basically, I had misunderstood. I read “come over for dinner”, and what M really meant was: “come over, we’ll order dinner, and then I’ll use you, my date, as free labor to help me complete my lesson plans FOR MY JOB.”

To be fair to M, I went back and read his texts, and he had told me about this. But you guys, the texts were INCESSANT and my patience was wearing thin, so my reading comprehension was at an all time low. As comical and bizarre as the proposed date activity was, I shrugged it off and thought, “WELP, I’m here. I’m going with it.” Honestly, I knew I’d at least get a great blog post out it of it, and I also think if the chemistry is right, two people cooking together can be super fun and sexy. Exhibit A:

So we grabbed Chinese and got to work on the (terrifying) historically accurate menu which included Brunswick Stew and something called (dead serious) chicken pudding. Chicken. Pudding.

What actually transpired couldn’t be further from the aforementioned croissant making foreplay with Meryl and Steve. First, M gave me the job of chopping four huge onions, which 1. made me weep uncontrollably, smearing my eye makeup in the process until I had basically transformed into George from the Wedding Singer:

And 2. made me REEK LIKE RAW ONIONS. Sexy, M. Really sexy.

I kept trying to turn this bizarre situation into something fun or at least funny, but to my dismay and honestly, annoyance, M was pretty humorless about the whole thing. (One of my least favorite personality characteristics EVER). I suggested he put some music on (we were literally chopping vegetables in silence) and he asked if Christmas music was okay. “Sure!” I said enthusiastically, thinking he’d be putting some fun and upbeat holiday tunes on. Instead, M proceeded to select a playlist that contained (exclusively) slow, serious, old fashioned, super religious, SOMBER Christmas hymns. So picture me, readers, in some dude’s kitchen in Jersey, dicing veggies, weeping, while Little Drummer Boy is blasting in the background. I mean. What is my life?

The other incredibly comical part of this “date” (at this point I’m using the word date VERY loosely) was that I quickly discovered M didn’t know the most basic things about cooking. He had gone on and on about learning to cook from his immigrant parents, spending every summer in Italy and cooking big meals for his friends, and watching hours upon hours of Food Network, yet he was incredibly slow and nearly clueless in the kitchen. He’d never heard of a roux (come. ON.) He tried to make the stew in a pot that was way too small. He read the directions 843029843274850 times. At this point, my patience was wearing thin and it was getting late, so I did what any bossy, type A 20-something gal would do in this situation: I took over. Yup. I cooked M’s students a colonial feast while M stood there, ostensibly being my sous chef but really just chillaxing with his dog.

Finally, FINALLY, we (I) finished the damn food and M proclaimed that we’d earned ourselves a nightcap. “Well actually, I’ve earned myself a nightcap,” I corrected. “I’m thinking you’ve earned about 1/3 of a glass.” I was teasing, but of course I was secretly dead serious. We sat down for a drink and I calculated the number of minutes before I could politely leave. Which is when, predictably, M tried to put the moves on me.

Look, I probably shouldn’t have done what I did next, given the fact that I was so totally over M at that point. But I was still attracted to him, and thinking about the fact that he was a good kisser. And I just…wanted to have a little fun after such a lame night. So we made out. M, bless his heart, tried his darnedest to continue along the baseline (yes, I’m aware this “base” talk makes me seem like I’m in 8th grade or I’m secretly Meatloaf) but I wasn’t having it.

After a few minutes of half-hearted smooching and blocking attempted passes at clothing removal, I was over it. I got up and said goodnight. M was leaving for Florida the next day to see some friends, so I was hoping this would create some distance before I needed to end it with him. EXCEPT, that conversation never happened, because M faded away. I never heard from him after that night. I was 85% thrilled at this development, because it saved me an awkward “I’m over this” conversation. But there was that other small part of me, you know, the part with the ego, that was annoyed. Like, excuse me, how dare you not be interested in me? You just bamboozled me into cooking for the 50+ kids that you teach, and I did it happily WITH A SMILE ON MY FACE, all the while being jokey, charming, and adorable, and you think you get to fade away from me? Nah. I don’t think so, bro. If I may borrow a wonderfully appropriate gif from D:

Date # 2 rating: 5.5/10. The semi high score is really due to the flowers and excellent Indian cuisine.

Date #3 rating: 2.5/10. One of the most bizarre “dates” I’ve ever been on in my life. Two points for the blog material and .5 for the sheer absurdity. 

Lessons learned: READ EVERY TEXT before agreeing to a date.

Ever wondered what the worst of humanity looks like and sounds like? Or where they are hanging out? Well folks, if you want an answer to that question, just go ahead and create a fake online dating profile.

Many months ago, a commenter altered me to this original piece, which demonstrates, in SCARY detail, just how far some individuals COUGHmenCOUGH will go to try to score with a somewhat attractive living, breathing person.

Now, if you have ever read this blog before, you are probably acquainted with my dear friend and alter ego, Tacosdelish. And if you’re new, welcome! I strongly advise you read this Introduction toTacos post partially for your amusement and partially for your safety, but in the meanwhile, let me summarize: Tacosdelish is my second, fake online dating profile where I take on the personality of a gaseous, gluttonous Chechen with an extra thumb. A few months back, OKC nudged Tacos incessantly to add a photo, so my friend and I googled, “mediocre looking girl” and slapped a blurry head shot from a random catalog up there (I am confident the model in this picture is either 20 years older by now or so significantly airbrushed she won’t recognize herself).

The new, cute picture resulted in the number of messages Tacos received SKYROCKETING through the roof. She also receives some unsavory chats, usually from “funcouple232″ soliciting her immediate availability for a weird combination of a threesome and a poetry reading.

Usually, I immediately press ignore when I get chat requests on Tacos. But, thanks to the lack of new Sunday night programming on my favorite networks yesterday, (THANKS GRAMMYS! NO ONE WATCHES YOU, BTW!), I was performing a lackluster search on Tacos when a chat box from a fine young fella in the MD suburbs popped up, and I decided to engage with him a bit. And boy, am I glad I did:

First of all, let’s thank Bachelor #1 here for cutting to the chase. Even though he claimed to be a college student in his profile, he wasn’t scared off by Tacos’s information, which indicates that she’s 38 years old. I actually meant to type, “I think I’m friends with your mom,” which would have been scarier and funnier. However, this guy was not concerned with my wit. He was also not concerned with the fact that Tacos’s proclivity for guns matched that of a mass murderer. What would it take to scare this guy? I tried a different tactic:

That’s right. I was going to turn him off by misspelling things. Oh, and mentioning devil worship. And mentioning I was a DIY plastic surgeon. Oh, and mentioning I stole from my employer. But still, he did not relent. When he asked why I joined OKC, I replied:

Identity theft is real folks. Just ask these guys:

But yet, he replied:

CHECK MATE, SIR. I f you were trying to beat Tacos at her own game by being perverse, offensive, and just plain random, you have WON . I tip my hat to you!

Upon receiving this response from him, I promptly signed out of Tacos’s chat, fully disgusted by the whole exchange. (I also didn’t know which answer would be in the negative, yes or titties? They both sounded affirmative to me.)

I mean, I cannot lie, I did get a full seven minutes of LOL-ing out of this, and if you did too readers, we may make chats with Tacos a regular section on the blog. 

And you thought this winter would be cold and boring…

Before I get down to business, just a few quick announcements. First, some exciting news: Stucu was named one of the 10 Best Blogs for Dating in the City by DatingAdvice.com. Woohoo! Check out our sweet badge:

And our little write up here. Apparently, someone out there thinks our advice is “solid”. Well, shucks! That makes us feel like…

Now, for the PSA portion of today’s post. For those of you who are interested, you can sign up to be notified via email whenever we publish a new post. It’s super easy, so easy even my computer illiterate mom can do it (no offense, mom, but you and I both know you’ve only just gotten the hang of Microsoft Word. Love you!)

To sign up for email notifications, do one of the following two things:

• Scroll to the very bottom of this page to where it says ‘Follow Stucu’. Enter your email address, click ‘update me’ and voila! You’re all set.
• Alternatively, if you see a little black ‘follow’ box at the bottom right hand corner of this page, you can also click to expand it, enter your email address, and hit ‘sign me up’. You’re golden.

If you have a WordPress account, you can also just click the ‘follow’ button at the top of the page when you’re signed in. This will add us to your blogroll but not your email. But you probably already knew this, you smart blogger, you! Also, if you’ve dated one of us and sometimes skim your blogroll at work, follow at your own risk. Heh.

I’m making this little announcement partially because our # of current followers is what some might call “sad and pathetic”, but more importantly because I was chatting with a friend recently who had no idea you could sign up for email notifications and was just coming to our site daily to check for new content. Which is wonderful! But also a pain in the ass. And if there’s one thing I value in life, it’s enabling myself (and others) to be lazy. So there you have it.

Now, on to today’s main event, our pic of the week:

Okay then. That is… something. I know I don’t need to remind you all about my feelings re: bathroom selfies. I mean, I’ve lambasted dudes for taking a picture fully clothed while standing up in their bathrooms. Meanwhile this suitor just dropped trou, drew a bath and went straight for the money shot (God, I actually hope not, although who knows where that right hand has disappeared to…)

I’m thinking that this guy probably posted this…unique shot in the hopes that the ladies of Okcupid would gaze at his bare, hairy chest and be instantly turned on, so turned on that they would HAVE to shoot him a message in the hopes that they’d be invited into that tub. But honestly, I took one look at those outrageously fluffy bubbles and thought of one thing, and one thing only:

Proooobably not what Mr. Tub Man was going for, but there you have it. God, Sesame Street was the best.

In case you were wondering, here were the next thoughts that ran through my head, in chronological order:

• Thought #2: Dude. We both know you’re going to drop that phone straight into the bubbly abyss, and then where will we be? Without more sensual selfies, that’s where we’ll be.
• Thought #3: The placement of that ‘x’ is fantastic. Come on, dude nipples are funny.
• Thought #4: Do we think he was playing a sensual jam in the background? I’d like to think that he was. And I’d like to think that it was this classic (the bath action starts at 1:55, FYI). Take it away, boys:
  

First of all, if you ever have the opportunity, go to Iceland. Seriously, do it. If you don’t find it to be stunningly beautiful, you are dead inside.

Second of all, I leave the country for 11 days, and all sorts of crazy, awesome shit goes down at home.  We won an award! We gained 7 new twitter followers! I suddenly became desirable again on OKC and HAW after a drought and months of this:

                                                                                                   Source: Crushable

I received multiple messages on OKC containing 1 or more complete sentences! 5 guys were interested upon viewing one of my date ideas on HAW and messaged me! Match continued to serve no purpose other than to steal my money and send me e-mails suggesting ways it could steal more of my money! Ok, that last one isn’t actually awesome, but it was oddly comforting – it was proof I wasn’t in some alternate universe. I took all of these positive developments as proof that traveling is the greatest and I should do it even more often than I already do.

But back to my dating developments… I was getting my groove back!

Since I had limited access to wi-fi while away, I was able to respond to messages occasionally. This is where things went a little off track with some of the promising gentlemen. Let’s start with HAW.

First, a crash-course in How About We for those who are unfamiliar with it. Profiles are short and sweet – some demographic info and quick responses to specific prompts (e.g. a story you should remind me to tell you on our first date, I secretly want to be). Then, you post date ideas.

Users peruse the date ideas and if they see one they like, they open up the date and have two choices: “Message Him/Her” or “I’m Intrigued.” 

“Message Him” is pretty obvious – it opens up a blank message and you type out your most charming, witty message and hope for the best. Clicking “I’m Intrigued” sends the other user a generic message that says “I saw your Publick House date and I’m intrigued.” It’s the equivalent of liking someone on OKC or winking at someone on Match. The lazy approach to letting someone know you’re interested, and/or the shy person’s way of reaching out.

So, one of my proposed date ideas involves night skiing locally. I got a personalized message from M who ultimately told me to let him know when I was home and we’d set up a ski date. Great right? Well I returned, sent him a message, and got no response in that thread. Rather, he sent me a separate, independent “I’m Intrigued” message 16 minutes later. I don’t know what to do with that. I know you’re intrigued. We already established that. In fact, we already established that we would make plans to go skiing. So why are you ignoring my attempt to actually make said plans, whilst simultaneously sending me messages coyly telling me you’re intrigued BY THE VERY DATE WE ALREADY SET UP?!

That was Wednesday afternoon. I still haven’t figured out what to do about M.

Another guy responded to the same skiing date idea. This guy simply clicked “I’m intrigued.” I checked out his profile, and though he looked vaguely familiar, I brushed it off and responded.

Ok then.

                                                                                    Source: GIFBAY

Side note: I’m obsessed with that gif. I laugh hysterically every time I see it. Ok, back to the regularly scheduled programming.

Setting aside the fact that he called me hun (which – DON’T), he starts off with a nonsensical response. What do you mean “what?” You fucking messaged me. It’s literally 2 messages up in the thread. What is confusing about my response? And when I don’t respond in a timely fashion according to his standards (3 hours, 46 minutes, and NOT A MINUTE MORE), he accuses me of bothering him. Again, you messaged me buddy. It was then, looking at his smiling profile pic next to that terrifyingly aggressive message, that it clicked. He WAS familiar. He’s nylon guy. Shudder.

Over on OKC, I exchanged a few messages with R, who pretty quickly asked if I’d like to make plans when I returned. My kinda guy! I said I would love to. I got back late Tuesday night. Wednesday morning he contacted me to see if I had made it home safely. Very sweet. Then he dropped this bomb on me:

I don’t even know where to start with that. For the sake of not being a total asshole on the internet, I’ll simply say that I did not find that poem charming or sweet.

Against my better judgment, when R asked for my number I gave it to him and continued to entertain the idea of going on a date with him.

Oh christ – not another movie date.

WARNING! WARNING!

That last comment is teetering on the brink of needy. Throwing an lol at the end doesn’t make it less needy. And that frowning winky face – what the fuck is that even supposed to convey? 

I forge on though, despite the warning bells going off in my head.

STOP WITH THE VALENTINE’S THING. It’s so desperate sounding. At this point, mid afternoon on Wednesday, I feign a meeting and tell him I’ll talk to him later.

Thursday morning I wake up feeling refreshed after a good, long night’s sleep, see CC for the first time since returning and get a big smile from him, and get into work to a desk completely empty of a particular case. I’m feeling fantastic. So I decide to give R another chance.

Umm? Say what? Tuesday was your suggestion. But ok.

A little while later, he gets back to me.

This was completely befuddling to me. I mean, firstly, I had told him I was available Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. So what made him think I was available mid-afternoon? Not to mention that he’s aware that I’m a lawyer – which is pretty typically a Monday through Friday 9-5 job. Whilst still processing the above, he follows up with a picture of himself and this:

Even if you are joking (I presume that’s what Jc means), coupled with some of the other shit you’ve said (::cough:: valentine’s day ::cough::), I’m getting the impression that you’re extremely needy. And I don’t do needy. A) I don’t have the patience for it. B) If you’re that needy yourself, how are you ever going to field my 11:34 p.m. phone calls that I’ve got a piercing, radiating pain in my left mid-thigh and remember when I fell on my left knee a few weeks ago – IS THIS A BLOOD CLOT ON THE MOVE? AM I ABOUT TO DIE IN A SNOW AND ICE COVERED MBTA PARKING LOT IN SUBURBAN MASSACHUSETTS? Because, shit like that happens frequently when you’re a part of my life. That is a verbatim transcription of the shrill phone call my father received last night. And that saint of a man (along with my 3 EMT friends who also frequently field my hypochondriac freak outs) needs a break dude.

But I’m still feeling high on the freedom from that case and the 3 Kinder bars I ate at lunch (God bless you and your delicious chocolate confections Europe), so I keep going with the Poet.

I realize at this point that not only did he think we were planning a weekday, mid-afternoon date, but he also thought this date was happening in Wrentham. Despite the fact that we had established we would both be in Boston on Tuesday. His complete lack of ability to grasp time and location based on previous discussions snaps me out of my sugar high. This guy is not going to work out. Just to be sure, I ask:

Yup – this guy needs to go. Between the poem and the valentines day thing and his incompetence, I can’t. I was going to need to let R go. Tomorrow. I’m a procrastinator at heart.

This morning, I was all set to say goodbye to R and let this outrageously long post fly. But before I could click Publish, R wanted to know why I had changed my mind:

Yeah – I definitely made the right choice.

Oh, and just for good measure, I was propositioned late last night on the orange line after grabbing a couple drinks with a friend after work. By a guy who I presume is a low level drug dealer or pimp based on the enormous ball of wadded up cash he pulled out of his jacket pocket.

I’m in A groove, but I think it’s the wrong one…

G was a very handsome older guy who I met on OKC. So handsome, in fact, that my friends and I nicknamed him “the Cloon” because he looked like a poor man’s George Clooney. And let’s be real:

YUM. 

There is really no such thing as a poor man’s George Clooney. Because anyone who can be compared to George Clooney is still a pretty handsome, albeit aged, piece of man meat. Other promising things about G included his professions (journalist), interests (bartending), and the way he got down to business planning our first date (fun, low key bar equally metro-accessible between his place and mine). Needless to say, as the day of the date approached, I was pumped cautiously excited.

Apparently, G was pretty excited about me too. Because when I got to the bar for our first date, he jumped up, hugged embraced me tightly, and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

This made me IMMEDIATELY uncomfortable. I actually prefer to greet all my dates with a business-like handshake.  I am more into post-coital high-fives than cuddling. (In fact, I consider the next morning goodbye high-five a signature move.) Why? Hugs and cuddling are for family, out of town friends, and babies.  WHY DO WE HAVE TO WRAP OUR ARMS AROUND PEOPLE WE’VE NEVER MET BEFORE? WHY? (Don’t worry. We’re not going to explore my hatred of intimate touch on this blog. I save that shiz for my shrink. YOU’RE WELCOME).

Despite my urge to turn and RUN from somebody who was showing early warning signs of being a Too Friendly Freddie, I decided to stick it out for a drink. And I was glad I did, because G was  very interesting and funny. He was well-traveled and well-read and we had a very spirited debate about where to find the best hamburger in DC.*

*This is a legitimate quest of mine, btw. Think of me as Odysseus, but wearing more clothes and with a healthier fear of the gods. But if you have any burger recs in the DC area, seriously, leave them in the comments so I can come home before my wife gets tired of weaving and is bamboozled into marrying a Porci. (And, if you not only understand this nerdy metaphor but are also laughing at it, we MAY be soul mates.)

Anyway, all was going well, until…

G GOT UP OUT OF HIS SEAT AND ANNOUNCED: “You are so funny and cute, I have to kiss you right here.”

And before I could protest, he had run around to my side of the bar table, and grabbed my face and KISSED ME. IN THE BAR. ON A MONDAY. AT 10 PM.  Less than an hour into our first date. I could literally feel the eyes of the four graduate students at the bar staring at us and my face burned with shame.

Because if there is one thing I hate more than hugs from acquaintances, it’s FULL ON PDA. Making out in a bar/restaurant ranks high on my list of “sins thou shalt not commit in public”, right below those couples who sit on the same side of a table (AHEM, S).  Moreover, this was not some neighborhood dive turned Saturday night dance club where you’re supposed to make out with another 20-something at 1 a.m. while Ellie Goulding plays in the background and your friends first pump around you and pretend not to notice. This was a nice bar, half-filled with a mix of business people and students and other couples  (who I will hopefully never ever see again).

Honestly, friends, after he pulled that move, I stressed myself out so much (remember Anxiety Girl? She got on her craziest tights and took over my body) that I cannot remember the rest of the date at all.  At the end of the date, G asked if he could take me to his favorite burger place the following weekend. I mumbled, “Let me see if I’m free,” and fled for a train back to my apartment.

But, after some deliberation and consultation (as is customary the day after a date),  people convinced me I decided it would be silly to write a guy off for something as minor as PDA, especially since there was no way for him to know I hated it so much. Plus, he agreed to give me a delicious burger!

I am sad but not surprised to report that the burger was by far the best thing that I got out of G. After a couple of dates, I decided that G was not for me and sent him back into the universe to work his charms on another woman who would perhaps be more appreciative. So, watch out ladies. This could be you:

Damn. George. Damn.

First date rating: 4/10. As you can imagine, I docked 5 points for the kiss. If only G waited to kiss me till after we left the bar it would have been a 9.

Lesson learned: Protect your mouth at all times. You never know when someone will plant one on you. (Real lesson learned: TRY not to write people off for little things. This is still a lesson in progress for me, but I am working on it readers, promise!)

S, D, and I aren’t big fans of the traditional Valentines Day. Believe it or not, this has nothing to do with the fact that we’re single. Back in high school and college, boyfriends or not, S and I would get together with six of our closest friends and host a little gathering called Februarium. Brought to us by our incredible friend E, Februarium basically was a time for us to share romantic reflections on everything from our first kiss to our favorite food to how we’d spend the perfect day–between gulps of wine and mouthfuls of cards and sugar. Basically, we were doing Galentines Day long before Leslie Knope (which is just another reason we should be BFFs with Amy Poehler!) 

Image via Bustle.com

So while you won’t find any of us singing the praises of Vday, we did want to celebrate G-DAY (short for Galentines for all of you slow folks) here on the blog. So we decided to take a break from spilling the beans about our dates, and instead spill the beans about ourselves a bit, by telling you some of the weird things that matter a disproportionate deal to us when choosing friends or partners. And, how we assess those things on dates. This is a dating blog after all, so we can’t ignore the existence of men entirely.

We’ll start with my weird little obsession with asking the following question:

Who are the 3 best presidents and why?

Sorry I’m not sorry that this is the most DC-esque question a gal could ask. While I hate to be a cliche, I’ve learned that a date’s answer to this question illuminates so many things that matter to me.

1) Their general understanding/knowledge of American history and politics-If you couldn’t tell from previous posts, I am an unabashed nerd when it comes to history. I could debate Victorian England gender mores for hours, and diagram the critical battles of WWI. If I’m going to be spending time with a guy, I need to know that he has a basic knowledge of important events and people in his own country over the past 250 years or so. So, if a guy can’t come up with the names of three Presidents or incorrectly lists presidents named “Jim Beam” or “Peyton Manning”, I am not sure that a) I could respect him or b) that we’d have a ton in common.

2) Their values-There are “wrong” answers to this question. For example, if someone says, “Andrew Jackson, because I hate Native Americans,” then they are pretty much done for. Same thing if a guy lists Ronald Reagan as a favorite. I’m an unapologetic progressive, and in my opinion, Ronald Reagan was one of the worst people things to happen to poor and working class Americans this century. Actually, I’m gonna go ahead and say that guys lose major points for listing any Republican president (post reconstruction, of course) at all. On the other hand, a guy can win big points for extolling Lyndon Johnson’s domestic achievements, i.e. passing the Civil Rights Act, the Great Society, etc. Nothing turns me on the like VISTA program.

3) Their critical thinking skills-I am an self-admitted overly-analytical person. I want to know the reason behind everything, even when there are no reasons to be found. 

Via quickmeme.com

So, I want to know a guy who can back his thoughts up with some reasons or evidence. Sadly, many Americans cite George Washington as their favorite President, but when you ask why, they can’t give you a reason. (PS: He won the war is not an acceptable answer in my book. First of all, he did that BEFORE he was President. Second of all, there were several non military moves responsible for our defeat of the British.) That said, I am not going to write off anyone who says George Washington, but I expect them to back it up with some facts (i.e., I really love term limits?).

4) Their ability to make a quick, clear decision-“What? Um? I don’t know? That’s just such a hard question…” There is nothing less sexy than asking a guy a seemingly innocuous question and having him agonize for 20 minutes over his answer (unless his answer includes Reagan, or W, or some other offensive conservative. Then the answer IS actually less sexy than watching him agonize). This is not a REAL test dude. I know you might feel pressure because I’m judging you so hardcore on your answers, but I’m also judging you hardcore on the WAY you answer. So, show me you can make a hypothetical decision. Because if you can’t, then I’m gonna worry about your real life ability to make decisions. 

At the end of the day, I also really appreciate any answer that shows a sense of humor. Any guy who can make me laugh, through his answers or even by making fun of me for asking the question, wins the biggest points I can award.

HAPPY GALENTINES WEEKEND FRIENDS! And stay turned as D and S discuss their quirky tests/not tests in the next couple days…

Continuing our little mini-series on the important issues we flesh out early on with a potential match, today we delve into my world of irrational fears.

Despite the fact that I’m actually a fairly adventurous person, I harbor an inordinate amount of utterly absurd fears. Some examples: seaweed, fast food establishments that aren’t in their own freestanding building, gangrene, waterskiing, thunder, and death by coconut. That’s just a tiny scratch on the surface. Thus, my need-to-know question stems from one of my biggest fears and is a little less … intellectual than Ls.

You see, I have a debilitating fear of birds. At least this fear is fairly common, and even has a name (ornithophobia), unlike the majority of my other fears.

Time out. When I was looking up the name for a fear of birds, I found this charming little article: How to Overcome Fear of Birds. Fuck you and your condescending, hippy ways wikiHow. “Step 4: Realize that most of your fear is irrational. The chance of a mutant hawk attacking you from above is extremely low.” I read that, and am not comforted by the fact that the chance of that happening is “extremely low.” I read that and internally scream “BUT THERE IS A CHANCE!” And don’t even get me started on Step 6: Face Your Fear. “After a few days of being close to birds, you should overcome your fear.” That’s adorable. After a few days of being close to birds, the only thing I’d be is an inpatient in a psych ward.

Annnnnnywho. I always find a way to work in the topic of birds early on in the conversation with a potential beau. Because, as I explained to a guy recently:

I have always been afraid of birds. And the universe loves to play on that fear. There is a particularly menacing duck that patrols the shore at my parents’ house. A family friend’s pet bird once bit me. The list goes on. But the most notable instance? December 4, 2012. The day I learned firsthand that you are NEVER safe, not even in your own home. And that magic is real. The day that a bird appeared in my apartment OUT OF THIN AIR. And before you ask, no, I was not dreaming or hallucinating. There is a witness. Because obviously I was incapable of handling the situation. A month later, New Girl mocked my pain with this dramatic, but eerily accurate, re-enactment:

EXCEPT, IT WASN’T “JUST A PAINTING” IN MY SCENARIO – IT WAS A REAL, LIVE MUTANT HAWK BIRD.

I slithered off the couch and dropped to the floor in much the same fashion as Nick above, army crawled out of the apartment, and called one of my best friends who happened to also live in the building. She found me 2 minutes later lying in the hallway, crying. And she handled it. To this day it is a mystery how that bird got in. All the windows were closed. There was no chimney or ceiling vents in that apartment. Which means: it could happen again AT ANY MOMENT. But that beautiful, beautiful saint and I no longer live in the same building. Besides, I can’t rely on her to forever fix all of my problems, like she has so adeptly done for the past 10 years (actually I can – don’t ever leave me LM!). So I need a partner who can swoop into action (pun intended), neutralize the danger, and calm me the fuck down. Not one who will cower in the hallway right next to me.

The ability to “manage” my irrational fears is probably the single-most important quality I look for in a guy. I wish I was kidding.

And here’s a little long-weekend bonus for you. Once a guy has passed the bird test, I also ask “cake or pie?” The correct answer is PIE. Though technically wrong, I will also accept “love them both” or some variation of same. But if his answer is simply “cake” – BYE!

c                                                                                            Source: Imagesbuddy

Hey, readers. In the mood for some Pulitzer-worthy journalism? Maybe a complex think piece to really get the intellectual juices a-flowin’? Or alternatively, are you wondering if there’s a right or wrong way to kiss someone? (Spoiler alert: there is).

Well, you’re in luck!

The ladies of Stucu have written a guest post for our friends over at datingadvice.com. May we present to you (drumroll please):

The Worst Things a Guy Can Do When Kissing a Girl

In case you’re wondering, yes, we did call out an ex of mine in the article who I affectionately nicknamed Trouty Mouth, the same chump who canceled a date and dumped me the day after my birthday. So… am I thoroughly enjoying the fact that he’s been immortalized on the internet for being the worst kisser ever?

Why yes, as a matter of fact I am.

Anyway, if you’d like to read our thoughts, or judge your skills based on our criteria as D (not co-blogger D, guy I’m dating D) immediately did:

…then we thank you in advance for your awesome support! If you’re the world’s greatest kisser, or you just don’t give a shit, well fair enough, friend. We’ll have our third and final post celebrating our weird preoccupations (incidentally, we’ll be celebrating mine) later this week, so stay tuned.