Just Stay Still

AKA The Blog Post Where I Make a Really Big Story Leap, and You Just Have to Trust It's Going to Make Sense Later.

I have a bizarre ability. We'll call it my super power.
I can stay absolutely still, in the same position for hours upon hours at a time.

This means that in movie theatres, I sit down and never reposition, never wriggle because the seat hurts, and to me getting up to go to the bathroom is sacrilege.

You're probably thinking, "Who the F*ck cares?"

This ability is important because (1) I like to sit/lay/squat in one place and never move, because moving creates unnecessary noise, which messes up watching TV and (2) if we're cuddling you better not be a squirmer. It drives me crazy.

If you were supposed to squirm during cuddling, it would be called squirddling, which aside from sounding similar to a loveable pokemon character, instead just sounds disgusting.

Seriously this thing looks like it's lunging to molest you.

(Found Here)

Recently, I was on a date with the Firefighter, this was prior to him turning into a giant asshole.

We both had a long day, a busy night, and it was time for some quality watch some movies/cuddle time, but the f*cker wouldn't stay still.

He rolled to the left. He rolled to the right. He wriggled and wormed for the rest of the night.

Finally, I looked up into his PERFECT eyes and said, "dude, what are you doing?"

"Trying to get comfortable."
"Can I help?"
"No you're just making it worse, your head feels like a cannonball on my chest."
"Should I move?"
"No, I've got a chest of steel, but still man what do you keep up there, rocks?"
"I know you worked on the Waaaaambulance for a while, do you still have their number on speed dial? You sound like you need them."

Oh yes, this is how my romantic evening went.

After not talking/texting/calling me for 5 days the turd face (The Firefighter) has the audacity to shoot me a text on the night I'm out with ManMe, Sam, and Sam's BF - with this gem, "Hey sry been busy as shit friend surprise visited me and been busy as shit lol what u up to Im working."

To first delve into this text, you should know the following. (1) Last time I saw The Firefighter, he called this friend in the middle of the date to CONFIRM that the friend was coming down for the next 3 days, (2) he also told me the reason this friend was coming down was because he didn't have work so he had time to give his friend a tour of the city, and (3) I'm not a bloody, flippin' idiot.

But I digressed from the original point.

In my opinion, "Just Stay Still" is not something to just be said for laying on the couch with a significant other, it can apply to dating as well, which brings me to the point of this story!

Enter Well Placed Flashback

New Years Eve happens to be my least favorite holiday on the face of the planet. I despise it. This year after consistently watching plans slip through my fingers, Sam made plans with her BF and his friends and invited - JG, myself, and some of their other friends.

So let me sketch out my mindset of the night.
1. It's cold as frozen shit outside.
2. It's the one night of the year that I actually despise worse than Hitler.
3. I've just gotten over a 2nd bout of a stomach virus.
4. I was told not to wear a jacket.

We get to Sam's BF's apartment, which wasn't bad because we drove there.
We pregame.
We leave the apartment to walk to the metro at which point I look like a dead, frozen hooker zombie walking towards the metro because my limbs wont function properly.
We appear to have broken up into pairs of some sort and I've gotten matched up with a friend of Sam's BF, who happens to be this relatively handsome guy.... who finishes all of my sentences.

Somewhere in the commotion of me feeling my least sexy on record (great way to start off a year right?). Somewhere in the commotion of me forgetting about men, and dating, and just shivering my ass off. Someone offered me his jacket. And in that instant, Someone with a cosmic sense of humor sent me..... me.

ManMe

All I had to do was just stay still and not chase after every Tom, Dick, and Harry.

My friend Blair consistently tells me, you find them when you're not looking. However I was looking. I was looking hard. In every other direction but his, and being turned down faster than Carrie after the bucket of blood gets dumped on her head at the dance.

So in all my fractured emotions, I balked at the idea.

It seemed so strange, so bizarre.

Can I hold hands with, me?
Can I embrace, me?
Can I cuddle on a couch with, me?
Can I kiss, me?

Well to answer all those questions, yes. I can. I'm a pretty awesome kisser if I do say so myself, haha! The group went out to get flaming volcanos at this tiny Chinese restaurant in Chinatown.

Just so you know, flaming volcanos are an instant ticket on the train to drunk town. It's a cocktail large enough to stick your head in, filled with more kinds of alcohol than I can name, with a flaming center of more, pure alcohol.

The much anticipated, Drunk Train Express then departed for more drinking at RFDs just around the corner. Both of which were for the most part enjoyable, and elicited enough hungover amusement the next day when uploading pictures, I didn't know I'd taken.

And between the drunken giggles and him falling on me and me falling on him I got a NYE kiss, which I was not expecting, at all.

A well timed, perfectly perfect drunken slobberfest welcomed the New Year, and then it was time to head back to the Sam Hotel, aka her apartment, for some well earned, sleeping. We had kissed. We had held hands. We had cuddled awkwardly in a corner watching the ball drop and then cuddled trying to maintain our balance. And We held hands. All things I was not expecting for my NYE.

But when it was time to part ways, he asked me for my number...

Now first off I have to make a clarification, ManMe is not completely me... He's like the Yang to my Yin in a weird bizarre "you complete me" kind of way, which in all honesty creeped me the f*ck out.

I don't know if you've ever had this problem, but when ManMe asked me for my number, I actually didn't want to give it. I didn't know what I would do if he called/texted me. Why would I want him to text me.... I can just sit and talk to myself in the mirror if that's what I was looking for in a guy, plus it would make it hella easy on the big holidays, all I'd have to do was bring my mirror with me on the plane.

So I refused the number, referencing the fact he had given me his business card earlier in the evening, and that I'd text him later - wholly not intending to, but as I was sitting there detoxing (literally) with Sam and JG the next day, I realized... I kind of liked him. He was funny, charming, witty, good-looking, fun to be around, and exciting.

So... I texted him.

.    .    . 

WATCH OUT: FIVE-ALARM JERK

I rated The Firefighter 3 stars on OKCupid, but when he messaged me, something said, "talk to him!"

So I did.

And we clicked.

And we went out on a first date, which was so cute, and he was so sweet. We went to Fire Station 1, which is an overtly Kitschy restaurant out in Silver Spring. We met and the sparks were instant, with only one slightly longer than normal pause in the conversation, and that's natural when you first meet somebody, so it didn't bother me.

First off the food was pretty solid for a kitschy bar. He finished his meal completely, and I finished the majority of mine, which is saying something.

Afterwards we went to go see Contraband starring the great Marky Mark, which was actually pretty good, considering Marky Mark needs a considerable amount of acting class. His surprised expressions and turn of phrase always sound the exact same to me, no matter what character he's playing, and don't even get me started on his shitty performance in M.Night Shyamalan's shitty movie, "The Happening."

ANYWAY.

It was a really cute date. We held hands during the movie, and we giggled, and ugh, it was perfect.

He walked me back to my car afterwards, and he kissed me. After freezing in the parking garage for a bit too long staring into each other's eyes we made plans for Monday, and I sat in my car to warm up.

After my engine was warm and my face and hands as well, I called my friend B1 to see what he was up to. Nothing, so I immediately drove over there and gushed to him and our friend Harm over at their place in Silver Spring.

It had been like flying on butterfly wings. I was so giddy. I was so happy. I was living in the moment and the moment was perfect.

I could feel it.

This was right.




WRONG.

As soon as I realized there were similarities between him and Dicky Macdickerson, I should have left, but I didn't because I liked this guy. I really really did. I had so much hope, but I should have realized it wasn't meant to be, since all my hopes and dreams are always shoved down my karmic throat.

The 2nd date was scheduled to start off at his place. He had just moved into the house, so I brought him a little housewarming gift of some quality beer, complete with a bow! I like to be a gracious guest, and I had really enjoyed the first date, so I thought, why not.

We never made it back out of the house.

We were supposed to go to dinner and then see a movie, but instead we got take out and sat on his bed in our sweats watching movies at home (This. Is. My. Dream. Date). I love wearing my sweats. It's my goal to get to the point in a relationship where I can wear my sweats and just stay wrapped in my man's arms.

We cuddled and laughed and played Scrabble, and had the best night ever.

Apparently my version of the night is not the same version of the night he had, because what once was a fucking constant volley of texts every day for the last three weeks, turned into radio-fucking-silence.

So since I had ample time on my hand from not getting any texts from the Firefighter, I checked my email. I had a new message at the OKCupid, and I read it, and giggled at the bad diction, then checked to see my visitors. The Firefighter was looking at my page at that exact moment. He was online, right then. I sent him a text message asking about his day, thanking him for a nice night.

Nothing.

Four hours later the fucker is still on OkCupid, and has NOT responded to my text message.

Well guess what.

I'm tired of this shit.

I'm tired of feeling used.

(This is where most guys would toss in OMG you're a freaking nut-job. How crazy do you have to be to have this level of emotional panic attack after he hasn't responded in four hours, it's just four hours! When someone normally responds in 5 to 25 minutes, four hours is a slap in the face. Four hours says thanks for the triple word score, don't let the double letter hit you on your way out).

Here's the long and short of it ladies and gentlemen.

I don't do shit half-heartedly. My personal motto is "Go Big or Go Home" anyone who saw me dress up for the Jurassic Bros and Prehistoric Hoes sorority mixer in 2010 can attest, because I spent over two hours painting and perfecting 30 scratch marks complete with fresh blood and differing levels of bruising from being attacked by a raptor!

 If you make it to a 2nd date with me, you have quite a bit of potential. I don't lead guys around on some string thinking, "hmm, maybe I like him."

Nope. If I like you, I put myself out there. You know I fucking like you, because I open the emotional pod-bay doors, and tell you things I wouldn't normally tell other people (granted this doesn't normally happen on a 2nd date, but still). I don't spend time with people I don't like. I don't text back people I don't like. And I don't waste quality kisses on people I don't like.

Why does this matter? Why should I care? Isn't everyone emotional?!

Well it matters to me, because since my emotions rarely make it past the gate, trying to stuff them all back inside the jack in the box, isn't easy.

I once had a guy joke, "ugh, you writers are so emotional." He had no idea how true he spoke.

Well I am. I have lots of emotions. I have love, happiness, giddiness, joy, exuberance, complacency, sadness, despair, anger, frustration - I'm a fucking powder-keg of emotions! And right now. As I sit here writing this, I'm fucking pissed the fuck off (as if you couldn't tell).

It's one thing to use dating sites for dating. I'm down with that. It's another to use dating sites as a way to troll for your sex-life. If that's what you're after - SAY IT. Don't put fake pretenses up about how you're looking for a soulmate and you want bunnies and rainbows at your fricking wedding. Just come out and SAY WHAT YOU WANT.

Readers, this is my plea.
Online Dating comes with a variety pack of different websites custom tailored to your exact wants and urges. You shouldn't be using the wrong site if you want a certain thing. FIND THE SITE THAT'S TAILORED TO WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR, YOU DIRTY RAT BASTARDS!

If you're a man who wants to get his freaky stuff on, go get your freaky stuff on, there's websites for that. If you're a man who doesn't want to have sexytimes, there's a website for that. If you're a man who wants to find everlasting love and harmony, there's 29 levels of compatibility waiting for you just around the corner.

Just please, for the love of all that is right and holy in the world, stop waisting my fucking time with your lies and deceits and falsehoods about wanting something more than satisfying your carnal needs. I'm over it, and I'm over you!

When the Chase Grows Cold

We've all been here.

You just start seeing this really amazing potential. Y'all click like a dream. You text/call each other after the date to say how much fun you had, how cute they looked, how great it blah blah blah. You start texting and calling every day - telling each other goodnight, and how you miss them, and they miss you.

You know the drill.

Then someone goes out of town, or ACTUALLY gets busy and then "wham bam thank you ma'am!"

What started out with fireworks and rainbows and butterflies and happy faces turned into minutes, hours, and days of no communication.

You're sitting there on the other end of the telephone thinking, maybe he lost my number?! Maybe he's shy and doesn't want to text me first? Maybe he thinks I'm not interested...

So.

You give them a call, they answer, they seem congenial and then a few more days go by... you wait thinking, "today he's going to call me!"

And then he doesn't.

"Today he's going to IM me!"

And then he doesn't.

"Today he's going to text me!"

And then... he doesn't

So you text him and see how he's doing.
You ask when he wants to catch up.
He asks you for a day.
You give him Saturday.
He says he has plans, but he'll let you know when they're over, and maybe you can meet up after.

Friday rolls around.

You check in with him, and he mentions his plans for the weekend without any hint of possibly hanging out with you, so you wait, thinking, "he's gonna call me after his plans on Saturday," but then Sunday night rolls around and you're left sitting there thinking, "wait wasn't he supposed to...?"

You've spent the last 3 weeks texting him every 3/4 days, and while he always responds... he never texts first.

Are you his secret charity case?

Probably.

What once began with cute pet names and telling each other, "good night love!" <--- which he started BTWs.

Has now turned into a bother that he doesn't want to shoulder.

What do you do?

I don't know the exact answer to that. If I knew that maybe I wouldn't still be single, and you'd have to read about my annoying relationship in the district.

What I do know is that you have two options really.

The cut-them-off approach or the try one more time approach.

The cut-them-off is pretty standard.

If they don't want to be cut-off, they'll say something. If they don't give two shits in the wind about it. They'll walk off silently into the sunset, and you don't want to spend the rest of you life chasing someone who doesn't want to be chased by you. If they don't make the effort to talk to you then you've just become the little red hen of dating. And nobody wants that.

The try one more time approach is also pretty standard.

But the key here - know when to fold your cards.

Ask for another chance to hang out and if the potential is interested, they'll either confirm or pick an alternative date/time. If they're not, they usually just say they're busy or they'll make some sort of lame excuse without offering up any other suggestion.

Just don't get caught up in the one more time approach because if you keep saying, "once more," or "next time" then you might start to become the creepy stalker. Just a thought.

The most important thing to remember is that you're awesome.

You deserve someone who will chase you. You deserve someone who will text/call/message/email/smoke signal you. And another thing to think about is if someone you're interested in, does these things... then reciprocate.

Don't play hard to get, because the longer you dodge their advances, the greater chance that, you'll miss out. They'll move on. And there you'll be standing in the dust of their new found relationship.

Happy Dating!

Average Joe

It was Tuesday Night, and the Firefighter had just backed out on our first date due to personal reasons. I promise they're legit, but if I go much further than that, someone might guess who he is, and I don't want that to happen, because I like a certain level of anonymity for the guys, except SexyFace - everyone needs to know who he is!

Anyway!

After deciding not to shower because the date wasn't going to happen, I hopped onto Plenty of Fish, "POF," and proceeded to cheer myself up with bad messages. I love them. Most of the guys that message me on there are bizarre, interesting creatures, who really have something going for them, but it's not their writing style.

I soon dispatched the new unread messages and between watching Season Seven of Frasier and eating my cookie in a mug (SO GOOD - put two cookie size chunks of cookie dough, in a mug. Then stick in a 900Watt microwave for about 20/25 seconds), I started to click through the new users on POF.

About halfway down the page this beautiful man was staring back at me. Peering into the reaches of my soul, and I had to have him in my life. He was like a more manly version of Gerard Butler, and who doesn't like looking at Gerry?

YUM! 

I clicked favorite! Then I debated my decision. How childish you're being, LoRo. Just send the guy a message. He seems so sweet in his profile, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind.  So I unfavorited him and clicked send a message!

After about 20 seconds of laboring over what to put in the message, my email dinged!

I checked it, because I compulsively check my email, but seldom actually read them.

Guess who messaged me.

Him. Yes. Him!

Needless to say I was giddy 7 ways from Sunday, and we exchanged a few messages, before I agreed to have coffee with him.

As the time for the date was drawing nearer, my nervousness was skyrocketing. My heart was racing. Hands shaking. And my body couldn't stand still.

And as he walked up to the coffee shop, his towering frame looked like a dream walking towards me.

"That's a man," I thought.

Until he got a foot away from me.

For the first time in my entire history of online dating. He looked better in his pictures.

Just this past month, I went out on a date with TheFootballCoach, and the goofy ass smile in his pictures turned into pure gold when it was inches from my face.

The Masseuse I dated exactly a year ago, had went from drab to fab in his exchange from internet potential to flesh and bones reality.

And the guy I call, Man, had looked all too rough around the edges in his own set of POF photos, but when he dismounted from his motorcycle, and approached me helmet in hand, it was like looking at my very own James Dean with better hair and gorgeous eyes, aka, straight sex-on-a-stick.

Average Joe was none of these. What had appeared to me as stoic photos featuring his beautiful eyes, turned out to be the man's best face.

I'm not saying he's horribly unattractive, but I am saying he was not the beautiful man I was expecting.

In fact, this guy whom a friend had called a reject from the Brawny Man auditions a few mere hours before, was just that.

My body language probably let him know how disappointed I was. That, or the fact that for the next 3 1/2 hours I disassembled my coffee'cuzi into several nests of paper growing larger with each disappointing fact that popped out of his mouth.

Do you know how difficult it is to convince a normal person that you creating little nests of brown paper is something you just do, all the time. That they don't need to worry about it. That you just have a compulsion to DO something with your hands... yeah, he didn't believe it either.

He broke nearly every first date rule, which for the most part I could care less about, but I think we spent 30 minutes talking about his ex-girlfriend, who use to live with him, who was cheating on him, who essentially used the poor bugger, but it's not my place to tell him he did a shitty job picking her out of the crowd. So I smiled and nodded and tried to direct the conversation back to his sister or his parents, but he seemed unwilling to talk about them, so back to the ex-gf conversation we went.

I let the ex-gf talk run it's course, but the poor Average Joe probably has already run his course in my life.

My mom called me after the date as I was driving home from the grocery store, and I told her about him, and she said, "LoRo, what did you expect? You're a college graduate with an insane propensity for gaining knowledge and random facts. You just told me he hates reading and books and didn't go to school. How long do you figure it's gonna last?"

"Good point, Mom, Good point."

On to the next one!

Jeepers You're a Creeper

So anyone whose hung out with me for longer than an hour usually knows I'm down for internet dating. I think it's an awesome place to reach outside your normal haunts to find people whom you could be compatible with, without all the alcohol and questionable morals lingering around the bar at last call.

I'll save you all the awesome benefits of internet dating, because in truth if you don't know them, then you're just being a bit too narrow minded. Yeah I said it. It's the 21st century and if you haven't accepted that the internet is a staple in our lives and normal people seem to hang out on it and seem to use it with alarming frequency, then you're being narrow minded or old-fashioned, which puts you on the side of the town in the musical the Music Man in regards to the new Pool Table (If you don't get this... it's not my fault).

BUT

With all that said...

There are some fruity-loops out there.

Case-in-Point

A few weeks ago I got a Plenty of Fish chat request from this guy we're going to call Parker.

Now Parker wasn't the cutest guy on the face of the planet, but he reminded me of one of my favorite bartenders, and I like to give guys a chance if they pass the "I wont vomit if you kiss me test."

So...

I accepted, and we started talking.

To say the conversation was amazing would be an understatement. In the period of the next 4 hours, I was laughing my ass off in between bouts of serious conversation about goals and dreams and how ours seemed to line up perfectly.

After hour 4, I was convinced that Parker was the man of my dreams. He was awesome. He was charming. He was driven. He was starting to look kinda cute. He was funny. He had dreams and a life plan, and I knew that we were going to be together forever...

Posts were put up on all my major social media sites about how I'd found my husband and to plan for a December 12th wedding at 12:12 pm.

Sometimes I let my hopes get ahead of me...

The conversation went so well, I gave Parker my phone number, and we planned a date for two weekends hence, because like with everything in my life including my new future husband, I have apprehensions about moving forward too quickly, and I wanted to give some time to make sure that we still had a connection in 2 weeks, versus a quick whirlwind affair.

He didn't even make it 2 days before I started to feel... bothered by some of his texts (all texts in ORIGINAL format).

"I miss U so much. U want to cuddle with me dont u?
"The night is so cold, but u know u make me feel warm inside, right?"
"U R just the most amazing, beautiful girl Ive met, ever." <--Duh! But you DONT KNOW ME.
"I don't liek to date multiple girls, so I just hope that you're not dating anyone else, but me."

Keep in mind readers... I've never met this man. 

I've never had coffee with him.
Never accidentally passed him in the streets.
Never bumped into him in the book store.
Never met him for a date.
Never cuddled in his arms or even so much as touched his elbow.

I. HAVE. NEVER. MET. HIM.
I would put the specifics in, but someone might know him and then I get in trouble for slander, but essentially the guy hasn't even moved into the area yet, but is instead putting out feelers for when he does in a few weeks, and was gonna date me long distance until he found an apartment in the area.

So, over the week the texts kept getting better... and better... and creepier... and way creepier.

"Ure so far away, I wish u were in my arms."
"Do U have a facebook, we should be friends, because ure just the best."
"Maybe I could stay with you for a few weeks."
"When I see you next, ur going to be in my arms all night."
"U haven't responded in a while, do u still like me?"

NO.

NO I DON'T

You creep me out.

(Some creepy monster from a Scooby Doo episode, found here)


If you've been reading for awhile you'll remember the drama with the MARINE (who may or may not have gotten his new girlfriend of a couple of months preggers. Lucked out on that one ladies and gents!).

I don't do well with clingy.

And I really don't do well with clingy from a guy I've never met.

So Parker the Husband was deleted from my phone, and I refuse to respond to his consistent barrage of "do you not like me anymore" texts, because (1) I never met you. (2) You sure as fuck can't live with me for a few weeks, and (3) I don't have time for your self doubting issues, because I have a life to live, which involves a lot of business, and chillness where I don't particularly like to answer text messages.

Unless I KNOW you... and they're stimulating, with new exciting information, or promises to hang out later, or the latest gossip on which sister is engaged, or promises to hang out later in a stimulating way... like Scrabble. <--- yes, that's what I'm calling it.

This post is really about taking a grain of salt with every thrilling person you meet.

It's not about falling off the horse because a friggin creeper jumped out infront of you, but instead looking for the normal people on internet dating, because they exist.

In fact, I have a date  tomorrow with a normal person (fingers crossed) found off of my favorite dating site, the OkCupid, and I'm psyched. He seems for all intents and purposes normal with a bit of quirk, and I love a good bout of quirky as long as it's not served with a side of creeptastic.

So just make sure the next time you jump on the OkCupid or POF that you're not sending out the creeper vibe. It should take more than a couple of weeks before you even suggest moving in with me. Or cuddling with me for that matter.

What happened to men who take their time, and let relationships blossom into something more than just a few days of "[I'm going to eat your] liver with some fava beans and a nice chiante?" Hmm?!

What this generation of daters needs is a healthy dose of patience and humble pie, ladies and gentlemen. Don't assume every girl you meet just wants to cuddle up with you on the couch of love and watch, The Way We Were.

Patience is needed in all aspects of life, especially dating, because if you rush headfirst into dating someone you met off a dating website too quickly, you become the Hannibal Lector of the Internet.

Happy Dating!

If I Die, He Did It

I'm always very skeptical of dating new people.
I'm VERY skeptical of online dating.
I'm skeptical of making out with random men I don't know.
I'm skeptical of going back to their houses for dinner or hanging out.
I'm skeptical of getting into their cars with them.
And
I'm skeptical of being anywhere alone with one for more than five minutes.

That doesn't mean I don't love them to pieces, but I always take my men with a grain of salt.
I'm also usually packing something, because hey, you can't ever be too safe.

Now I sound like the crazy girl, and I get it. You don't know what's happened in my life to get me to this point. So, brief story time, incase you missed this before, or I didn't post it.

Halloween 2010, instead of going out with the homies and drinking in Dupont like this past year, I scheduled a second date with straight sex-on-a-stick Mr. Quirky.

He was going to dress up, and I was going to dress up, and we were going to watch a movie and walk around Annapolis, and it was gonna be awesome.

And it was.

It was a lovely date. He was a perfect gentleman, and I had a great time.

As I drove back to DC, lighter than a feather, on the wings of happiness, I turned up the radio and sang my little heart out to Bryan Adams, "All for Love," because this girl is a 90s child and loves those Disney created songs and hell if I don't like 3 Musketeers starring Oliver Platt and Charlie Sheen before he was crazy (mmmm - delish).

It was around Midnight:30 when I pulled up to my apartment building. I noticed some people loitering in the parking lot, but it didn't dawn on me that they weren't supposed to be there until I got out of my car and started walking towards the entrance.

They started walking towards me.

You know that lecherous stare that usually accompanies a man who has had one too many drinks or the ones that burly bartender at Front Page gives out on the weekends. Man he has some lecherous-ass-stares.

My immediate reaction was run inside, but I was in the back part of the lot and the door was too far, so I ran back to my car, their feet beating behind me the entire way.

I might not be a fast runner, but I did master the 400m in middle school (haha) so I can stride my fucking ass off.

I opened the door, slammed the keys into the ignition and made for a quick getaway, but I never noticed that one of the feet stopped chasing.

While one guy jumped in front of my car, the other had jumped into his and began circling around to mine. I didn't know what to do.

I panicked and hit the gas.

The guy on foot jumped out of the way, but the guy in the car circled in front of me down an aisle.

Slamming my car into reverse, I hit my friend's car trying to get away (this is slightly funny because we had gone to a halloween party the night before, and he pointed out he parked so far away because he didn't want people to hit his car - haha).

At this point in time the second guy had hopped into another car, while I flew down one aisle to exit the lot, with the other car hot on my trail, car two (without their lights on), swerved in front of me and came within inches of my front bumper. The other car was boxing me in. I was between sketchy car one and sketchy car two both inches away from both bumpers.

That's when the guy in the car to my front began to open his door.

Alone, panicked, and frightened to tears, I did the only thing I could think of and laid on my car horn for what seemed an eternity. The guy closed his door,  revved his engine, tapped my bumper and backed away. Car two was still inches from my back bumper but I drove as fast as my car could carry me down the back way of the parking lot until I was sure they were gone, which is when I called (in this order) - the guy whose car I hit, my parents, and the police.

After that one of my Uncles mailed me something to keep me safe, and it's rarely not on me. The only time I've been out without it. I had some guy grab my arm under the silver spring metro. He started to pull me into the shadows, and I screamed. I screamed with all I had - with all the breath in my lungs - with all the breath I could muster, while beating the guys' arm as hard as I could.

Needless to say.  I know that there are creepy creepers out there, so I am skeptical.

Plus the craigslist killer.

Plus when you meet people out in the real world, unlike small-town, USA, you don't know their background, their parents, their entire life story, so you don't know they could be psycho.

Plus I've dated my fair share of war vets, and they can wake up pretty fucking violently.

This all goes into saying, I take everything with a bit of skepticism. I'm skeptical of trusting whether the man I'm with wants to love me or lock me up in a basement and prod me with cigarettes.

Which brings me to the point of this post.

People should know who you're dating. I'm not saying you need to tell them everything about the person you're about to go out on a date with, but they need to know at least their name and number or address or where you're going.

Because what happens if one night that guy from Plenty of Fish turns out to be a psycho ax murderer and not the dreamy steam boat you thought he was. What if the girl from the coffee shop turns out to be the mistress of some bizarre sex slave trade. You don't know! It could happen! And there you'll be with either an ax sprouting out of your neck, or chained to a pole in a zebra speedo with 20 other similarly clad men.

When I first started dating guys outside of college (aka outside of my 'small-town'), I started sending bizarre texts like, "If I die, SexyFace did it," or "If I'm found facedown in a stream, check out Loverboy333 on OkCupid."

And I know what you're thinking, "God, LoRo, those are some morbid ass texts."

But they serve a purpose.

One they're bizarre enough that my friends remember them. They're slightly morbid so my friend will probably text back with where are you going, then I share that. So people know who I'm with and what I'm doing.

I don't want something to happen to me and have my friends and family not have leads into who tortured me with hot iron pokers and left me for dead in an alleyway. 

Since I don't have a roommate anymore, I could probably be gone for a few days before anyone noticed - to be honest.

No one calls me on a regular basis aside from my Skype Husband, aka, MrStateDepartment, and to be real he only calls me when I'm on Skype. If I'm not on Skype he can't call me.  He will send me emails if he hasn't heard from me in a while, but I'm the only person that sees my email inbox though, so we're back at me dead and no one knowing.

So if you haven't been scared off by this post, I'm hoping you've taken away the point which is - when dating people you barely  know *cough* almost everyone *cough,* you need to take some sort of precautions so that people will know you're safe, post-date.

 Even if it's a phone call to a friend afterwards giving a rundown, because if your friend expects that call, when they havent heard from you, they're spidey-senses will go tingling.

All in all, remember dating is tough, but rising from the dead is usually only reserved for zombie movies.

And since not all Ax Murderers have good intentions...

... Date Responsibly!

We Wont Be Around Forever

Once upon a time...

There was a boy named Max.

He was my first kiss. He was my first legit crush. He was my first church camp romance (I know what you're thinking... oxymoron, and guess what... you can bite me).

He was the first guy to call me on the phone. He was my first boyfriend, subsequently making him my first ex-boyfriend. We couldn't really do that whole "OMG I HATE YOU AND I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN, thing" since we were both on the District Youth Methodist Conference Board together, so eventually I forgave him for being a buttface (I was in junior high/high school I didn't really cuss then) and we went about our way at becoming friends again.

When I went off to college, we hadn't dated in a while, but we were still good friends. We'd AIM back and forth, and we use to joke about how bad our first kiss was and how funny it was that we were so different (he had a wild streak a mile wide, while I would blush if a man took off his socks and thought that movie night was an exciting night) yet for the most part, we held the same ideals about life and love and faith.

We weren't the closest people on planet earth, but we were still good friends. Since we hadn't seen each other since he graduated high school, we made plans to meet up over our winter break.

Winter break arrived, and I hopped a plane and flew on down to Texas. I'd only been home a night when another friend gave me a call.

"Did you hear about Max?"
"No, what did that crazy SOB do now?"
"I don't really know how to say this, but he's in a coma."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"He's in a coma. He fell off the back of a truck during the parade out in Nederland. But there's... LoRo... there's no brain activity."

Have you ever actually dropped a phone during a conversation, because your body no longer functions?

I plummeted to my knees, no longer able to hear anything but the blood rushing through my head and the soft padding feet of my dog outside, as she paced on the back porch.

Managing to cradle the phone again, I thanked my friend for letting me know.

"They're going to pull life support tomorrow."

I picked myself off the ground.
I walked down the hallway and into the bathroom.
I turned on the faucet and sobbed until tears would no longer form.

------------------------------

Why did you just tell me that, LoRo?

For this reason, and I'm sorry how blunt I'm about to be because a lot of you are going to think I'm being crass.

You never know when someone close to you is going to die.
It could be today, tomorrow, or 20 years from now, but if you let that person pass on without letting them know how you felt about them, you're only doing yourself an injustice.

I tried to write a beautiful segway to my next point, but it didn't work.

So here's point 2.

Just like death can rip us apart from our loved ones. There are those times in life when you have this guy you've been crushing on hard core, or that girl you've just been longing to go out with, but you're too shy to take the next step.

"What if they say no?"
"What if they don't like me?"
"What if we have the worst date ever?"
"What if they blackball me from my favorite bar?"
"What if it doesn't work out?"

What ifs.

Everyone has them, but NOT asking - NOT making that next step is one of the worse things you can do in dating (the WORST thing you can do is lie to yourself). Because you never know if tomorrow, it wont be an option. I'm not saying that tomorrow the man of your dreams is going to die.

What I AM saying is that, if you don't take that chance - tomorrow they could be dating someone else. They could become exclusive, get engaged, get married, and then your sitting there thinking, "but - what if?"

I happen to do the what ifs too...

To be perfectly real with you, I don't let my emotions out, very often. I play my cards close to the vest, and anything aside from silly blushing or my very obvious facial expressions about things that often don't matter, no one really knows how I feel, because "what if they hurt me?" or "what if they use those emotions against me?"

For example, I dated a guy from April to the first week of October last year. Never seriously. We got along like a couple of champs. Great conversation. Great chemistry. Great everything.

But I never told him that I liked him. I just assumed the old bugger could figure it out.

A couple of nights ago, I'm skyping with him. He'd had a few. I'd had a few. We were chatting about when he used to be in the area, and how much he had liked me, blah blah blah.

And then he stopped and said, "did you like me?"

"What?"
"Sometimes I felt like you were just using me for my couch and watching more than basic cable."
"I liked you.  I like you. I miss your face off, but yeah - no, I really like you. That's why I'm sitting here skyping with you."
"I didn't know..."
"I thought I made it pretty obvious."
"No, you'd come in, plop on the couch and say, 'yo how was your day?' and sometimes - sometimes I just wished you would have walked in and kissed me, and offered a hug or something more than a bro, chilling with another bro. You know if you were just a bit more girly in that aspect, the whole emotions thing, you'd be the perfect woman. You're pretty fucking great now, but just that... just a little more 'aww, babe' or 'sugar, what's wrong?' and you'd be perfect."
"So what you're saying is that if I were a bit more 'aww sugar britches, I just love you to itty bitty pieces, this would be something more than me and you tipsy skyping?"
"Yeah, it gets kinda lonely without you. There are film/tv/media jobs out here, you know."

In November I bored you all with the tale of "Why I'm Still Single."

Today I'm going to bore you with, "They're Not Going to be There, Forever."

Don't let the opportunities that you want, pass by you. Don't keep saying, "But What If?!"

Take the bull by the horns and just say something.
Ask them out.
Tell them you like them.
Say you'd like to see them in their name day suit.

It doesn't matter, because those what ifs are impeding your life.

The worst thing that can happen is that person can not reciprocate.

But what's even worse than that, is if you never took the chance to ask or say something, because while you keep thinking, "I'll say something tomorrow" or "after I've seen her a few more times, I'll do something then," the tomorrow you're hoping for might never come or it might bring tidings that the person you want SO badly is moving away or found someone else.

And then those what ifs will echo in your mind for an eternity.

Just some food for thought.

It's a new year. Why not make a change in your dating life and cut out the what ifs?