Inviting me to your gym does not count as a date.

That is all.

Some guy writes:

Subject: Someone very special…

When you find someone sweet and kind in this world, sincerity and warm thoughts bring good things to fruition. I hope that is the case here with you!

My name is Stewart, I’m Jewish with a good soul and a kind heart. I am a good person who is genuine, honest, and compassionate– especially about my friends and family.

I am an author who has written several books about computers. I like to bowl, play pool, and am a sucker for a good love story.

This letter (and the poem below) is the best I could do to capture what I feel.so that I would not struggle any longer to communicate my desire to speak with you and get to know you! My heart says you are a very special person, and if I did not tell you this-it would both be a crime and its own punishment.

May I have the pleasure of hearing from you soon, please?

In all sincerity,
Stewart
——————–
You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don’t even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment. All the immense
images in me — the far-off, deeply-felt
landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and
unsuspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods–
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house– , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,–
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled, gave back my too-sudden image.
Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening…

Last night I went to an event with N. At one point, a guy I’d gone on a date with, J., approached and said hi. I introduced him to N., we chatted briefly, and he walked away.

“How do you know him?” She asked.

“The usual.” I replied.

“Oh, then that makes four.”

An ex-turned-friend, D., introduced me to a girl named N., and now she and I are becoming friends. And I’m thrilled, because I need to develop a social circle that isn’t dominated by exes.

So N. and I get to talking.

First I learn that N. and I have both dated D. That makes sense. No problem.

But in the past week, N. has informed me that we’ve dated two more people in common. Good lord.

I wonder if we’ll uncover a fourth with time…or even a fifth?

The man in the red hat IM’d me today. The conversation went roughly like this:

Him: What are your plans Thursday?
Me: [I make it clear I have plans by telling him what they are.]
Him: [He tells me about a concert that's on Thursday.] So, how does that sound? It starts at 8.

Um, what? Dude, I just told you I have plans for Thursday.

I had a first-date coffee today. The guy, aware that the photos from his online profile were vague, offered to wear a red hat.

I arrive at the coffee shop to find him wearing this red fez. On his head. In public.

There are no words.

Anyway, we meander through various subjects, including why the role-playing game he’s hosting this afternoon is superior to D&D. (So as not to leave you hanging: The outcomes in D&D are based on an n-sided die, with each outcome having a 1/n probability of occurring; in contrast, the outcomes in his favorite role-playing game are approximately normally distributed thanks to the simultaneous use of multiple dice.)

Knowing that his role-playing party is slated to begin momentarily, I say, “let’s get you home.” This is supposed to communicate “it’s time for you to go home,” but he misunderstands and says he’d love to have me walk him home.

So now I’m chivalrously escorting this guy back to his place. It’s quite a trek–especially in my three-inch heels–and by the time I get there, I need to use the bathroom.

He says his bathroom has been described as “horrifying” and makes me promise that seeing it will not change our “relationship.”

I agree and find a bathroom that is both horrifying and morbidly fascinating, like maggots infesting a rotting body. I have decided to spare you the photos.

When I emerge, I encounter his roommate. Although it’s the afternoon, he’s eating cereal while wearing a bathrobe.

“Did I hear you say something about computer graphics?” the roommate asks hopefully.

“Um, no.”

I was at a party last night when in walked the awesome religion and engineering grad students I had met while on a date with this guy. My enthusiasm was tempered, though, when I realized they had brought with them yet another guy I’d once gone on a date with. “I know where I know you from,” he said with a gentle smile.

Anyway, I ended up getting into a long conversation with the religion grad student. He was terrifically charming until he offered up this delightful line:

“Hey, listen, I have to go to the bathroom. You just wait here for me–unless you want to help?”

I was chatting about guy with R, a friend of mine from high school and a successful woman. She quipped:

“I don’t have to a date an alpha male. I’m definitely open to beta. The thing is, they usually turn out to be omega.”

There have been more good dates than bad lately, so no juicy stories dripping with disaster.

Still, a few flash backs from the last couple weeks:

• The kid I used to carpool to middle school with (!) set me up on a blind date recently. I have to wonder what inspired his decisive match-making, since the last time he saw me I was prepubescent.
• My old landlord just found me on a dating site and said hi.
• As did my college boyfriend. Funny, we look like a great match when I read his profile…but what a disaster that was in practice. Oh, and his profile includes a photo I recognize from 2001. Time for an update!

Some guy writes:

The Story of the Universe

Hello friend! I’d love to get to know you and fight crime. I am William Bunker from Westford, Massachusetts and I love action and truth. I have some questions and news. I wonder about your beliefs and would like to discuss them.

Do you believe in aliens?

Have you ever heard of the Battle of Los Angeles, 1942? Alien ships slowly floated down the California coastline while the Army fired on them for 2 hours. We were unable to affect the ships. They eventually disappeared! A youtube video shows the event. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUL9qsoipFs

What would you do with immortality?

There is a particle in physics that creates all other particles, waves, and all condensations of events, realities, quantums. It is [.]. A perfect circuit without leak. It emits reality, has infinite sides yet is about as big as a marble. Nothing can stop it and it makes time and space. Its wake is the world apparent. The perfect circuit is Jesus Christ and Heaven. Do you love Jesus Christ? Every lie will fall.

Tell me something awesome about yourself.

Do you know anyone with electrosensitivity? Do you know anyone who experiences living electromagnetic fields or living vibrations? Do you study the magnetism of astronomical bodies? I invite you to meditate with me on intelligent life outside of humanity and the critical events taking place in Boston, New York, Germany, Sicily, Istanbul, Greece, Iceland, and Nevada. Together we can clean energies and resolve conflicts to build beautiful things.

Please build the Human Mandala with me. It is 32 generations wide on each side and begins with a [.].

What do you ring bells about?

1 > 0
[.]2, [.]4, [.]5, [.]7, [.]9, [.]+-, [.]W, [.]X
<>< Great William [.]

PS

Read the Story of the Universe at the bottom of my profile!

In case you were wondering, the guy looks like Weird Al Yankovic.