Weddings: Best Pickup Spot of the Summer?

Elaine* recently met her new lovah (yes, I'm calling you out Elaine*, but at least I'm not calling him your boyfriend) at her college roommate's wedding in June. They met the night of the rehersal dinner, hung out all weekend and the following week while she was still back in our hometown where he lives, and now they lovey-dovey talk every night.

She is not the first to meet a lovah, or boyfriend for that matter, at a wedding. What's up with this? Is it because everyone is happy and thinking about love at weddings? One would think that some guys would be scared and thinking about, to use a Tolkienian phrase, "the end of all things." But it seems not. So, WTF, friends. When is the first wedding?? As of now, I don't have one on the calendar until 2011. And by then I will already be old and ready to buy cats, get an apartment in Chinatown, and call it a day. So let's get this ball rolling.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet, That is the Question

I'm not on twitter, yo. Although I've moved from hating on it to simply being scared of it, perchance I shall join soon. I'm scared that once I put myself on there and start saying things like, "Hey, I just ate a footlong subway sandwich. It had too many banana peppers," people will stop taking me seriously. When do we reach the point of too many updates?

On another note, I saw a really cute guy in the elevator of my building today. I have decided the elevator is a perfectly good place to talk to strangers because you can say things like, "Great weather. Well, have a nice day," therefore laying the flirting ground work and taking note of what floor they work on in order to secretly stalk them. Although the cute guy I saw today was wearing Dockers. I think Dockers are only for children under 9 years old or senior citizens.

Oh yeah, that

I was just looking down at some old posts and realized I forgot to follow up on the date my friend Billie* was trying to set me up on. I told this guy, Chad*, I would be out of town for 3 weekends and apparently he couldn't go out during the week. So, we'd have to wait to go out for awhile -- old school courting style.

I texted him when I got back from my trip and we should grab a drink. No response. So I decided, what the hell, I'll text again, this is Billie's friend. I finally recieve a text saying this: "Hi, sorry for the late response. I'd really love to go out with you, but it turns out I'm seeing someone else."

It turns out?? Like, he just discovered it? I didn't even have a chance to reject this guy because it 'turns out' he was seeing someone. Great.

Dating.com

I'm just going to be honest here. When I said I got off okcupid, like, 3 months ago, I lied. I was only shamed by the fact that I was not receiving as many messages as my friends who were on there, and therefore wanted to save face. And to my credit, many friends agreed that my humor does not translate well online (saying things like 'ever had lice?' really requires hearing one's voice intonation). But after my sister ending up meeting a pseudo-boyfriend on okcupid, I decided perhaps it was time to through my skepticism and bitterness to the wind and put myself out there, or on there, as it were.

So I have been responding to the messages I get now -- NOT sending any messages off right. Lets get that one thing clear -- I'm not that ballsy. Long story short, I have a date this Saturday! From his description my co-worker and I have decided he is the "nerdy athletic type." You know what I mean: glasses, bad shoes, always wearing some sports apparel t-shirt, and some brand of bad jeans, oh, and usually a bowl cut. But, its a date and I'm going to give it a shot. Hopefully he is actually 24 and not 42. And we are going to meet in a public place. And if I know his type, he is definitely not going to order a pomegrante martini.

Hola!

Happy Summer! After a long reprieve, I'm back. This does not mean I have picked up a boyfriend or anything as crazy as that - puh lease. However, I did move! Quiet a production. I have moved up in the world. I'm in a doorman/elevator building. My doorman's name is Jose, my super's name is Jose, and then the other two guys that work in the building are named Marco. Either this is a very strange coincidence or they are lying to me because they think I'm a silly gringa.

Anyways, thank goodness for summer - but not this rain! It has literally (according to weather.com) rained in New York every day in June except for 4 delightfully days. Regardless, its warm and people are out and about. Including me.

A couple Saturday mornings ago I was idling on Broadway in front of Dean and Deluca, aimlessly waiting for a friend, when all of a sudden I look up and see Vig Bar Boy walking towards me with a girl on his arm! I immediately looked down and pretending to be texting someone. After they crossed and were walking west I attempted to follow them like a crazy person and I think I saw them walk in the Apple store. Totally a couple thing to do...

"It could have been his sister..." I told my friend D. Her look told me no one's sister walks arm and arm with them on a Saturday morning to the Apple store.

Needless to say I have still received numerous 2 am texts from Vig Bar Boy within the past few weeks, none of which have come to any fruition. Not his sister? Or maybe he is an ass. Maybe if he would ever ask me on a G.D. date I would change my mind about that.

I also lied awhile back when I said I got off OkCupid. I didn't. I'm still on it. My sister actually met this guy she ended up liking off OkCupid, so I have decided to give it another go. "Giving it another go" meaning responding to the 3 messages in my inbox and updating my picture. Honestly, I think I'm just not good online. Some people's humor seems to translate very well through their profiles (maybe I checked out a couple girl's profiles too for research on this area) and mine is totally vanilla feeling.

My friend at work also told me today she has a high school friend that runs the Genius Bar at the Apple store. I don't know how I feel about this but the first blind-ish date I ever went on was in college and was with a guy that worked at the Apple store. Maybe it's fate.

If apartment searching is to dating...

Andi*, Elaine*, and I have been searching for an apartment for about a month and a half now. We currently live over a hamburger restaurant that plays loud Fleetwood Mac and Coldplay until 4 am. You understand our predicament.

This past weekend Elaine and I looked at 4 apartments in the span of 3 hours. After this, we decided we had to come home and write down everything we had seen, if only to make sure we weren't overlapping (the craigslist postings "convertible 2 bdrm awesome deal!!!!!!!! 7th/B," was starting to sound a lot like the "3 bedroom awesome deal!!!!!!!!! 7th/B").

When it came to apartments, we had become like druggies that always know where to score. Someone would say, "I looked at this apartment on 6th and 1st Ave..."

"Oh, small kitchen, big bathroom, faces the street?" we would all say. "Yeah, we know that one."

We felt we knew almost every apartment listed, but still hadn't found something we like. Elaine and I wrote down everything we had looked at: 18 apartments in the span of a month (counting the apartment we almost thought we got, but then was so ruthlessly ripped from our fingertips when our management company forced us to stay in our apartment an extra month).

"18 apartments!!" I said in shock at seeing 'our list.' It was at this moment I realized apartment hunting in New York is much like dating. You have to look and look, and look some more to find something you are going to make a big investment in, something you are going to spend a lot of time with. Occasionally you have to rely on other people/websites to help you out with this search. When it comes to sealing the deal, with an apartment it is a security deposit, with dating (and this is so cheesy I can't believe I'm saying it), its your heart! And just to put this out there, unlike security deposits, you DO NOT get that back when the relationship is over.

Elaine told me I was depressing her when I started making statements like, "what do you think breaking you lease signifies?" and "do you think its bad I've moved like three times in the past 1.5 years?"

Regardless, this is an interesting analogy to consider....

"How Meeting a Cute Nerdy Guy Works"

I really like NPR podcasts.  This American Life, Stuff You Should Know, Savage Love, etc... all my favorites.  Because I listen to a lot of these radio shows on my ipod, I tend to say things like this a lot: "Did you know there are 41 types of deja vu?  I listened to a Stuff You Should Know about them this morning;" or, "On This American Life week this woman told a story about how she had to sell all her furniture and sleep on an air mattress in her apartment because of bed bugs."

My co-workers know to expect a factoid pretty much every morning because I listen to podcasts on the way to work.  But over lunch today I started in with, "So today on the way to work I was listening to 'How Cannibalism Works' and --

"Do you do this on dates?" one of my co-workers asked, following up with a 'How Hypo-allergenic Cats Work' imitation -- their favorite.

"Yeah, probably not a good idea," the other laughed.

"I uhh, only on the bad dates!!" I said, trying to wrack my brain, knowing that I had probably done some sort of factoid on pretty much every date I'd been on.

"You know what though, your nerdy ideal guy would be totally into it.  In fact, I bet he would bring up NPR first!  Don't let us stop your game," my co-worker said.

"Very true.  My nerdy future boyfriend totally loves Stuff You Should Know."   Visions of us listening to the radio together danced in my head.

"You might want to start picking up guys at the library, then," my other co-worker laughed, shaking her head.  

Brilliant idea!  Why had I not thought of this before, I wondered.  To the library as fast as possible.  I already have my card...