While on a dating website this morning, a guy commented on my profile synopsis. Which basically says, “I’m the type of girl who can out smart you at your own game. Looking for someone who isn’t afraid to be honest, vulnerable, and loved.” So, this loaf sent me this:
I dunno about outsmarting me at my game…I am pretty ok at chess..are u?
My first thought was, yah. right. My second thought continued from the first and varied slightly adding, seriously?
I understand the coy implications and how vested he is in actually reading people’s profiles and not just checking out the pictures…but dude really? Chess? I know for a fact you cannot play chess. I am sorry if this is obnoxious or whatever, but you dress like you are still in high school….and not to say that when people dress unsophisticated they are unsophisticated, but shit. Show me a picture of what you look like cleaned up or something. Show me that you have experience being in a game to know how to even school me at my own.
In light of my situation, I decided to go back on to the dating website to see what other men are out there to fill position as temporary soul mate. Low and behold…three swipes to the left and I see this guy who has full potential. His name is Jb. He is 34 years old and is 13 miles away. He was active 2 days ago which is a nice sign because it means he isn’t desperate. Until I make my way down to his bio…which states (and I am so serious) “It’s all chess moves, make ya best move, cause the wrong one will cause you a flesh wound.” One of his pictures is him standing next to a card board cut out of Jay Z.
Dear Men (most of who are posting pictures on dating websites)
Stop. Stop with the corny clichés. Stop with the pictures of you standing next to cardboard cut outs of grown ass men who behave like children that you are continuing to idolize at adult age. Stop with the Gucci sunglasses and brand name gear as if it matters to anyone . Stop with the pictures of you and your mom or you and your sisters as if this isn’t some subconscious way of announcing that you are off limits because you still wished your mom tucked you in at night. Stop with the look-change, you know how you are thug one second and nerd the next second…all that says to someone like me is “I will become whatever I think you want me to be.” Stop with the aloof group pictures where it makes it seem like you have all these bro-mances going on…girls don’t like competition. It doesn’t make us think you have a solid group of friends. It either makes us think that you are still re-living your college years and that none of you grew up, or that these are old pictures and all of your friends are married with children and you are the lone ranger for some reason or another. Stop with the pictures of you and your other best friends….you know the ones with four legs. I have the inability to respect people who treat their pets like actual humans. It is one thing to adore your pet as if it is part of the family, but you laying with your dog in your bed does not turn me on. It forces me to imagine that while we are having sex I will be humped laying in a bed of hair and dog slobber….which is awful, no matter who you are. Stop with the half-professional photographs that make you look more suave than you really are.
Yes, I am picky….and yes I am judging you based off your pictures…and yes, the pictures I posted to this app are mainly pre-pregnancy…and make me look way sluttier and way more fun than I really am. And maybe this is why I know that you are a front. Maybe this is why I know that all I am going to get out of you is some meaningless conversation with limited intelligence. Maybe I wish that there was a site for secret geeks and dorks who were way smarter than everyone ever thought because they had to hide themselves from the public after being sick of hearing, “nobody likes a know-it-all.” Maybe if these people were talking about beating me at my own game, or the game of chess, then I would actually say, “let’s play.” Instead of making some passively emasculating innuendo about how I can win a game of chess in 3-moves. Which is so far from accurate, but it’s like stop trying to be cute. Stop pretending like you even know why I wrote that.
Truth, I wrote that for Mr. Grey. Because I saw him on this dating website after he told me a story about how his ex-wife freaked out one day after finding out that he was using the site, while married. Shortly after I joined it, just to see what he had posted, I found his picture. Unbeknownst to me, I swiped left after freaking out. Swiping left means I will never see his profile again. I almost felt guilty seeing it too. Like who am I to see his private stuff. Who am I to see what he does when he isn’t with me. I then contacted the dating website application manager to see if there would be anyway that I could get back to his profile. To analyze it more. To analyze it at all. Of course not though. That is the bliss of the world we live in. If we don’t cease the opportunity within the instant, we lose it. Great motto we are creating for the next generation. Great. Motto. Like there is no such thing anymore as a second thought, or over thinking, or anything relating to thinking…it is more about instant. Which is perhaps why I said I could win a game of chess in 3-moves.
I want the game to be over instantly.
Back to the matter-at-hand…I wrote the whole thing about the game, so that when Mr. Grey puts in his little search engine the specifics he wants, which I am assuming that I fit in to the category to begin with as I am his age and live within 10 miles of him, he will see me. And he will have to read my bio, “I am the type of girl who can out smart you at your own game.” That was the context of why I wrote what I wrote.
Not for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to awkwardly trick me in to sarcastic banter with what they think are hidden innuendos. They may seem hidden but strictly because they Do. Not. Apply. to the average person, rather one person in particular.
Thinking about the game of chess, if you will…I found out that on average there are 40 moves…but that after 50 moves it is an automatic draw. That if nobody has been captured after 50 moves, no pawn has been moved, no capture has been made….then it’s a tie. I wonder if these rules applied to dating what would happen?
Mr. Grey and I have been at this game for the last six months. Surely we have seen each other over 50 times…and yet here we are….moving pawns. I will say that perhaps a few rooks have been captured and maybe a bishop or two…more on his side than mine. I was willing initially to let my guard down, which is when he had opportunity to capture these players; however, now that I am starting to feel vulnerable, I have regained form and am tighter with my offense so that I can naturally secure my defense. I feel like he is playing with a similar style. A flare if you will to protect the inner pieces….of what is inevitably our heart. Emotional burdens are guarded like they are the end all or be all to our very selves which is preposterous (a word I only barely know how to spell because it is in one of my daughter’s books, mind you). Why are we holding on to these pieces of ourselves? Why am I clinging to the very last bit of resentment and bitterness that my ex-hsuband forces me to feel daily? Why is he clinging to his failed marriage, or his bitter ending affair? Why do we constantly need to give our rooks and pawns strength through the internet dating sites we become fixated on. As if we feel we are settling right now?
Currently, in my relationship with Mr. Grey, I could not be happier. People, family, friends, neighbors, comment on how great I look, as if I have done anything different. Have I lost weight? Tanned? Am I glowing? No. None of these things happened. What I did was removed the toxicity from my life, meaning I got rid of my ex, lost the job that kept me stuck playing in traffic for 8-10 hours daily (6x/week!) and am smiling more. Not solely because of Mr. Grey, but out with the baggage went the men that I would constantly bicker on the phone with or argue with face-to-face. The exes, the drama. Am I alone? Yes. But why the hell wouldn’t I want to be? I am kind of cool. And, when Mr. Grey is with me, it’s like a power-couple, if you will…using the term couple loosely. We complement each other nicely. We are each other’s better halves. When he is down I support him and believe it or not, vice versa. He isn’t afraid of me. He isn’t afraid to get my goat. He isn’t afraid to hold me if I am scared. He isn’t afraid of me when I have anxiety attacks….like most run from me…he sits there and rubs my leg until I calm down…without asking him to even be there for me, he is there. In ways he probably doesn’t even understand or know.
But for some reason, Mr. Grey and I are at this point in our relationship where it is becoming a, well, relationship. I mean, he spent numerous days in a row at my house. And not that he planned for it or packed…that would have been way too obvious…but he was there. From Sunday until Friday…I then saw him on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Even if it was for quickies or for smash and dashes, we still saw each other. And during these visits, there were subtle things that would lead someone, anyone!!! looking in that we are in some kind of relationship.
To the point, where on Saturday…you know, after spending the night at my house because his friends forfeited going out, that he felt guilty telling me on Friday that he was going out for a drink with his friends after their workout. I questioned this, as to why he would feel guilty and he replied with well because then he wasn’t going to come over at all. I said, so? He said but then he started thinking about how why should he feel guilty? Like he has no consequences…he is free to do whatever he wants.
I mean, is this a checkmate? Why wouldn’t he be free to do what he wants? I asked him that, “Why wouldn’t you be free to do what you want?” He said, “because, if we were together and a couple, I wouldn’t have been able to.” I said, “So, you think that a title, that being your girlfriend would make me change the very way I have been acting for the last almost seven months? As if a title is going to make me change who I am? This is how I am.” And, honestly, this is who I am. I am pretty laid back…and not the girl who says she is laid back for likes, or for compliments, or for trickery….I am actually laid back. If we had plans to go somewhere special or do something like an occasion and you made said plans with me months, weeks, or even days in advance…and you then said “No, I can’t go because I am going out for a drink with my friends…” Then, regardless if we were together, friends, or anything more than strangers, I would have a right to tell you that you are a dick, because that is what anyone would think you were….but it still wouldn’t force you to come with me.
I never understood that about relationships. Just because you are in one doesn’t mean you become, one. You are still two individual people with individual lives, sometimes individual friends. Your lives were separate before you got together; there is no harm in keeping them separate. At some point the lives may have to join together, but they do not have to become one. I despise people who do this. My brother does this. My parents do this. My friends do this. I refuse to do this. And it is not because I haven’t found the person I want to do this with…it is because I am and always will be my own person. I need “me” time. I need to be alone sometimes. I need to decompress. And I am not talking about a car ride in to work or while at work or on the way home from work. I mean, like I like to spend the night in my own bed sometimes alone. Like without a man. I like to get ready in the morning by myself…without a man. I love getting ready in the morning with my daughter…that is the greatest feeling. But I like doing things without a man. Without someone there like either rushing me, or waiting for me, or in my way. I like being by myself.
On the flip side, I like being with someone as well. Which is why this arrangement…this FWB if you will, works perfectly. There is no stress of commitment. However, wedding season, holiday season, and then summer season, definitely favors couples who like to be together. At this time, I will probably want to be in a committed relationship with Mr. Grey, or at the very least, just be his plus one. Like even for that…nothing has to change….like we don’t have to change a thing other than I am his assumed plus one.
….I am just saying that I think we are approaching 50 moves….and I don’t want a tie.