This next fella I have actually dodged around town a few times. Ducked quickly into the nearest aisle in the grocery store, slinked past him undetected in a department store somewhere, and successfully (so far) evaded while surfing the lonely hearts on the interwebs.
There's not a whole lot to say about this guy, except that I really should raise the bar and be a little less accepting of people/things when I'm deciding whether to go out with someone or not. I mean, let's face it. I've knocked my list of requirements down to the bare bones must haves, and even then that leaves the bar so low that all the guys have to do is step over it. I think it's time for the winds of change to blow over me.
He was a former Marine - oorah! - and in the band, WHICH I didn't mind because I like music and musicians. He was into photography, which I love, and some light (video)gaming, which I can abide. His pictures weren't that unflattering, and his personality seemed completely doable. Not, like do-able do-able. Damnit, I know you know what I mean.
I decided we should just go ahead and meet up. I don't have time for the lengthy, drawn-out rigamarole of dating. Ain't nobody got time fer dat! And because - as you have all borne witness to - I have excellent decision-making skills - we planned to meet up for a hike through the woods at Black Hawk State Park. "Oh, the place where they dumped that poor girls torched and chopped up body?" Why yes! The very same.
Makes great decisions *points at self.
I seriously wasn't worried. I was even less worried when I saw him. I'm going to call him Bear. One, because I think that was his name on the dating site, and Two... because I can't remember his real name anymore.
As I got out of my car and started walking I could see a man walking toward me.
(He was not, for the record, holding any sort of trophy or Golden Globe.)
I foolishly thought for a split second that maybe this was not, in fact, the man I was meeting. That thought quickly faded as I remembered just how awesome my dating track record had been. Bear ambled toward me, looking much more... corpulent... than his pictures might have led me to believe. And, call it the curse of a faded memory or 20/20 hindsight, but looking back I can only see a slightly more modern version of one of the Croods. He was thick - beyond thick - and his head was gi-freaking-normous. A bit of a neanderthalic brow. Yeah, I might have made that word up, but I know you can picture it, can't you? He had chubby wrists. Wrists, I tell you! Wrists should not be chubby unless you are still counting your age by weeks or months. He was a few dozen pounds from being a full on mouth breather. Actually, we were in the vastness of the outside world. He probably was a mouth breather. Hi-five for dodging that one!
That was really all I needed to know about him right there. I know that might seem shallow, but you see, friends, there must be the slightest, tiniest, most miniscule bit of attraction between two people, and in reciprocal fashion, for any sort of relationship to form. Either that or I have serious depth issues, but I don't think that's the case. Anyway... so we started off on our hike. I had my camera with me because it was an picturesque, sunny, midafternoon fall day. The light and shadow was amazing within the trees. I was sure this photographer was going to be as enraptured as I was, furiously snapping picture after picture. "Isn't this just amazing? I mean look at it! I love photographing nature." His response? "I actually just really like studio photography where I can control all the elements."
LAME.
He couldn't even see a fraction of the beauty that I was overwhelmed by. I'm not opposed to dating people with differing opinions, but seriously? Maybe if this guy stepped out of his hobbit hole more often he might find beauty in the brightly lit, unsuffocated external world. Just sayin'.
We trudged through the woods for what after that seemed like an eternity, chatting about the military and finding more and more dissimilarities (in my opinion). The best was when we got back to our cars, though. That's when I found out the most important bit of information.
He lived with his mom.
Of course he did! I mean, why wouldn't he? Okay, here's the thing, and maybe this is my downfall. I am just too damn old - as are the men I'm attempting to woo - to abide dating a man who has become comfortable just kicking with his mama for an undetermined amount of THE REST OF HIS LIFE. Sure, things happen. Parents get sick. We lose our jobs or fall on hard times. Get your ass BACK UP and move back out! Oookay... *slides soapbox away. Sheesh. Yeah, so we had a mini convo about him walking his mom's wiener dog and other boring stuff. And then way too much conversation about Assassin's Creed and video games and at that point I was praying for a stray bold of lightning to part the wispy clouds of that bright blue-skied sunny day and part my skull. Thankfully that strike didn't make its way down from the heavens, but an end to the conversation arrived, and that was good enough for me and we parted ways. With a hug. I can't help it. I hug everyone. I must stop that. Because as Bear wrapped me up he... ugh... I shudder to even recall the memory. As Bear gave me a parting hug, he... moaned. *shudder
Blegh! Who does that? I'm sorry, but it's creepy. Even creepier if you look and act like Bear, and even moreso if you barely know a person. Men - do yourselves and your women and lady friends a favor. Do not - I repeat - DO NOT ever moan audibly as you hug a woman. Unless she has her hand on your naughty bits, in which case that's an entirely different story. Just... just don't, mkay?
So there you have it. The story of Bear and the Woods. Fit to be told around the campfire for scary story sessions. I'm available at a very reasonable rate.
~h
NEXT TACO TIME: Wow, you're muscles are so muscley OR More evidence that Gingers have no souls.
