That time when I was genetically discriminatory

Last night Adman got cut after about a month of dating. I can’t really explain it because it wasn’t logical, but I just wasn’t feeling it. We tried another make-out session and I found myself again not really wanting it to go any further than that. In fact, I interrupted it and sent him home. Rather than accepting that perhaps things just weren’t jiving, instead may I present my rather neurotically conceived scientific theory:

After our first awkward make out session I hugged him. Due to the huge height discrepancy, my ear ended up squarely on his chest. That was how I heard his heart, and remarked, “wow – your heart is beating super fast!” He told me that his heart has always been fast.

He pulled out a neat-o little app on his phone that used the iPhone’s light to detect our heart beats. We compared and his heart was literally beating twice as quickly as mine. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but then later I heard John Tesh on the radio. He was talking about the science of kissing. “Why do we kiss?”, he asked. I realized that I had no idea.

Johny said that researchers postulate that during the salivary exchange of kissing, there could indeed be detection of genetic material, and possibly even flaws in DNA. Additionally in a study of smell, women were found to say that men with the most genetic variation from themselves smelled the best (genetic variation is a good thing – it provides survival advantage). I was intrigued.

Watch this video if you’re interested; it’s rather interesting:

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/02/13/the-science-of-why-we-kiss/

In a convo with Adman I discovered that he has a similar genetic condition to my brother. So this would put our theoretical future children at huge risk of having it. He also has another medical condition which he mentioned to me. When I googled it, it explained his racing heart. It also put him at risk of a whole bunch of other scary heart stuff.

I think that during that first kiss, whatever place in my brain controls my reproductive drive picked up on Adman’s scent and taste and screamed “REJECT – your genes are not going to mix well!”. I have been rather explicit about my heightism and my desire to have children who can be professional athletes, should they so choose – what is the point of having tall children if their hearts will give out with physical activity? I think my body rejected him two weeks before my brain did.

And now I feel guilty. Is this genetic discrimination? Should I feel bad? Part of me wanted to have children with him so that my awesome genes could “save” his maybe not so awesome ones. Take a GATTACA-like stand even. But that’s not how evolution works. And I do rather want my progeny to survive.

Keep in mind that the quality of his genetic material can in no way be verified. This has been entirely constructed in my head. But I think there might be something to it. I mean, the whole point of reproduction is to give your children the best possible chance to survive and subsequently reproduce. Perhaps this is the most real moment in the dating process I’ve ever experienced. It was an acknowledgement of the ultimate goal, which was brought clearly into focus. I’m dating to hopefully find an awesome partner to spend my life with, but even more so than that, I’m looking for sperm. I feel somewhat diminished and simplified by that statement, but there it is.

Is GATTACA coming? I do love spiral staircases…

Kissing an adolescent…oh dear that sounds worse than intended.

So the other night Adman walked me home. The night was still young and I sort of still felt like hanging out with him.

I’m starting to feel more confident with this adult dating thing, so I simply said to him, “can I invite you to come in without the expectation that we’re going to have sex?”. I felt proud of myself because it removed ambiguity and set some expectations. I feel like I’m learning.

He responded, “I don’t even want to have sex!”, and I said “really??”, incredulously. In retrospect, I admit it was sort of an odd exchange.

But then he came in and it was fun. This guy can definitely keep up. I appreciate smart and witty. I also appreciate not feeling like I need to search for topics or keep throwing fuel into the conversation; it burns rather naturally. There was a kiss at the door before he left, which was somewhat awkward, but I just attributed it to the huge height differential.

So on the next date when he invited me up to his place for tea, I was feeling pretty good about our communication and expectation setting and it felt safe and nonthreatening.

And then it happened. We were sitting on the couch watching a movie. And he decided he wanted to make out. You know in the movies when they lean in slowly and the music swells?

There was none of that. It was a mess of gangly limbs and awkward couch gymnastics. There was no edging together, where your knees just barely touch “by accident”, or an arm on the back of the couch grazes a shoulder. There were no sideways glances with flirtatious smiles. There was no lead in – it was totally abrupt. His face was just right in front of mine and there were lips. And they were sort of rhythmically biting mine.

I didn’t mean to be hurtful, but I sort of pushed him away. It was hard to enjoy with no lead-up. I told him I was hungry and suggested that maybe we should order dinner. So we did. And then when we were standing in the kitchen getting plates, etc ready, he tried again. There was no witty or adorable comment, no cute face or deep longing look in either of our eyes. He just jammed his face into mine again, unexpectedly. Has this guy never watched a movie? That’s not how this works, dude. A kiss is a culmination. It’s the relief of sexual tension. And you can’t skip the sexual tension – that’s the best part.

I pulled away again. I sort of felt like a jerk because this guy is nice and generally quite respectful. But I felt like I had spun the bottle and ended up in the closet with an adolescent boy. He did not seem to have grasped the art of the make-out. And I LOVE the make-out, so what a huge disappointment. I was nice, but nothing else happened and after we ate (sushi, not each others’ lips) I went home. I had zero desire to jump his bones. And I generally really enjoy bone jumping.

And then my neurotic brain did what it does best – I have enough rumination for the nation!

This guy is handsome and well-spoken and fun. He works in an industry that exposes him to lots of parties and women. I find it hard to believe that he hasn’t been involved in a few make-outs in his life. So why did this feel like we should be snapchatting with One Direction playing in the background?? (that is my complete understanding of what it means to be an adolescent these days)

Then I took it one step further. I thought back to his comment about not wanting to have sex, and decided promptly that he was a virgin. How does a man get to be 28 and never have sex? He’s not even religious. Things just didn’t add up.

Naturally I began polling my people: “is a bad first make-out indicative of horrible sex to come?”, “can physical chemistry be developed or if it’s missing should you just give up?”, “what does it all mean???”

I stopped texting him. I couldn’t figure out if this was a huge red flag. He noticed. When he texted me to ask what was up, I had all but given up. But I decided to have another adult dating moment. I told him that I was concerned with our poor physical chemistry. I speculated that perhaps we had unknowingly wandered into the friend zone. He said that he had shared that concern after our last visit. I told him I really liked him otherwise, and he suggested that perhaps we needed to try again. And I thought, “what the hell? It can’t be worse than the first make-out”. So he came over.

Roomie was home so we decided to go for a walk. It’s an odd situation going on a walk with the intention of re-doing your first kiss. What a silly amount of pressure. We found a nice dark park bench and sat for a while talking. But he didn’t make a move and the walk continued. At first we didn’t talk about it, but as the night rolled on we began to strategize. “How about that dark alley?”, “nope – that’s the sort of alley where we’d get murdered”. “Maybe just here on the street?”, “no – I’m not really into PDA”. At one point he tried to just swoop in and kiss me again and I definitively pushed him away and said, “no – you can’t just do it like that; there has to be a lead-in!!!”

So on we wandered, in circles of my neighbourhood looking for the perfect place for a second first kiss.

Becoming slightly exasperated at 11pm with work the next morning, I dragged him into a well-lit park with lots of people in it, shoved him up against a utility shed and kissed him. It was the most teenaged make-out I’ve ever had (and this is including my teenage years). But the second first kiss was better than the first. Maybe because of all the build up, or maybe because it was a little thrilling having such a public make-out session. But we held each others’ hands afterwards and he walked me home. We patted ourselves on the back for achieving our awkward feat. It was a strange sort of problem-solving, team-based situation. Strangely, mutual sense of humour and communication made it ok.

It seemed like maybe that was going to put us back on track, but then when we got to my place and I tried to say goodnight, he tried the swooping motion again. I let him kiss me for a minute and then had to literally shove him out the door and say “goodnight” because I was so frustrated with his lack of intuition. I think he was relieved the second make-out was better and was attempting to consolidate his position, but it was too much. Sometimes it’s best to leave someone wanting more, rather than shoving your tongue in their mouth repeatedly.

So overall I’m confused. I like this guy. Other than his lack of kissing tact, everything about him is great. And every man starts as an awkward teenage slobber-face, right? Maybe he can be trained…? I’m genuinely at a loss.

The moment when I realize I’m Andie Anderson

I went on date #2 with (M)adman tonight and it was great.

Ok I don’t work for Composure magazine…but I do have a dating-themed blog. And (M)adman is an ad man. Whoa just like Benjamin Barry. So I think that’s close enough for my concerns to be valid:

I can’t shake the feeling that this man is trying to win a bet by making me think he’s awesome. Because he’s awesome. During our initial texting convos I was feeling a little paranoid that this Tinder guy was actually a group of my best friends collaborating to reply to me with the perfect answers. Because his answers have all been “right”. So now I am convinced I’m being picked up based upon a bet and I should probably try to lose him in 10 days. But I don’t think I want to. I am, in fact, inclined to do the opposite.

He took me out to dinner at a great restaurant. The choice of restaurant was a surprise, but he asked me ahead of time whether I would rather know or be surprised. He also gave me attire guidelines when I chose the “surprise”. It was very considerate and a far cry from Blue Eyes’ surprise which was dinner with his best friend and his wife and then a concert of a band I had never heard of. That’s not a surprise for me… that’s a ticket you bought with an ex and then awkwardly tried to disguise. Ugh.

(M)adman is super easy to talk to. He is smart and interesting. He’s witty and a little sarcastic, but it’s kind-spirited sarcasm. Sometimes on dates I notice I’m not listening to the guy because a) I’m bored or b) I’m worrying too much about what to say next because the conversation feels forced. I have not had A or B occur with (M)adman. He’s just the right mix of nerdy and well-adjusted.

After dinner we got tea and sat in the park on this beautiful summer evening with a light breeze blowing through the trees. I like a man who likes tea. We discussed our mutual waspiness as the source of tea love.

He walked me home and my roommate just happened to be getting out of a cab in front of our place. So (M)adman met my roommate. And he talked to her like a human being. They had a full convo while I grinned. Geek would never have done that – he would slink into the shadows. (M)adman either a) is just generally a nice person with social skills and/or b) understands that if you want to be with someone, it’s important that their people like you. Either way I’m impressed with him.

I’m doing a lot of A-ing and B-ing on this post. Apparently I’m in a binary mood. Hello world. Although I guess if it were binary it couldn’t be both A and B. Computers were never really my thing. Let’s leave them to the Steves.

Anyway – this feels like maybe it’s too good to be true. But man I really want the motorcycle scene…here’s to hoping.

Where there’s smoke…

So tinder. I downloaded the app. And it’s fun. Really fun. I feel ruthless and I love it.

I’m doing it despite my fears of labels of promiscuity. My friend Cody is on Tinder and has met some really nice girls. The other day he showed me how he had been matched with a friend of mine from school. She’s legit and I figured if she’s on Tinder, I can be too.

So here’s a little lesson on how Tinder works if you’ve been like me and shied away from it, worried about your reputation:

Tinder is entirely superficial. It pulls some photos from Facebook. You have the option to write a little blurb about yourself where I’ve noticed a lot of guys put their height (which I appreciate because of my heightist tendencies). But most blurbs are basically blank. If you like the look of a photo you swipe right. If the person also swipes right, you’re matched and have the option to chat. You swipe left to reject.

It is entirely based on looks. This was a difficult adjustment after reading profile after profile on my online dating site. Tinder is a visual catalogue of people, which is sort of a strange notion. But it sort of makes sense. Some people make relationships work when they’re not attracted to one another. But I don’t think I am (or want to be) that person. In the real world, attraction matters. This is just a more simplified version of the real world.

I’ve been doing a lot of ruthless swiping left. At first I felt bad about it – it made me feel horribly superficial. But a friend pointed out that we do the same thing in a bar. We don’t even approach the people we don’t find attractive. It’s not really that much different than the real world, except that the rejection hurts less because it’s quieter. If someone doesn’t right swipe you, you just never get matched. It’s subtle. Now I challenge myself to see how many I can swipe left in 30 seconds. It’s a lot – something like 15 if there are a couple of “maybes” who I check out.

The half-naked-bathroom-mirror-selfie while you brush your teeth is an automatic left swipe. The man whose picture is a guy sucking on a woman’s toes is also cut, although reluctantly because he was offering foot massages, and I like those. I have yet to receive a dick-pic, though I have been assured by Triad (who now has the house and the job and is just looking for the man) that they are on there.

Jacon is also on Tinder so collectively we made a list of ways that a man will find himself swiped left…hard.

– Man with his car or motorcycle = cut
– Man with no picture = cut (what are you hiding?)
– Mirror selfie of any sort, particularly shirtless = cut (don’t you have friends to take your picture??)
– Man with gun/weapon = cut
– Making a hand symbol of any sort, but particularly gang symbols or rude gestures = cut (I would maybe make an exception for peace signs, but only Asian men make peace signs and they’re mostly getting cut already because I’m heightist)
– Hammered with your friends = cut
– Serious faces ie no smiling photo = cut
– Tiny patches of facial hair = cut (eeeew)
– Cigarette In hand = cut (ain’t nobody got time for that)
– any sort of comment about just wanting to hook up or being DTF (which I have discovered means “down to f***).

On the contrary there are a few rare, but automatic yesses:

– A cute picture of a dog – Cody swipes right just to talk to people about their cute dogs. I did this recently for a man whose profile picture is a golden retriever wearing sunglasses and an aviation hat.
– An awesome costume or cheesy photo – extra points if it’s sci-fi related.
– An awesomely witty comment or joke.

The first man I talked to on Tinder, we’ll call him (M)adman opened by telling me he was drinking tea (awesome) and then began discussing Game of Thrones. He said he had read the Harry Potter series numerous times and then sent me a picture of his bookshelf, which looks identical to mine. I asked the obligatory Star Wars versus Star Trek question and he gave the right answer (haters gonna hate, but Jean-Luc could take Han Solo any day). Basically I was shocked that anybody so cool was on Tinder. So I gave him my number.

On the contrary I talked to a guy who told me he volunteers and works out and then asked for my number after 3 texts. He got cut. Listen people, it may be Tinder, but I’m convinced there are legit people on there if you take the time to screen for them. I’m not just giving out my number to any Tom, Dick or Harry. As Britney would say, you better work, B****.

I met (M)admen for coffee and I liked him. He’s cute and fun and smart and tall and totally got my cheesy puns and sci fi related jokes. He also doesn’t just seem to be looking to hook up. So Tinder, I don’t think you’re so bad. That being said, I’m keeping the M in his name until I figure out that he’s not a serial killer…because on Tinder, who knows.

I’m going to see (M)admen again. I just have to fit him in amongst my other dates. I’ve had 3 this week and I’m tired, but more about that soon…

 

A Kanye West inspired toast to running away as fast as you can

People keep telling me that when you meet the perfect person, “you’ll just know”. I’m not sure I believe that, but the more I date, the more I am coming to realize the “just knowing” may apply even better if the person is “wrong”. It should not take 8 years of dating to figure out if you like each other enough to commit. I don’t even think it should take 6 months. If I think back on the relationships I’ve had, the nails in the metaphorical relationship coffins were poised in place, awaiting their hammer blows. They were clearly visible and evident early. Some of the nails were bouncing off of my face while I ignored the bleeding, tetanus-infested wounds they left.

Let me elaborate upon these men’s fatal flaws, some of which seemed small, but were indicators of much larger issues:

1) The first boyfriend – Ernest. Ernest didn’t like to read. That should have been enough for my heart to reject all forms of attachment to him. My heart, after all, and its conception of love and romance is due in many parts to literature. This was an early indication of a man who simply didn’t value intellectualism and education, which are core values for me.

2) Van was self deprecating. Really though he had poor self esteem. He was incredibly self-conscious of his body. He had a need for constant validation, which was tiring.

3) Geek’s “first priority” was his career and he “wasn’t willing to compromise”. He liked to tell this to me often. It usually felt like an implication that I would never be a priority to him. And I wouldn’t. I guess at least he was honest? Fuck that shit.

4) Yogi had a broken heart at the same time that I did. He was my foil. However, two combined broken hearts do not magically repair one another – you’re just left with a messy pile of heart fragments.

5) Stable PP believed in dietary supplements. And I don’t just mean taking vitamins – I mean taking things that had no research or science to back them. When questioned about these practices, he became defensive. Stable PP had an inability to see grey. He was a “my way or the highway” sort of guy. He made up his mind and wasn’t good at adjusting his opinions to accommodate for new facts.

6) Blue Eyes was an unnecessary asshole. He liked to yell at strangers. You pulled over in a no-parking zone to drop off your grandmother and this guy would have yelled at you. On one of our first dates, I was driving with him in the passenger seat and a cab cut me off. I live in a big city. Cabs do that. Whatever. When we came to a red light, he got very agitated and INSTRUCTED me to pull up next to the cab so that he could yell at him. This is the sort of thing you do when you feel out of control and you have no power in your life. What a waste of time – going out of your way to make other people feel crappy.

And yet I dated him for another 6 weeks before HE broke it off. What’s wrong with me?? Why was I willing to forgive blatant assholery? I don’t like assholes. I feel pretty sure about that…

These guys were all projects to me. I believed that I could fix them, whether it was by encouraging Ernest to read Harry Potter, telling Van he was handsome, supporting Geek’s career, fixing Yogi’s broken heart, teaching Stable PP to think more critically about his ridiculous opinions, or helping Blue Eyes to be nicer.

The unifying theme which I have discovered in the process of my blogging pontification is that I tend to find flaws endearing and think that I can somehow be the solution to those flaws. My mother used to say that as soon as she felt sorry for an employee, it was time to get rid of them:

“I’m not a social worker”, she would state.

I thought it was sort of harsh, but I think the same logic can be applied to relationships. Nobody should be in a relationship with the intention of fixing the other person or trying to make them “whole”. The goal is to find somebody who is also whole and bring 2 parts together for a magical synergy of awesomeness that is greater than the sum of its parts.

So why have I spent so much of my life with men who have clear flaws? When you want so badly to have a person of your very own, it’s hard to walk away. “maybe he’s just nervous”, “but he has so many other great qualities”, blah blah blah.

I want a man who isn’t a fixer-upper. I want a partner who has got it together. I’m learning to say “I don’t think you’re necessarily a bad person, I just don’t think you’re the right person for me”. And I need to do this because I can’t waste my time on repairing the old Jalopy when the newest Aston Martin is rolling by on the next block. I just tried to use an automotive analogy and I can’t quite do it without giggling.

My goal now is to make a decision within 2 months at most. If I’m not sure at 2 months, they’re getting voted off the island. Maybe by the end, I’ll be left with my Ethan.

Any moment now he’s going to glide in here on his Nimbus 2000 and sweep me off my feet.

 

Any moment now…