2009 in Review

Today is the last day in 2009. I thought I'd look back at all the exciting things that has happened in my dating life in the past year:

The beginning of the year started off rocky. I was getting sick all the time and complaining about stress and work. From January to February I had gone on a couple of dates with new girls and tried setting others up but nothing much amounted from any of it.

The most "exciting" thing to happen in February was when I bumped into my ex-girlfriend Wendy at one of my improv shows. I would later find out by text from her that it was the same day we broke up a year prior. Weird.

In March, I got super drunk on St Patricks Day and felt like a young guy again when I puked my guts out.

April was great since I went to Chicago. It was a small vacation I needed desperately. I had a blast hanging out with friends, watching improv and doing improv.

Things started to look up as summer approached. By May, I had reached girl #9 of the 10 different girls I wanted to go on dates with, that I started roughly a year before.

In June, my brother Ira decided I needed help on dating and gave me a book called "How to succeed with woman". I read 3/4 of the book before I got tired of it. I had wanted to write detailed posts about what I was reading but got super lazy and never did. Now you'll never know my secrets to dating!... unless you go read that book...

The end of July was very interesting. That is when I met date #10 - Rock Chick. She would be the closest thing I had to dating someone since Wendy. She was the only girl of the 10 I met and went on dates since Wendy that I had multiple dates with. We hung out several times in the period of over a month. Then she disappeared and I was getting too frustrated trying to figure out what was going on so I moved on.

The other thing that happened in July was the night before my birthday, I went on a date with someone I met from the Internet. That night would mark the first time I went home with a girl and tried to have sex with. I had, er... manhood issues, but it was a very interesting and fun night and definitely added a notch to my experience meter.

Not much happened in September but then October I was all over the place. Work was piling up but then I had a great break when I participated in a week long improv festival. It was a complete blast! Then, my favorite holiday, Halloween, arrived and for the first time ever, I brought home a girl to my place. It's funny how I almost slept with a girl on both my birthday and Halloween.

In November I went to the craziest party I had ever been to. It was a "no clothing" party where everyone had to wear something that was non-conventional for clothing, such as paper bags or boxes. There was also a lot of really hot chicks scantly dressed.

This past month, I went on a "date" with a girl I met at my room mates concert and was glad that even though I reached my "10 dates with 10 different girls" that was still able to continue, making her girl #11. Although, later i would find out that my room mate bumped into her, chatted with her and said "Oh! So you're the girl Elwood went on a date with" and she totally went on a rant making it as clear as possible that we were not on a date and she has absolutely no interest in dating me. Fun...

Also, a couple of weeks ago, I had been contacted out of the blue by a girl on the Internet who seems extremely nice, is extremely hot, interesting and cute, but lives in Florida. Surprisingly enough, we've been e-mailing back and forth almost every day. I admit it's a nice distraction even though I really don't' see anything coming out of it. We also agreed to start chatting on MSN but haven't been online at the same time.

Finally, the last thing to happen in 2009 is just yesterday I discovered through facebook's live feed that Wendy has a new boyfriend. No shock there. It's been almost 2 years since we broke up so of course she'd be bound to date someone else. He's just not as good looking as I am :)

So, did I learn anything in 2009? I'd say yes. I discovered:
- I can go on dates with girls if I try.
- I work a lot but that's life so I should stop complaining about it.
- If I drink too much I have problems in the bedroom.
- Improv comedy is probably the only thing keeping me sane.

To a good and healthy year in 2010!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Lonely Jew on Christmas

Today is Christmas and it is kind of hard not feeling lonely. Being Jewish, it's not my holiday, so my family does not do anything special for it. I have no dinner to attend. Living in the same city as my parents, I have no place to visit. My room mates are away. All my friends are busy with their families or out of town.

All I did today was get up come to my parents house and put together my moms brand new plasma TV. And you know what, just doing that made me realize that it's not too bad. Hanging out with my fam for just a little while is miles ahead of being alone in an empty apartment.

My parents already had dinner plans tonight (to something I didn't even want to be invited to) so they are out for now, but we decided to try and catch the new Sherlock Holmes movie later this evening.

Also, I discovered this great website with Abandonware. It's old computer games that are so old, they are no longer copyrighted and can be downloaded online for free. That will keep me busy for a couple of hours.

I admit it would be nice to be spending time with a girl instead, but I'm OK that I'm not.

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In other news, last night I went out to this Jewish party. On Dec. 24th, there is nothing for Jews to do, so they organize big parties. I went with Ira hoping to meet people and dance the night away. Instead the party was a tiny place, no place to move and no dancing. Everyone was just talking and pushing their way through the crowd. I had a pretty bad headache too. I did get to talk to a few girls but nothing really amounted from it. Ira and i talked to 2 girls for about 30 minutes and they were laughing at our jokes but I still got the impression they wanted to leave. And they did.

The weirdest part of the night was when I bumped into a guy I met through Wendy. All I knew is that at one time he had dated her before i came around. We hadn't seen each other in a while and were chatting. Wendy's name came up and he told me he thinks she's dating a new guy.

And it didn't bother me.

I shouldn't bother me but I'm doubly glad that it didn't because I've learned it takes me a long time to get over people.

Then Wendy's friend told me he had a story for me and was like "Oh you don't know the whole story? Well, I shouldn't tell you but I will anyways" and I was all "just don't tell me then, it's better I don't know."

I was expecting to hear some crazy story like how he slept with her while I was dating her or how she's been seeping around or is addicted to drugs or something shocking. Instead he just tells me how they dated a few years before I met her, he was really into her and then she dumped him. Then a few years later they met up again and became friends and now they hang out form time to time although he's convinced it's only when she's single.

That wasn't very shocking or useful knowledge to me at all. However, it did make me feel good to know that I didn't do what he did. I didn't try to remain friends. To me it sound like he still may have feelings for her. I on the other just want to meet someone new, not get back together with her.

Eventually my headache bothered me too much so we left and I went home and fell asleep.

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I would like to take this time to wish all of the people who follow this blog a MERRY CHRISTMAS! I know I don't always write that often. I don't feel nowadays I have much of anything interesting to say, but yet you people keep coming back to read, so I must be doing something right. So as long as people are reading, I'll keep writing!

Happy Holidays,
Elwood

Just my luck...

I recently received a message out of the blue from someone I had never contacted before on Ok!cupid. She said she raid my profile and said we had some things in common and wanted to hear from me. We ended up writing e-mails back and forth all weekend. I just happened to be around my apartment/room so it made it easy for me to read and reply.

In those two days I discovered that she is cute, funny, Jewish, works as a grade 1 school teacher, likes a lot of the same music I do, owns a pink guitar and can only play 1 song - "About a Girl" by Nirvana. My guitar is blue and the first song I learned how to plat was About a Girl by Nirvana.

This all sounds like a great start except for one tiny thing... She lives in FLORIDA.

When I first noticed that I was really trying to figure out what someone in Florida is e-mailing people on a dating site who live in Canada. I kept at the back and forth messaging in part to see how long before she asked for my credit card to for marriage to enter Canada.

So far it seems she just genuinely wants to chat. I admit it is fun to come home from a long day at work and finding a nice e-mail. Although, it would feel a lot better after a long days work to actually go spend time with someone in the physical world .

I can't see me keeping this up for long but it is kind of fun.

Date # 11 - Bulgarian Chick

I got home not long ago from my "date" with that girl I mentioned in my last post. She is originally from Bulgaria and i didn't rememebr her having such an accent. It wasn't that thick but it was prominent.

I get the feeling she just wanted to hang out with someone new, which I guess is what a date is. I had fun but I don't think it was the best date I've ever been on. We met for a beer and chatted for almost 2 hours. The only shitty thing was I was really tired and after a pint and a half I felt really tipsy and I think she caught on near the end. I was sort of drifting.

Afterwards we walked in the same direction and when we reached the bus, she just kept walking and said "have a good night!". No, I had fun. No let's do this again. Nothing.

I was thinking of saying something like that myself but I held back because I felt it wouldn't have mattered. She seemed like she was in a rush.

I don't regret going (I am still tipsy) but I don't see anything coming out of this.

The downside of Internet Dating

After a while, you lose track of who you've contacted. Well at least I have!
There is a record of you've messaged but it gets cleared every few days or something so eventually you have nothing reminding you if you've already contacted someone. Instead it's all based on memory of their picture. Then things get tricky when they change their profile picture. It's like, you're browsing the lists and see a cute picture, read the into line, sounds good. Open the profile and BAM! You can now see it's a girl you contacted 6 months ago who just deleted your message before even reading it (you can check that) because you recognize some of the other photos int eh profile.

Speaking of which. A girl contacted me out of the blue. No picture. Short profile saying she's new to Internet dating and all her message said was "Whats up?". We've now wrote back and for about 20 times since yesterday. Each message has been short. I've also noticed that if I ask 2 questions she seems to only answer the last one. I finally asked for a picture and she said "In due time". I'm really wary about this since it sounds a bit too secretive but I guess as long and she doesn't ask me for my credit card number I'm OK.

When is a date a date?

If there is anything I'm bad at, it's knowing when a date is actually a date. I've met many girls on "dates" but most the time it was strictly platonic and it's even harder for me because I seem to have a hard time knowing when it is and isn't. I always seem to figure out some conspiracy as to why it would only be a "friendship" date: "yes we met at a party but she was only talking to me because I told her I like the Arcade Fire". OK that never happened but along those lines.

I bring this up only because on Thursday I meeting up with someone on a "date". I doubt that's what she's calling it but I'll find out. How did I meet this person? Well it's kind of weird but technically Facebook set us up. Long story short:

I went to go watch my roommate play with his band. After the show I bump into an acquaintance. We catch up and at his table is a girl. She turns to me and says "I know you Elwood Blues!". I had never seen this person before in my life. Turns out Facebook kept telling her we should be friends. Apparently it's because we have a whole bunch of mutual "Facebook friends". So, naturally, when I got home, I actually added her as a Facebok friend to make it official.

We joked back and forth over a couple of weeks via messaging about her stalking me until I asked if she was free on the weekend. She wasn't but was free later that week, then she got sick, then I forgot about her, then she contacted me to arrange something, then that never happened, then I contacted her again and finally, we're going for beer on Thursday.

So is it date?