I HATE Pandas

Pandas suck. There. I said it and I am not sorry. I HATE pandas. HATE might not be a strong enough word. I truly despise these stupid, stupid animals. They suck. Pandas suck at the most essential things. Including the one thing that every other species currently existing on earth has managed: SURVIVING. I could write page after page of why I hate these stupid animals, but I will  try to focus on the main reasons.

Above is a Red Panda. Red Pandas are awesome. 

The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca or "black-and-white cat-foot" ...yeah.... ), are ill equipped at doing the following three things: Eating, Reproducing, and Caring for Young. Let's look at these individually:

1) Eating

"Though belonging to the order Carnivora, the panda has a diet which is 99% bamboo...However, pandas still have the digestive system of a carnivore and do not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derive little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 20 to 30 pounds of bamboo shoots a day. Because pandas consume a diet low in nutrition, it is important that they keep their digestive tract full." (Quoted from Wikipedia: Pandas)

Let's look at one of these sentences again "[Pandas] do not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently." As humans we sometimes have difficulty digesting cellulose as well.

 

Look familiar? Don't worry, you'll have another chance to look at it in a few hours. 

And so the giant panda spends hours of its day chewing on bamboo, extracting less than 20% of the nutrients from it. And that's not an easy thing to do. Bamboo has a tensile strength greater than steel! To make matters worse, the panda's natural habitat is being destroyed. Now before you go feeling sorry for them, take one guess as to what the pandas use for shelter in the wild. BAMBOO! Yes, their only food source is also their shelter. Who is destroying their natural habitat? They are. They are literally eating themselves out of house and home.

"My house tastes terrible"

Unlike ALL other bears, pandas do not hibernate (even polar bears have the ability to choose to hibernate if food gets scarce). Pandas simply do not consume enough protein to keep themselves alive during hibernation. To make matters worse, bamboo dies for two whole months during the harsh Chinese winter. Many wild pandas and their young starve to death during the winter months because these dumbass bears refuse to eat anything but bamboo. AND mothers will eat before caring for their young! Way to go mom!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, an animal so stupid, it doesn't realize it can eat meat:

She's a Vegan (Yes, I know. It hurts my brain too)

2) Reproduction
According to an article in National Geographic, " [male pandas] either show a serious lack of interest or are incompatible* with the females and become aggressive."  *[What National Geographic means is: females are too fat and male's parts are...um...too small]. A notice in the Chengdu panda museum spells it out: "The male panda's penis is so short, and the female's vagina is so long relatively, that the insemination rate is low." Nature is against them. The females ovulate for only 3 days in a year.Female pandas can only fall pregnant once per year with a 24-48 hour fertilization window. When they do mate, its only mate between mid-March and mid-May.

Panda have to be tricked into mating. They are shown "Panda Porn" and given Viagra. (Source BBC News, CNN News, Fox News, MSNBC)

That bear is not having any of it

In the wild, pandas do not reach sexual maturity until they are at least 4.5 years old and perhaps not until they are 7.5 years old. That means these morons have to survive for at least 4 years before they can even think about reproduction. Since a panda female may not produce her first offspring until the age of 7 years and probably raises only one young successfully every 3 years (a rate of 0.3 young per year), the population can sustain an annual total mortality rate no greater than about 8 % per year.

3) Caring for Young

Once a litter is born (1 to 3 cubs), a mother will focus on only one cub and let the others die.

Because of their mother's piss poor diet, the offspring suffer from malnutrition at birth and come out a mere 1/1000th of the size of their parents.

"Did I just poop that out? When did I eat something other than bamboo?"

Infant mortality is high. Baby pandas are susceptible to illness and predators (leopards, packs of wild dogs, and eagles). Cubs are born blind and open their eyes at about 45 days. Young cubs need to nurse as many as 12 times per day. Mothers may leave the den for 3 to 4 hours to feed, leaving the cub vulnerable to predation.

Aren't babies suppose to be adorable? 

They just don't give a shit. According to David Wildt, head of reproductive sciences at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, "The mother doesn't even wake up—it's amazing." This may account for the recent "accident" on Sept 8, 2006 "Panda Mother Rolls Over, Crushes Cub" (CBS News)

4) Stupid Facts About A Stupid Bear


Pandas want to die. Many scientists think we should let them. Chris Packham is another who agrees. He described the species as having gone down “an evolutionary cu-de-sac”. The giant panda has an enlarged, movable wrist bone that serves as an opposable "false thumb" to the normal five toes on its front paws. They tried to evolve but are simply too stupid to use their paws/hands for anything.

I would. Given the chance, I swear I would.

Lun Lun and Yang Yang, Zoo Atlanta's (on loan of course) giant pandas, are draining the institution's food supplies far faster than they can be replenished. A panda's upkeep costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, AN ELEPHANT. A six-person crew travels around the state six days a week, harvesting bamboo from 400 volunteers who grow it in their backyards. (Donate Bamboo to Zoo Atlanta This link is only for reference. If you do this, I WILL stop speaking to you). 

People think they are cute and cuddly. WRONG. They are in fact BEARS.  It was previously believed that they were in the raccoon family (who cuddles with raccoons?). Recent DNA testing proves that they are in fact bears. They can and will kill you if given the chance. 

"Look how fucking cuddly I am!"

Pandas come from China. That makes them Communists. All the pandas you see in zoos are on loan from China. By "on loan" they mean that the Chinese government rents their pandas out (For over $1 million a year). So seeing pandas in the zoo is supporting communism. The United States spends millions of dollars getting pandas to breed (usually through artificial insemination) only to have to give the baby panda to China AFTER paying a $600,000 "baby tax".

Pictured: Godless propaganda machine

And finally, my personal favorite:
Pandas live in a green forest so their natural camouflage is of course….BLACK AND WHITE! A recent theory is that pandas developed the contrasting black and white colors over time so they would stand out in the forest and be able to AVOID each other. (Discovery Channel: Pandas) Yes, these isolated animals do not even like each other (I guess I have that in common with pandas. A general distaste for pandas).  




So let's review the facts: They don't want to eat, they don't want to breed, they don't want to take care of their offspring, and they don't want to socialize with other pandas. Let's face it. These bears WANT to die. Why are we so busy trying to save them? They want and deserve to die. I for one want to help them out. Given the chance I would kill a panda. But from the looks of it, the 1600 that are left in the world should do just fine killing themselves.

My Birthday is January 23rd. 

Maybe I Should Start Making Soap

I'm envious of children for a lot of reasons: They're honest to the point of being offensive, they're rude in public, their clothes don't have to match, and they often don't bathe for days on end. Okay, so admittedly I have all of those same traits on a pretty regular basis. But another thing they do is they SLEEP. They sleep so easily. I know some parents will disagree, but I'm not talking about babies. Here's a trick you can pull on a toddler; Challenge them to a contest of who can close their eyes the longest. The little buggers will straight pass out on you! It blows my mind.

I have had insomnia for over ten years now. Fifteen? Who knows. When I tell people I have insomnia, I have to stand there and smile and listen when they tell me that they also have insomnia (no clue why, but everyone LOVES to tell me that they have it). What they mean is that they have had "episodic" or "transient" insomnia. I have "chronic" insomnia (I know a handful of people with chronic insomnia). There is a major difference. Its not that I have trouble falling asleep, its that my brain has simply decided that it doesn't want to do it. If I do not take some sort of medication (vodka is a "medication" in some countries, so I'm going with that as a viable option) I will simply not get tired and not be able to sleep. Its not uncommon for me to be able to go over 50 hours without sleep before my body finally just shuts down. And when that happens, the sleep is garbage and I feel like crap when I wake up. 

Have you ever been really hungry but you were caught up in a task and you forget about being hungry and before you know it you hadn't eaten in like ten hours? Thats me except with sleep. Oh, and its usually about 3am when I realize that its really, really late. (Its 4:06am as I type this). The best thing I can compare it to is "sleep constipation". You want to do it. You need to do it. No matter what you try, you CAN'T do it. This doesn't stop people from doling out advice. And MAN do they love to give me advice. Its always the same stupid shit too. 

• Do you drink caffeine really late? 
• Have you tried reading?
• Are you getting enough exercise?
• Just try lying there until you're asleep

Albert explains my response to these people

The thing is, not only does everyone offer the stupidest advice ever (over and over again) but then they have the balls to tell me I shouldn't take sleep medicine (despite the fact my doctor thinks I should). And they get JUDGMENTAL. Like I'm some sort of crackhead. I'd love to hear these people tell a diabetic to stop taking insulin because its wrong to inject drugs with a needle. The thing is, I've tried it. I've tried all of it. Over and over again. I've changed my diet to everything imaginable. I've taken up meditation, breathing exercises, I've eliminated caffeine entirely, I've added more caffeine. Nothing works. Laying there trying to sleep is excruciatingly painful. I'm not saying that as hyperbole. It's literally painful.  Its often a problem in relationships when my lady friend can't grasp why I can't lay down and go to sleep with her. Laying in bed and doing nothing is maddening for me. My brain simply doesn't shut off. It makes for some fairly poor quality of life at times.

"When you have insomnia, you're never really asleep... and you're never really awake."

The good thing about insomnia is that I get to play with mind-altering drugs (this isn't really a good thing, but for the sake of my already deteriorating mental health, let's pretend!). My doctor gives me all kinds of fun drugs that have warning such as:

• you should know that some people who took medications for sleep got out of bed and drove their cars, prepared and ate food, had sex, made phone calls, or were involved in other activities while partially asleep. After they woke up, these people were usually unable to remember what they had done. Call your doctor right away if you find out that you have been driving or doing anything else while you were sleeping.
• you should know that your mental health may change in unexpected ways while you are taking this medication. It is hard to tell if these changes are caused by this medication or if they are caused by physical or mental illnesses that you already have or suddenly develop.
• Tell your doctor right away if you experience any of the following symptoms: aggressiveness, strange or unusually outgoing behavior, hallucinations (seeing things or hearing voices that do not exist), feeling as if you are outside of your body, memory problems, difficulty concentrating, new or worsening depression, thinking about killing yourself, confusion, and any other changes in your usual thoughts, mood, or behavior.
• Be sure that your family knows which symptoms may be serious so that they can call the doctor if you are unable to seek treatment on your own.

Those are all 100% real (I would have been much more clever had I written them myself). And yet the option of NOT sleeping is worse.

Most of my Rx Bottles look like this

Let's look at that last warning again. "Be sure that your family knows which symptoms may be serious". Are you f'ing kidding me? Which of those symptoms are NOT serious? "Hey dad, if I call you at 3am to tell you I'm having sex while driving on my way to make mac n cheese, please don't worry about it. It's probably just my Ambien." 

Nothing good can come from this and I think we all know what the eventual outcome will be:

Pictured: Me and Bob in our support group (shout out to MO)

I guess the good news is that according to my warning labels, I probably wont remember anything anyway. Next time my dad throws up a high five for no apparent reason, I'm gonna have to assume its because I made the above phone call.

Sleeplessly, your humble narrator

-NM

With this coin, I thee flip...

Our brains use logic to mess with us. We attempt to find patterns in randomness. If you flip a coin you have 50/50 odds. If the coin lands on heads twenty times in a row, guess what your odds are that it will be tails on the next flip? 50/50. The odds don't change. We want to believe that the more we do something, the better our odds but its the same event repeated with the same odds. Every person who plays the lottery and says "This time I HAVE to win." is fooling themselves (you know who you are). The odds are against you EVERY TIME you play because the odds haven't changed. Dating is the same way. Sending out one message or a thousand messages. Each one is a coin toss. The odds are no better or worse with each message. This is what keeps me from being discouraged as I send out tons of messages and receive minimal response.


As I attempted to try different sites to see what they had to offer, I came across some information which will surprise some and come as no shock to others. InterActiveCorp owns Match.com...AND OKCupid, AND Singlesnet.com, AND Chemistry.com, and many others, including my two last ditch sites SeniorsMeet.com and BlackPeopleMeet.com... (don't judge me).


All this dating started to hurt my brain (and soul) so I escaped the scene last weekend and attended a beer festival in BFE* (footnote for my grandmother) . The event was scheduled to run 5:30pm until 10:30pm, but the city of BFE apparently hates planning. Despite the 700 pre-sold tickets and the additional 300+ tickets sold at the door, the festival ran out of beer by 9pm.  But I'm getting ahead of myself. 


I went with a friend who is a self proclaimed beer novice and she was excited by the possibility of me teaching her about beer. I'm always excited to teach and I love beer, so I was game. $50 at the door got me in with a 4oz glass and four food tickets. First booth down and I teach my friend about appearance, aroma, first taste, mouthfeel, and finish (or aftertaste). We run into some of her friends and the guys agree to stand in line for pizza while the girls go to the bathroom. So me and my new guy friend have been in line for at least twenty minutes before we notice, we haven't moved. Word trickles back from the front of the line that the pizza place ran out of pizza and went to get more (see above note about poor planning). More pizza finally arrives and we are moving again and all is right with the world. That is until we are literally next in line. They ran out again. Now we've invested 45 minutes in line for something and we can't simply walk away now. Damn! Two very talkative women behind us in line ask what has happened and following the rules-of-the-line we pass the information back and explain that apparently, they're out of pizza again. One of the two women says "What kind do they have?" I say "Well, right now none. But it looks like cheese or pepperoni and sausage are your two choices." Without missing a beat, the woman says to me "I don't usually even eat meat, but I'd like to try your sausage!" Oh BFE Beer Festival, I do enjoy your drunken strangers! I choose to sort of ignore the comment but I have no wingman. My new friend looks at me, but our relationship is not yet established enough for him to know what sort of move to make. 


Remember in TopGun when Maverick calls "On the count of three, break hard right. Three... two... one... break right!!"? If you didn't know Maverick, you probably would have gone on THREE. You know, because he said so. But lucky for Iceman, he knew to wait not just until after THREE, but until after the whole countdown AND until he heard the words repeating the instructions "break right". 

                                                    (See, they "get" each other)


So with the wisdom of TopGun in my pocket, I don't fault my new wingman for not jumping to my rescue. It becomes quickly apparently that this was not a fluke joke this woman made. She's "in it to win it" as they say. I am stuck between the unattended booth that has no pizza and a drunken girl and her wingwoman. My exits are blocked by my new friend/unfamiliar wingman and the promise I made to the women of my group to get them pizza.
I assess my options:


a) stare blankly ahead at the empty booth


b) make small talk with my new buddy while trying to ignoring the women talking to me 


c) engage in conversation with "Sausage Girl" and her wingwoman

                             (Google Images says this is "Sausage Girl" Hint: It isn't)
                  


Before I have a chance to pick from some truly lousy options, the girls of our group return. 45 minutes in the bathroom you ask? NO WAY! 5 minutes in the bathroom and 40 minutes hitting up all the booths! Thanks ladies. "Noah! NOAH! Get me pizza!" Yeah, I've been standing in line to get you pizza. That's why I haven't been drinking. But I see the silver lining to this cloud. Even though my friend admits she only remembers "taste and that thing at the end" (she means aftertaste), I know she will wing for me and help me escape the evil clutches of Sausage Girl. Right? ...right...?  WRONG! After insuring that pizza is imminent the ladies leave again to continue drinking. At this point the pizza guy shows up sans pizza. He instead has Jack Daniels ice cream that he offers to the first ten people in line. Sausage Girl is attempting to eat this in a sensual manner (moaning and sighing included) but this just makes her inebriation all the more apparent. I attempt to ignore her which only strengthens her desire to capture my attention. I can't remember a time I was so happy to see pizza. Slice in hand and I'm OUT.


BFE apparently has quite a few beer enthusiasts. That's one way to say it. Another way, would be to say that there aint shit to do in BFE but drink. So the whole town has turned out. Its humid. There's so much dirt in the air that it actually shows up in pictures. And my chance to hang out with my friend, meet new people, and MAYBE meet a few nice ladies has quickly turned into me possibly being the only single guy in all of BFE. Its that moment in horror movies when the zombies realize that there is a living person amongst them.

                                                    (it looked something like this)


I don't know if it was the change of scenery or the fact that I went to hang out with my friend and NOT try to pickup ladies, but there was blood in the water (that idiom seems gross. I'm going back to zombies). They smelled fresh meat. I decided to embrace it and not take any of it too seriously. This meant that every booth was an opportunity to meet new people. I know drunks get a bad name, but there were seriously some friendly peps in BFE. Beer was spilled here and there. People were bumping into one another. But no feelings were hurt and a lot of good conversations were struck up through these events. One thing I noticed was that everyone I spoke to seemed to have a personal favorite and weren't shy about making recommendations. Another thing I noticed is that drunk people will hit on you in front of their spouses without hesitation or shame. A very flirty woman said that the beer I was drinking looked good and asked about it. I told her it was a honey blonde and she asked if I would show her where I got it from. I pointed to the booth but she said "Oh hun, I aint as tall as you. Would you walk me over there?" I start in that direction and she grabs me by the arm and I lead the way. She's cuddling into me with her head on my shoulder and stroking my arm as we get to the booth. She kisses me on the cheek and then bites me on the neck and says "Oh crap! Where did Dave go?"  
"Who?" I ask 
"The guy I was with....my husband!"


I decide not to stick around to find out where "Dave" went or who he might be finding to come help him get his wife back. I turn to leave this scene and BAM! SausageGirl and friend. 
"What's your name?" they coo
"Noah" I am immediately saddened that I couldn't think of a fake name and regret giving my real one. But their response surprised me.
"Noah?!  Thats not really a name you can scream out in bed!" 
WHAT? I'm momentarily insulted before I realize these women are distracted by their efforts to compare the names they find appropriate to scream out. I want to defend my name and its honor, but a bigger part of me just wants to escape. I opt for the latter. 


A brief moment of being alone and I find my friends again. Drunkenly right where I left them (50/50 chance, right?). I walk into the middle of their conversation and out of nowhere my friend announces loudly (not that she has a quiet voice)
"Hey! You have manboobs!"and then grabs my chest. This is followed by "Ha! You've got... um... those are actually really muscly. You ... um ... you ... You have nice pecs." This falls in with the double standard of acceptable for women, not acceptable for men. Like the time I wore a kilt to work (St Patty's day) and all the women kept making jokes or trying to look up it. How would it have gone that situation been reversed? [sigh] That's a story for another time. 


There are more people in the little group of friends and I'm excited to meet them. Three cute girls with one of them clearly being the alpha of the group. The moment either of the other two shows any interest, she steps up to assert her dominance. Its a small group of peers, but I admit, its a turn on and she has my interest. After about ten minutes of talking to her an incredibly drunken man stumbles over and address her by the wrong name. He then asks, "Is this your husband?"  She just keeps smiling. Was he just talking about me? Everyone is ignoring the comment. Was I the only one that heard that? I look around for anyone to make eye contact with me and confirm, but no one will. Why do I have no wingman!? A moment later he points right at me and again asks her "Is this your husband?" She just keeps smiling and ignoring him, but without saying a word she reaches out and takes my hand. Still smiling and nodding. Not a problem. I've been left without a wingman earlier, so I'm totally on board to help my new friend. And I mentioned she is adorable, right? Cause she is. The guy says to me "Well, nice to meet you!" and reaches out to shake my hand. I break my handholding with her and shake his hand. I go to reach back for her hand and its gone. "Wow! Creepy. That's my BOSS!" she says to all of us. "Wait. So do you have a husband?" She just laughs and says "I think I saw corn dogs. Does anyone want to get a corn dog?"  Hmmm. Maybe I AM her husband. Or maybe she has some sort of selective hearing disorder. Its hard to say. 

                                           (Maybe she just loves corn dogs)


But now I've paid into wingman karma, so I hope this comes back to me. And lo and behold, its my old friend SG and her wingwoman. Her wing is trying so hard to help, that she is actually trying to pick me up herself. I'm surrounded by women who know what is going on and I'm waiting for one to jump in and help. They aren't. They are more than content to stand around and simply watch. Thanks ladies. In a moment of desperation I try the trick I just learned; Don't say anything just grab someone's hand. This apparently only works for the ladies. I went 0 for 2 trying this. Nasty/confused looks both times. I shoot a desperate look to my friend and SG sees this and pointblank asks her "Oh, is this your boyfriend?" To which my friend proudly responds, "Nope! FRIENDS!!" and then attempts to high-five me. FAIL


Avoidance isn't working. I attempt misdirection. "What are you up to after this? Are there any bars around here?" She purrs, "Oh yeah. We were just heading to the only bar in BFE. Its right across the street." I simply said "Cool." Then I left and went to Denny's with my friend to get some coffee.


In the end, BFE Beer Fest 2011 was a success. I doubt my friend can name a single beer she tried, let alone the things I attempted to teach her about beer. 

-NM




Let me know what you think of the new format changes. 


Big shout outs to MO (for inspiring me with our "second friend day"), KT (for making me try to make my blog be as witty as yours), EF (for taking two minutes out of her busy schedule to proofread this), and to CL (for getting on my ass about being lazy...which I am). Hopefully the extra long post makes up for it. As always, your feedback is encouraged




* From UrbanDictionary.com:
BFE -  abbreviation for "Bum F#&k Egypt" -- in the middle of metaphorical nowhere -- an extremely isolated, inaccessible, and inconvenient location.

Know Comment

At a family BBQ the other day, my aunt told me "Hey! I liked your blog." and then my grandmother chimed in and said "I liked it too, but you don't have to use so much profanity! You're very funny. Do you have to use so many curse words?"  So in an effort to appease grandmothers everywhere I will attempt to tone down the swearing. 


Once I let the cat out of the bag that I was actively looking for a special lady friend, that prompted the women in my family to chime in on what kind of woman I SHOULD be looking for. Not the "harlots" online (yes, the word harlot was used). They demanded to see some of my matches so I showed them a few and that went incredibly poorly. 


(Remember in my last post when I said I felt I was being too judgmental?)    "Noah, you need to be MORE judgmental!" said one of my aunts. They criticized everyone they saw and liked no one. "Oh no! Not THAT one." The one's who are in their underwear (the girl was in a bikini with friends at the beach) or in a "Playboy pose" (that girl was in a formal gown and posing in profile). According to one aunt and my grandmother, I should be looking for an "Irish Catholic school teacher". That seems pretty specific and I suppose to them the rest of the details are irrelevant (except no underwear pics and no Playboy poses). So if you know of any (or happen to be one yourself), it would make my family very happy if I dated one. 


Now I know that some of you maybe thinking that my family is just very conservative. This isn't the case. My grandmother is extremely progressive and always aware of cultural fads. My aunts are all hip and keeping up with all the trends on their iPads. (It should be noted my grandmother was the first person I knew with an iPad, and I know developers who work for Apple.)  They are in the know. This left me to wonder why their suggestions were the way they were. Do they think I need someone to reel me in? It also made me wonder if it is just a female thing. Are the women who are looking at me judging me as harshly as my family is judging them? That doesn't seem like a good thing for me.


Putting aside my family's neurosis for the moment, I have in fact been on a few dates with women I have met online. Here are some things I wish I could say before the first date:


How's your relationship with your father?
If she does anything but start crying, I should just say "It was nice to meet you" and then walk away. I do well with women who have poor relationships with the men in their life. Why do I attract women with "daddy issues"? If she has issues, she loves me. Always. Why?! Is it the beard? The attitude? Seriously, tell me. Cause those chicks are crazy.


Do you understand that its a double standard to ask me for chivalry and to be progressive?
Nothing like a woman who wants to bitch and complain about how women are treated unfairly and then expect me to pay for dinner. Do you want to be progressive and split the check? How about you pay for ME? Is that fair enough? The point is that I like chivalry. I understand gender roles and their importance at times. I stand when a woman leaves the table. I open doors. I'll pay for dinner. I just don't like people who complain on a first date. You should really be putting your best self forward. And if you make negative generalizations, realize that it could be perceived as an insult. "Guys are all such jerks! I mean, not you. I'm not calling you a jerk."  Except that you just did


Please realize that if you hate the things I love, I probably wont call you again:
I had a date with a girl who asked me who my favorite teams were and then used that as a segway to tell me how much she hates sports. ALL sports! I don't need a woman who LOVES sports, but if you actively HATE them, that's going to be a problem. There's plenty of room in the middle. Sports aren't your thing? That's fine. I'm sure you're into something I'm not. I don't understand the fascination with finding someone who's a mirror of yourself. How boring is that? And a common thing for women in that situation to say to me is "You can teach me."  Yeah, cause that's what I want to do. Spend $100 to go to the game so you can complain that its 3 hours long and you don't understand what's happening even though I just explained it to you. Let's be honest, you've been alive for over 20 some odd years and you haven't wanted to learn up to now? You don't want to learn. You want to nag me and make me hate sports too. Not going for it.


*****I'd like to ask any grandmas reading to please skip ahead to when you see more asterisks. Thank you***** 


If you decide to announce we aren't going to be sleeping together, its not going to win you any points
Its our first time hanging out. She's having a good time. I'm having a good time. Then out of nowhere my date will say, "I'm not going to have sex with you tonight."  This is a shockingly common thing for my dates to say. Out of the blue. Just blurts it out. And I sorta get it. Its our first date and you start to feel an attraction to me, and during our flirting you are worried you might be coming on too strong. Or maybe you just started thinking about it and you wanted me to know you consider yourself a lady. Fine. Or...wait...what? It really doesn't make sense. Its a pretty stupid thing to say actually. It would be similar to me saying something along the lines of "I will not be buying you any jewelry tonight! Perhaps in the future when I'm ready, but tonight it ain't gonna happen, so don't get your hopes up lady!"   Is it that they want to make a game of it and be perceived as a challenge? Readers please weigh in. 



*****Welcome back random internet grandmas (who may or may not be my actual grandma). Your cooperation with this blog is greatly appreciated.***** 

I know what I'm doing wrong. I'm using logic. The dating game is completely illogical. We have the distinct disadvantage of science telling us why we do what we do and society telling us why we are NOT suppose to do it. Its all a little much and thus far, I'm not a fan. 


-N

Rededication

Ok, this blog has been retooled somewhat. It will now only deal with me and my personal experiences (which it always did, but I used other people as scapegoats to deny my own shortcommings. No longer. All me. Swears it). So let me dive in and embarrass myself.

I have recently started using a dating website. Fuck it. I'm alone and it sucks. What do I have to loose? The first thing I noticed while setting up a profile is that I do not have a picture of me smiling that isn't me:

a) with a girlfriend

b) noticeably inebriated

c) under the age of 14

FINE. First things first...I need to smile more in life. Noted. I'm working on that.

It took about a day before the site started suggesting that I date people I know in real life. That's great and all, but I don't even like being friends with these people. Why would I want to date them? I was rated as a VERY high percentage match with a woman I had worked with in the past. She was a fun girl and I don't know the protocol so I messaged her. Said hey and pointed out how highly the site had matched us. Said I always thought she was cool and I asked her out. Her response....NOTHING. No response at all. Shit. That can't be good. Maybe I shouldn't message people I know. But then again, if I see them, they can see me. And as a guy, I'm pretty sure I'm suppose to be doing the messaging. What the frack? Isolated incident or poor  etiquette to message real life friends?! Its new to me so I don't know.

Next thing I notice is that there are a LOT of women on this site. It seems funny seeing some I know, but it gives me hope that there are SO many other single people out there, possibly looking for me. They just don't know it yet. With that in mind, I march ever forward.

It doesn't take too long before I start to notice a pattern in the women the site is recommending to me. I'm not sure why, but the site has definitely tagged me as having a type. I think its about 20% correct thus far (more details to come...hopefully). I haven't ever noticed being attracted to this type of woman before so I can't say if its true or not. I will have to reexamine my past to see if there is a pattern. Somehow I'm sure math is involved (shakes fist angrily at MATH). Others I'm sure are just being recommended to me because no one else is taking them. The profiles you feel bad for. The girl with nine cats (each with three word names). The girl with pictures of her at the ren faire. Yes, its great that you put all that work into your costume, but its not my thing. No offense, but this is about me (....right???).  Women holding swords...this one confuses the shit out of me. Not gonna lie. Its baffling. Is that a "thing"? Chicks with swords? I tend to avoid women who wield sharp objects. Just one of the many life lessons I've picked up over the years. Women who's pictures only show 2/3rds of their face. I get it. You are uncomfortable with your weight. Fine. But you aren't fooling anyone by hiding. Pictures with other people cropped out. If you aren't interesting enough for someone to take a picture of you by yourself, you probably aren't interesting enough for me to be with you. Pictures where you can't tell who you're suppose to be looking at are particularly annoying.

It occurs to me that I am trying to be selective, but not judemental (which is impossible). And as open minded as I'm trying to be, the first thing the site shows you is pictures. Then from the pictures, you have to decide if you want to know more about them. Granted, this is pretty much how life works, but I can't help but feel like an asshole for doing this.

This particular website turns the whole thing into a game. Rewarding you for putting up more information about yourself. More pictures. Spending more time on the site. (I'm sure some of you have figured out the site in question by this point. If you have, then you have no room to judge as you are obviously familiar). Its fine that it makes a game out of it, except that I'm a gamer. I've been a gamer my whole life. One of the things gamers know is that getting to the end the fastest with the least amount of work = winning. That mentality forced me to skip a lot of potentially important steps (I meant on the site, but I suppose in life as well). And I found myself judging people rapidly to get through the game faster. Maybe that's the point. Find someone you really like at gut reaction, but I couldn't help but feel I was skipping a lot of people unfairly. Then I started over compensating by spending too much time on people I knew I didn't like, just so I didn't feel like i was being unfair. Fuck. I can't win in my own head. How is this going to end well?

If you know me (and odds are, if you're reading this, you do), you know that I am very witty. I'm quick and sharp (and humble...eh...not so much). Talking to people I have no problem. I can read people. I can figure out if they get my humor, if they have a sense of humor, if they want to get to know me. Online: None of that. Its all cold calls. You message and try to think of something witty to say. Sincere but original. Something to make you stand out but not make you sound like an insane person (particularly difficult for me). And once the message is out there, its out. And I have to sit and WAIT for a response. And I admit. I'm TERRIBLE at that. If you walked up to someone at a bar and said "Hi", how long would you wait there with them saying nothing would it take before you walked away?

At this point in the blog I would like to thank Google for including a spell check built into Chrome. Thank you Google. Thank you thank you thank. If not for you, I would look like a tard for my spelling alone and not for my crippling retardation when it comes to typing instead of speaking.

More to come? Lets see how this plays out (blog, dating, and/or life)

-El Matherdor