women, online dating, sex, romance, love, hope, settling, possibilities..

As I mentioned in the post right below this one, I’ve tried many groups, clubs (not nightclubs, I mean clubs with a certain theme.. like hiking or theater, etc.), and classes, and have not met any single women I’ve wanted to date.

I am somewhat shy, and feel like it might seem like bad manners if I were to go up to a woman in a coffee house and introduce myself and etc.

I don’t go to bars.. almost never, I should say. There is one place that has good live bands, and no cover-charge, so I have been there twice. It is an odd place though. People talk over the music quite a bit, so it’s deafening in there. I don’t like loud places, unless I can clearly hear the bands. I don’t like to shout.

I don’t think I will spend much time at that bar, but as far as bars go, it is a good one.. not much of a meat market, and it has a laid-back atmosphere to it, besides the noise level. And, the open-mic night I went to there some months ago.. the performers were generally better than at most open-mic nights I’ve been to at other places.. But I won’t go there to meet women. I don’t feel at all comfortable trying to meet women in bars. I’m very much out of my element.

No.. I feel as if I would be intruding, at a bar, coffee house, or wherever, and I’m shy, so if I see a good-looking woman who appears at least somewhat friendly, and she is sitting at a coffeehouse reading.. I am just going to let her alone, and go back to my own book or sketch pad..

And the gym.. I have noticed that unless an attractive woman is taking part in a class, she’s likely to have a boyfriend lurking around somewhere, and the boyfriend probably looks like a gorilla, so I have not talked to any women at any gym I’ve been to.

I managed to hurt both feet in less than a year’s time, so I am not at the gym, or otherwise exercising, as much as I’d like to, and I’ve put on a few pounds.. and have a tummy, and love handles, and this is bad.

I already have self-esteem issues due to dealing with various forms of mental illness pretty much all my life, and being on disability, not having a job, and not having my own place.. so.. losing these pounds would be nice. More than nice.

I have found a somewhat radical diet that is supposed to not only help get people into better shape, but has the possibility of clearing up sinus problems and maybe even some mental health issues as well.

One difficulty in dealing with mental health issues is that it is hard to get focused, motivated, and organized enough to go on healthy but strict diets. So I haven’t gone on this one yet. But I probably should. Soon.

Ok.. so yeah.. anyway…

Since I haven’t met any single ladies I’d like to date, and have been living in this state (geographical state, I mean, not state of being) for over a year, I finally put up an ad on a free dating site.

I put up one on a paid dating site too, and looked around a bit on it, but didn’t want to bother paying almost 30 bucks a month, when I can just use another very popular dating site that is free, so I took that ad down.

I’ve not had the best of luck with online dating in the past.

In previous years.. I’ve had unintentionally long email conversations with women who were too timid to meet, or who just wanted pen pals.. these women I never did meet, and that was a good thing.

I have been out with a few women who I met online.. three, to be exact.

One I didn’t click with well, but both of us were desperate, I am guessing, because we went out on several dates, and had sex. Once. It didn’t go well.

The other two I went out with online.. both I went out with only once.

One invited me back to her apartment. I suppose I should not have gone, but was curious to see if she really wanted to go all the way on a first date, or if we’d just have a drink and talk some more.

She wanted me to go all the way, and that was farther than I wanted to go..

Especially since she felt somewhat nervous, so needed to smoke.. and I don’t like even kissing women who have been smoking..

And.. we were not alone in her rather thin-walled apartment. Her young daughter and niece were in the room next to her bedroom, and I wasn’t cool with that. So I kept my clothes on that night, and did not go out with her again.

The last one I met online I just met at Denny’s. She was nice enough, but didn’t look much like her profile picture. She was heavier, and I wasn’t pleased. I like full-figured women sometimes, but don’t like it when their stomachs protrude from underneath their winter jackets. That was not pleasant. Yes, one of the many pitfalls of online dating.. sometimes people do not post recent pictures.

Also, during our conversation, this woman admitted to me that she wasn’t a good mom.. wasn’t taking as good care of her young daughter as she should.

I STRONGLY prefer NOT to date women with children, but again.. I’d gotten kinda desperate.. And.. I liked this woman’s profile.. she wasn’t the most attractive woman on the site, but she looked alright, and I liked what she’d written, so I went out with her.

It troubles me a lot that the two women I’d been on only one date with were obviously not good mothers. If I’m going to date a woman with children.. (which I hope not to do, and plan not to do, but slight possibility I might).. I want them to be good mothers. That is VERY important. Their kid or kids should come first.

So it’s been quite awhile since I’ve last had a profile up.

There’s another reason for this besides my less than awesome luck..

Almost all women have the same stuff on their profiles!

Shocking, really.

Almost all woman have listed as interests: football, skiing or snow-boarding, other outdoor activities, many activities that were once commonly associated with men.

I’m not interested in a woman who is hooked on the NFL or NASCAR. I’m not into sports. I don’t want a woman who is really into sports.

As far as skiing or snowboarding, hiking, etc. .. Yes, I’d like to do these things, and it is cool that women are interested in them.

But..

In less than a year’s time, I’ve succeeded somehow in injuring both feet. I fell down some stairs last April, and really messed up my left foot. Even after physical therapy, my left foot has not totally healed. I can go on short, not exactly arduous hikes for two hours or so.. but I am guessing that skiing and so forth are out. And probably martial arts and ballroom dancing.. yes. I’ve been wanting to learn dancing.. especially the latin dances.. VERY sexy.

And my right foot..

This part is nuts.. not my foot.. this part of the blog..

Many months ago, a friend lent me his bass guitar and amp. The bass was in terrible shape.. filthy and needing new strings.

I took the strings off, polished the fretboard, removed the bridge, cleaned all the dirt out of it and polished it, partially removed the pickups, cleaned the dust from underneath those, used some scratch remover on the body of the instrument.. with some success, polished the body, and put on new strings.

(Yes, this music stuff does relate.. keep reading, if you feel so inclined, thanks very much).

Bass guitar strings, especially good quality strings, are not cheap. A good set costs close to 30 dollars.

The first pack of strings I ordered.. I hated both the feel of the strings, and the tone. Same with the second set I ordered.

I bought a third set. MUCH better! Attention bass players! Try D’addario flatwounds!! Yay!!

But.. in order to put a new set of strings on a bass, the ends of the strings have to be clipped, and.. this part is important.. one must be VERY careful NOT to clip the strings too short. Leaving them too long puts a bit of extra strain on the tuning pegs, which the strings are wound around.

But, in my opinion, it’s worse to clip the strings too short. This renders them useless.

Sadly, I clipped the D string from two packs.. two short.. so had to buy yet more strings!

I finally got the bass set up with strings that I liked, but thought I’d buy one last pack of strings, in a slightly thicker gauge (thicker and thinner strings feel different and sound different from each other), and found out that the thinner gauge was just fine.

I ended up buying 5 packs of strings.

I also ended up with 20 VERY SHARP clipped ends of strings.

I tried to be careful, and make sure I deposited all the clipped ends in my waste basket. But I missed one.

While I was vacuuming my room just over a month ago, a freak thing happened. I’d somehow dropped a clipped string-end. It somehow was not picked up by the top of the line vacuum cleaner my relatives bought, and I somehow moved my foot in just such a way that the end of the string punctured my foot at an odd angle.

Ouch? Oh hell yeah ouch!!

So I went to urgent care. The doctor asked if I thought there was metal still in my foot. I told him I couldn’t tell. He said I’d know if there was metal still stuck in there. I hope he is right, but I sometimes worry. My foot still hurts sometimes, and is still a tiny bit swollen in the area where the wound is.

I didn’t get into the gym for over two weeks, and since have gone only twice a week, and have not spent as much time doing cardio as usual, and have not hiked at all.. so I have put on a few more pounds… great.

So I can’t go hiking, or snow-shoeing.. don’t have the money for snow-shoeing either, or snowboarding or skiing.

So that rules out most of the women in this area, who are interested in hiking and romping about in the snow attached to various pieces of wood. Because that, and sports, are just about all most of them list in their interests section of their profiles. And therefore, we are not compatible.

Let’s see.. other objections..

Yes, looks do matter to me. I’m not looking for a beauty queen, but I do want to be at least somewhat attracted to any woman I go out with. I am not being shallow, I am being human.

I also would prefer to avoid women with kids, although I am a tiny bit flexible on this issue.. maybe.

So that rules out yet more women.. the ones I am not at all attracted to, and the ones with a kid or kids.

Then there are the women who, going by their pictures, are heavy drinkers, and spend a lot of time in bars. Nope. Not the gals for me.

And there are the horribly unoriginal women who think it is just the coolest thing ever to stand in front of a mirror, usually a bathroom mirror.. classy.. hold up a cell phone, and take a picture of themselves.

Stupid idea. And so many women do this!!

And what they write..

I cannot tell you how many women write things like “no games,” “no players,” “no guys who are after just one thing,” you get the idea.

I am thinking.. women are not very wise to write “no games.” I am guessing they mean no head games.. although I am not sure exactly what sort of head games they are referring to. I am not a guy to play headgames. I am a very straightforward and honest guy.. maybe a tad too honest, but definitely not a “game-playing” sort of man. That ain’t me.

I am thinking it is unwise to write “no games,” or “tired of the games” on their profiles, because I think this clues the bad guys into the fact that these women have fallen for these headgames or whatever in the past.

I like the rare woman who writes something original on her profile. Some women are into things that most women are not. Certain authors or creative activities. One woman I found online listed shamanism as an interest. I thought that was very cool.

I look for creative women who are feminine, and also who are not so outdoorsy or manly. Women who have pictures of themselves shooting assault rifles really don’t turn me on, sorry.

I’ve looked at lots and lots and lots of profiles, but I try to do this only once a week or so, because I despair.

For the reasons I mentioned above.

The woman who listed shamanism as an interest.. I wrote to her even though I wasn’t attracted to her. I wrote to her to ask her questions about shamanism. She didn’t write back. A good thing, I think, since I am not attracted to her. But I wanted to learn more about shamanism, wanted some advice, so I thought a few questions about this subject would be alright. But she didn’t write back, so nevermind.

I didn’t look for several weeks, and was contemplating taking my profile down, because of my setbacks.

But, today, I wasn’t feeling horny, like on other days, when I felt I really needed sex.

I wasn’t feeling all that romantic either.

I had been looking through the “scene” section of the paper. There are tons of things to do around here, and there’s a band coming to town in March.. not one of my favorite bands, but they have a few excellent songs, and are a positive group, and I’d like to go see and hear this band, but I don’t think any of my friends would like to go.

I’d like to have someone with me.. a woman.. a woman I’d like to date..

Today.. I was thinking.. this afternoon or evening.. I’d just like to have a single woman to go out for coffee with.. someone I could possibly date in the future, and have sex with and all that.. but for now.. today.. coffee and a good chat.. that’s good enough.

So I went back on the dating website.

And I looked, and I looked, and I looked… and I looked.

I decided not to insist that a woman have brown eyes.. I am generally most attracted to women with brown eyes.

I decided not to just go for a woman with a petite or average build.

The past several women I’ve dated and been intimately involved with have been rather full-figured, and although I quite liked them that way, I’ve recently felt like a change. Maybe I’d be better suited to a more petite woman.. and it’s quite alright with me that smaller women have smaller boobs.

I like women who are proportional. Full-figured women with large breast look good to me. Petite women with large breasts don’t. I see a petite women with big boobs, I am guessing her boobs are fake. She’ll look top-heavy and unbalanced.

So I’m looking… and I finally spot a woman I am attracted to.. who has some common interests, isn’t blasting away with a machine gun, is not an outdoors freak, is not religious, and has no kids. Wow!!

I’m not looking for someone I’m instantly horny for… not this time anyway.. not at all..

And this woman.. ironically.. has very large breasts, and despite wanting to find someone more petite.. I find myself aroused, and, considering I wasn’t looking for an excellent lay, a bit bothered that of all the women.. this one.. finally I find someone with many things I like in her profile.. she has large breasts..and I am feeling turned on, and I don’t want to be.

But I wrote her anyway. Her profile.. what she wrote ..much of it was excellent. Brilliant even.. she has (if she is representing herself truthfully) many interests that I share, has a great outlook on life, and is even rather funny. Some of what she wrote was very humorous.. and I was chuckling for some time.

I wrote her a letter..a polite one of course.. not even mentioning her looks.. but instead complimenting her on her writing, and letting her know that we have some common interests.

It was a short letter, but a good one.

I have mixed feelings about her writing back.

After I wrote to her, I went off to the gym. Even though my feet are not in the best of shape, I can still work out some.

Even though I’ve worked out in health clubs for years off and on, many years, I’ve tended to be at these places during non-peak hours.. and I’ve almost never ever seen any attractive women at gyms.. even during non-peak hours, I expect to see some, occasionally. But I almost never do.

Odd timing.. having just written to a full-figured woman, but preferring a nicely-toned more petite woman instead..

I, after so much time, finally finally saw one at the gym.. with a body .. not a ridiculous swimsuit unrealistic playboy bunny-type body.. but a very very nice body. Wow.

Small breasts, yes, but a woman in excellent shape… and of course wearing those skin-tight workout pants. Women say they don’t want to be ogled, but they go around wearing skin-tight pants made of very thin material.. and sometimes their workout wear even has a word or two scrawled across their asses.. and they say they don’t want us to look. That.. is a lie. They want at least some of us men to look, or they would not dress that way, and they most certainly would not words on their fine or not so fine posteriors. Our eyes, both men and women, naturally gravitate toward words.. toward text, especially if this text is on an unexpected place, like a woman’s ass. C’mon now.

And this woman.. at least sensible enough not to have anything written on her behind.. she not only has the height and build that, these days, I like best, but.. she also has long, light brown hair, and brown eyes.

And that just brought it home.. my desire for someone who looks like her, vs. the woman who I’d just written to.

And I felt frustrated.

No, I did not talk to this woman. As I mentioned earlier.. women at health clubs who look like this.. tend to have a rather bulky dude somewhere in the building. I saw her talking with several overly fit men while I was working out.

And, it being a gym, I thought it would be bad manners for me to go up and talk to her, even if all I did was talk, even if she has no boyfriend in the vicinity.. because it is the gym, and I am guessing that in most gyms, women just want to work out, and be left alone.

So, I didn’t talk to her. Just watched her from time to time, without being creepy about it.

Odd I should see her tonight.

And so.. I have mixed feelings about the woman I’ve written to.

If she didn’t have such large breasts, she’d be easier to go out to coffee with. The more petite women.. yes, they look good that way, more than good, but I tend not to be so instantly aroused, as when I am sitting across a table from a woman with large breasts.. even when I’m not much interested these days in women with large breasts.. I cannot help it.. I just wanna touch ‘em!!!! Touch ‘em, for starters, at least!!

I just cannot help myself.

Maybe this woman will write back, maybe not. If I decide I don’t want to meet her, all I have to do to likely cause her to lose interest very quickly is mention one of several things.. I don’t have my own place, I am on disability.. and the real kicker.. I have mental health issues. Gone.. in an instant..in a cloud of dust.. just like that.. so quickly, she breaks the sound barrier.

I don’t know what I shall do if she writes back.

I’ve been thinking a lot about sex and relationships.

In the past, I’ve felt very sexually needy, it’s been a long time since I’ve gone all the way, and I would not have minded at all having a short fling.. in fact, at times in the past, I have had just such relationships. Quick, and naughty, and we’re done, by mutual consent.

However, my conscience is somewhat different these days. I don’t feel near so keen about going out with a woman mostly because of sexual reasons.

I do, and have always had, a policy that I do not want to get sexually involved with any woman who I cannot also have a good conversation with. That has always been true. But I can have good conversations with lots of women.

I have been thinking of the women in the past who I have liked the most.. who I have had the best chemistry with.. women.. some of whom I did not ever get the chance to know well, and none of whom was I able to date… but still .. these women, who have made the best impression on me..

And I have thought..

I would like to meet a woman like these women.

I would like best to meet a woman I want not only to have sex, with, or have coffee with, but someone who I would love … to love.

Someone who I can have a serious relationship with, someone I might even marry. Someday.

I am thinking that would be best.

The woman I wrote to today.. I can tell just by how she looks, and what she wrote in her profile.. even though I quite liked a lot of what she wrote.. that she is quite likely NOT such a woman as I’d MOST want to be with.

I feel it is practically impossible for me to find my close-to-perfect mate though.. who is best for me, and who I am best for.

I’ve only met a few women like this in my entire life, and some of them I never did get to know well at all .. but could somehow tell.

One I met when I was only 15, and she was 13. She was amazingly cute. Blonde hair, brown eyes. We met at a summer camp, and talked during several evenings, but then camp was over, and she lived in a different part of the state, and we didn’t write to each other.

That same summer, I met another girl, this one my age. Light brown hair, brown eyes. She was part of a youth group I went to, but she almost never came. Over a year passed. She started attending the youth group at least semi-regularly, and I asked out. We went out once, but then she and one of the assistant youth leaders fell for each other big time, and they eventually got married (and sadly.. eventually divorced).

The others..

One I met back in 2000, at a bbq. The best conversational chemistry I’ve ever had with a woman.. amazing.

This one.. beautiful, single.. blonde, with brown eyes..I think.. surprisingly, I cannot remember her eye color as well as the others. That is at least in part because she was wearing sunglasses for much of the time I was talking with her, and I only talked with her once.

Two days after the bbq, she moved back to the Philippines. She wasn’t originally from there, but was the daughter of missionaries, and lived with them in the Philippines. I could have written her, but..

I can only guess that she was religious, (I was not religious at this time, even though I was at a bbq mostly populated with people from a bible study group) and also, she had the same name as my mother, and that just won’t do.

The last one to make such a powerful impression on me.. a brunette (dark brown hair) with brown eyes.

She approached me. We’d had a class together before and had spoken very briefly. I’d certainly noticed her, and, from talking with her a little, I knew she was married. So I hadn’t talked to her further. But then we had another class together, and she approached me.

One place I find it easy to talk to women.. one setting.. that is a class of some sort. Women are cool about guys talking to them in class.. as long as the guys are polite and not creeps. I’ve not had a problem talking to women in classes, no matter how strikingly attractive they’ve been. A class is one environment I feel safe in, and so do women.

This class was a singing class. Three hours long.. once a week, several breaks during each class.

I was sitting outside on some steps, just enjoying the evening. It was nice out. She came over and talked with me. Another day, I was walking to class, and she caught up with me and we walked to class together. Amazing chemistry.. I don’t have a better word for it.. some things can’t be put into words well enough.. amazing.. just talking.

If you are reading this hoping for some intimate story.. no, we just talked, at school.. that was pretty much it.

We sat together, we’d joke and laugh, and she’d be flirtatious, in an innocent way.. she’d touch my shoulder, or punch me in the arm while giving me quite a look.. that sort of thing.

Once, I saw her at a church, where there was a school-sponsored concert. The auditorium at the community college was being renovated, so the concerts were at various churches.

After the concert, I was walking slowly through the lobby. I felt a tap on my shoulder, turned around, but didn’t see who it was. Then I looked forward again, and there she was, walking ahead of me, had her back to me.

Then she turned her head around, over her shoulder, and gave me the most amazing look and smile I’d ever seen.

Wow.

Beautiful. Not just on the outside.. an inner glow too.

I’d never felt like I did that night before. A lightness of being, an anxiety of sorts, but a sweet anxiety.. An intense, heavenly, pleasant yet anxious feeling.. oh what am I to do?

And.. she’s married, religious, with two kids.

Eventually, we stopped talking to each other much in class. Neither of us was going to do anything. No future there.

She was one of the reasons I dropped the class.

I only saw her once more at school. Very briefly. She was waiting to take part in a guitar recital. She looked lovely. She was happy to see me. But I didn’t talk with her much. Left quickly.

I can’t take that kind of frustration.. even sadness.

This was at the end of 2008.

Since then I have been involved with a few women, briefly, and have enjoyed some of them..

But none of them has been like a woman I feel I’d want to be involved with for a very very long time.. the chemistry has just not been there.

Sexual chemistry, by itself, can be awesome.

Yes, but I think, what is best for me..

.. is more.

This woman I’ve written to.. the one on the online dating site .. if I go out with her.. I will, in some ways, be settling, even if we have more than just sexual chemistry, even if we get along well.. she just isn’t the THE ONE.. probably fun to date, more than great to have sex with, probably good to talk with, but not someone I’d really really want to be with for a long time.. for a lifetime.

So.. if she does write back.. and is interested, what to do?

I feel it might be somewhat against my personal ethics to be involved with her.. there could be trouble and maybe even tears ahead. I might not feel exactly great about future actions. I might not want to get sexually involved with someone.. really sexually involved with someone.. who I will likely not be in a very long term relationship with..

And maybe that isn’t right.. the way I am feeling these days about women, and sex, and love.

But..

Finding someone.. someone who is really really right for me, and who I am really really right for.. like that song “Unforgettable,” I can’t remember the exact lyrics.. but..something like..

“It’s incredible, that someone unforgettable, thinks that I’m unforgettable too.”

Beautifully put.

Yes, I have my ideals..

But.. I could be waiting forever.

I also feel it’s unethical for me to live for ages and ages without getting my needs met by a happily willing woman. Some of my mental health problems stem from not getting near enough sex. For far too long a time.. not getting any.

I don’t want to settle, but.. do I dare even hope for a moment I will EVER find the right woman for me? Most of the time I cannot even come close to hoping for such a woman..

Because hoping.. hurts too much.

I don’t know if the woman I wrote to will write back.. and if so, what I will do.

I know what I most want, and most need. It is not her.. but I don’t even want to think about the possibility of finding a woman I will ever truly love.

Will I settle for the woman I wrote to, at least for awhile, and enjoy her at least for awhile, if she is interested? Probably.. might even feel like an idiot not to.. but..

I won’t be entirely happy.

My whole heart will not be in the relationship, maybe none of it will be, and I will, when I am brave enough to..

Hope for someone else.