Trouble finds me. Always.

Trouble finds me.

There isn't really a good way to explain how this happens. It just does. Particularly in terms of the dating world. I don't seek guys out; I have reached a point in my life where I am mature enough to recognize that I don't need to be in a relationship to be happy. It does get awkward at times - I am already reaching the age where the majority of the people I meet are married with children. But for the most part, it's really not an issue.

So, I stay single. And I like it that way.

But occasionally, someone comes along that I decide to spend a little time with, and invariably, something will go horribly awry. After a lot of hemming and hawing and consideration, I have decided that things in this area of my life have finally reached the level of absurdity at which I should probably start writing about it. My hope is that, at the very least, this venture will be found somewhat entertaining. My other hope is that maybe some of the guys out there will read this and perhaps start to loosely interpet it as a set of guidelines when it comes to dating.

In that spirit, I'd like to start with Rule Number One: Do not reveal fetishes before the first date. (For that matter, do not reveal fetishes ON the first date, either.)

I had a guy find me on Facebook (strangely, this is how a lot of these stories begin.) In the interest of maintaining anonymity as much as possible, I won't say how I knew him - but in all technicality, we had actually met before, although it had been several years.

He hits me up. We message back and forth. We seem to be having a fairly decent conversation - we had a lot in common, and we both write at least reasonably well, so we can kind of gauge the other's personality - at least a little bit. He asks for my number. Thinking he was attractive and that things were going well, I go ahead and give it to him.

In case it's not completely obvious at this point, that particular action later became known as what's called a Bad Idea.

I'm a texting fiend, and so is he. So that's what we do. We text late into the night, and it starts up again the following afternoon. After lots of back and forth, we start talking about television.

Him: Hey do you like 30 Rock?
Me: Yeah! I love Tina Fey, I think she's great!
Him: I have a foot fetish.

It sounds completely ridiculous that he would say it out of the blue like that, but I promise you - he did. Stunned and unsure how to react, I actually replied first by asking if this was a joke from the show that happened to be going over my head, or if he was serious. I crossed my fingers, hoping maybe it was a joke from a later season that I hadn't seen yet.

Naturally, of course - no dice. He's totally serious. We have been interacting for less than 24 hours at this point. Yeah, technically we've met - MANY years ago. And even then, it was in a "passing nod" type of capacity. The dude could have been my cashier at the grocery store for as well as I remembered him back then.

More than a little alienated at this point, I made a half-hearted attempt to steer the conversation. Unsuccessfully. Somehow, some way, there are guys in existence who think that it's perfectly okay to start discussing their sexual proclivities with women they haven't really met, or barely know. Yes, I do realize that in certain situations this is okay - but I am neither a stripper nor a girl in a bar with whom he was trying to get drunk and hook up with.

Needless to say, he got the brush off - fast.

I have recently started telling people that it just wouldn't be my life if it weren't asburd in some way. Keep reading - you'll find out just how true that is.



xoxo