Filling my quota

So, in order to qualify for the six months free on match.com you have to send a certain amount of e-mails every month. Needless to say after the disaster of a date last weekend, I had to get to work. So with my trusty accomplice (my best friend) and my computer, we set out to find my match! Now to set the scene a bit, I was at home on my laptop, while my friend was at her house on her computer. We were both logged in and talking on the phone. As we scanned through the profiles here are a few of the things that really stuck out...
Some people are really creative with their screen names! At one point both my accomplice and myself were laughing so hard we didn't even have to read the profile, we just had to e-mail that clever guy!
Some people had some really impressive statements in their profiles (yes, we actually read the profiles!). Everything from reading some amazing books, to travels, to just regular everyday goings on. We e-mailed some of them!
Some people put up pictures that are taken from so far away that you cannot even see them. Why do they that? Do they not want you to see what they actually look like? My pictures all show me, not a dot of me in the expanse of the Grand Canyon. We did not e-mail those people.
So anyway, what was the point of all of this? The close to ten e-mails I sent to meet my match.com monthly quota?

Nothing! I got one e-mail back from someone who said I was "cute" but never responded again and another e-mail from someone saying they have met someone. Well, good for you! Now get off the site so I can do the same!

Here We Go

After a couple of phone calls where I was repeatedly called "Dear" (who does that?) and some shifting around of schedules, "A" and I had our first and I think its safe to say ONLY date last night. To be clear, I was not looking forward to said date mainly because of the pushy nature of the phone calls, I just didn't see our personalities getting along very well. But I tried to have an open mind, put on a cute outfit, and set out to his neighborhood.

Now here is where I have to stop for a moment. Why was I going all the way over to him? Just for a little background, I live on the Upper West Side of NYC. Not being a native New Yorker, I still don't know my way around every street and if the trains change their schedules I get confused and don't know where to go. So wouldn't it be fair to meet in the middle? Nope, "A" had to decide what street corner to meet on. That's right, no specific place, just a corner and we would take it from there. Okay, back to the date...

There I was waiting on the street corner for "A" and up strolls this guy in a bright yellow and red windbreaker and magenta shirt. Yup, my date! The first thing "A" does is take out his phone show it to me and say "I am turning this off, I would hope you do the same." That's when I knew this would be our one and only date. We proceeded to walk along till we found a bar he approved of and ordered a couple of beers. It was a sports bar and did not warrant my usual of a dirty martini. The conversation was on and off as is usual on a first date, we watched some football and he proceeded to call me "tough guy" when I was cheering along with the crowd. I started to get annoyed, but I let it go. As we continued to talk I asked about his parents since he mentioned going to games with his dad a lot. And that's when I was hit with this zinger..."Oh, they are great, they live around here and I still live with them." Um, WHAT?! You are a grown man, with a full time job, and you still live at home with your parents?! That was a deal breaker for me. I played it cool, and as I watched his hands slowly creep across the table towards me I finished my beer and said I was ready to go. No dinner, no second drink, I just wanted to go home. And go home I did.

But not until after I paid for my own drink...

And it begins...

So I just turned 29 and had a great time celebrating with my friends. However there was one thing that was nagging just a little bit...you see my younger sister is getting married and all of my friends are either married or in serious relationships. So I thought to myself, maybe I should start looking for someone too. So my best friend and I came up with "Operation 3.0" I don't think I need to explain, but I will. I will go on dates and try to meet someone by the time I am 30. How am I going to do all of this you ask? Well, I signed up for match.com (that whole 6 months free thing was just calling to me) and I also let all my friends know I am available to meet whoever they think would be a good match. So my friend and I set up my account and I have my first date this weekend.
I won't lie, I am not really looking forward to it. The guy (we'll call him "A") was kind of pushy on the phone. But I made a promise to give everyone a chance, and so I will. However, there was no rule about not blogging about it. I thought I would create this blog as a fun way to keep track of all the dates (or just the one, who knows?) and tell the funny mishaps, successes, or failures that happen along the way to the big 3-0!!

So wish me luck this weekend because here we go....