BACHELORS #2, #3 & #4

BACHELOR #2 STATS

NAME:  SPEED RACER (his words.  He claims he's looking for his Trixie)

OCCUPATION:  Financial Advisor.  Only works with "safe" investments like municipal bonds, so work has actually picked up for him.

ETHNICITY:  Mexican/ Portuguese

AGE:  Claims he's 33, but looks like a silver fox in his forties.

TURN-ONS:  Actually likes LA and is here to stay (like me), is very positive and energetic.  Owns a home and is a self-made success.  Is politically liberal and not religious.  We got along really well on the phone.  He's a Virgo (yes, I do the zodiac thing!), which is a sign usually compatible with Cancers.

RED-FLAGS:  I'm suspicious of his real age, especially since he told me how long he was in college and how long he's been with his company.  The math doesn't add up unless he's a child prodigy.  Also, his photos on his profile are of him standing in front of two different Porsches and a mansion, which is a bit ostentatious and eye-roll inducing.  He claims they're his cars, but he's just standing in front of the cars, like my broke foreign cousins do when they want people to think they're richer than they are.  And finally, on his profile he said that he wants two kids one day, but when I told him I wasn't interested because I don't want kids, he quickly countered that he doesn't want kids either, and that he just said that because he was open to anything, and thought that that's what most women wanted.  Why not just put what you want?

Anyway, we were supposed to go out on Saturday night, but he left me hanging.  I was officially stood up for the first time in my life.  A very humbling experience, but I really wasn't that upset.  I really thought I'd be more angry and hurt than I am.  It's like whatever, next!  I think I was more upset that my cable wasn't working.

I am a little confused, though, and curious as to why he blew me off.  I read over our emails and texts to see where I might have gone wrong.   I think maybe I was too aloof and/or cold.  I guess you should never play TOO hard to get!

So, he called me last Friday afternoon and we spoke on the phone for a good forty minutes, even though I was trying to get off after fifteen (a la "The Rules").  But he was such a great, exuberant conversationalist, I just got sucked in and time flew by.  He closed the conversation by saying that he'd love to take me out to dinner next weekend.  He said he would drive down to Long Beach and meet me at a restaurant.  He asked me which day I preferred, and I said Saturday.  But then he suggested on the phone that I think of a place and let him know, and that was a red flag for me so I didn't commit to it.  I probably should have just picked a place and gotten back to him early in the week, but all my dating manuals say that the guy should put a little effort into the first date.  It's fine if he asks you for suggestions, but he really should plan the evening.  And if he doesn't want to do the research and call and make the reservations, that he's probably not that into you.  He shouldn't feel lazy and apathetic about the whole thing if he really likes you.  And he went to school in Long Beach, so he could have easily suggested anything.  I was purposely vague and non-committal like, "Yeah, let's both think about where we'd like to go."  So, I was cautious about him, but then the emails came and he seemed into me...

After we got off the phone, he sent me this email (I have something about being an HSP in my profile.  I know it's really corny, but I started my profile as a joke, and then got sucked into match):

Speed Racer said:

Hi, I enjoyed our conversation this evening and I have to admit, this is exciting. Let me ask, does HSP stand for highly sensitive person? If it does, I just realized I'm one too. I went on-line and found a site highlysensitivepeople.com and read the attributes and felt like the bee girl in the Blind Mellon video "No Rain" lol. I forgot to mention I can be very random! People that "get it", like it. The one's that don't get very annoyed. I kinda like that. You for some reason, I know,"get it". 

LB Woman Replied:
Why yes it does, (Speed Racer)! HSP is indeed a highly-sensitive person. I feel like a renob having it in my profile, but when I set up my account, I was just going to browse and not actually sign up / purchase anything. So it was just a half-jokey, throw-away name. I'd just read a book about HSPs the day before, and thought it described me well, which is why I thought of it. But then I got hooked on Match, reeled in, and now I'm stuck with it. I'll have to check out that website. If it's anything like the book, it probably describes me to a T.

"No Rain"... I love that video! Hilarious. It was great chatting with you, too! I look forward to seeing you next week. Have a great weekend!

Best,
LB Woman

Speed Racer Replied:

Funny, I said the same words, "describes me to a "T", lol. Well I can see we have a lot in common already. Like attracts like, laws of physics cannot be wrong. It was interesting to read about HSP's even more interesting to learn I am one and just found out! I like being an HSP! I've been very lucky to see the positive side of it, like being a perfectionist, being creative, etc. On top of being HSP, I'm blessed with the Jan Brady Syndrome. Yes, I'm the middle child. The second boy, and then there's the baby sister princess. To make matters worse my brother and sister both have green eyes and very light complexion. Lol, I'm literraly the black sheep. But I have to admit when I realized how the pecking order affects who we are and why we are the way we are, I felt absolutely fortunate. I don't think I would have worked as hard or have been so determined to be successful. I'm over it now, I long ago realized my parents love me no matter what and I no longer look for their approval. I took a more uncoventional approach than the other two and it worried my parents much while I was growing up. I think I wanted to prove I could do it my way and do it better. I'm sharing way too much here! I really feel a level of comfort and a sense of kinship with you. I am very much looking forward to our date next Saturday. Hope you have a nice weekend. 

LB Woman Replied:

Wow, I have huge plagiarism problems! First religulously and now this ; ) I had totally forgotten you'd said that. Must be a subconscious thing, or yes, physics!

I also like being an HSP, but sometimes I wish I were less aware of things. Oblivious people seem to breeze through life much easier. And I'm also a middle child! Jan Brady annoyed me (how I loved that show growing up!), but I'm probably a lot like her and also have middle child syndrome : ) 

I like your candidness. It's refreshing! That's great you found your own path- "the path less traveled"- and emerged on the other side of the forest a success. So few people are ever able to take such risks, so even if you had failed, it would still be awesome that you tried. Alright, we should leave some conversation for Saturday : )

Looking forward,

LB Woman
Editor's Note:  I think I made a mistake sayingthat we should leave some conversation for Saturday.  That's kind of cold of me!  Ice cold!  I've just been warned by many friends to not correspond via email too much because then you don't have anything left to say on the date.  Plus, I simply don't have time to respond to four emails a day.  I really liked him, though, so I should have been patient and more indulgent.
He replied:
I love it! We talk the same way! Your expressions, your vocabulary! For some reason I want to say vernacular! Lol. I love that word. Run out conversation? With you, somehow I just know there's plenty more where that came from.
He then sent a second email later in the day, before I had the chance to respond:
I wish it were next week already! I am really looking forward to meeting you. I feel like I'm in junior high, lol. Let's see best I can describe it is the eve of the first day of summer vacation before junior high. Lol. It's a nice feeling. I haven't been this excited over meeting someone in a long time. I thought that kind of stuff went away as we get older. Exciting and refreshing, we haven't even met yet and you give me butterflies. Lol. 

Speed Racer
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I can't find my response back to this one (but I'm sure I responded... hope it went through!).  I believe I just repeated that I, too, looked forward to seeing him.  But it definitely wasn't as effusive as his proclamations.  It was really sweet what he said, but the cynic in me found it hard to believe and even harder to lay it on as thick as he did.  I'm probably just used to guys who play it cool and so his candidness rang false to me because that hasn't been my experience.  But if it's real, it's really sweet!  How novel.  Maybe I came off as too cold and he lost the spark, which would be a shame, because I did like him.  Or maybe he was never that interested in the first place.  Well, let's take a gander at our conversations and texts the day of our date, Saturday:

So, he called and left a VM on Saturday afternoon apologizing for not checking in during the week and following up on our date.  He said he'd gotten really busy at work, but that if I still wanted to go out, I should call him back and let him know what time would be good for me.  He was about to go bike riding, but he would have his cell on him.

I called him back and left a VM saying that I still looked forward to meeting him and that I preferred to eat dinner around 6p or 7p.  I told him that if he hadn't found any restaurants he liked, I'd heard "Utopia" was pretty good.

He then texted back, "Cool, where is Utopia?"

I texted back, "Downtown Long Beach.  Is that ok?  want deets?"

Yeah, I regret using the word "deets" for details.  Kinda corny.  Oh well.

He then said "That's cool.  Ok.  8?  9?"  

This annoyed me because he specifically asked me what time I wanted and I said 6 or 7, and then he totally ignored it and then suggested a really late dinner time like that.

I texted back, "You eat late!  8 works : )"

But something was nagging at me, so I checked the website and it said that the restaurant closed at 9:30p, so I emailed Speed Racer and told him this:

"Uh oh, Speed Racer.  I just looked online and Utopia is only open 'til 9:30p.m.!  Is that enough time, or shall we pick somewhere else?

If you like crepes, we could also try here.  They're open a little later (my friend told me 2 a.m., but on their website it says midnight) so we won't feel rushed or anything.  Let me know."

I felt bad that the restaurant I chose closed early, so it looked like I hadn't put much thought into it, but I did look at the times before and just assumed we would have dinner at six or seven, in which case 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours would have been more than enough time!  He's the one who pushed it back to 8 or 9!  

I then emailed him the info for The Creperie, and I started worrying that he might not see it (even though he has a Blackberry), so I texted him, too:

"Hey just sent emails to your match email.  Just found out Utopia closes at 9:30.  Ideas?  I sent one via email."

He wrote, "How about u come out here."

I wasn't sure if he wanted me to go to his house, or just up to Pasadena.  But either way, I was annoyed and the answer was no.  So I then wrote back, "If the commute to Long Beach is an issue, it's okay to cancel."

8 p.m. rolled around and he never called or texted back.  I waited until 8:15, and when I still hadn't heard from him, I wrote, "Boooo!"  It's my favorite way to say I'm disappointed in someone, and annoyed.  An ex used to do that to me, and it impressed me in its succinctness, so I use it now, too.

BACHELOR #3 STATS

NAME:  Night Man

OCCUPATION:  Trader (Stock Market)

AGE:  Late 40s

ETHNICITY:  Irish, Japanese, Hispanic, Swiss mix

TURN-ONS:  We both love "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", and he said I looked like a mixed-race Mary Tyler Moore.  Sweet, thoughtful, attentive.  Our email exchanges were great.

RED-FLAGS:  Has two kids (one 15, one 19 that still lives at home) and an ex-wife.  He's an Aries, which is not compatible with the Cancer sign.  It took him forever to ask me out.  We were emailing like every day for the last week, which seems excessive.  Most guys want to shit or get off the pot quickly, but he seems extremely careful and a little uncertain (which isn't necessarily bad, I guess.  Just not what I'm used to).

We met for lunch today at a Cambodian place a few miles from my house.  I've never eaten Cambodian, but it's a lot like Thai so I knew I'd probably like it.  It was delicious!  Really great meal.  He called ahead of time to see if there were plenty of vegetarian options, and there were.  I could order anything off the menu, even the meat dishes, and simply replace the meat with tofu.  I really appreciated the planning he put into it, and how thoughtful he was about picking the right place.

Highlights of our date:

He pulled up in a big, long station wagon.  Honestly, I hate to sound shallow, but this was a total boner killer.  I don't need a porsche, but a banana boat?  I would have been okay with a junky clunker, but something about station wagons rub me the wrong way!  I knew he was a father of two teenage kids, but to see him pull up in the dad-mobile was so ugh.  I mean, it was really long.  It was a sleeker, nicer model, but it still had that wood paneling on the side.  And did I mention how looooong it was?

He told me he thought it was weird that I didn't want kids because most girls do.  I wasn't insulted, but agreed that he was right.  I admitted it was weird, but my motto was "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  And that I was pretty happy with my life now.  It's not perfect, but I have time to go to my little sewing classes and pursue my little artistic whims, and I really can't imagine anything else that would make me happier.

He told me that his ex-wife lives across the street in the house they used to share together, and he lives in a small apartment.  They live so close together so that the kids can go back and forth with ease.  I didn't like that at all.  I mean it makes sense, and is great for the kids, but...  Just, no.  Cut the umbilical chords!  Move on, man.

I don't know what to say.  He's really nice, but there wasn't a lot of chemistry.  There were a few pockets of silence; they were comfortable, though.  I think the age thing is an issue.  I really didn't think it would be, because he's attractive, but it is.  But since I don't want kids, I feel like I should be open to older guys who either definitely know that they don't want kids, or they've already had them, and they're almost out of the house.  Because most younger guys want kids.  I think he looks attractive and young enough, but he's just from a different generation.  I don't know.  I think I'll go out with him again, though (if he asks).  The "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus" author says that women should stick with men who are mentally compatible and emotionally supportive, and if that happens, the physical chemistry will come.  So, I'll stick in there a little longer.

BACHELOR #4:  THE SHIELD

I got back home and returned a phone call to another Match bachelor.  He's a 42 year-old Black Police Lieutenant.  He was nice, but I got a controlling vibe from him.  I get that vibe a lot from policemen and men who've served.  I have so much respect and awe for what they do, but I feel like they're always playing power games with me, and I can feel their anger if I don't call back right away and stuff.  I could sense that with him.  He told me that I sounded like a nice girl, so I should call him and let him know if I'd ever like to go out for coffee.  It was just such a passive-aggressive way to ask a girl out on a date.  Dude, just come out and ask!  Come hard or don't come at all.  That sounds naughty, but I don't mean it like that.  Anyway, I'm glad he didn't ask, though, because although I probably would have accepted because he looks great on paper, I already know his control issues would become an issue for us.

I only have one date set for this weekend so far.  Sunday.  An older guy with the same name as my ex!