LOL… WTF?!?

One of the many “personalized” dating services I belong to recently introduced me to a man who owns a well-known luxury resort and spa in Northern California’s wine country. That sounded promising – until I actually spoke with him.  He had an annoying, squeaky voice and was too busy laughing out loud at his endless lame jokes to listen to anything I had to say.  Clearly, his self-aggrandizing monologue was far more important than anything I could contribute to the conversation.  So, I sat back and listened to him brag about what great shape he was in and what a happy-go-lucky person he was.  He kept saying he was a really confident guy, a sure sign of being the exact opposite.  In Hamlet, Queen Gertrude says, “the lady doth protest too much,” which means overstating one’s attributes diminishes ones credibility. I wonder how confident he would be if someone told him he wasn’t laugh out loud funny. 

Mr. Confidence invited me to spend a weekend at his resort. He would fly me up, arrange for my accommodations, and since he was out to impress me with all his trappings, throw a spa day into the mix.  After receiving a few more boastful calls, I decided to reply by text to avoid talking to him.  I was finding his über-positive, glass half full, I’m so funny personality irritating and was becoming less and less interested in meeting him.  Then, I received this text:

It’s gonna b gr8.  But any wkend is a gr8 wkend in wine country…ha ha!  U'll want 2 stay as long as u can...LOL ;-) 

It’s bad enough people use all sorts of not-so-short abbreviations when texting, like gr8 which only saves two letters and a millisecond of time, but isn’t it up to the recipient to decide whether or not a text is “laugh out loud” funny?

He continued:  Do u ever call sum1… and talk on the phone, or do 1’s and 0’s do it 4 u?  lol…

1’s and 0’s? As far as I know, I wasn’t using the binary numeral system; I was simply texting. Sure the binary system is used by all modern computers, a cell phone being a computer, but is that really laugh out loud funny? I’m sure as hell not ROTFLMAO. Rule #567 about texting: never author a joke and follow it with LOL. That is the equivalent of a sitcom writing indicating in parentheses (applause) or (laughter), and unless you are a sitcom writer, you shouldn’t be cueing your audience.

Don’t forget 2 bring ur bathing suit, he texted.  I’m sure u don’t go anywhere w/o one.  LOL 

There it was again, the dreaded LOL (groan).  It was October, and I wondered where I was expected to go swimming.  Awesum hot tubs @ the resort, he continued, clearly wanting to get me as near to naked as possible on our first date weekend. It was about then that I decided to cancel our little rendezvous, blaming it on my hectic schedule when in fact, I just felt zero connection and knew meeting him would be a big waste of time. I could buy my own spa weekend, thank you very much!  I desperately wanted to cancel by text to eschew confrontation – and the sound of his grating, arrogant voice – but being a stickler for proper etiquette, I called him.  Thank God, I got his voicemail and was able to take the easy way out.  Moments later, I received a barrage of nasty texts in full, unabbreviated sentences. Apparently, he could write a proper English sentence when provoked. His attack included reference to my age, my being single and my having an over-inflated self-image.  I wonder if Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” was also playing on the stereo where he was at the time. I should introduce him to Skip; they’d make a great pair.  Seems to be a theme that these ersatz confident men are threatened by confident women. Clearly, the confident man scenario was as thin as the veneers on his teeth.  It’s a good thing I have a “personalized” dating service working for me. I’d be hard-pressed to find a winner like this guy on my own.  

Skip to the loo, my darling...

Pure and simple, online dating sucks.  It is like going to war.  One needs a take no prisoners mentality.  You have to go in knowing what you want and get out fast before you're hit with a million IM requests from inappropriate suitors who stopped on your photo only long enough to determine that you're attractive, but never bothered to read your profile...perhaps they never learned to read.  Regardless, it says something about the average IQ of the men on these sites...on the evolution chart, they are neanderthals caught somewhere between ape and man, and often a little closer to ape.  If they could get away with it, they would probably club a woman over the head and drag her back to the cave.

I let my guard down the other week.  This guy named Skip was pestering me for a date, telling me that he too was a foodie and oenophile and that we had much in common, despite the fact that I saw nothing remotely appealing on his profile.  His photo was small, indistinguishable and, I realized the moment I laid eyes on him, a good five years out of date.  I initially agreed to a quick phone call, and while I was not impressed by his unfaltering Brooklyn accent (despite having lived in LA the greater portion of his 50 odd years of life), he was a good salesman and I succumbed to a brief date.  A drink at Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bistro...downstairs, not upstairs where I might run into someone I know.  I do this every once in a while.  I suffer through a miserable date to prove to myself that my instincts are indeed right, that I can, in fact, determine from a simple email exchange or a five minute phone conversation that someone is not right for me.  My friends seem to think my standards are too high, so I lowered them for Skip.  I said, okay, I won't be hasty in my judgment. Maybe I am not giving these men a chance to shine.  I gave Skip a rope and he hung himself.Photo: Patrick Demarchelier for Vanity Fair

I arrived at the bar looking intimidatingly hot in a skintight black dress and my Gucci Helena boots - the ones Angelina Jolie wore last summer in a Vanity Fair spread shot by Patrick Demarchelier (see photo). I went through great strides (pun intended) to get those boots on my birthday trip to Paris last July, so I was intent on wearing them on every occasion I could. I knew there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I was going to be interested in Skip. Nevertheless, I wanted to look amazing.  Not for his benefit. For mine. It was my little way of saying "thank you for playing our game; this is what you don't win!"  To set the bar impossibly high, I also wore the 3 karat sapphire and diamond heart-shaped pendant my former lover gave me for my XX birthday not long ago. I wanted there to be no misunderstanding about the manner in which I aspire to be accustomed to. 

I poked my head in the bar and saw Skip sitting in a corner, nursing a glass of nondescript red wine, and I quickly ducked away.  He was not as he represented himself and looked like an unemployed, 60 year old actor who couldn't afford the entire bottle of wine. Shit. What's a girl to do?  I texted. "Are you there yet?"  He replied, "One thing you gotta know about me babe...I'm always on time."  Babe?  Did he just call me babe? The way I saw it, I had three options:  I could simply never show, I could fake an emergency and never reschedule, or I could do something bold - something I have never done before - I could go in there and end the date within 10 minutes or less. Why should I fake enthusiasm, waste calories on a glass of house wine and suffer through some lame attempt at trying to impress me.  I chose door number three.

I introduced myself to Skip and took a seat opposite him.  He complimented me on being "a hottie" and looking better than my photos.  I was speechless. Not from his compliments, but because I could not say the same about him. Always better to understate than overstate oneself in one's dating profile.  Skip offered to buy me a glass of generic house wine, but I declined and he immediately got his guard up sensing the date was going to be brief. After three to five minutes of chit-chat on how the whole online dating experience was going for each of us, I politely told him that I was not feeling much chemistry.  He said it felt like the date was over before it had even begun. Bingo! He was a sharp one, I'll give him that.  I complimented him on being in great shape and obviously taking good care of himself (oh, how I can lie when I want to), but told him I was looking for that certain spark that happens the minute you meet someone.  He began to attack.  How could I possibly know after five minutes.  I hadn't given him a chance.  Please.  He got five minutes of my time.  That's ten minutes more than he deserved!  Did I really need to defend myself to this bozo? I think not.  And, so I departed as gracefully as I arrived.  A moment later, I received this text:

Good luck.  You would not be right for me either.  Like you said, you find it interesting how guys seem to enjoy a date and don't stop to consider if there is reciprocity. Well let me tell you.  That was uncomfortable and you will probably never find "it".  You love yourself too much. I could never be with someone like that. Carly Simon's "Your so vain is on the music system here now :) how appropriate.

PS:  one more thing: you do look 40ish.  It is clear the biological clock is ticking. Bye peace out.

I left the punctuation as is, so you could appreciate the entire effect.  Little did he know I was just outside the restaurant texting a girlfriend on how I averted a disaster date, and I could hear what was on the music system.  It was not Carly Simon!  Do I want to be with a man who thinks I love myself too much?  Clearly he is accustomed to women with low self-esteem.  I am particularly fond of the you do look 40ish post script, because I told him I was almost forty, and admitted to being at peace with the fact that I probably won't have children because the biological clock is ticking loudly and the batteries are running low.  Did he think reiterating what I openly stated would somehow hurt me?  What hurt is that I wasted 10 minutes of my life and by the time I arrived at Angelini Osteria for dinner they had sold out of all the specials!