If You Like Pina Coladas...

Saw Guardians of the Galaxy this weekend. BEST.SOUNDTRACK.EVER...check out the shirt

Mistakes.
Holy shitballs Batman
Can I talk to you about mistakes?

When I was dating, I made absolute truckloads of them; it's why I am writing here this day. See, when I first started online dating, way back in the Mesozoic Era, I had no clue what I was doing, how to do it, or how to behave. I was a complete and total spaz.
ALL
THE
SPAZES.

So, grab some popcorn children, sit down and let me tell you a little story.

The Tale of Bubba-The One Who Started it All

Oh, where to start with Bubba. Right, the beginning.
I had just started on Match.com, I mean literally not been on that site more than an hour when Bubba the One Who Started it All messaged me. Hell, my profile wasn't even complete.
To say I was I excited would be the understatement of the Universe people.
Bubba had a cute picture, a clever profile and he was complimentary of my limited (and looking back, really shitty) profile pictures.

I was into it.
Like, you know when you see puppies and they are super excited to see you and their whole butts start wiggling and it's the cutest thing you've ever seen because they are just vibrating?
THAT
WAS
ME

  I WAS VIBRATING FOR FUCK SAKES.

So, Bubba and I chatted for quite a while on Match. And honk my hooter if we didn't have a ton in common! We were both the same astrological sign, we both loved pizza, yadda yadda yadda...you've seen this before.The list seemed to go on and on.

Peoples, you can imagine how all my ladybits just strummed when Bubba shortly asked me out on a date. A REAL DATE. WITH A REAL, LIVE MAN.

PENIS.
PENIS.
PENIS.
PENIS.

It had been years since I had been on a date with a man. Shit, by that point my ladybits were so dusty and unused that investors could have redeveloped the space into a roller rink.

But I digress...

My friend Meg was excited, shit everyone I told was excited for me. This was a big deal in my life. 
Doozy was back in the game.

When Bubba and I met at a trendy local pizza place on a crisp fall afternoon, I was nervous beyond belief. I wasn't going to be my normal spastic self. I wasn't going to ramble. I wasn't going to laugh to much, or cock my head to the right, or talk with my hands. I wasn't going to be my smart, nerdy self.
I was going to be light
Airy
Fun
Okay, I'm all those things anyways, but basically I was going to pretend to be someone else for awhile. I mean, that's what all the dating articles say women should do (because they're written assholes and idiots - just a little pro tip people).

Ahhh, Bubba was even cuter in person. Charming, funny and we seemed to have instant chemistry. The conversation flowed effortlessly and for hours as we scarfed down pizza. 
So me, being naive about dating in general, but especially ONLINE dating immediately jumped to this conclusion:

OMG
IT'S
MEANT
TO 
BE

Bubba walked me to my car and kissed me. The first man who did so in years. Remember the roller rink people. And wow, it was something.

For the next two weeks Bubba and I were in almost constant contact. We talked about all sorts of things. We went out a second time and ate spicy wings, had long phone conversations in to the wee hours of the night. And I discovered some things that I should have seen as red flags at the time:

1. Bubba was in recovery. Which in and of itself isn't a flag. EXCEPT he was actively going through the steps again because he was in grief counseling over the loss of his mom from three years before. Yep. You read that right...three years before.
AND
2. Bubba was also actively grieving the loss of a woman who had broken up with him three months earlier.
Three was apparently a thing for Bubba.

OH 
FUCK
MY
LIFE

No, it's okay..I'll let you guys take a moment to finish laughing or wipe up the soda you spit out of your mouth just then. 
Yeah, I really have been pretty stupid in my man-trials in the past.

Here's the thing. Back then, I was sure that Bubba and I had a 
C
O
N
N
E
C
T
I
O
N

Some cosmic, universal fucking Tao and the art of love, meta thing going on, and I didn't know any better. I was so wrapped up in the feelings, RIGHT IN THE FEELS PEOPLE that I didn't see at first just how broken and damaged Bubba was.

And this was the pièce de résistance of my short encounter with Bubba the One Who Started it All. Everything came to a head (I SAID HEAD.I'm 12 sometimes. Deal with it.) when my feels got out over my skis and I started using normal, adult, human language like;
"I like you"
AND
"I interested in where this is going"

And  Bubba completely freaked the fuck out. No, I mean he REALLY freaked the fuck out. 
As in:
"I'm sorry Doozy, I just can't give you what you want right now."
AND
"I have a lot going on in my life right now and I just have to focus on all that."

I wasn't saying I wanted Bubba to stick a ring on it or telling him was picking out goddamn china patterns, just that I liked him. If a middle-aged man on a dating site gets freaked out when a middle-aged woman who he's been sexing/chatting up hardcore for two weeks freaks out when she says something like that

THEN 
HE 
SHOULDN'T
BE 
DATING

See, here's the thing. And I ran into this again and again and HOLY-HELL-ON-A-JELLY-DONUT AGAIN when I was dating... We weren't in the second grade, where telling a boy that you liked him equated a tin promise ring or eating lunch and sharing your sammich with him for the rest of the year. 
Nope.
As if guys. Come on.
But over and over, I witnessed grown ass men reduced to  fucking lumps of putty when I uttered three little words like "I like you" or "You're cool". Men who say they are "looking for a relationship" and go on several dates shouldn't get freaked out when a woman says she likes him.

Christ. That's not a hard concept gentlemen.
Go buy a fleshlight, get some therapy then we'll talk

Then I figured it out.  It took me a loooooooooooooooooooooooooong time to realize that probably a lot of those guys DID want to hear a woman say she liked them.
Just not me.
Yeah. 
Whatever.
Fuck off and move on.
 
However, this is is my attitude NOW, after years of heartache and disappointment. Okay, okay...I always had a hard time with the rejection, I admit it. For the most part, though, I learned to brush it off and consider the men I was dealing with. Neanderthals and troglodytes. Toss up really...

But Doozy back then was really hurt and confused by Bubba's rejection and backpedaling. I was just so sure we had a connection, that there was something t-h-e-r-e. After two weeks. Seriously Doozy. I laugh now thinking back to how overly emotional I was about the whole thing.

I fell victim to one of the classic blunders - the most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well known is this: "never go against Doozy when her heart is on the line...". I fell into the mistaken trap of thinking that my womanly charms were so amazing that this dating thing was going to be easy. That it wasn't going to take any time at alll to find a good, decent man. That the men out there were smart enough to see a good thing, a great catch, when she was standing in front of them.

I was wrong.
I was a complete moron.

My friend Meg helped me write a kiss-my-ass text to Bubba because I just didn't know what to say or how to say it. It was an awesome fuck off, but deep down it felt pretty hollow. Because I did like Bubba - damage and all, I didn't know any better at that point. And off into the wilds Bubba went. I was left to lick my wounds and slowly, oh so slowly my dating cynicism over the years was born.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE

Come on people, there's always more.
This is how I roll.

So get this.
A couple weeks ago I get this email from my LinkedIn account. I'm never on LinkedIn, cuz I think it's sort of a stupid site. But whatever. And there's a request for a connection from someone I do not know.
I trudge on over to LinkedIn and I shit you not...it's Bubba -The One Who Started it All.

I recognized his picture after a couple minutes of frantically searching my mental Rolodex, but not his name. Because, well. I'm. Not. A. Fucking. Psycho. And I don't keep a list of the men I've gone on dates with. But you know, I wish now that I had. It would make writing this a lot easier if I'd kept a list.

But I digress...

It has been years since I've seen, heard or even thought about the Bubba. Which begs the question, how does Bubba remember me OR MY NAME? Why? Why would he seek me out when we don't have anything in common professionally or in any other way?
Wait, that was several questions. But the universe is officially fucking with me now.

Okay though, I can play.
You weirdo.
I accepted him.
Mostly because I'm curious to see if he contacts me, if there's a story there, or what the hell is up with THIS weird twist.
I suspect the answer is POONTANG. Doosh.
Because I'm cynical sometimes now, but curious. Born from the fires of online disappoint and lies.
I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
And if I am, I'm buying you all a drink..

As always thanks for reading and please leave comments. Have a doozy of your own? Feel free to share!

-Doozy