Perchance To Dream

Years ago I landed my dream job and showed up for my first day in my Theory suit and 3-inch high Louboutins, pretty much as excited as a person can possibly be. I walked out that first day with a burnt hand (coffee accident), blisters from wearing heels all day, and the realization that perhaps this wasn't going to be the job I had envisioned it to be.

I didn't last very long, just long enough to be sure that I couldn't make it work, and after that I was saddled with this nagging concern: What am I going to do now? I was only twenty-five and already jaded with the notion that I no longer had any goals to work toward since my dream job had turned out to be miserable.

I was thinking about this today after a conversation with a friend last night who said she had a similar experience when she got laid off from her company about a year ago and she commented in passing, "I never thought I would end up working in finance; I never saw myself doing this."

It made me wonder how many others feel the same way.

I don't know too many people that LOVE their jobs. No one is a huge fan of working. But I do know a few people, a really small select few, who do have an earnest passion for what they do.

My father, towards the end of his career, was one of these people. He is this complete math and finance nerd who used to read textbooks cover to cover just for the fun of it and thrived in a quantitative position at his firm. But even he took many, many years to get to that place, and was terribly unhappy for about two decades while he was working up the corporate ladder.

I think, on principle, it is hard to take something you love and make a career out of it, and the people that have enough talent and passion to do so are almost inevitably successful.

A decade ago, when I was 17 and graduating from High School, I had no real idea what I wanted to do with my life, which is pretty on par for a 17-year old, but surprisingly, I have come back full circle to where I thought I would like to be. I knew I wanted to write and that I loved to read and somehow along the way I'd like to be able to figure out how to build a career around that.

It wasn't until years later in college that I took my first marketing course and got interested in fashion and my career goals shifted. It's funny how things like that work out.

After all, it's the road blocks that define who we will become. Or I'm just paraphrasing what Steve Jobs said at a Stanford Commencement Speech in 2005.

"I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple...Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

And I think Conan O'Brien said it best at his farewell address from The Tonight Show: "Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get, but if you work really hard, and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you, amazing things will happen."

Pretty inspiring words.

The eHarmony Sequel

So Part One of my eHarmony experiment was not particularly successful by any definition. Thus, I did not have high hopes for the subsequent chapter.

I was matched up with this guy a few weeks ago who I thought was pretty cute, especially in comparison to the rest of the dudes on eHarmony. However, when I sent his picture to little sister E for her assessment, she didn't seem to agree.

E: He looks like a leprechaun!

Me: He does not!

E: Yes he does, you better watch out for him, I bet he's tricky.

Me: What?

E: If you go out with him, you'll have to keep an eye on him or he'll steal your money.

Me: Yeah I'm pretty sure that's not how leprechauns work...I think they just guard a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

E: But where does he GET the gold?

Me: I don't know, but he doesn't steal it. And even if he did, I don't really carry gold coins on my person on a regular basis.

(Side Note: I looked it up and apparently leprechauns acquire their gold through their day job of mending and making shoes, not stealing. However, they are known to be quite tricky so if you catch one, you need to hold on to him and keep your eyes on him at all times or he will fool you into turning away for a second and hide his pot of gold.)

E: Well, you should still be really careful. He might be a trickster. Are you going to go out with him anyway?

Me: I don't know, he's working late this week so we're trying to figure out a time. He was at the office until midnight last night.

E: Wait, what does he do? Outside of St. Paddy's Day parades and Lucky Charms commercials, of course.

Me: He is a lawyer! He is not a leprechaun! Stop saying that!

(Side Note: Is it weird that I find the making/mending shoes career to be more attractve than the lawyer thing? I mean, I have a LOT of shoes and I don't really require legal advice but fixing my shoes would actually bring something to the table...)

E: Well, I would still bring a friend with you. To make sure he doesn't trick you.

So, even though I didn't agree with E's opinion that eHarmony is a leprechaun, I asked my friend S to possibly screen this dude to see if he is, in fact, a leprechaun.

S: Well, how tall is he?

Me: His profile says he's 5'10".

S: Oh, then you have nothing to worry about! He's clearly not a leprechaun!

Me: I'm glad that you had to ask his height before you confirmed that he isn't a leprechaun.

S: Well, I had to make sure!

Me: Oh, man, what if he's Irish? Or he looks like this?



S: If he shows up and he has an Irish accent, I will laugh my ass off.

Me: If he shows up and he's Irish, I will have to run out of the bar.

After a few scheduling glitches, the Leprechaun and I finally got it together and planned on grabbing drinks on a Friday night while S and I were at a bar.

To prepare for the impending awkwardness and the possibility of meeting a real life leprechaun, S and I started downing shots so I was slightly toasted before he even showed up. Which in retrospect was a terrible idea because if he really HAD been a leprechaun I would have been too drunk to keep an eye on him until he led me to his pot of gold.

Anyways, he showed up at the bar and he was over two feet tall and his only magical power seemed to be that of being able to bring a conversation to an immediate halt with his awkwardness.

He wasn't exactly capable of carrying on a conversation even when given a direct question to answer and S and I continued to glance at each other over the table to raise our eyebrows at each other. And even more awkward, within half an hour he waved at someone across the bar and said, "Oh I invited one of my friends here," which he hadn't mentioned previously.

So his friend showed up with an entourage of six guys who sat down at our table, introduced themselves, and asked how we all knew each other. After a moment of silence, the Leprechaun answered, "We met on the internet."

And his friend asked me, "eHarmony?! Are you on eHarmony?!"

To which I had an entire group of guys turn to look in my direction and gawk.

"To be fair," I told them, "I am a writer and I was doing it as a social experiment so I would have writing material."

As everyone processed this, the Leprechaun asked me, "So if I had taken you out on a date and tried to kiss you, would it have showed up on the internet for the world to see?"

I blushed and laughed awkwardly (seriously, who asks a question like that in front of seven strangers?) and told him I was deferring to my counsel but I was going to plead the fifth.

More shots were consumed by the table and at this point, I realized the room was starting to spin and I wasn't going to be able to make it through the rest of the night if I continued to partake in shots. So I bowed out of the next few rounds, but it was already too late.

Now, this is totally my bad and I take full responsibility for what subsequently followed, but before Leprechaun had officially committed to coming to the bar, I had let my current boy toy, Yawn, know where S and I would be that evening. And through no planning whatsoever, we were at a bar across from the bar he was at.

So when he texted me to tell me he was coming to meet us, my alcohol-riddled brain couldn't think of one reasonable excuse to tell him not to come. When he walked into the bar (keep in mind, S and I are the only girls at a table of half a dozen guys and I am technically on a first date), he came over to give me a hug, sat down next to me, and introduced himself to the rest of the table.

The less-drunk part of my brain thought I could still get away with this if I played it cool and pretended he was just a friend and no one brought up e-Harmony again. However, I was much too drunk to be playing anything smooth at this point, and according to S, within five seconds of sitting down next to me, the rest of the table knew from our body language and the way we acted with one another that he was not just a friend.

S texted me from across the table, "Leprechaun looks sad. I think you crushed him."

Shortly after that, Leprechaun took off, leaving his friends with us, which was kind of strange, but I know now it's because one of the guys had taken a hankering to S and thought he could get somewhere with her.

A little while later, I got that impending feeling of doom, that I was not going to be able to keep down all the alcohol I had just sucked down, and I told Yawn, "I have to go home. Now."

The second I got through the door, I bee-lined for the bathroom and that was where I remained for the next hour. I remember thinking to myself, as I was hugging the toilet, that this was my punishment for having crushed someone'e soul and for dicking over a leprechaun. Those fellows don't take kindly to being messed with.

In addition to getting sick, I woke up the next day at the crack of dawn with a terrible hangover headache and lay there thinking that I had gotten what I deserved. Like seriously, if I was on a date with a guy and he brought another girl, well I would probably punch him in the balls. As my guy friend R later said to me while laughing at me, "Maybe next time, you shouldn't bring your boyfriend on a date."

Not being totally evil, I did (do) feel bad about the whole crushing of Leprechaun's soul and all, so I sent him a casual but apologetic text saying that I was sorry the evening had been awkward and perhaps we shouldn't have had multiple parties present. Unsurprisingly, I did not get a response and really don't expect to any time ever.

All in all, it wasn't my best performance, but at least I didn't get my gold stolen by a little bearded man wearing green.

And in case you were keeping score, it's now eHarmony: 3, Me: 0.

F is for Feminism

Anyone that knows me at all knows that I spend an unhealthy amount of time watching Bravo programming. And I noticed recently that almost all of the women in these shows, from the vapid housewives in The Real Housewives of Orange County to industry women I really actually admire like Kelly Cutrone and Rachel Zoe are constantly fretting about whether they are making the right decisions when it comes to prioritizing their careers and their family lives.

I watch this recurring story play out in various shows time and time again: Rachel Zoe doesn't have children and stresses over her career so much she's not sure she'll ever be able to fit kids in, even though she wants them, because as is she doesn't spend enough time with her husband. Kelly Cutrone, a single mom, has to make work sacrifices to make sure she picks up her daughter every day from school. Kelly Bensimon worries about the psychological toll that her posing in Playboy will have on her daughters. (Ok that one wasn't really a dilemma. Just keep your boobs covered you hussy!)

In college, I was a hardcore feminist. I took it so far that I minored in Women and Gender Studies and took any occasion I could to rant about how the definition of feminism is that women and men should be treated equally and that you don't have to be a crazy "Fem Nazi" to believe that.

Well, now that I'm older, I think that feminism has royally fucked over my generation.

We were fed this idea that we could be and do anything that we wanted, that it was possible to have a successful career, get dinner on the table, and then put on something sexy for the perfect husband after the kids were asleep.

Which is, frankly, a load of horse shit.

Every girl that I know has had that life-altering dilemma to face: do I focus on my career and make it up the corporate ladder or do I try to have a family. And in many cases, it's one or the other: doing both isn't an option.

I have oscillated between the two. At some point I thought I would rather be a wife and mom and then subsequently decided that my career was my priority, no matter the detriment to my social life and relationships. And now I have settled somewhere in the middle. I want to have a fulfilling career and someday be a mom, but am aware that by doing both, I will be doing neither to my greatest capability.

There is no way to have it all it seems.

Yes, I think it is possible to have a career and to have a family. It has been done before and millions of awesome women continue to do it every day. However, I think there is inevitably a certain amount of guilt that comes with doing both, whether it's because you missed picking up the kids from school because of work, or you couldn't get that promotion because you had a family life.

What I resent is the expectation that a woman is supposed to be Superwoman, that she can do both at the same time. No matter what anyone says, men are not held to that high standard yet. As long as they can provide for their families and have a degree of success in their work-life, they are still considered winners.

As I get older, I can feel not only my biological clock starting to tick, but the consequences of whatever decision I make starting to resonate with me. Only time will tell if I my friends and I will be able to pull off the balancing tightrope of managing a career and children, all while having some semblance of a personal life.

Or I can find an awesomely hot, intelligent man who is so secure in himself he would like to devote his life to being a stay-at-home dad. Let him cart the kids around to soccer practice, make me dinner, and then put something sexy on for me! A girl can only dream...

Boys With Girlfriends

I am having a string of bad luck where I keep meeting guys that have girlfriends. It's an age-old story: Girl meets guy that she thinks is a potential future husband. Guy mentions he has a girlfriend. Girl curses the heavens asking why the hell all the good ones are already taken.

My friend J in California has a roommate he has been trying to set me up with for forever, except for the fact that they live 3,000 miles away from me. But as a joke, Cali Boy and I would always kid around about getting together if I ever got out there. We talked on the phone multiple times and one night when I was feeling blue, he even sent me a picture of his ass to make me laugh and cheer me up.

This has been going on for about five years, so I was pretty excited to meet him in person. And in addition to being a nice guy, he is quite possibly the most adorable human being I have ever met. He is really cute, kind of nerdy, successful, funny, smart, and knows how to have a good time. Basically, he would be my soul mate if I believed in such things.

But, of course, by the time I made it out to California to visit, he had found himself a girlfriend. They've only been together two months, but they're serious enough that they are going on a trip to Germany together soon (so he can race and buy a BMW, could he be any more awesome?). She seems perfectly nice and whatnot, but really she's just getting in the way of me being with my perfect man.

So now, all I can really do is wait for them to break up and for him to decide to move to Manhattan to be with me. Hey, you never know, it could totally happen!

Then, closely following this heartbreaking tragedy, I went to a barbeque with my friend A to see some of her friends from high school. And the host, Roadie, turned out to be a very cute, successful guy with an amazing apartment and a puppy (two things that independently would be enough for me to date him, so together are astronomically more powerful).

Within an hour of meeting me, he turned to me and said, "So do you have a boyfriend? Because you're really hot so I don't know how you could be single."

Completely thrown off by the question, I blushed and said, "No, and that was really awkward."

He then proceeded to tease me about my discomfort with the question, but when I turned it back on him, he admitted that he has a girlfriend who he has been with for two and a half years and is moving to New York soon to be with him.

Now, I am not one of those girls who thinks guys are more attractive when they are taken. Usually, once a guy reveals that he is taken, he becomes invisible to me. As in later someone will mention him and ask if I remember him and all I recall is empty space where he was standing.

To my knowledge, I have only homewrecked once. It was six years ago, when I was a senior in college, and I met and started hooking up with a guy who had a girlfriend of seven years (that's right, SEVEN years).

They were doing the long-distance thing, and he broke up with her shortly after we became an item. Him and I actually ended up dating for a few months despite the fact that he was a total and utter moron. (In my defense, he had blue eyes AND played soccer and is now at one of the best medical schools in the country studying to be a brain surgeon.)

And honestly, I did feel really guilty about the whole thing. I was convinced for a little while that it would give me bad dating karma for the next seven years (apparently in my mind hooking up with a guy with a girlfriend has a penalty the same length of time as breaking a mirror).

But he ended up moving on and is currently dating someone else entirely, which eased my soul slightly and perhaps lessened my bad karma sentence by a few years.

So, back to my story, when Roadie revealed that he had a girlfriend, I mentally moved him from the "someone I would date" category into the friend zone. He continued to be very flirtatious, though, and kept joking that we were going to get married and referring to me as his "fiance."

A few hours of day-drinking later, he tried to have a serious conversation with me by starting, "So, if I didn't have a girlfriend, would you go out with me? Because I've been thinking about it, and I think on our first date I would come pick you up, take you to this Japanese restaurant that would blow your mind, and then walk you home. I wouldn't even try to get in the front door because I like and respect you that much."

I told him no, that it was a sweet offer, but I don't date guys with girlfriends.

And he looked into my eyes with his pretty blue eyes and said, "But you have to admit, there's something between us. There's chemistry there. I think you are a beautiful girl, inside and out. And I'd just like to get to know you better and hang out. I'm so glad that you came today and I got to meet you."

To my credit, I held strong to my resolve and told him that I don't think it's a great idea for us to hang out together. Which didn't stop me from giving him my phone number, but hey, I'm still human. And I still wouldn't go out with him if he asked. I swear!

Later, on the walk home, A asked me if I would ever consider dating Roadie because he's a really good guy and is questioning his commitment to his relationship, versus being a complete out-and-out scumbag.

I told her that I might consider it if he was single, but that was irrelevant so it wasn't even worth pondering to begin with.

So twice in a week I met someone with dating potential only to have the universe shut me down and reiterate that all the good guys in my age range are already taken by girls that snatched them up earlier.

Damn you, Universe!

The Epic Saga of a Giant Donut

So I know what you're thinking (and by you, I mean A). You saw the title and you thought to yourself, "Oh no Stinger's life has sunk to such lows that she has utterly nothing to write about, so she's going to tell the story about a giant donut."

Well, worry not, Fair Reader, because my life may be boring but the story about the giant donut is nothing short of legen - wait for it, I hope you're not lactose intolerant because the last part is - DARY. That's right.

Months ago in Puerto Rico, my sister and I were sharing a room and watching Man Vs. Food, an awesome show on the Travel Channel where this guy Adam Richman goes around trying to beat food challenges (this was the direct catalyst for my New Year's Resolution to succeed in at least one food challenge this year). Two amazing things came out of this mini-marathon of watching Adam take on 10-pound pizzas and wings so spicy they cause heart attacks.

First of all, little sister E found her future spouse, Greg Moomsie aka the Great Moomsie, The Great Moomsie is a skinny little shit of a guy who manages to consume massive amounts of food for a living. And there is something about this that my sister finds to be totally sexy. So Moomsie, if you're reading this, feel free to give little E a call because she is just waiting to binge at the Chicken Shack with you.

The second most awesome thing was we started our hunt for a giant donut. In the Austin episode, Adam visits this bakery famous for its donuts and they make a giant donut that's two feet wide and requires a bucket to make the imprint in the dough. And it looked delicious. So E and I just turned to each there and simultaneously said, "We. Need. Giant. Donut."

We searched all over NY for a giant donut but couldn't find anywhere that made them and even found a Yelp posting from someone in Ohio titled, "HELP! NEED GIANT DONUT!" It seems there is a network of people out there looking for oversized delicious pastries, and now, E and I are proud members.

So fast forward a few months and E and I were researching places we could go in California while I was visiting out there. E found a posting on Yelp for a bakery that makes giant donuts and we started scheduling our days around it. Bob's Donut & Pastry Shop does in fact make giant donuts, either glazed or maple-glazed. And they're open 24-hours a day to satiate your giant donut cravings, even at 4AM!

We got the maple-glazed, because it seemed more special, and it was absolutely delicious. You'd think a giant donut would be too doughy in the middle or too hard on the outside, or the bread to glaze ratio wuld be too low, but I am telling you it is perfect. It's so soft it melts in your mouth and might possibly be my new favorite dessert. From now on when I have people over, I'm going to order one and say, "Would you care for some dessert? I can offer you a slice off this giant donut."

When we were leaving Bob's, we saw a guy order a regular donut to which E scoffed, "Oh look at you buying your regular-sized donut when you could've gotten a giant donut. What a sucker!" We thought it would be great to stand outside the shop and heckle the people that bought regular-sized pastries like, "Oh pshaw! A cruller?! What's wrong with you - there are GIANT DONUTS in there!"

We chronicled the giant donut with a photo.



Anyways, you would think that would be the end of the giant donut adventure, but no, there is more.

When I got back to New York, the parents and I went to dinner at Per Se for my mother's birthday and I recounted the story for them.

My father, in typical my father fashion, looked confused and said, "But why would you want a giant donut?"

To which I obviously replied, "Um, why WOULDN'T you?"

Unfortunately, during this exchange the very hot waiter was nearby and he wandered over and said, "Did I just hear someone say giant donut?"

I explained, "Yes, you heard correctly. I went to California last week and my sister and I bought a giant donut the size of my face. It was awesome."

He laughed and asked if we finished it and I told him unfortunately, we did not.

Half an hour later, he came by to pour our wine and told me, "So I told the chef about your giant donut and he laughed and said it's great. He's very impressed."

Thinking the chef was some unknown but hardworking sous chef who I didn't care about, I was amused but didn't think much of it.

Two hours and eleven courses later (yes, it was the longest dinner ever), our desserts came out and the waiter brought us special extra desserts: coffee and donuts. "The chef specially made these for you because of your love of giant donuts!" he said. "I'm sorry, these are regular-sized donuts, but I hope they're acceptable. I know you usually like the giant ones."

First of all, that's what she said. Secondly, the donut was delicious.

Thirdly, the waiter asked if we'd like to meet the chef and take a tour of the kitchen, which we did. And we walked into the kitchen to see this guy:


Thomas. Keller.

Now unless you're a giant food nerd like me, or you just spend a lot of time watching the Food Network, you probably have no idea who he is. But per his Wikipedia page, Thomas Keller has "won multiple awards from the James Beard Foundation, notably the Best California Chef in 1996, and the Best Chef in America in 1997. The restaurant is a perennial winner in the annual Restaurant Magazine list of the Top 50 Restaurants of the World....He is the only American chef to have been awarded simultaneous Michelin stars for two different restaurants."

In other words, if the world of French epicurial arts were a terrorist organization threatening American soil, Thomas Keller would be Jack Bauer. He kicks French culinary ass. He is a legend among chefs. Plus he was in the Pixar movie Ratatouille:



So totally giddy, like a teenage girl in the 80s meeting Scott Baio, I shook his hand, told him what a huge fan I am, and thanked him for his donut. Walking out of the kitchen, I realized what an enormous fool I had made out of myself and for the rest of my days, I will now be known to him as "the giant donut girl."

I may never live down the shame, but at least I can tell people that one of the greatest chefs in the world, Thomas Keller, made me a regular-sized donut.

I Heart NY

So I recently had a close call. I came thisclose to leaving New York. For good. I got accepted into my dream school in California and last week I flew out there to visit and contemplate the big move west. And although the weather was lovely and I had a great time with my sister and my friend J and a delicious giant donut, it hit me at some point that I couldn't possibly live there, at least not long-term.

The main problem is that I'm spoiled. Living in New York means that I have everything I could ever want right outside my apartment. I probably should've moved to California right after college, and then worked my way up to Manhattan, but now that I'm used to this, there really is nowhere else to go. So I guess, for better or worse, I am going to be here for a long time.

I am not putting down my friends that live in other cities at all. For each person, home means an entirely different thing. And for me, I need a city that is always exciting, where there are thousands of possibilities and you can never be bored. Even though there are times where that can be draining, just thinking about the possibility of leaving got me really contemplative about the time I have spent here, and what the past five yeas of my life have looked like.

I remember moving into my first apartment, a studio on the Upper East Side, full of equal parts terror and elation. And even though none of it was what I expected and it wasn’t at all how I thought my life would turn out, I loved (almost) every minute of it. I grew up here, learned how to fend for myself, learned that being a grownup doesn’t just entail paying rent, eating whatever you want, and having the freedom to stay out all night.

I found out that Manhattan life isn’t the glamorous, shiny depiction Sex and the City makes it out to be, but that it IS an endless party and there is no other city that can compare. I’ve roamed the streets all hours of the night and early morning and taken solace in the fact that there are always other people doing the same, that this city is an alive, pulsating organism that is constantly changing and always exciting.

For the past five years, and what now feels like forever, this city has been my home. That is no small feat considering I spent the majority of my childhood and teenage years moving around, so in many ways, this is the first place I have ever felt that way about. Every time my train has pulled into Grand Central Station, or my plane has touched down on the JFK tarmac, I have felt the flooding of relief flow through my body with the knowledge that I am home again.

If I could boil down my five years down to a mental scrapbook of memories, it would consist of:

1) The night R and S and I crashed a bachelor party and then stayed out all night taking tequila shots and playing beer pong at these random guys’ apartment

2) The first date M and I went on at Momofuku and Bar Jamon and when he finally kissed me and everything changed

3) The hilarious conversations I had over family dinners where my father would dish out non sequitors like his desire to be a gangsta and the fact that he goes to strip clubs

4) The way the city smells when the seasons change and I could just walk outside and know that it was officially spring

5) The night I met A when we started out with beergaritas and ended up having a dance party at Bull’s Head until 5AM

6) That perfect autumn day we spent the entire day at Central Park walking around and watching the monkeys at the zoo

7) The nights I went out with my little sister when she finally turned 21, even the one where she tried to serve me champagne that smelled like feet

8) Speaking of champagne, the Champain Tuesday at Superdive where we had a turf war at the bar and S tried to break a guy's hand and I actually broke my foot

9) Multiple trips out of town, all adventures in their own right, and some of them validation that I live in the best city in the world. Highlights include the weekend in Miami where R and I did nothing but sit out by the pool and party (oh, and I almost died while snorkeling). And of course the road trip up to Martha’s Vineyard where S and I drove T crazy by playing Miley Cyrus nonstop, we crashed a wedding reception at the Holiday Inn in Falmouth, and spent the weekend eating clam chowder and doing jigsaw puzzles

10) Walking home to my apartment in the middle of the night, full of excitement and anticipation because I had just had the world’s perfect first kiss

And that’s not even counting the best nights, the nights when my friends and I would just sit around in someone’s apartment, drinking wine and making each other laugh so hard that it physically hurt.

So thank goodness I am not leaving, because I couldn't even imagine the adventures that I would miss out on with my besties in the years to come!

A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times: It is a beautiful catastrophe.

- Le Corbusier

The eHarmony Experiment

I'm participating in what I like to call a social experiment, but the rest of the population refers to as eHarmony.

I haven't been going out as much as I usually do, mostly due to the fact that it's winter and cold out and given the option of bundling up in multiple layers and standing outside in freezing temperatures to hail a cab, I'd much rather just stay in my heated apartment and watch reruns of House.

Therefore, as a way to make up for the time I'm not spending in bars, and in an attempt to find some writing material, I signed up for eHarmony.

The questionnaire, which I had attempted before and given up on, took literally two days for me to get to. And unfortunately, that was the high point of the experience thus far.

My matches were beyond awful. I mean terrible. Bald. Old. Fat. Jersey. You name it, I was NOT getting the cream of the crop. And what's even worse is that they were rejecting me. On eHarmony, when you are matched up with someone you and him both have the option to close the match, as in, "Sorry I am not interested in you."

And before I was even getting the opportunity to, these guys were closing the match on me! If I had gone into this with any actual optimism or less confidence in myself, well I would've killed myself. It's actually painful to find out that John, 35, bald and overweight, in Jersey City, has deemed me not worthy of dating.

So the first guy I had any communication with turned out to be Sal, 27, Lawyer, Brooklyn. He wrote me an e-mail and even though he was much shorter than my minimum (5'8", usually my minimum is 5'10"), I wrote him back because he seemed really nice.

After the usual exchange of standard information (what we do, where we live, where we're from), I asked him where he went to college.

And it turns out that he not only went to my alma mater, he also graduated in my year. I did not go to a very large school; there were only about 1,000 in my graduating class, so that narrowed it down quite a bit.

I freaked out and then looked him up on Facebook, checked out our mutual friends, and vaguely remembered him being in the vicinity throughout my college years. There was nothing specifically wrong with him. He was just, well short, and kind of blah, and only so-so looking. And since I thought I was hot shit in college, I never gave him a second glance.

So basically, I am being matched up with people I deemed unworthy of dating five years ago. My friend T, when I told him this, just laughed at me and said I should get used to it because male stock rises as they age, and female stock plummets. "Face it," he said, "You're going down with every year. Better snatch this guy up while you still can before he climbs out of your league!"

Wise words from T...

The next guy that wrote me on eHarmony was Brian, 32, Lawyer, Queens. (Why are there so many lawyers on eHarmony btw?) His e-mail was actually very interesting, full of experiences from his travels and his interests. He plays the guitar, cooks, travels, has a job, all the general good-on-paper qualities that one looks for in a companion.

So after a few e-mails back and forth, I agreed to meet him for drinks. We went to a bar and I was really nervous given that it was my first eHarmony blind date. It turned out that he was a perfectly nice guy and we actually talked for a few hours, but I could tell within the first ten minutes that I just wasn't attracted to him. And as much as I tried (more beer, squinting, tuning him out when he talked), I couldn't really change that.

He insisted on walking me home, which made for a super awkward door moment when he tried to kiss me, and I ducked. Struggling for something to diffuse the situation, I said, "Sorry, I have a policy of not kissing on the first date."

Later, when I recounted this to my friends, my friend R said, "Oh wow, that's cold. I guess he doesn't know that you usually put out on the first date." Even my little sister burst out laughing. I am pretty sure my friends are telling me indirectly that I am a giant ho-bag, but I will gloss over this for now.

So, after accepting my excuse that I don't kiss on the first date (What am I, Mormon?), he e-mailed me first thing the next day saying he had a great time and wanted to go out again. I told him I was going out of town to buy myself a week to figure out how to proceed. And then after a week, I sent him an e-mail that he's a really nice guy, but I just wanted to be friends.

He wrote back saying that he definitely wants to be friends, so we made plans to go out for drinks the following week. Having an inkling that things might be weird, I invited my friend S to come along as backup, and she brought her boy toy, so my plan ended up backfiring because it resembled a double date.

Thus, I resorted to my back-up plan, and to make it utterly clear that I just want to be friends and have no interest in dating him, S and I started discussing the various bartenders that I find to be really hot and the guy that I'm currently seeing.

I made my point so much that when eHarmony got up to go to the bathroom, S's boy toy looked at me and said, "So you're not interested in dating this guy, right? Because you've been talking about other guys non-stop. At first I thought you guys were on a date, and I felt so sorry for him. But I gather that's not the case. Poor guy."

A few beers later, we all left together and I said goodbye to S and boy toy and hailed myself a cab. I turned around to say good night to eHarmony when he jumped into the cab without my permission.

Me: Um, where are you going?

eHarmony: To the subway, but I'll drop you off at home first.

Me: But I live all the way across town and the subway is right here.

eHarmony: It's ok.

Me: But...I'm actually not going home...

eHarmony: Oh, where are you going?

Me: I'm going to go meet someone...

Pause.

eHarmony: Oh I see. Well I'll just get out there.

Yep, that's right. He basically rode a cab with me to let me go hook up with another guy. Totally humiliating for him and awkward (and slightly whorish) for me.

Needless to say, I haven't heard from eHarmony recently.

In my defense, I did make it clear in every way that I know how that I am not interested in dating him. I sent him an e-mail saying I wanted to be friends. He acknowledged and responded to the e-mail, agreeing to be friends. Then I talked about other guys I AM attracted to in front of him.

And after all this, he thought that if he just climbed into a cab with me and took me to my apartment after two beers, I might change my mind? Just because he was there? Or maybe he thought I'd be easier than before and put out anyway? Either way, it didn't really work out in his favor.

The eHarmony experiment ends at the end of this month, after which I am cancelling my subscription. To anyone truly looking for a relationship, I wouldn't recommend eHarmony just because of the sheer volume of crappy dudes and the lack of anyone that remotely resembles someone worth dating.

But if you are looking to be amused and to meet guys that are nice, good on paper, and generally blah, well then, you are in the right place!