a question of merit

ok, today’s question.

 I find it hard, as do many people, to talk about myself. Ha Ha, i can hear you now, but actually what i mean, is that it’s hard to sell yourself. So with that being said.. this is an auction.. get to selling.. here’s the question:

 If you are single: Without using the terms laid back, loyal, friendly,easy going, genuine or fun; why should someone date you?

If you are married: Without using the terms laid back, loyal, friendly,easy going, genuine or fun; why does your partner love you? Should be fun!

New logo

Special thanks to Mikey D. for the new logo!  The book is also progressing, more clips to come.

the question of shoes

Ladies: Do Shoes on a first date actually make a difference.

if you are long married or in a relationship.. think back, or here is a great chance to fantasize without guilt..lmao.

A question

All things being equal ( if you make out like there is any difference i’ll delete your answer):

Who falls in love harder or deeper. Men or Women. I have what i think, but i’m curious. No infidelity talk, no looking at other people talk. The idea is if a woman is in love with a man completely ; does she fall harder or softer than a man in the EXACT same space.

I’ve been called worse.. I think

 

             I was cruising online one evening and came across a startlingly attractive red head.  She had a great profile, with no shortage of sexual innuendo. She was thirty five, tall and very fit, just my type!  She had five or six pictures and all of them were quite striking, so like a good little horn dog I decided to message her and lay on some fine smooth lyrics. (Translation: I wrote some gibberish that I thought might make her laugh, but hoped would give her a good case of the screaming thigh sweats to boot)

To my delight she responded in kind, and we were off to the races.

The messages got pretty heated and we decided that it would be in our mutual best interests to explore this new found carnal symbiosis.  She called me, and we had a great first conversation.  There was plenty of flirting, and frankly it got downright filthy pretty quickly.  We decide that dinner and drinks were in order so we made a date.

I picked her up at her place and we went around the corner to a nice little Italian restaurant.  She was lovely and not in the last bit shy.  We had an amazing conversation and ended up spending far longer than either of us had intended to.  As the pace was closing down, we walked out and she invited me to her place for a drink.

She shared her apartment with a roommate, and explained that he would probably be there and that she hoped I didn’t mind.  No problem, I’m good with people, and roommates can be bribed if needed.  We walked in and two things struck me very quickly.  The first was that there were 5 cats.  Five!  I’m allergic to cats, so this was immediately a bit of an issue, but I sucked it up and just tried not to touch them.  The second quirk was the rather large amount of religious artwork in the apartment.  I’m not talking about a crucifix over the door etc, but rather large Jesus paintings in the hall and a full on rapture in the living room.  I made a mental note, and proceeded on with the evening.

We had a few drinks, I chatted with the roommate, who was actually pretty cool, and we ended our evening.  I went home, curious and a little pleased with how the whole thing had gone.

The next afternoon she called me and asked if I was busy.  I replied that I wasn’t and she suggested that she drive out my place and we could go catch a movie.  This seemed like a damn fine idea.. I have no roommates after all.

We enjoyed the movie and headed back to my place for drinks.  Things got pretty heated pretty fast and soon we were doing things that are probably illegal in most of the continental United States (thank God I live in Canada).  We collapsed in my bed after a few hours of “getting to know each other”, and fell asleep.

The next morning I awoke to a strange sound.  I looked over and she was nowhere to be found, but I could hear rampant talking downstairs.  I grabbed some clothes, and headed down.  What I found was beyond a little strange.

She was sitting, cross legged on the floor of my living room.  There were five or six large posters of Jesus spread out on my floor and she was crying.  She had begun to rock back and forth and was muttering something under her breath.

This sooooo cannot be good.  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as she turned and looked at me with a not so subtle amount of fury.

“ I have walked around your house, Jesus does not live here”  Now this is true, I live with my dog and her name is not Jesus, but I thought that maybe this was not the time for a witty response.

“ you have defiled me, you have made me dirty”  I wasn’t going to argue with her at this point, though I was pretty convinced that she was a bit more experienced in this area than she was willing to admit at this moment.

“ What kind of a man, would take a twenty year old woman into his home and commit such acts upon her in a house that Jesus has not blessed” 

Fuck to the what?

“ umm… who here is twenty years old” I foolishly asked, wondering if I still had put away all the sharp objects in the house.  The look on her face was becoming less than attractive and I swear there is more spittle flying than words. 

“Your profile said thirty five, and it’s not like you were complaining last night.”  Sometimes, maybe, I should just not speak.

She got up, grabbed all her posters, and stuffed them into her bag.  She proclaimed that she was a member of the “church of the collected lunatics” or something like that and marched towards my door.  As she opened it with some remarkable ferocity she looked at me and said

“You are a walking sin”  and slammed the door.

I made a mental note to have that tattooed on me somewhere at some point and went back to bed.

Fuck I love being single, you get to meet such interesting people.

Kill me.

(c)2010 Adam Taylor

Keep ‘em on the quarters

 

When I very first started dating I set my age parameters quite tightly.  I was 35, and figured that I had a few years left to start a family etc and really was aiming for close to my age or younger.  Now before all the women who are reading this roll their eyes and get all self righteous, let me explain.  I had been in a relationship with no children.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted some of my own, but I knew that meeting someone with late teenagers was not something I was ready for.  All that being said.. I stopped my top end at age 39.

I had joined a new dating site, and was getting bombarded by messages from every freak on the planet.  This is the usual practice.  It’s a bit like going to prison, I suppose.  You’re the new fish and everyone wants a taste.. I know better now, but then.. not so much.

 On this site, I was getting a lot of messages from women in their 40s.  I wasn’t really paying too much attention until one in particular.  The only reason this caught my attention was how insistent she was.  She started off by demanding to know why I was limiting my age range to under 40, and if I had ever been with anyone older.  At first I just ignored it, but, being new and foolish, I eventually answered. I replied that, yes, my ex was 2 years older than I was, but I had my reasons for my limit on age.

“Well women in their 40s can be fit and sexy too you know”  she replied.  Now, I know this to be very true as I have since met and dated some staggeringly beautiful women who are in their early 40’s , but I was skeptical at the time.

I replied that I was very fit, and really wanted someone who had the same physicality, and outlook on life that I had, and that if that was her; then age made no difference”

She replied that she was so sure that she was exactly what I was looking for; she would buy me a drink.  I’m English.. free beer?.. you’re on!

She had 3 pictures up.. she was skiing, she was sitting behind a table with her friends, and one was a face shot.  Cute, not gonna make me cross the street, but.. what the hell.  She’s so insistent that she’s going to change my outlook on dating; how can I go wrong.  I swear I was just an idiot back then.. really, I hardly know who I was.

We spoke on the phone briefly, and agreed to meet at a restaurant in the city.  She told me more about how she preferred to date athletes and had been engaged to a hockey player when she was younger. That she had two kids who were both playing hockey at a high level so she understood what it took to be concerned with diet and exercise.  This is good.  I’m no pro athlete by any stretch, but I’d like to be with someone who understands what it takes to stay in shape and has the patience for it.  I’m more intrigued.

When I arrive at the restaurant, I wait in the bar for her to arrive.  I look over at the front door, and a woman in a bright orange ski jacket walks in, she’s wearing blue lycra pants, and a moose sweater.  My mind does a quick giggle, and wonders who thinks this looks good?  Apparently: my date.

I cannot explain what emotions went through my body when she comes over and says” Hi Adam!”

Now on the best of days I can’t imagine what it takes to pull a moose sweater over your head and declare “ damn I look fine!” let alone on a ….DATE!!!!!!  A date with a guy you are trying to convince to look at women your age. 

We sit down at a table and I’m just bordering on having a stroke.  She really looks far too much like my mom now for comfort.  Oh my God.. What am I going to say to this woman who is looking at me expectantly, seeming to be saying “ See, look what you could have”

We begin to talk, and the waitress brings our drinks.  She regales me with stories of being a hockey mom, of how she loves her new SUV because her son keeps moving back home and can never afford a moving truck. 

All the while, I swear the moose on her sweater is getting bigger, and the stars are actually made of glitter ( did I not mention the stars?).

Then; it happens.  She explains it’s been a long drive, and she really must use the bathroom. As she stands up, her stomach hits the table and spills the drinks a little.  The stomach is tightly wrapped in those lycra pants which, I now note, are hiked up to what I can only imagine is four inches above her naval.  This is not an athletic stomach either. It’s more of a “front butt”.

I watch as she walks off, her pants swishing together with that sound that flashes me back to my snow pants when I was six. 

Under the glittering stars, the moose laughs in the distance.

 (c)2010 Adam Taylor

Don’t break my heart… or my smack habit

 

The promise of intellectual conversation is actually very tempting to me.  I have been suckered into many situations where there is no chemistry on a physical level, but loads of great conversation.  I never regret these, as they are a welcome change from the typical “I’d rather have a conversation with a block of cheese” dates I had been going out with. They do, however, have a bad habit of ending up with an unhappy young lady who is disappointed that I don’t wish to continue the conversation over breakfast.

 This is not an egotistical statement by any means, trust me.  I have had my fair share of “she’s just not into you” moments, and you learn quickly when to figure those out, and move on.  I have found though, that women like a man who has at least something to say and it can occasionally lead to the inevitable “it was a great time, and I really enjoyed talking, but I don’t feel any chemistry” conversation.

One particularly dull, but sunny Friday afternoon, I was sitting alone and feeling really quite bored.  I had been on a few dates the week before, but nothing to write home (or here for that matter) about.  I popped onto one of my chosen online dating sites, and shuffled through the catalogue.  Slim pickings that ay, if I recall, because this one profile struck me immediately.

She was a petite little brunette, with a sweet face, big eyes, and a remarkably well written profile.  Hmmmm, maybe a brain?  She was a music writer for a local indie mag, and also a freelance entertainment writer.  She had links to various articles, and she really was quite good.  She had 3 pictures up, and all seemed very nice.. ( I had learned well from the grape) so I decided to say hello.

Now, there are rules to writing the first letter on a dating site, and we’ll get into those in a later chapter, but needless to say, since she seemed smart and cute; I was going to follow them to the letter.  My greeting was short, to the point, and devoid of anything other that the equivalent of a handshake.  I pressed send, and closed the page down.

About an hour later, I came back to my computer to find that she had replied.  I sat down and was a little taken aback by the response.

“I’ve seen you around, and I think I know where you live, of course I’d like to chat”

A few minor alarms started to go off.  Knowing where I live is a little disturbing. I have seen people in the neighborhood around and often run into them at the gym or the grocery store; but I don’t think I know where any of them live, nor have I ever made a mental note of it.

I replied “ Umm, why would you know where I live?”

I sent the message and decided to wait and see how quickly she replied.  It’s not a great indicator, but it’s a fairly accurate one when it comes to either stalker mentality, or enthusiasm. If the respondent is sitting online each time you end a message it can be a mixed bag.  Yes I am aware that I was doing the same thing, and the irony is not lost on me.. shut up.

She replied right away that she takes the bus to the grocery store near me and has seen me a few times.  It still didn’t explain why she knew where I lived, but I let it go.  We agreed to meet for an afternoon coffee at a Starbucks in a few hours.  She explained she had an article to finish and that then, it being a Friday and if things went well, she had no plans for the evening either.  Cool.

I arrive at the Starbucsk a few minutes early and wander into the  Chapters bookstore next door.  I’m a bookaholic, so I’m quite content to peruse through the weekly deals in order to kill some time.  A very attractive brunette walks in and my radar goes off like mad.  Good lord, she is really something……… but it’s not her. Dammit!

As I’m about to leave the bookstore a rather anemic little redhead with short spiky hair comes up to me and asks “ are you Adam?”

Once again, my poker face prevails and I reply that I am.   She smiles, and says her name and that she’s so pleased to meet me and is glad to see that I like books too.  I’m panicking inside.  How did I end up here again?  She looks nothing like her pics, I mean not even close.  She’s maybe five foot three, a hundred pounds if I strapped 50lbs on her back, a red head with short spikey hair, and she’s… fidgety.

I suggest that we go sit down, and have a coffee. This going to be quick.  I have a new strategy for getting out of bad dates fast, and I put in motion.  This is a trade secret, which I will divulge later on in the book; let’s just say it works brilliantly.  We order coffee, and then sit down.  This is when the whole world went to shit… fast, and with remarkable ferocity.

We start to talk a bit, and I am noticing more and more, that she is fidgety, and can’t quite sit still.  It’s not in that sweet shy way many women have, but in a “there’s something crawling up my ass and nesting” kind of way that kids have when they need to use the bathroom.  I can’t help but to ask her if she’s alright.  It’s at this moment that I notice that her eyes are  glazing over.

She looks me dead in the eye…..

Puts down her coffee…….

And says…

“Don’t break my heart”  and passes out on the table.

Please understand what I mean by pass out.  I mean; head hits table with startling speed, eyes roll back, tongue is out, drool flies, “oh my god she’s dead” kind of pass out.  To add to this, she doesn’t appear to be breathing.  AWESOME!

I reach over and turn her head to see if she’s , you know, slipped off this mortal coil, and she appears to be breathing all be it with a bit of effort.  I pick her up and lay her on the table, get the terrified 12 year old behind the counter to call 911, and use all that wonderful CPR stuff I learned to make sure this doesn’t end up on the front page of the paper.

The paramedics arrive with amazing speed, as does the now ever increasing crowd.  This sooooooooo much fun.. just kill me.

I feel a little guilty about the thoughts that went through my head in the next few minutes because all that I can think of is that they think I’ve killed this woman.  Omg.. omg..arrgh.  Thank goodness for the woman next to me who comes over and says “they were sitting having coffee and she just passed out” though why she was paying that much attention to my conversation I don’t know.

The paramedics come over ad do what ever it is that they do, and then one of them comes over to me.

“Good job with the cpr man, can I ask u some questions?” 

I am dreading this, not because I don’t have answers, but because I am suddenly picturing my trial…lol

I answer his questions:

“How well do you know her” – barely

“Is she on drugs” – no idea

“Where did u meet” – here

“Does she have a pre-existing medical condition?” – I have no idea

“Are you a contact?” – Hell no

The whisk her off, in on a stretcher, and I sit down.  I need a drink and I don’t think a decaf latte is gonna cut it.  I just decide to go home.  I hate dating.

The next afternoon, I get a message from her on the dating site.  I am now just curious so I go and read it.

“What happened?  I woke up at 3 am in the hospital” she writes.

“You tell me” I reply

And then; the reply that has stuck with me ever since.. It’s a back handed compliment I think… that’s how I’m gonna take it because otherwise I may need therapy.

“ I was really nervous to meet you, I don’t usually date good looking men, so I did a bit of a speedball. I guess I did too much.”

WHAT?????

Oh, for those who don’t know Urbandictionary.com defines a speedball as follows: The combination of the narcotic heroin and stimulant cocaine mixed together and injected together in a single shot. When administered IV, the speedball produces the best rush/high in the world of drugs and is the most deadly of procedures as far as getting loaded. Highly addictive.

Block, delete, hide under the bed.

(c)2010 Adam Taylor

The Grape

So I was now single.  It had been 11 years of dedicated bliss, and now I was back in the sea of desperation, despair, and treachery that is the single life…. woot woot!!!  Like most folks now, I immediately turned to the Eaton’s catalogue of humans… Plenty of Fish…aaaahhhhhh

the only thing I can put forward is that I was younger, innocent, and possibly drunk when I began talking to the Grape. She messaged me in the middle of the night, and had a funny profile and a pretty face.  You see, you need to understand something; I have a weakness… eyes… if a woman has amazing eyes; I can be fooled for a little while…lol.  The Grape had a hell of a set of peepers I must say.

We chatted for a bit online, and things were progressing well.  We talked about fitness, life. You know, the usual crap… and we had a pretty good time so we decide tat meeting was probably a good idea… nothing to lose of course.

Let me stop this here for a minute and explain a few things about online dating.  It’s a weird game that has rules.  If you don’t know the rules you can expect to be screwed… and not in the way you would like. 

People put up their best pictures, often doctored to the point that they don’t even marginally look like them.  They create online personas that border on sainthood… but in reality; hide twisted little lives spent in self contemplation and online masturbation.  Well… maybe that’s a bit extreme, Nah… It’s about right
It takes a wise, and astute person to pick up on the trends and subtleties of the online dating world.  I was about to learn a very valuable lesson…..

I prefer woman who are fit, thin, or thin average.  I’m into fitness, and if nothing else it is a matter of lifestyle choice.  This, I think is fairly apparent by my profile, however, at first I tried to be accommodating to everyone.  This is the first lesson I learned…. DON’T!!  It’s like opening the back door to the bakery… everyone will come in and try to taste your cookies.

About a week after we had started speaking, The Grape called me up and suggested meeting for coffee later that evening close to my house.  This is a good sign.  She then proceeded to say the 6 words you never ever want to hear “but, there’s something you should know”

Nowadays this phrase makes my blood run cold.  It implies that the reason you can’t see the other half of her face in her pics might be because her glass eye had rolled under the couch during the photo shoot and there wasn’t enough time to find it.  I, however, was new to this scene; so I felt reasonable in saying “oh, what’s that?”

” I’m not thin, I’m curvy” she says.

I’ll be honest… curvy to me means marayln Monroe, Scarlett johansen etc… This is good. this works for me…I AM AN IDIOT apprently.

So the time comes, and I pull up to the Coffee Time Donuts.  I’m not nervous, but it dawns on me, just as I’m pulling up, that all of her profile pics were of her face… the cold shudder of dread works its way down my spine… dum dum duuuuuuuum.

A black Honda civic pulls up in the parking lot and out steps…. a grape.  I have no other way of describing this woman… she was….. A grape.  Fine, I’ll be more specific.

She was dressed from head to toe in purple.  Not the kind of stylish purple that befits a nice silk dress… I mean Welches Purple.  Purple shirt, legging, hat, shoes, earrings…oh… my… god!

She is also… and I mean this… perfectly round.  It is hard for me now, some 3 years later, to separate her image from that of the fruit of the loom guy… but still… it was damned close.  Curvy really meant: one curve…. allllll the way around.  At best guess, five foot three maybe two hundred pounds.

In purple

in PURPLE!!!!!!!

The first lesson I learned was that I would do well in poker, cuz I kept a straight face… and didn’t run like my life depended on it, but I must have looked vaguely stunned when the first words out of her mouth were. “Oh, how quaint, you wear earrings”

Now I swear this is true… I mean it; I really swear its true… I thought to myself “how quaint, you ate your last boyfriend” but… being a gentleman, I refrained.

So we make our way into the coffee time, and I order a decalf, and sit down.  I’m feeling a little light headed, and nauseous for some reason, but we start talking, however suddenly realize why I’m feeling ill.

I like cologne, I have some very nice ones, and I’m a fan of a woman who knows how to wear perfume. For the rest of my life, however, Davidoff Coolwater will permanently make me gag… sorry.  She was wearing so much of the stuff that I was changing the flavor of my coffee.  No-one ruins my damned coffee!

She continued to explain to me how glad she was to meet someone who cared about their diet as much as she did, and who obviously enjoyed exercise like her.  The guy behind her, who was facing me, gave me a look and laughed… I’m in cologne soaked, purple grape hell.

I cut the date short, politely explained that I had to do something early in the morning and left.  On the way home, I made a mental note:

(for those who are fans… please insert the ” what did we learn on the show tonight Adam” music)

1. Ask for body pics
2. When someone says the fatal six words… just run
3. Dysmorphia is rampant on POF

She called me 4 times in the next week… and I cowered way from the phone… afraid she had plans to eat me.

(c) 2010 Adam Taylor

Sexy Donkeys!!!! It’s me again…

What’s up sexy Donkeys!  So i’ve been writing this book, and posting little bits of it here and there to see what you maniacs think.  So far, we seem to be sympatico, so i’m going to start putting the new snippets up here so that everyone can enjoy them before the book comes out.

Enjoy ’em you bastards!