Tag: Update

Encounter #77.3: Landscaper

Published on by datinglauraLeave a comment

App: Tinder

Name: Ethan*

Date Location: The Farm & Tokens Taproom – Dover, NH

Location Review:  3.5 Stars – Drinks were aight and menu had solid options. Seems more like a family spot during the week.

4.0 Stars – It’s small but, drinks are pretty inexpensive and there’s Mortal Combat.

Date Duration: 16 hours

What Happened:

So. Little bit of a story here.

About a year and a half ago I went out with Ethan. Nice guy, treated me well, cute, and all that good stuff. We just met while I was talking to someone else and after a certain point, it felt shitty talking to 2 people. So before anything got too serious with either party, I picked one.

Well, I chose wrong.

In the time since I ended it with Ethan, I always thought about reaching back out. We had a lot of fun when we were together, I always thought he was cute, and it felt easy. But, I had moved and I figured he would get scooped up fairly quickly so I let it go.

We would snap each other here and there but it picked up into a regular cadence out of nowhere. (Weirdly not long after everything went down with Ian and I took myself out of the game).

I wasn’t looking for anything at that point in time but since I had some history with Ethan, I made an exception. After a few weeks of snapchatting back and forth, I got a text from Ethan and he asked me out on a date.

WHICH BRINGS US HERE

He invited me to come out to his area and tbh I had no idea how it was going to go. I was expecting to spend the night and all that but, who knows? Maybe we just wouldn’t vibe the way we used to.

I met him at his apartment and we had a couple of drinks. It was a little choppy at first but, the groove was setting in and I felt his leg press into mine. We were in business.

We walked down to the restaurant for dinner and kept catching up. Then after dinner, we went to an arcade bar and that’s when things started happening. Up until this point, I really wasn’t sure what the vibe was. I know we went in calling this a date but it had also been a year and a half. Could just be friends. Well, there was trivia that night and we grabbed a table off to the side. We were facing each other and that’s when he put his hands on my knees, touched my legs, and held my hand. It. Was. Happening.

At one point he asked me how long it would take for me to get home and I was vague about it. Wanted to gauge what his angle was. And then he invited me to stay over. It was on.

We held hands on the way back to his apartment and cuddled up on the couch. Then it happened. We kissed. And it was just as good as it was a year earlier.

That kiss quickly became a make out and he asked if I wanted to go upstairs. Here was the thing. I was on my period. So disclosed that nugget and was like, “If you’re down, I’m down. No pressure if it’s not your thing. Plenty of other things we can do“. I saw the gears turning but he wasn’t 100% sold yet. We did need to move though because there was no way his roommate wanted to see us going at it.

We shifted to his room and he gave me clothes to sleep in. We crawled into bed and quickly things started happening and he came out with,

“So period sex. I have never done it. What would it entail?”

“We can go in the shower. Put down a towel. Or, I can take a shit ton of Advil and we can wait an hour to see if the coast is any clearer. Whatever you want to do is fine”.

“Fuck it, I’ll grab a towel”.

And that was the night Ethan went from a boy to a man jk jk. I did appreciate that he went for it. Feel like that’s something that separates the pack.

I do have to say, idk who or what he did in the year we were apart but omg. Ethan had some moves. Choked me a bit. Kinda tossed me around. Just whole different vibe and I was into it.

When we woke up we immediately started cuddling, Ethan was so fucking cute and kept asking me if I had a good time. I didn’t understand why he kept checking and then I remembered I did cut him off out of nowhere last time so that may have had something to do with it.

We kept texting after I left which for me was something kinda new. Normally things go to shit after I fuck someone. For the first time, in a long time, I was happy and couldn’t wait to see him again.

Update: Newsies

Published on by datinglaura3 Comments

Recap: I met a guy at a wedding and we had a spark.

What Happened:

It didn’t work out and I need to take a serious break from dating.

I can’t explain it but, I have this weird ability to identify exact moments where the energy shifts and someone pulls away. This time it happened the day after I saw his new apartment. After that day, the texting was drier than usual.

I tried to not let it get the best of me. We had been texting an awful lot beforehand so it may have just been time for us to chill a bit. As the weeks went on, the quality of texting got a little better and I relaxed a bit.

While I was traveling for work, I drunk-dialed him and asked when I could see his place now that it had decor. He said when I got back. We made plans for that Friday. Everything was good.

I was so excited. Probably way more than I should have been but, I was having a really shitty few weeks, and honestly our date was the one thing getting me through that period. I drove up to NH Thursday night. I was READY.

Well, he canceled the morning of.

His reason was legitimate. He got a steroid injection in his tailbone and was in some pain. Given everything that had been going on that week in my personal life, I was really upset about it. Probably more than I should have been. Just felt like the wind was taken out of my sails.

I offered to hang out with him at home but he didn’t take the bait. What bothered me most was the last time he canceled on me, he called me because if he texted me that he felt like I’d be like “THIS motherfucker” (which is true), so he wanted to reassure me that he wanted to see me, and we found an alternate time.

However, this time it was just a text with no reassurance or attempt to reschedule. Actually, he was going to be in Boston the next day for a concert but made no mention of us seeing each other even though I lived so close. Kinda odd but, whatever.

When he told me about the concert earlier that week, I let him know that he could stay at my place that night if he partied too hard. I didn’t expect him to take me up on it but, the night of he asked if he could stay over. I was out so I gave him my lockbox code.

He couldn’t get in so I Ubered home and everything seemed normal enough. He was drunk and I was still a little peeved from the day before but, the conversation was normal and we ended the night with some hot ass sex. Like really, put it in my top 5 of all time. He was affectionate with me in the morning. And we went on our merry way.

That’s when the next shift happened. The texting got stale and I was trying not to focus on it. But then I didn’t hear from him for over 24 hours from Thursday into that Saturday.

I had to be back in NH for the weekend and was doing a scan of the apps Friday night to see if there were funny ones of people my friends and I knew. And then I saw it. Ian’s profile with the “New Here” tag. Fuck. Me.

I’m a petty bitch so I right-swiped it. Wanted him to know that I knew.

He had some things going on in his personal life that weekend so I did send him a text on Saturday to the effect of, “Thinking of you, you got this, etc.” and he responded back that it meant a lot. I tried starting a conversation with him and it just didn’t go anywhere.

That night, I had a notification that I had a match and sure enough, it was him. So I was petty and sent him a message on Bumble. Sunday morning I woke up to a text.

Yes, I did leave him on read for a bit. There were events going on that day where I did not feel it was appropriate for me to be texting him about whatever the fuck we were doing.

I knew we hadn’t talked about exclusivity but, I did think it was odd he created a profile. Based on our conversations, he was pretty adamantly against the apps.

I just didn’t get wtf I did that caused such a shift. We talked an awful lot and in those conversations, he said things like, “You were a surprise…You’re someone I would take seriously…You’re a great person”, and all that shit. Just didn’t expect him to try to ice me out and ghost.

So wtf did I do that was so bad?

I never meet anyone in person. Most times, it’s my friends getting the attention at the bar while I just dance with some randos in a corner. It’s also been a minute since I’ve been excited about someone. So for me, this situation carried a different weight. Also, we knew the same people so I expected more.

Going into this situation, I knew the risks and the likely outcomes given the timing of us meeting. I was just really hoping I’d be wrong. It’s not that we had this major relationship and that’s why I am so upset. It’s that I genuinely liked him, felt a connection, and thought this time could be different.

I have spent the past several years hearing the same (well-intentioned) shit over and over.

  • “It will happen when you least expect it”
  • “It’s a numbers game”
  • “It’s just around the corner, I know it”

I have been living with “just around the corner” anticipation for a fucking long time and I am exhausted. I’ve put up the numbers and then some. I feel like I’m in this constant cycle of feeling like I can drop my guard and be vulnerable and then it immediately blows up in my face. Once I get a taste of safety, it just implodes and it sucks.

At this point, I can’t confidently say that I won’t meet someone but in that same breath, I can’t confidently say I will either. If I take another person out of the long-term equation, I’m not sure I’m living the life I need to feel fulfilled on my own.

So for now, I need to take a hiatus from dating and from writing so I can grow and heal from 100+ unsuccessful dates. I appreciate all the support over the years and I look forward to one day coming back. Here’s hoping I have something good for ya.

The EMT Zombie: UPDATE

Published on by datinglauraLeave a comment

Name: Gary*

Recap:

Several years ago I passed out and the EMT who came to check on me was quite attractive. So good looking that when I regained consciousness the first thing I blurted out was, “You’re really attractive”. We had a weird flirtation in the month or so after we met, then on and off for about a year or so, and we hadn’t spoken since.

UPDATE:

While being back in NH, my friend and I went to a bar and as girls do, we posted it on our IG stories. Nothing crazy, just a pic of the beer and the location. No tits. Nothing. Boy slid into the DMs with “Hanging out in my city I see“. Hmmm v curious.

I didn’t quite know his life situation so I called his bluff and invited him out with us. After all, the last time I saw him in person I was in the back of an ambulance while I sat in my embarrassment. While we waited for him to make it to the bar we creeped his social media and holy shit, dude was not only married. Gary had a baby on the way. FML.

At that point there was nothing we could do but sit there and wait to see how this shit played out. Gary rolled up and he looked mostly how I remembered him. Gotta be honest, the uniform definitely made him look hotter but he wasn’t terrible in plain clothes. Would equate it to a dog walking on its hind legs. Not bad but definitely different.

He took the seat next to me and we got chatting away. It had been 4 years so we had a lot to catch up on. The whole time though I couldn’t gauge if this was just a friends thing or if it was more than that. At one point my friend got up to go to the bathroom and while she was gone he went in with the, “You look really good by the way. Seriously”…shit. Okay, guess this was more than I thought it was.

When my friend came back he proceeded to tell her the story of how we met and we pinpointed that it happened right when he was in the midst of divorce with his first wife. Then he was bold and segwayed to my relationship status with, “So I remember you were seeing someone awhile back. How did that go?” I SEE YOU GARY. I gave the shortest of short versions and then asked him the same. That was when he finally revealed that he was married and had a baby on the way. Casual.

He left after about an hour or so since he had somewhere to be but, my friend and I were dumbfounded by the whole thing. I didn’t pick up on it but, she noticed that he hid his hand under the table the whole time so we couldn’t see his wedding ring. Whether not not that was intentional, we’ll never really know but it was sus.

Despite me roasting his ass the whole time for his lack of condom use, he still wanted to hang out again and met us at the bar we were at later that day. Nothing happened. The only interesting things were that he occasionally tapped my leg and mentioned I was pretty so I should be able to find a rich guy. Kinda flirtatious but also in theory, that could have been just out of friendship.

TBD, I still have no idea wtf happened. Based on timing though, I will say manifestation is more powerful than we think. Nearly every day that month I had the mantra, “I don’t chase, I attract. What belongs to me will find me” and apparently that meant some married guy with a baby rather than me being married with a baby. Universe, do better.

The Coworker: UPDATE

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Name: Elijah*

Recap:

Elijah and I worked together several years ago and had some kind of connection. I didn’t think too much of it since I wasn’t in a position to act on it and it wasn’t something our workplace really liked.

A year or two ago we caught up when he was in NYC and had the most perfect day. Later, I found out he had a crush on me the entire time we were working together.

When I saw his NYC photos pop up on Instagram, I knew I had to see him again.

Update:

I didn’t know what to expect going in. Last I checked he had a girlfriend but I wasn’t even 100% sure on that. I beat him to the bar so I creeped his ass HARD. Guy was single AF. Like posting things about being a bachelor who can cook.

He walked in and he looked GOOD. He had lost some weight, hair was on point, and his outfit fit perfectly. Holy fuck. We took a spot up against the wall at a table which I was surprised at. It’s oddly romantic to me when a guy sits on the same side rather than across and I was pleasantly surprised.

Conversation was good. We covered our normal catch up stuff and what we were up to. Then, this group of Australians came in and gave us the jolt we needed. The group of us was talking and laughing nonstop and I felt his hand move to my waist. We both moved in closer to each other and the whole thing felt so natural.

As the night went on we kept getting closer and closer until the point that we were basically in each other’s faces when we talked. Eventually it was time to go so I closed out and he went to the bathroom. While he was away from the table, the Aussies cornered me. “That guy is a LEGEND. How did you guys meet again? Are you together?” I briefly explained that we had crushes on each other for that past 5 years and timing just never worked out. They then urged me to book a flight to him since it seemed like we were such a good match.

Elijah got back and saved me from the pressure. He asked me how much drinks were and I told him not to worry about it. Next thing I knew, he shoved $40 in my hand and said in my ear, “You shouldn’t have to pay. You deserve to be taken care of” and he kissed my cheek. WELL SHIT.

We walked to my train arm in arm and it just felt so nice. There I was with this great guy and it felt like something out of a movie. It rained earlier so the pavement was shiny and we were walking through one of those cute ass neighborhoods in NYC with brownstones. Just perfect.

We kissed when we got to the train and he hugged me for a really long time. We kissed again, then again, and again. The whole time it felt like neither one of us wanted to go but my train was 5 minutes out and he had to get up for his flight in a few hours.

Like last time, this was what I needed. I’ll admit, I constantly doubt that I’ll ever meet anyone worthwhile. I know I deserve a fantastic partner but it can be hard to believe it. There are a lot of frogs out there but Elijah always reminds me that once in awhile, you can find a prince.

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Above Average: UPDATE

Published on by datinglauraLeave a comment

App: Hinge

Name: Jared*

# of Dates: 4

Recap:

Out of everyone I had met during my time in the NYC-area, Jared was the one I vibed with the most. Not only did we have the same sense of humor, similar views, and food tastes but, he was also the kindest person I had met. (Plus he knew his way around a neck and a puss which definitely helped.)

We just got along and for whatever reason, things felt easy and comfortable. So comfortable that on our fourth date I asked if he would come away with me to Ocean City, MD for our fifth. Things were moving quick but it just felt right to do.

What Happened:

We had a great fucking time on vacation. Not only did we fuck enough to disturb our Airbnb host but, we genuinely enjoyed our time together. We went to Assateague Island and saw wild horses 10 feet away, ate at a crab house, rode a Ferris wheel, ate EVERYTHING, and danced our asses off at Seacrets.

The biggest thing to happen on the trip though was that we became a couple. Two people who are dating. Not talking, not friends with benefits, not seeing each other, not fucking around. Exclusively dating. And I was so happy. As soon as we decided that this was what we wanted we called each other “babe” nonstop because it just felt so good.

When I got dumped 2 years ago I never thought I’d be with someone again and then Connor came into my life for a bit and proved me wrong.

After things with Connor fell through and I moved to NJ I didn’t think I’d meet anyone special. A few showed potential (Looking at you Dan, Khalil, and Reed) but several didn’t make it. Anywhere. Close.

Some of my personal favorite, awesomely bad encounters include:

Then there were the awkward situations:

My “journey” was not what I expected in the least. I never thought I’d go out with over 30 guys and have 40-something dates in a year alone. But it happened. I didn’t think it would be as fun as it was or that I’d meet genuine people. Up until I moved I had only kissed two people and there were a lot of things and people to experience! That said, I also didn’t think it would feel as lonely as it did. Yes I went out with someone nearly once a week but, when only one every few months stands out it can get pretty old. (Like really, who the fuck raised these guys?!)

I started writing and documenting my dates as a way to share my version of the NYC dating experience, create something to remember this period of my life, and get the creative juices flowing again. What it became was something more. The messages of encouragement, positivity, and solidarity which came through were fucking amazing. To know that I was not the only one experiencing weird shit or that I wasn’t really a being a skank made this journey that much better. It has meant so much to me to hear your stories and struggles and it is clear that no matter where you are, what you look like, or who you meet—dating is fucking weird.

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The Coworker: UPDATE

Published on by datinglauraLeave a comment

Name: Elijah*

Recap:

Elijah and I worked together several years ago and I kind of always thought there was something between us but I figured I was wrong. Plus, even if there was something, I was seriously dating someone at the time and our company was not about its employees getting together.

This year, he was in NYC and we had possibly the best date I had ever been on. He was so nice, I was so comfortable with him, and it ended it a solid ass kiss. Only thing was that he lived far away.

Update:

Despite the distance between us, Elijah still messaged me pretty consistently after our date and would get pretty flirty. I asked what he was up to one day and he said he had the day off and was on the beach. I responded with something along the lines of, “Oh, living the dream!” He countered with, “Not quite, the dream is to have you next to me.” WOAH. Damn. Alright.

About a month or so after his visit, I met up with my old boss (who happened to be best friends with Elijah when we all worked together.) We were catching up when he started with,

“So I heard you had a visitor…”

“Yeah, Elijah was in the city last month and we caught up. It was nice.”

“Oh I am sure he treated you sooooo nicely.”

“Yeah? I guess? …WHAT DO YOU KNOW?”

I gave the quick and dirty of what happened and then my boss said, “I don’t know if I should be telling you this but he has had the biggest crush on you. He would ask me all the time if he could just take you out on a date and I had to keep telling him no since you worked for me. I told him that y’all can hang out and be friends then after graduation he could do whatever.”

O.M.G. Wow. Holy shit. This blew my fucking mind. Like yes, I kinda always thought he had a crush on me but I also looked very different then, really didn’t give a fuck since I already had a boyfriend, and made no effort since said boyfriend lived far away. I was literally at my grossest and Elijah was that into me.

So many things started making sense. It wasn’t just that we would get food all the time. It was how he looked at me from across the table. It was how he would always stop by when I was working to “see my boss”. It was how he would check on me after a rough night at work. It was how he would text me over holiday breaks just to see how I was doing. It was how he was so happy to have taken a photo with me at our year end dinner. I was right all along.

A part of me felt like I had missed an opportunity from way back when. What would that date have looked like? Would we have lasted awhile? Would either of us have moved after? But, as much as I wonder I know I wouldn’t have wanted it at the time. I was so in love with my boyfriend and clearly my boss wouldn’t have let it happen. But sometimes when it’s late, I had a bad day, and I’m alone, I go to bed thinking “I WAS FUCKING RIGHT. YOU GOT A MAN AT YOUR UGLIEST. YOU GO LAURA.” And I wake up with the biggest smile.