Dating Season - Month Three
by Karen Boss.
Baseball season and dating season begin at the same time. Most people (especially those of us who have suffered a long winter) find that when spring begins its slow crawl - and our favorite team starts winning, we are ready to begin anew our search for a perfect mate for the long summer days and even longer summer nights.
Dating (and baseball) season has only been open since April, and already I’m losing steam. I am no Dice-K, that’s for damn sure.
The Red Sox may be still leading the American League (and 8 over the Yankees I might add smugly), but I’m certainly not up in the dating standings in the third month of the season.
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First loss: A man who right before our third date told me he wasn’t looking for a relationship but wanted to keep hanging out. Spending time one-on-one with someone my age, who is a man and attractive and calling it friendship is not on my list. Fake-dating sucks, no matter how you cut it. So I bailed. |
| Second loss: A guy who spent 3 hours buying me beers and having a great conversation. I saw him at two work events, one where he fetched me a beer and asked for my opinion on a gift for his mom and one where he mostly ignored me but then sought me out to say bye and threw in a “Hey, baby, I’m leaving” for, I don’t know, good measure? |  |
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Third loss: The guy I had offered a ride home to after our second date. Note to all the male readers out there: when a woman offers you a ride home, and you arrive there, you have two choices. One, invite her up. Two, get out. There is not a sit-in-the-car-and-chat choice. |
| Fourth loss: The fight over IM. I kid you not. He mentioned that he’d rather be lucky than smart. I said that I thought luck was a result of hard work with potentially some privilege thrown in. He asked my definition of privilege; I defined it as having resources, support, and things such as race and gender assignment by accident of birth and/or parentage. He asked why I use “gender” instead of “sex” and I said because I think “gender” is more inclusive, allowing for a continuum rather than simply “male” or “female”. He said, and I quote, “deconstructive masking by disguise. egregious pc-ism makes one’s teeth itch, or should.” The final result: he said that none of his success is due to his being white or male and that anyone who believes that is Marxist. So there you go with that one. |  |
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Fifth loss: Phone call with one guy who seemed sweet. But he asked twice over email if I had put him under speed dial. Chill, dude. The fact that you are even in my phone is more a result of technology-driven laziness than of anything else. |
And finally the sixth: I went on a same-day date (which every rule book of dating says you shouldn’t do) with guy and had a fine conversation. But, I drove through a lot of stop signs (you know, red flags on dates you know you should listen to and don’t). First stop sign: he sat there, making no move to go to the bar to get us beers, and let me get them. Stop sign 2: When I was up at the bar, he yelled over, “Will you get me loaded fries, too?” Stop sign 3: He was wearing dark pants, white socks and black shoes and anyone could clearly see his pants were far too short (last I checked men are able to buy their pants by the number of inches of length they need).
So, here I am, last in the Dating League. I think I’ll put myself on the DL and take a break for a while.
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| Part of making sure your Mother’s Day celebrations go right is to plan ahead of time for Mother’s Day and call a restaurant or two to go out on a Mother’s Day Date to treat your mom to a great meal. |
About the author: Karen Boss lives and works in Boston. She has lived in College Park, MD, Los Angeles, CA, Gettysburg, PA, Steamboat Springs, CO, Block Island, RI and Koh Tao, Thailand. She spent three years first traveling and then living in Asia teaching scuba diving. Karen forgot to date in her 20s and is now making up time in her 30s. She has fantabulous friends and family and lives with a roommate and two kittens, Billie and Ella.
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June 20th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Hm, I wouldn’t call it a loss.
From your description of these guys I get the impression that it is actually a win to get rid of them. 
June 21st, 2007 at 4:06 pm
There are some real d*ckheads out there. Even Curt Schilling needs to go on the DL from time to time. So, rest up. You never know when you will need to stitch your tendon to your bone and pitch your ass off at Yankee Stadium.
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:08 pm
I like the “stop signs” reference! Never heard that one but have def ignored the signs too. Sounds like u date alot so give yourself credit for that..i’m in a dating desert and the pickins are slim my friend. NYC should be filled with tons of great men (I guess I watched too much Sex and the City). Ever go on a date with a guy that talks incesently about themselves from beginning to end! I can’t understand how I’m supposed to keep my attention on someone who doesn’t come up for air and then attempts to plan our future dates! Doesn’t he pick up on the glazed look on my face after the first 10 minutes! It’s tough in your 30’s
we have standards now compared to our 20’s when we would overlook alot!
Thanks for the amusing stories!
((:
June 24th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Are you sure baseball season = dating season? It seems to me the guys you are interested in are too distracted with the sport right now anyway. If I had to predict, I think the end of October will be more promising.
June 26th, 2007 at 2:52 am
Hi there all. Thanks for all the comments.
Friend — Thanks for the validation!
Todd — good point! I’m going to hold on for the clutch play later!
Aly! I hear you sister. It’s tough. I too have been so amazed at how many people don’t ask about me. I once went on a date with a guy who worked in sanitation. He was a garbage collector. No lie, we talked about stories from his work for over an hour (granted they were interesting) and right as we were walking out of the place, he said “What do you do again?” Incredible. I figure everyone has to run a few stop signs to really learn how to drive, right?
Sara, Unfortunately, I think that most people ramp up the dating in the summer (at least here in Boston — it’s warm, people wear less clothing, actually smile once in a while.
So even though the men (and a lot of us women, too, in Red Sox nation) are fixated on the season, they coincide. But, yes, fall romances sometimes happen too!
Talk more! Keep up the good dating chat!
Karen
July 31st, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Was I really wearing white socks? Even I wouldn’t usually do that. Anyway, this is useful: next time I’ll know to get the beers.
Gotcha.
March 13th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
I WANT TO HAVE MEET A MAN THA IS WELL MATURED AND THAT WILL TREAT ME RIGHGT………MY NAME IS TESSA STACEY….U CAN GET INTOUCH WITH ME ON MY EMAIL ID…..TESSA2895@YAHOO.COM HY HOLLA. CHEERS. TESSA