The Big Ugly Blog is an honest and uncensored collection of anecdotes recounting the madcap shenanigans of a perpetually 39 year old divorcee, as she wades through the mire of the murky online dating pool - ravenously searching (evidently in vain) for the man of her dreams...Keep On Dreaming, Baby!

BIG UGLY

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

"Fine" is Never Good

What is it with my flippin' ex-es? Forgive me, I must give in to an irresistible urge to make a random broadcast announcement here. For the record, my ex-husband is a self-righteous, ego-maniacal, money grubbing prick and a complete and utter sonofabitch!" There, that was sufficiently cathartic, I feel a lot better. You know, it's not like I don't feel badly enough already about the fact that my life is in the shitter, but on top of it all I've got to endure being belittled and berated by him about what a fucking useless loser I am and evidently, in his eyes, have always been. Sure, I fritter away endless hours online trying to meet a honey and yeah, I spend infinite amounts of time documenting my quest, and waste tons of cash on fuel, driving all over creation to inevitibly be disappointed with the end result, I guess there truly is no real value in any of that, (I'm doing research for the blog?) and to compound my steady decline, I now have the added bonus of being indefinitely laid off from my first real job since my kids all got in school. That's right, I've got $60 to my name and when my lawnmower repair guy tries to cash the $213 check I wrote him on Fri., I can't imagine that it's gonna go very well. But my ultra-responsible, hard-working (cough!) ex is still a tightwad millionaire and somehow he can declare to me in all honesty that he "helps me out a lot!" Like lending me a boatload of cash so I could finish building a decent house for the kids and me, which I do appreciate, but I'll be paying the loan back to the tune of 8.75% interest! Who's doing whom the favor? I swear to god, after he lit into me about how great and wonderful he is and how fucking pathetic I am, I seriously wondered if it would be better for everyone; him, my kids who probably won't really have a Christmas at my house, this year, my family who has for all intents and purposes, disowned me anyway - if I just parked my cute, little, shiny, silver car in my brand new, garage, left the engine running and drifted off into slumberland...forever. But I'm way too much of a pussy to do that. I keep clinging to the notion that it simply has to all work out one day. (There is still the lottery)...But just when I thought I could not possibly sink any lower festering over every single miserable aspect of my tiny life, Jimmy sent me an outta-the-blue text, in which he tenderly declared that he misses my butthole, hmmm...Way to cheer a girl up, buddy! Why couldn't he have told me that he missed the way I spoiled him with yummy meals and the lunches I packed for him to take to work and how I never complained when he completely ignored me while I rubbed his feet with Burt's honey and almond hand cream for hours while he spaced in front of the TV and how I tirelessly worked in his yard, planting cheerful, new gardens and did all of his laundry and cleaned his bathrooms and picked up his psych meds. for him and played nurse when he was sick and took his dog to the vet and gave him a practically brand new fridge and a queen sized bed in which he cheated on me while we were still dating. Must be National Asshole Ex-es Week, or something. I don't remember ever sounding as bitter as this, what's my problem? Strangely, none of this has anything to do with online dating so I'm sure you're all very confused by my tirade. I'm sorry, I just had to get all of that off my chest before I delve into the bland pablum that is my ongoing, online dating debacle.*

I just don't know what it's gonna take for me to get excited about any man again, ever. I'm starting to get seriously worried that I may officially be emotionally null and void. Get this...I'm not even a teensy bit horny. I can't remember the last time I played with my toy. This is SO not like me, as by now, I'm sure you all know. Frances is convinced that none of this should be cause for alarm, that maybe my apathy could be a means by which I am preparing myself to experience a genuine, potent, all-consuming tremor when I finally do stumble upon my ideal dream boat. She says that she prefers the blase me to the insecure, neurotic nightmare I had become, post Jimmy. I 'spose I can relate to her rationale...

My date with Chris on Tuesday night was totally fine, but the trouble is...I don't want "fine" - I want FUCKING AMAZING, for cryin' out loud! I mean he was cute and all but he's VERY short, like seriously shorter than I am, in flat shoes...Here, let me illustrate...When I met him for date #2, we opted out of taking his Harley to lunch, thank god because frankly, I would not be caught dead on the back of that bike, I mean he's fastidious about keeping it immaculate, but for me it was purely an aesthetics thing, it was just too frilly, busy...I don't like Harleys, end of story! Instead, we hopped into his very cool, 1960-something Chevy Nova (phew!) and headed out of his homogenous, suburban neighborhood towards some homogenous, suburban shopping center for lunch, neat. Next thing I know, I could see him out of my peripheral vision, grab the steering wheel hard, pull himself so far forward that his hiney was in about the middle of the seat, but his leg still barely reached the peddle as he floored the excellerator and burned rubber up the street. He was trying to be so cool, but instead he ended up looking absolutely ridiculous, like a little kid playing in his Daddy's car, it was definitely NOT my favorite, not to mention I was completely mortified to be peeling up the road at breakneck speed in an otherwise placid neighborhood, so stupid. But let's revisit date #1, shall we...Chris and I met for drinks and eats at what is swiftly becoming "the spot" where I meet most of my "first dates", anymore. I'm sure that the nice people who work there are like, "What the hell is up with that woman, how many different guys can one person go out with?" but what the frick ever. Anyway, Chris and I had no trouble striking up and carrying on active conversation, we like a lot of the same stuff; cars, guns, alcohol. And we enjoyed this one amusing verbal exchange about obese America which after overlapping with our dismay with the crappy economy, particularly oppressive gas prices, we hatched a plan to convert "liposucked" fat into automobile fuel. Both of us thought this was pure genius, revoltingly disgusting, but a radical idea, nonetheless! Hell, I know folks around here who've made their millions by turning roadkill into chicken feed and they hold their heads up high and even strut around like they own the damn place with their gold-plated everything. So see? Even the kookiest concept can generate a wad of cash, no matter how gruesome. Once again though, I simply wasn't blown away enough to be motivated to line up a follow-up date. The next day, I glumly recapped the prior evening's events to Frances, as usual, saying that it had been "f i n e"..."Oh no..." she replied, "FINE is never good" I explained that I had felt no connection and even though she and I are always on the exact same page about the whole chemistry thing, (if it ain't there from the get-go, it ain't ever gonna be there...chemistry can essentially be neither created nor destroyed, and so on and so forth) she suggested that maybe I should go out with him one more time, just to make sure. He sounded like a decent guy, and who knows, if I gave him another chance, I may discover that we have potential. I know she doesn't really believe this, fundamentally, but maybe she's as convinced as I am that just for the moment, my acute, emotional dysfunction is sabotaging my chances of meeting a suitable mate because I'm giving up too quickly, on guys who might normally capture my attention. I was thinking about it the other day, how in the past, when I was entirely at the mercy of either my friends setting me up with guys or bar hopping and frequenting parties as suitable avenues by which to meet men, I think I sank my claws deep into the first decent option I came upon, relieved to give up the hunt. This is exactly why I landed with Jimmy (and lived to fully regret it) Back then, whenever I found someone satisfactory, I just stopped looking, where nowadays, I refuse to settle. I'm addicted to searching for the next better thing. I've said it before, I just don't see the point in wasting time on someone when there is no real chemistry. But, taking the sage advice of my best friend, I took Chris up on his offer to meet the very next day. At first he said that he would come out my way to grab lunch and check out a local art show, I've been wanting to hit, which would've been great, because, I'll be honest, I was on my last 1/2 tank of gas and wasn't gonna be coming into any major moolah anytime soon, so the idea of rationing my gas was practical and appealing. Somehow plans got shifted around though, and I wound up driving out to where he lives which, if I want to make myself feel better about the gas, I can at least take solace in the fact that the specific location of my residence is still privileged information. I would venture to say that date #2 was even less impressive than date #1. I started to discover little aspects of Chris' personality that repelled me; for one thing I could sense a squelched temper, barely suppressed beneath his surface. And for another he was pushy as hell. I had barely made it out of his driveway and he was asking me how late the art show would be going on that evening, as if he wanted to come and check it out after all. I said it was over already. Then he asked if we could meet at the pub, again, that Friday (the next time we had planned to meet) was just too far away. I said that I had a shitload of stuff to get done that night and that I probably shouldn't. He told me there are lots of things that we "shouldn't do", but if I though it was best to wait 'til Friday, he was fine with that. I did not reply, he was really crowding me. Frances said that I should be honest and tell him that I wasn't feeling a connection, that I had always been good about doing that with other guys when things hadn't worked out. I was like, "What?" Usually I just disappear and hope that the dumpee gives up pretty quickly. But that was irrelevant because fortunately, Chris beat me to the punch. He wrote to me and said that since I hadn't answered his last text and we hadn't talked at all the following day, he assumed that I had changed my mind. If for some reason he had gotten it wrong, he hoped I would feel free to get in touch with him, but otherwise, good luck with my search. Problem solved.

With one of the contenders knocked out of the Big Three, that left only two remaining, John and Steve, both of whom seem pretty laid-back and more relaxed than Scott, plus they're both really tall. No plans to meet John, yet, but we keep shooting each other inquisitive e-mails and I would definitely go out with him if he asked me to. I did, however, make arrangements to meet Steve for drinks, in the very near future. It was funny because Jordan and I were out here at my computer, the other night and I pulled up Steve's profile and asked her what she thought of him. I should tell you that normally when I think a guy is hot or a good possibility, my kids are like, "NOOO! MOM! He's scary! He's NOT attractive at all, yuck" and I'm stunned, cuz generally I have myself convinced that whoever it is, is decent and might be right for me, damn! But the little tykes are consistently dead-on in their initial impression of the guys to whose profiles I allow them to be privy. Why is it that my children possess consistently razorsharp intuition yet I am virtually devoid of it. Anyway, for the first time ever, Jordan gave a guy in whom I was interested, a decisive stamp of approval. She liked the way Steve looked and she said that she thought that he seemed fine. Hmmm...There's that dreaded four-letter word, again. I reckon I have to accept that "fine" to her, my pristine, 12 year old daughter, still carries a favorable connotation...

*Footnote: Frances just called and said that she read in the paper that my ex, along with his father and someone else, just sold 135 acres of prime real estate to folks who plan to build some high end retirement home. So now, the bastard has even more millions in his kitty, yet still pays no spousal support and less than half of the child support that the state of Virginia would require him to pay, if he adhered to their guidelines. And I, the pauper mother of his offspring, am unable to buy a gallon of milk, this morning. But it's all really just fine...and dandy...yeah...

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