A Taste of My Own Medicine

Several weeks ago, while resigning myself to the grim probability that my online dating well might indeed be running dry, I was rattled from my discomfiture when I found myself face to face with the most insanely gorgeous profile picture I have ever beheld. I had been listlessly trudging through a bunch of absolute nothingness all around my online dating stomping grounds, seemingly incapable of digging up any novel, new shit to get into, when I was instantly stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of that breathtaking image of Robbie...shirtless, from bronzed shoulders to the top of his perfectly shaped, shaved head. His high cheekbones and swarthy complexion suggested a Native American heritage...yummo. As we all well know by now, a photo of such sublime splendor is almost always too good to be true, and more often than not - a flawless photo, such as his, is merely a false exterior behind which hides some insecure imposter. But after delving deeper into Robbie's profile, I found a veritable treasure trove of increasingly more pleasing images...fuck an A! Now I can say, with absolute certainty, that THIS guy is verifiably smokin' hot!

My cute, little pixie friend Beth stopped by for a visit, a few days into my drool-fest and after poring over the plethora of pulchritudinous pics. herself, which included one of Robbie in board shorts, tanned and toned - standing beside his surf board, she nearly tripped over her tongue. She was like, "Oh Isobel...you have to go for that.....he is.....b e a u t i f u l!" I explained to her that I had already sent him a brief note in which I had chuckled about the fact that on his profile he had described his "ideal woman" as someone who height-wise, would measure between 3' 1" - 5' 9" (that's funny!) and in his "About Me" section he had stated that, "laughing about weird and stupid stuff is a staple" in his life. So, I figured that giving him a verbal wink and a nudge about his tiny, ideal woman would be the perfect means by which to pander to his fascination with life's little inanities and possibly cajole him into talking with me. And surprisingly, he did...just a little bit and only to say that, yeah...he probably couldn't actually be with someone who was that small and was that wrong? Which made me chuckle...again...

Slowly, Robbie and I moved from that topic to several others through a series of brief emails. And although the messages I sent to him wound up to be short in length, like only a few sentences long, it wasn't for lack of effort, believe you me. You're talking to the girl who can spend ten minutes composing a simple text to a girlfriend, so you can just imagine how much time I can devote to a letter which actually matters. I would ruminate ceaselessly, (to the tune of over an hour, procuring one such note) tweaking the verbiage and double checking the tone and even then I was only moderately confident enough to click the "send" button. He probably gave the fruits of my labor about 15 seconds of his attention, and once finished, never gave them a second thought, but that's ok! Anyway, after adding IM'ing and texting to our repertoire, we arrived at the conclusion that we might should maybe meet somewhere nearby for drinks or grub...perhaps as soon as that weekend. Now normally, I would be bouncing around the room, in a juvenile, boy-crazy frenzy, all giddy and optimistic....but that was absolutely not the case this time, and here's why...The problem with all of this is the fact that Robbie is entirely out of my league, like seriously for real. Sure, I've contacted otherworldy men before, but the difference there was that none of those guys ever bothered to reply and frankly - I never expected them to. Like with those other hotties who were totally out of my dating realm, I justified contacting Robbie by latching onto the few things in common that did make us potentially compatible. For instance, there is the fact that he has children and that he is my age almost exactly and that we both share a love of snowboarding and surfing. But physically speaking, it's clear that I am many echelons below his rank. I'm not fat or ugly, per se, I consider myself average at best, but trust me on this one - my overall look is not nearly sufficient enough for me to comfortably dangle from the arm of someone so superior. The fact is, I've never fared well in relationships where the attractiveness scales were tipped in my lover's favor. Don't get me wrong, ideally I'd like to end up with a fella who has a nice body and definitely a good face (especially the nose), but I think I would have a hard time being with someone who was model perfect. I just know that I would be paranoid that people who saw us together would be there thinking, "Hmmmm, check that out...it's like Beauty and the Beast in reverse...poor guy, he could do so much better..."

Blame it on my inherent masochism, but I have politely accepted apologies from Robbie for his consistent and sudden cancellations of each potential date, thus far (a total of four by now, if I'm not mistaken) and then waited around with baited breath to see if and when he will make good on his promise to claim his revolving "rain checks" And you know...I can say til I'm blue in the face, that the reason I keep putting up with his ambivalence and continue pressing the issue of going out with him, is purely the challenge of lowly me scoring a date with superlative him...or that I'm doing it if for lack of anything better to do. But no matter how patient or forgiving or bored I profess to be, the reality is that I seem to be incapable of eschewing the preposterous fantasy looming in the back of my feeble brain, that something good or permanent could actually develop between Robbie and me...someday. Silly, isn't it? So, simultaneous to weakly espousing this whole charade to be an antidote to my boredom, I am lamentably, cultivating quite a crippling crush on the guy...

Enter my recent onslaught of stomach aches...I can't help but wonder if Robbie is just toying with me, (possibly out of his own boredom?) since it's awfully difficult for me to believe that a guy of his calibre would have a serious interest in mediocre, ole me. I Google searched him and was able to peruse his profile on my favorite networking site, and let me just say that it's not like Robbie is hurting for hot snatch. Practically every "friend" on his page is some absurdly statuesque goddess. So why does he even bother contacting me? (btw, I have not initiated even one conversation since he first blew me off a couple of weekends ago) He keeps throwing me a bone, but almost immediately, he gingerly asks for it back. His excuses for constantly bailing on me seem legitimate, he hasn't really given me any reason to think that they're crap. So I continue to let him string me along, and in the process, I have ignored and avoided other respectable suitors, i.e.: Pierce (who has e-mailed and left voice mail, attempting to set up another play date) and Blaine (ditto) and otherwise: I have relished avoiding Big D and his aggravating pleas to see my "smile only" on the webcam, the scumbag. It felt like a veritable coup to deflate Christopher's enlarged ego by declining his invitation to meet for dinner, last Friday night and I even resisted the tempting offer from cute and adorable but totally age-inappropriate Juan to squire me to a fraternity party, that same night. And so here I sit...in front of my trusty ole Mac, in near silence, my stomach tied up in nervous knots for every minute that I wait to inevitably find out that Robbie has ditched our plans...again. Tummy - now much worse. Ain't paybacks a bitch? It serves me right to get a potent dose of how yucky it feels to be jerked around...God knows my insensitive behavior recently, has probably led to half a dozen guys suffering from gastro-intestinal distress.

Anyhow, in order to defer my dismay over being yanked around multiple times by Robbie, that first weekend that it looked like we might get together, I focussed on another online hottie who I've been peepin' at for some time now. He is a triathlete and he is stacked, plus he has a killer smile! I'll call him Red Hat because in his profile shot he is wearing this red baseball cap and that damned picture jumps out at me each and every time I log in to this one particular dating site, and so I wrote to tell him just that. He dragged his feet a little about investing time in getting to know me, claiming that the distance and years between us was too great (he lives a mere hour away he's only 5 years younger than I am, for lord's sake) but then he reconsidered and jumped at the first opportunity we found, to meet. We talked on the phone to make the necessary arrangements and I have to admit, I was more than put off by his tinny, shrillish voice. Additionally he came across as rawther self-impressed and his personal brand of humor fell flat with me. But I went ahead and moved forward with our plans...

We decided on a restaurant near where he lives and works and as I drove to meet him, I realized that I had not properly paced myself and that it looked like I would be about 7 minutes late. I texted to tell him so and he said that was fine, but that I would have to make it up to him, somehow, "JK!" ha...ha...ha...ha...there's that great sense of humor, again...

I found my place at the bar and found him conspicuously absent. He called to apologize because he was also going to be late. Well, duh...he was already 10 minutes or so late when he called, didn't he think I had figured it out by then? And what the hell was all that nonsense about me making it up to HIM? What the freak...Why didn't he just tell me when he replied to my text that he was running behind schedule also, rather than making me feel like I owed him something because of my own tardiness? Due to the fact that I was experiencing tinges of disdain before ever even meeting Red Hat, I was starting to have doubts that this shit was gonna pan out.

When he FINALLY got his ass there, he arrogantly swaggered up to me, perhaps trying to compensate for his height deficit (he was absolutely NOT the 5' 8" that he'd claimed in his profile, more like 5' 5", if that) and he was sporting that (now ridiculous looking, to me) red hat, which he explained he wore because he thought that it would be relevant and "cute"...ralph! As badly as I wanted to see him lose the hat, once he took it off, I wished that he had left it on. There was something decidedly disconcerting about the way his bald head kind of sprung loose from it's containment, it's like it expanded and grew to huge proportions, once out from under that goofy, red hat. It took on the shape of an oversized light bulb. I kept hoping that the big indentation in his forehead would fade after awhile too, that maybe the brim had been pressing into his head and had left the unfortunate mark...but the neanderthal-like dent never did diminish, and believe me, I kept checking. It seemed that we were not really off to such a great start...And things continued their downward slide when I asked him what he wanted to drink, since on his profile he had answered the question, "Do you drink?" with "No". He kept saying, "You go ahead and order what you want" and as much as I wanted a nice, stiff cocktail, I didn't want to be poisoning him with alchie breath if he wasn't going to be drinking. He said that it's not like he can't or doesn't drink, more that he just doesn't really like the taste of alcohol. Honestly, I would've preferred it if he had told me he was a recovering alcoholic and couldn't drink at all, rather than basically admitting to being some candy-assed wimp who "doesn't like the taste", jeez! So I was like,"Fuck it, I want a drink so I'm getting one" He followed suit, ordered a beer and it pained me to watch him struggle to sip through only half of a draught beer, over the period of about an hour. He also informed me that he doesn't drink coffee for the same reason and at this point, I felt certain that we were toast...I will say that he did have just about the prettiest teeth I've ever seen...

We left the bar to get dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant and I hated the way he explained to me, as if I were a child, how to order my dinner. He acted like he was an authority on each and every subject, really irritating. As was the fact that he ate his Chinese food with a fork, rather than chopsticks. (seems you don't know it all there, do ya' buddy?) I ordered a yummy but harmless sangria and he ordered...a Sprite (what is he? like 10?) When we had finished our dinner, he excused himself and went to the little boy's room. Red Hat was gone for what felt like an eternity. He had to have been in the bathroom for a good 15 - 20 minutes, I shit you not, and I know it wasn't because he was waiting in some huge, long line, cuz for the most part, the dinner crowd had all but dissipated, by then. All I could think was that he was in there, pinching some gigundo loaf and the visual associated with that thought was terribly distracting. I'm pretty sure that I have never taken a crap in a public potty, in the middle of a date. Even if I felt the urge to do it, I think I would've tried my damndest to hold off doing so, until I was back home...alone. But maybe that's why he did it at the restaurant, because next he invited me to come back to his house for a cup of hot tea, which seemed harmless enough, although I did warn him that I couldn't stay for long because I was getting up early in the a.m. to go snowboarding.

We arrived at his townhouse which was immaculate, and he asked me to remove my boots before walking across his white carpet (so, he's anal too...oh joy!) He asked me if I wanted anything and I was there thinking, "Didn't he say he was gonna make me a cup of hot tea?" I said that a glass of water would be fine and that is all I got. Well, that along with a sudden physical assault which went from innocent (but not very good) kissing to attempted heavy petting - rather rapidly. Not one thing about him was working for me, especially not when he took off his shirt and kept his stubbly chest (either in need of a fresh shave or in the midst of a grow-out) puffed up and permanently flexed. Well...at least he thought he looked hot.

After freeing myself from his tightening snare by literally rolling off of the couch and onto the floor, I picked myself up and started for my boots and the door. He followed close behind me, grabbed my hand and placed it on his crotch, I did not react. Even his big, hard cock couldn't provide the necessary incentive to make me want to stay there for one more minute (and that's not really like me) As I walked down the sidewalk towards my car, he thanked me for a fun time, and said that he looked forward to seeing me again, soon. I lied that I would talk to him later and drove away, knowing damn well that I would never see him again.

My friends were furious with me when I told them that I had gone back to Red Hat's apartment. Frances in particular, really lit into me about my careless stupidity. And as usual, I blamed my poor judgement on my perpetual hunt for the next intriguing story to relay on my Big Ugly blog. Well...she absolutely let me have it, "I hate your blog!"..."You don't even read my blog"..."Well, I hate how you use your blog to explain away your ludicrous behavior! I wish you didn't even write the damned thing, I really just hate it!!!" I have never seen her lash out like she did, and to make it worse, she did this in front of several of my close friends as well as my children...at what was meant to be a cheerful, relaxed dinner party...

Robbie blew me off...again...this past Friday night, and by Sunday afternoon, I hadn't heard from him so I correctly assumed that we would not be going out then, either, as he had bluffed. I had basically starved myself for the two weeks prior, so that in the event that we did get together, I would be as skinny as absolutely possible, and so it was nothing for me to take Frances up on her offer to treat me to a late lunch with her and her daughter Leigh at a local hamburger joint. I ordered my usual bun-less burger with all the fixins' but was surprised when it was placed before me, nestled in it's little basket under a blanket of greasy fries (had I ordered those?)...I consider French fries and basically all carbs. (well, 'cept for my evening cocktails) to be illicit substances and I rarely deviate from my protein-heavy diet. But you know what? Sunday, I was like "Aw, fuck it!" I was so hungry and I had decided that I didn't care anymore if I got as big as a house, hell...everyone else is! And I had deprived myself of basic sustenance holding out hope that all that dieting would pay off when I finally locked in a date with Robbie...my Mr. Dreamy...But that evidently was never to be. So, I ate my burger and my whole basket of fries doused in vinegar and dipped in mayonnaise as well as about half of Leigh's fries and I made an enormous black and white milkshake when I got back home (burp) and it felt flippin' great (that is until the next day when I swear, my jeans didn't fit right)

So, as it stands, it seems I am all hung up on Robbie...my Mr. Dreamy, to the exclusion of all other possibilities and even though I am convinced he is a chain-yanker who strings me along just so he can feel adored, (makes no difference to him that I am but a lowly peon) and even though I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that he has literally no intention of ever meeting me, for some reason - as long as he's talking to me at all, I cling to the notion that I still have a chance with him...this fully sucks...