The Internet Dating Chronicles: Fish Lips

So I lied in my post about eHarmony when I said that I only went out with one teacher.  I forgot all about the guy that started it all.

Fish Lips and I met on OkCupid back in 2009.  At the time, I was probably the heaviest I've ever been, but I was experiencing a surge of interest in fashion and jewelry that boosted my confidence enough to finally giving internet dating a go.

I was also completely immersed in my job as an English teacher and thought that my ideal mate would share my choice of profession.  I imagined us sitting to grade together on weekends, bitching about "our kids" at dinner and chaperoning prom together.  So when Fish Lips showed up as a high match according to OkCupid's cocamamy algorithms, and he was a math teacher, and he was a heavier-set gentleman, I thought--perfect!  At the very least, we'd have something to talk about; we're both fat teachers!

Friends who talked like old pros about the unwritten rules of internet dating instructed me to try to ensure that the first date is as low key as possible.  You wanted the first meeting to go one of two ways:

1. You realize quickly that you don't like each other and end the evening politely after one drink, be it coffee, tea, beer, wine or even a glass of water before a meal comes out, or
2. You realize you like each other and take the options of extending the evening somehow--add an appetizer, a meal, a dessert, or have the ability to easily, and safely, walk someplace else to keep the night from ending.

I took their words as gospel truth and chose The Gingerman as the location of the date.  It was dark.  I knew it well.  And we decided to meet on a Sunday evening, so it was the least datey date possible, except if we'd gone to Sunday brunch or a funeral or something.

Since this was the first date I'd ever been on with a stranger, I agonized over what to wear.  I didn't want to overdo it, but I didn't want to look like I didn't care.  After trying on who knows how many outfits, I settled on a black dress, black tights, and what I referred to as my kissy boots.  Looking back, this is the kind of outfit one wears to impress girlfriends, not the kind to wow a new potential mate with legs and boobs and booty.  I'm pretty sure I looked like a nun wearing hiking boots--an Alpine nun.  

I could have at least chosen some sexier boots...
Photo Source: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luvkfmRVPe1qdz26to1_500.jpg

One of the quirks of my personality, which I like to think my friends and family have come to view as endearing, is my punctuality incessant early arrival to any event.  This especially becomes the case when I'm doing something out of my comfort zone--going to a new place where I have to find parking, going to a place I've been to several times but at a different time or day of the week, and meeting new people.  Getting there early, wherever "there" is, calms me.  It gives me time to stop sweating before people arrive because, let's face it, I'll be sweating.  It allows me to be the one to choose where we'll sit, a place where I won't be distracted by TVs or a lot of traffic flow.  And it allows me to do some nerdy self-talk and preparation on a date.  The night with Fish Lips was when that habit started.  The inner dialogue goes something like this:

Stop sweating.  Stop sweating.  Are there napkins around so I can dab the sweat?  Do I need to go to the bathroom?  Better go to the bathroom before he shows.  I can check to see if the sweat is noticeable, too.  Ok, you just look dewy...for now.  Better sit still for a while.  Breathe.  Deep breaths.  Ok, so what can we talk about?  We're both teachers.  There's that.  I just saw insert movie title here.  We can talk about what we've done over the winter break.  That should fill a half hour, right?  Maybe I'll get a beer before he shows... Is that him?  No.  Is that him?  No.  Maybe he's not going to show and I can just go home.  Oh, look, that's him.  Here we go.

By the time Fish Lips showed up, I think I'd actually ordered a beer already and was about a quarter of the way down the pint glass.  I'm sure I appeared cool and collected, but inside my stomach was doing flip flops.

But the flip flops weren't the good kind that also make you tingly all over just a little.  There was no first-meeting-sweatiness with Fish Lips.  Nope, I was not attracted to him.  

Here's the deal, though.  There have been men in my life who I was not attracted to at all when I first met them and then became incredibly attracted to as I got to know them as people.  And I'm a teacher, I'm bred to give people the benefit of the doubt and a bazillion chances before I really give up on them.  

So I spent my half hour with Fish Lips, like my seasoned internet dating friends suggested, and we had some somewhat interesting conversation about teaching.  We discovered we had a mutual acquaintance.  He told me that most people assumed he was a mean guy because his lips were perpetually stuck into kind of a frowny face, and we bonded over that because people always think I'm angry or bitchy when they first see me.  

In my head, this is what his lips were like.
Photo Source: http://files.coveringthemouse.com/images/uts03.jpg

So I agreed to another beer.  And another.  And after about an hour to an hour and a half, the conversation was coming to a slow and painful halt while my intoxication level was slowly making its way past the point of tipsy.  By now, I knew I was not interested in Fish Lips.  We were not a match, we just had a profession in common.  But then he suggested we get food.  My beer addled brain knew my sloshy stomach needed sustenance.  And so I committed the unthinkable act--I went with him to a second location.

By the time we walked out of the bar and onto the street, I could tell that he was thinking this was going pretty well.  I must have pretended to be interested in what he had to say pretty well--must be all the practice pretending to care about what my students talk about.  In any case, based on his proximity to my side as we walked through the December cold, he was definitely interested in holding hands.  I kept mine in my pockets.

He didn't have a place in mind (another sign that he was not the one for me; I like a planner), so we ended up at Jo's.  We're probably three hours into the date at this point (All you internet daters are shaking your heads at me right now, I can feel it.  I should have cut it off by now!).  We split a sandwich and chips, another stupid move on my part.  While we're sitting and eating, he starts making veiled comments about sex, which make me uncomfortable.  Not because of the sex, but because I know now that I have definitely led him to think that I'm, like, super interested.  And I'm not.  

But it'd apparently been so long since any man expressed interest in me that by the time he walked me to my car, four hours after our date had begun, I was exhausted and full of beer and pastrami and when he asked if he could kiss me, I thought, why not?

That is no way to begin a lip lock, friends.  Suddenly, I realized how much larger his head was than mine.  And how huge and u-shaped his lips were.  When his lips met mine, they didn't move.  At all.  But they were open, which for some reason, I took as a cue to French a little.  So we stood there on 2nd Street: me, mashing my thin lips against his stoically frowning mouth.  Thinking of it now, four years later, it still makes me shudder in horror.  It was the worst kiss of my life, both because of the technical awfulness of it (the Russian judge gives it a 2.7) and because I felt so uncomfortable but just couldn't stop for some reason.  It was like I was just hoping he would move those lips at some point, but he never did.  It was like kissing this guy:

Photo Source: http://www.progressivekitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/sadfish.jpg

The worst part is that he must have enjoyed it.  He contacted me the next day to see if I wanted to meet up with him again.  Finally, after all that, I did the thing I should have done 30 minutes into our date and politely told him that I thought he was a nice guy but that I didn't think he was the guy for me.

And that is how I started my internet dating experience.  Reflecting on it, I think it went so terribly because I was not being myself.  I was being the woman-who-goes-out-on-dates, trying to play that part.  I was doing what I thought I should do, instead of what my guts were telling me.  And, even though I let the date continue on that long out of my own fear of being mean by saying I wasn't interested, ultimately I was meaner by not telling him early into the date that I didn't think we were a match.  I'd like to say that I learned my lesson the next time, but you'll see that that is far from the truth. It took me three years to give it another go.  I made many of the same mistakes, and more!

Next installment: Hotel San Jose

Less Good than Goodall

Photo Source:
http://www.southwestern.edu/livewhale/content/images/
30/11006_goodall_photo_web_cstuart_clarke_36ceccb23d6d0a9b0817e9531a6a8708.jpg

When you live alone, you have a lot of time to be alone with your thoughts.  And when you get tired of being with your thoughts, then you must find other activities to fill your time.  One of the things I like to do with my time is attend lectures.  It's nerdy, I know, but I like that this type of event gives me more to think about when I'm alone with my thoughts.  See how that works out for me?

Austin, a university town, is a great place for this past time.  Most people just think about UT when they think of Austin, but Southwestern University in Georgetown, my alma mater, also offers some quality events to the community, many of which are free (at least they are to alumni).

One of the events Southwestern holds every year is the Shilling Lecture.  I've only been to it three times.  The first was when I saw Desmond Tutu while I was still a senior.  Last year, I went with friends to see Thomas Friedman speak.  And last night, I saw Dr. Jane Goodall give her speech called A Reason for Hope.  Of the lectures, hers was the one I was most looking forward to, even though all I really knew about her is that she's "the monkey lady" in my head (I actually even confused her with Dian Fossey, the gorilla lady--oops).  I've always loved animals--I used to sing songs to my dog Peaches in the back yard when I came home from kindergarten--and even thought of studying animal behavior when I was at Southwestern.  I went into the evening, expecting to hear stories of monkey socialization patterns, but I came away with so much more.

Something that strikes me about the people who are brought in to speak at the Shilling Lectures is how determined they are and how much conviction they have about what they're doing in their lives.  Dr. Goodall had a scientific curiosity about the world from a young age.  She had an interest in Africa as a child.  She always loved animals.  Through a series of personal connections, her own intelligence, and luck (or divine intervention?) she met Louis Leakey while she was living in Africa with a friend from England.  At the time, she did not have more than a high school education, but he was so struck with her auto-didactic knowledge that he hired her to help with one of his studies.  From there, she proved herself quite the scientist, obviously, and only went on to get her degree once her work started to become famous.

She spoke of attending a conference in the 1980s that changed her focus from living in Tanzania and studying chimps to doing what she's done for almost 30 years: traveling 300 days out of the year to raise awareness about what we are doing to the planet with the Jane Goodall Institute and organizing groups of teens to create change through a program called Roots and Shoots.

First of all, I think it's incredible that a woman who just turned 79 today travels that much.  I'm only 31, and I drag my feet trying to leave the apartment to go to the grocery store.  But it's even more amazing to me that she gave up something she loved so dearly to do good work for us all.  Her gifts led her to success; her success led to fame; fame led to an increased awareness of other issues; and awareness led to her own selflessness; her selflessness, through giving her time and giving up the work she loves, will hopefully make the world a better place.

Listening to people like Jane Goodall, knowing that they exist in the world, evokes a range of emotions for me.  The first are inspiration and awe.  It's incredible that people like her exist.  The next is gratitude.  We are so lucky to have people like her doing work like this.  A little jealousy. How do I find that same level of conviction in my life? And finally, like the good Catholic girl I am/was, guilt.  What the hell am I doing that is remotely close to this?

Looking at the faces of the college students attending the event, they still have that bright, shiny glint in their eyes that says I can change the world, just give me a chance.  I can see them sitting there, thinking about what they will invent to make our lives on this planet more sustainable or what organizations they will found that will solve the problem of poverty in Appalachia. 

I used to be like them.  I thought I could change the world.  That's why I became a teacher.  I saw myself making a difference in the lives of students--through teaching them The Canterbury Tales?  Perhaps I'm too entrenched in the day-to-day frustrations of the job at this point to see the good I do, but I have to say that I feel I've used The Teacher Card for too long when it comes to contributing to the planet.  I let it make me believe that I'm doing enough when I see commercials about starving kids or hear requests for donations to the Red Cross.

Maybe I'm too hard on myself.  I do give money to Radiolab when they ask me to text for a $10 donation.  I give any time I have cash and I see a Salvation Army Santa.  I buy one overpriced box of Girl Scout Cookies every year.  Why, just yesterday, I gave $100 to Pasta for Pennies at work.  Of course, I only did this once I found out that the school was just $100 shy of reaching our $1500 goal that would lead to our principal having to wear a crazy costume to work.  But the money still goes to Leukemia and Lymphoma research, right? \

My questions are these: how much is enough?  Is it enough to give money to different organizations?  And does it matter which organizations?  Is the money I give to NPR or PBS less good because they provide programming I enjoy?  Is donating to the arts less good than donating to the Red Cross or The American Lung Association?  And do our motives matter?  The money I give to attend a charity event still goes to charity, even though I'm having a great time, right?  Is that $100 going to be less effective because part of the reason I donated it was the vision I had in my head of my principal dressed like a clown?  Or should we just forgo the monetary donations altogether and donate our time and talents?

This is what happens when I'm alone with my thoughts.  All questions.  Not even the beginning of an answer.

My hope is that people like Jane Goodall felt as lost as I do even though they appear to have planned it all out from the beginning.  I hope that I will be able to recognize the moments of luck or divine intervention should they ever drop in my lap.  I hope that the things in my life that feel random are somehow leading to something greater, not for my own good, but for the good of those around me.  And I just hope to do a little good here and there in the meantime.