I was out with my girlfriends on a Friday night. I did not have plans to see Tommy. We had plans for the next night, but I had already declared that Friday night was going to be girls night. We were downtown having a great time and I happened to run in to Tommy and one of his friends. We chatted and all had a drink together and then parted ways. I could tell that he was quite intoxicated but I honestly felt like it was not my issue because I was with my friends, he had his friends and I was not responsible for him or his whereabouts that evening.
As soon as I left him the texting and phone calls began. He wanted to meet up with me again. He wanted to hang out. He wanted to see me. Blah blah blah! I tried to blow him off but I was torn because I WAS interested in this guy so I did kind of want to meet up with him too. I let another hour or so pass and then I gave in and met up with him and his friend.
The Tommy that I met up with was not the Tommy that I had seen earlier in the evening. He was completely inebriated. He literally could not form a sentence. He was hanging all over me and his friend was done with the situation. I was stuck with him. I had to make a game time decision. I loaded his drunk ass into my car and drove him back to my place. With any luck he would pass out in my car and I could just deal with him once I got home. I was hoping for an easy rest of the evening. What I got was anything other than easy.
As soon as I got him in the door he came to life. I told him he needed to go to bed. I had to be up at 6:00AM the next morning to be at an event. I was in no mood for shenanigans. He told me that I could go to bed and he was going to stay up and watch TV for a bit and then he would come to bed. The mistake I made was believing that. Around 2AM I woke up because I heard a loud bang in my kitchen. I jumped out of bed and I found him laying in the floor with a container of ice cream all over him. I don't even know what had happened but all I could tell was that he had fallen and the ice cream had followed. There was food everywhere in my kitchen! There were crackers on the counter, chips out of the cabinet, the milk was out of the fridge. He had even opened a box of Stove Top Stuffing Mix!! This joker was hungry!! He had been binge eating and my kitchen looked like a scene from The Hangover. I was sure that there was a chicken or a tiger somewhere in my house.
I was furious! I forced him to get in bed. I left the mess and told him that he would clean it up in the morning. I got very little sleep for the rest of the night because I was so angry…and maybe a little worried that he might die. I just could not understand how someone could get so drunk and act so ridiculous! He was an adult…not a ridiculous irresponsible teenager! It made no sense.
The next morning I left the house SUPER early. He was, of course, still asleep. I just reminded him that there was a disaster in my kitchen and I expected it to be completely cleaned up when I got back.
I was gone ALL DAY. I didn't return home until almost 6:00 that evening. When I got home he was gone and the mess was cleaned up…however there was something that was just not quite right about my kitchen.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Monday, July 21, 2014
Everyone Has Quirks
Tommy immediately asked me out on a date for the following weekend. I agreed to go out with him. What did I have to lose? Little did I know those would later be famous last words in our relationship.
He picked me up at my house on Saturday night and we went out to a nice dinner. We had sushi and a few cocktails. We spent a lot of time talking over dinner and drinks and really getting to know each other. He was an engineer. He had a great job and he also was working in his spare time developing an app for smart phones. This guy was really smart. I was fairly impressed. We talked about his soccer days in college. It sounded like he was a pretty good athlete, which was always a plus in my book.
After dinner we came back to my house. I invited him in to hang out for a bit with the pups. After the Todd debacle, I learned that it was best just to let someone go ahead and meet the dogs before anything got too serious so I would know whether or not the relationship had potential. He was really sweet to my dogs. He played with them and gave them attention. He officially had passed the dog test.
We hung out and chatted for a little longer and then it was time for him to go. I kissed him goodnight and we made plans to see each other again. I was interested in him. He was cute, smart and he seemed to have his life together.
Over the next couple of months, Tommy and I went out a lot. Things seemed to be really developing between us. I felt we had a real chemistry together. He was a little quirky but overall, a nice guy who I felt I could POSSIBLY potentially maybe :) see a future with. I say that very lightly because I had already learned up to this point in my dating "career" to always proceed with caution. I could never be too sure about the way I felt about things.
There were a few things that I learned during the time that I had spent with Tommy that I felt were just quirks and not red flags or deal breakers. Everyone has quirks, right??
Tommy had two tattoos…that I knew of. One was a wolf howling at the moon and one was a tiger. I always thought that these were very odd tattoos and when I asked him about them the answer that I got was even more odd. The tiger was for power and strength…OK. Got that one. The wolf was because he likes to go outside and howl at the moon just like a wolf! WTF??!!?? Why didn't I run away when I got this response? I think that I honestly thought he was joking. No normal person would ever say something like that. No normal person would do that and he seemed overall pretty normal.
Another thing that made him quirky was during a conversation about going to the beach. We were talking about our favorite things about the beach and what we liked to do at the beach. My response was that I like to relax, swim a little, read a book, drink a good drink and just enjoy the time off work. His response was totally bizarre. He said that he likes to go into the ocean and stand there all day and punch the waves and "fight Poseidon". He said he would even yell at Poseidon and hope that he would get bigger waves. I immediately knew at that point that we would NEVER be taking a beach trip together.
The final thing was he liked to party and he liked to party hard. I had never quite seen anything like it. When he would drink it was like a different level of drunkenness than I had ever seen before. I couldn't even really explain it. He was quite a mystery to me.
Armed with these "quirks", for some reason I still decided that I was going to date him for a little longer. I don't know if I was bored, lonely or I just wanted to see where this ride was going to take me.
He picked me up at my house on Saturday night and we went out to a nice dinner. We had sushi and a few cocktails. We spent a lot of time talking over dinner and drinks and really getting to know each other. He was an engineer. He had a great job and he also was working in his spare time developing an app for smart phones. This guy was really smart. I was fairly impressed. We talked about his soccer days in college. It sounded like he was a pretty good athlete, which was always a plus in my book.
After dinner we came back to my house. I invited him in to hang out for a bit with the pups. After the Todd debacle, I learned that it was best just to let someone go ahead and meet the dogs before anything got too serious so I would know whether or not the relationship had potential. He was really sweet to my dogs. He played with them and gave them attention. He officially had passed the dog test.
We hung out and chatted for a little longer and then it was time for him to go. I kissed him goodnight and we made plans to see each other again. I was interested in him. He was cute, smart and he seemed to have his life together.
Over the next couple of months, Tommy and I went out a lot. Things seemed to be really developing between us. I felt we had a real chemistry together. He was a little quirky but overall, a nice guy who I felt I could POSSIBLY potentially maybe :) see a future with. I say that very lightly because I had already learned up to this point in my dating "career" to always proceed with caution. I could never be too sure about the way I felt about things.
There were a few things that I learned during the time that I had spent with Tommy that I felt were just quirks and not red flags or deal breakers. Everyone has quirks, right??
Tommy had two tattoos…that I knew of. One was a wolf howling at the moon and one was a tiger. I always thought that these were very odd tattoos and when I asked him about them the answer that I got was even more odd. The tiger was for power and strength…OK. Got that one. The wolf was because he likes to go outside and howl at the moon just like a wolf! WTF??!!?? Why didn't I run away when I got this response? I think that I honestly thought he was joking. No normal person would ever say something like that. No normal person would do that and he seemed overall pretty normal.
Another thing that made him quirky was during a conversation about going to the beach. We were talking about our favorite things about the beach and what we liked to do at the beach. My response was that I like to relax, swim a little, read a book, drink a good drink and just enjoy the time off work. His response was totally bizarre. He said that he likes to go into the ocean and stand there all day and punch the waves and "fight Poseidon". He said he would even yell at Poseidon and hope that he would get bigger waves. I immediately knew at that point that we would NEVER be taking a beach trip together.
The final thing was he liked to party and he liked to party hard. I had never quite seen anything like it. When he would drink it was like a different level of drunkenness than I had ever seen before. I couldn't even really explain it. He was quite a mystery to me.
Armed with these "quirks", for some reason I still decided that I was going to date him for a little longer. I don't know if I was bored, lonely or I just wanted to see where this ride was going to take me.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Function Over Fashion
After Todd, I decided that I was not going to worry with dating. I was just ready to go out and have fun with my friends. I had some GREAT single friends and we had built a pretty good schedule of going either to happy hour for a casual glass of wine or going out until the wee hours of the morning and partying like a bunch of rockstars. I was having the time of my life. I did not need anyone and I DEFINITELY was not looking for anyone. My one friend and I always joked about how oblivious we were to anyone else in bars other than ourselves. We just went to drink, dance and have fun. We never paid attention to our surroundings…especially the men. We did not go out to meet people. We went out to have fun.
Enter Tommy.
It was an unseasonably cold night and my dear friend and I were out on the town. Neither of us were dressed appropriately for the weather and we did not have a jacket. The only solution that we could find was a pink and black fleece paw printed dog blanket in the back seat of my car. SCORE!! We were going to be warm. Function over fashion, right?!? Now…if we actually cared what people thought about us or we were trying to pick up men, we would have never used a dog blanket to keep warm, but neither of these were the case so the dog blanket worked out just fine.
We used the blanket to wrap up in to walk to the bar and then once inside we draped it over our legs while sitting at the bar having drinks. It was a weeknight so it was not terribly crowded but there were still enough people sitting at the bar that we had "friends" surrounding us. We decided that we needed to get a picture to document our evening with the dog blanket in the bar so I asked the gentleman next to me if he would mind taking a quick picture…and that's where it all started.
He took a picture of us and then wasted no time introducing himself to my friend and I. His name was Tommy. He had just moved to our city about a year ago. He was an engineer. He told me that he played soccer in college for a very reputable university. He seemed like an OK guy. Had I been interested in dating I might have thought that he would have been a good guy to consider. Since I was not interested in dating, I was ready to get back to my friend and ignore him.
That is not what happened. My friend and I ended up talking to him the rest of the evening. He had a really cute smile, a sweet personality and from what I could tell he seemed like a pretty good guy. Before I left he asked me for my number. Hesitantly, I gave it to him. I really felt like he was nice, I just wasn't sure if I was up for trying to date again. I was beginning to feel like everything was failing and I was starting to burn out. After I gave him my number I decided that if he called I would give him a chance. I felt the chances of him calling were about 25%. After all, we met in a bar, we had both had a few drinks and I had a damn dog blanket on as a shawl!! You play those odds!
He called the next day!
Enter Tommy.
It was an unseasonably cold night and my dear friend and I were out on the town. Neither of us were dressed appropriately for the weather and we did not have a jacket. The only solution that we could find was a pink and black fleece paw printed dog blanket in the back seat of my car. SCORE!! We were going to be warm. Function over fashion, right?!? Now…if we actually cared what people thought about us or we were trying to pick up men, we would have never used a dog blanket to keep warm, but neither of these were the case so the dog blanket worked out just fine.
We used the blanket to wrap up in to walk to the bar and then once inside we draped it over our legs while sitting at the bar having drinks. It was a weeknight so it was not terribly crowded but there were still enough people sitting at the bar that we had "friends" surrounding us. We decided that we needed to get a picture to document our evening with the dog blanket in the bar so I asked the gentleman next to me if he would mind taking a quick picture…and that's where it all started.
He took a picture of us and then wasted no time introducing himself to my friend and I. His name was Tommy. He had just moved to our city about a year ago. He was an engineer. He told me that he played soccer in college for a very reputable university. He seemed like an OK guy. Had I been interested in dating I might have thought that he would have been a good guy to consider. Since I was not interested in dating, I was ready to get back to my friend and ignore him.
That is not what happened. My friend and I ended up talking to him the rest of the evening. He had a really cute smile, a sweet personality and from what I could tell he seemed like a pretty good guy. Before I left he asked me for my number. Hesitantly, I gave it to him. I really felt like he was nice, I just wasn't sure if I was up for trying to date again. I was beginning to feel like everything was failing and I was starting to burn out. After I gave him my number I decided that if he called I would give him a chance. I felt the chances of him calling were about 25%. After all, we met in a bar, we had both had a few drinks and I had a damn dog blanket on as a shawl!! You play those odds!
He called the next day!
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Friends??
Todd and I continued to date for a few more weeks. Needless to say he was not invited over to my house anymore. We had so much fun together but the one issue that we could not get past was the subject of my dogs. This was something that he was not going to cave on and I absolutely would not EVER compromise on my dogs.
It was very difficult for me to comprehend how everything could seem so spot on with a person and something as trivial as whether a dog lives in your house or outside of your house could be the breaking point. However, it was a definite deal breaker with me because these dogs were NEVER going to live outside and that was that. I could never even imagine anything different for them.
Todd and I eventually decided that we were not going to have a future together romantically. It was a mutual decision and was probably the most mature, adult break-up conversation I had had with someone up to this point. We basically just sat down and agreed that due to this huge point of contention we would never be able to see a future together so we needed to stop things before they got too much more involved. We laughed about how trivial it sounded, I gave him a nickname "Dog Hater Todd" and then we agreed that we would remain friends because we truly enjoyed each other's company so much.
I believe that it is rare to actually remain friends with someone who you have dated and had an intimate relationship with. Usually it is very hard to go back to a platonic relationship…especially if you never had that in the first place. Todd and I have been the exception to that!! We have turned in to really good friends! We talk about once a week. We still see each other occasionally. We have just as much fun together as friends as we did when we dated. There is definitely still an attraction there but we just have to draw the line and know that we have decided to be friends. Occasionally if we're both single we will sneak a kiss in but that is where we draw the line :) I am so thankful to have him in my life as a friend because he is a fantastic person. I would much rather our situation have ended up as it has then ended up in any other way.
My Take-Aways from Todd:
* There are good guys out there. Todd was the first really good, quality, successful guy that I dated. It was encouraging to me to finally find someone that was on the same page as me and shared the same goals!! Even though it didn't work out with him, it made me set my bar a little higher and made me realize that I can find a quality guy if I am just willing to wait for the right one.
* When you feel like you see little red flags, don't dismiss them…pay attention. More than likely they turn into big issues. The entire dog situation could have been avoided had I just listened and taken him seriously when he told me that he hated indoor dogs.
* When you know that a relationship is not going anywhere it is best to go ahead a scrap it. Don't drag it out even if you feel like everything else feels good about it. If there is one huge issue that you will never get past, end the relationship. Fortunately Todd and I ended it early enough that emotions were not so involved and we could not salvage a friendship.
It was very difficult for me to comprehend how everything could seem so spot on with a person and something as trivial as whether a dog lives in your house or outside of your house could be the breaking point. However, it was a definite deal breaker with me because these dogs were NEVER going to live outside and that was that. I could never even imagine anything different for them.
Todd and I eventually decided that we were not going to have a future together romantically. It was a mutual decision and was probably the most mature, adult break-up conversation I had had with someone up to this point. We basically just sat down and agreed that due to this huge point of contention we would never be able to see a future together so we needed to stop things before they got too much more involved. We laughed about how trivial it sounded, I gave him a nickname "Dog Hater Todd" and then we agreed that we would remain friends because we truly enjoyed each other's company so much.
I believe that it is rare to actually remain friends with someone who you have dated and had an intimate relationship with. Usually it is very hard to go back to a platonic relationship…especially if you never had that in the first place. Todd and I have been the exception to that!! We have turned in to really good friends! We talk about once a week. We still see each other occasionally. We have just as much fun together as friends as we did when we dated. There is definitely still an attraction there but we just have to draw the line and know that we have decided to be friends. Occasionally if we're both single we will sneak a kiss in but that is where we draw the line :) I am so thankful to have him in my life as a friend because he is a fantastic person. I would much rather our situation have ended up as it has then ended up in any other way.
My Take-Aways from Todd:
* There are good guys out there. Todd was the first really good, quality, successful guy that I dated. It was encouraging to me to finally find someone that was on the same page as me and shared the same goals!! Even though it didn't work out with him, it made me set my bar a little higher and made me realize that I can find a quality guy if I am just willing to wait for the right one.
* When you feel like you see little red flags, don't dismiss them…pay attention. More than likely they turn into big issues. The entire dog situation could have been avoided had I just listened and taken him seriously when he told me that he hated indoor dogs.
* When you know that a relationship is not going anywhere it is best to go ahead a scrap it. Don't drag it out even if you feel like everything else feels good about it. If there is one huge issue that you will never get past, end the relationship. Fortunately Todd and I ended it early enough that emotions were not so involved and we could not salvage a friendship.
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