The Bad Date

    I've put the idea of dating on hiatus for the next thirty years, which is a much longer period of time than I expect to live. When I think of dating now, it's always in retrospect. I was terrible at it and my ineptitude explains why I never had a relationship that lasted longer than a month, and even those were shaky from the start. I was like someone flying an airplane who had no idea how to fly an airplane but had seen enough depictions of people doing that faking it for a while worked. Briefly.

   One thing I got good at to an extent that it surprised me was finding the moment when the date went bad. (It surprised me because I have little empathy for others.) It would be as if a tire lost its air. Had I been realistic, I'd have said something like, "Well, let's call it a night, OK?" and not gone through the motions of chatting after we finished our meal or coffee. 

   I didn't date often. One or two a year for most of my life. In my late forties two decades ago, online dating sites became a thing and I joined one. My profile told the truth but even so for a couple of years the number of dates I went on increased to as many as five a year for a few years. 

   A date I ruminate on now, many years later, is the one that spurred this post. 

   I don't remember her name, but she was very much my type in every way, completely so physically: that well proportioned physic and right level of muscle tone that reflected an interior calm. We met at a small restaurant that served Japanese food. It was a BYOB, and I brought a small bottle of decent sake for us to share. She was about my age and worked in some capacity at the University of Pennsylvania, my home city's Ivy League school. She lived in that area too.

   Women who are smarter than I am have always attracted me. That never caused a problem in my school years, when if you were rich it was rarely because of your intelligence, but later it does. Women want men who are at least as successful as they are. I never made any real money and the pinnacle of my working life was as a store manager at a small store at a non-profit institution. I could pay the rent on my studio apartment, but that apartment was in a rundown building, albeit in a good neighborhood, in which I was the only one of the six renters over thirty. 

   The specifics of what we talked about are lost to me now. What I remember is that she talked casually about cultural things and ideas that were foreign to me. She understood higher level topics than I did and she understood them at a higher level. I admired that. It made me realize that there are entire communities of people in our classless society who are living much deeper lives than people like me, people who exist to be their bad dates.

An ad brings tears to the Loser's eyes

Age: 45
Body: Curvy
Height: 5'1"
Status: Single
I have a few tattoos

I probably won't get many responses if any but I figured it be worth a shot. I am a open minded person. Please be close to my age. I am not into the bar scene or clubbing. I seem to be a relatively boring person. I work and I come home to my multiple cats. I don't go out. I am a plain Jane kind of girl. I don't wear make up , I don't dress up and not into fancy restaurants. I enjoy simple things like taking walks I enjoy going to fleamarket's and yard sales. I like things to stay simple. I am a 45-year-old, white single female. As I mentioned above I have multiple cats and multiple birds. I don't travel because of my animals, I don't consider them my animals they are my babies, they mean the world to me.
I would like to find a man willing to start as friends first and see where things go. I am not into PDA. I am disease-free, I don't do drugs, I don't smoke and a social drinker. I would like the guy to be single as well so if a relationship forms there is no complications. I also prefer the guy to have no children. I'm tired of never being high on the priority list. As I said in the beginning I probably won't get anything but nasty responses but figured it was worth a shot. I live in Chester county, so please live close to there if you're interested in seeing if something could evolve.
If your email intrigues me I will reply, if it does not intrigue me I won't. Please send a "G" rated picture and tell me about yourself and your location and age. Please love animals and not allergic to them. Please be disease-free social drinker no drugs and smoking is negotiable Be willing to email a few times then perhaps exchange numbers and text for a while before speaking and meeting. Please do not send nasty comments it is not necessary. Please be open minded too.

Choose one!

The Complete and Total Loser likes looking at the magazines in his library. He also likes the messages you can get sometimes thanks to the simple, alphabetical arrangement of them on the racks. 
Look how different these three women are. The one on the left never even had her pallet spread, consistent with her natural-way-of-life adulthood. The woman on the right is lean and super fit, maybe too fit for some, though the Loser likes that look.
And then there's Kim Kardashian. Repulsive, but she does catch your eye. Talk about your magazine racks!

Covers of recent issues of Organic Life, Rolling Stone and Runner's World magazines.

What he wanted

The Complete and Total Loser doesn't think his unrealized desires when it came to being half of a couple were too selfish. He just wanted a kind woman who was smart enough to be worth listening to and who would, in turn, listen to him. He didn't hope to find one who was pretty, but did want someone who took care of herself and exercised regularly, like the Loser does. 
It didn't seem like too much to ask, but it never happened. 
Oh well!

Andrew Wyeth, Day Dream, 1980, tempera on panel, 19 x 27 3/8 inches, the Armand Hammer Collection.

Madness and stuff

1. The elderly woman who has been trying to contact her father left a longish message yesterday. (Quick background: She thinks she's in her 80s and her father has the same name as the Loser.) Usually, the answering machine confuses her and she tries to talk to it, gets frustrated when there's no response, and hangs up, despite the Loser's clear outgoing message. This time she left a calm message for "Mom or Dad," and included her name and telephone number. 
The pictures her alone in a comfortable apartment, sitting peacefully, when suddenly the urge to talk to her father, who has probably been dead for several years, bubbles up among tangled neurons and she reaches for a pad with the Loser's name and number on it. The Loser has politely coached her a few times to write "No, not this number" next to the number, but to no effect.

2. The Loser was going to have dinner with a friend who lives half an hour away and has been depressed lately. (Neither cares for football so watching the Super Bowl had nothing to do with this. There are mild weather concerns, but it looks doubtful that the streets will be bad.) The Loser was ready to go, when he got an email from his friend saying that on his visiting sister's advice (she's a psychiatrist) he was checking himself into an emergency psychiatric care facility for a few days for evaluation and treatment. 
3. Yesterday, the Loser went to a funeral service for an old friend of the family's. About four years ago, he went to the same church for the female half of the couple who's male half's death precipitated the service. That time, he drove his parents, who have since died. The Loser stayed for the reception and spoke to two of the couple's sons and their only daughter, all of whom he had known when they were all children. After the service and reception, the Loser and a couple he's friends with went out for lunch. Two others who'd attended, a man and a woman, went also. The Loser thought he felt a spark between he and the woman, but she's far out of his league, being employed and good looking. 

4. Another friend of the Loser's will visit tomorrow. He sounds troubled and says he is nearly broke. He and the Loser shared the same job and were fired together last summer. 

The blizzard of '15

The friendly supermarket cashier asked the Complete and Total Loser whether he was stocking up for the anticipated severe weather due to hit that night.
"Nah," the Loser said. "It's only going to be a few inches."
"Oh!" said the cashier. "You're so optimistic!" 
The Loser shrugged and smiled.

About three inches fell. 
The Loser's area newspaper ran a photo of some girls sledding on what was mostly grass to go with their story about how the storm was nothing like it was predicted to be. 
This often happens to the Loser when it comes to the weather. He looks at a weather map with care, and just knows. 
So why is it that he can do this yet he never has an idea—even now that he's in his mid 50s—of what to say to a woman?

Fraternity Girls

The women in this picture were in a fraternity at the University of Pennsylvania in 1906. Yes, a fraternity. That's what they called them back then, even when they were made up of only women. 
The woman in the chair may have been the president of the fraternity and if so, she was the Complete and Total Loser's grandmother. 
The Loser scanned the photo in and had to use stitching software as it was a large photo and his scanner is standard sized. He's using it for his desktop background at the moment, and he's developed an interest in the woman in dark clothes to the viewer's left of the seated woman. 

Why, the Loser wonders, is she wearing dark clothes? And why is her head not angled fully at the camera lens, like the other women? If the Loser had to guess, she became a demanding school teacher after college. A teacher who ran a strict classroom and spurred her elementary school students into mastering fully the foundations of math and English. After they graduated, a student or two would seek her out to thank her for making them learn fundamentals that later served them well and be surprised to find this tiny woman, not quite five feet tall, behind a big desk in their old classroom, preparing the next day's lessons.
The Loser also likes the woman seated on the bottom left. She looks like she'd be a good friend, sincere and funny.
All these women died of old age decades ago. 

Over a week

It's been over a week now that the Complete and Total Loser has had any contact with the woman who dumped him. At times he wonders if the whole thing ever happened. He wonders if she ever thinks of him now. Surely she doesn't as often as she did just after the dumping. It's all very strange to the Loser.

Dealing with pain

It's 1970 and the Complete and Total Loser is twelve years old. His crippled right leg, stunted by three operations to remove cartilaginous tumors, has ceased growth. X-rays show that the Loser may reach a height of six-feet-two-inches. The discrepancy would be debilitating, as the Loser already wears a shoe with a lift of over three inches. 
The solution is to cut clean through the bones of the Loser's left leg, five times at both the ankle and knee, shattering the growth plates to stop the leg's growth. The orthopedic surgeon is, like many bone guys, a tough man; his last name is Steel. He performs the operation with a drill and chisel and the Loser awakes in a cast that immobilizes the leg and goes around his hips. Blood leaks from four long incisions and soaks though the cast at both joints.
Even when done with clean instruments and skill, a major bone break hurts, and the Loser is in intense pain. This being a different era, they are reluctant to give much pain medication. The Loser howls in agony off and on for two weeks and is in much discomfort for another three weeks after that. He doesn't crap the first week. His adult height will be five-feet-nine-inches, and he'll wear a shoe with a seven-inch lift for the rest of his life.
The lesson learned is that pain of all kinds subsides. It takes longer than you think, much longer, but it does go away. Recently dumped by the first woman to like him in years, the Loser hurts now. He knows, however, that in a year or so he'll start keying in a name similar to hers in an email address line and when her name pops up he'll think of her for only a few seconds. Then he'll resume and think of a catchy subject line for the person he means to write.

The Loser gets dumped

The woman the Complete and Total Loser's been seeing since February dumped him earlier tonight. She did it with skill, which he's telling himself was inadvertent. (He believed her when she said she didn't intend to say what she did.)
She eased into it. If you were to ask the Loser why she's no longer interested in seeing him, he'd be unable to answer. There was no, "You're too ..." or "You're not ..." It was more her talking about where she is in life and slipping in past tense references to their relationship. Over a few minutes, it became clear to the Loser what was happening.
They parted with them assuring each other that they'd still talk on the phone and exchange emails, and the Loser is certain that they will. For awhile. 

Not everyone finds love in life.

This will be the year

Yesterday at 8:06 a.m. the Complete and Total Loser completed his 56th year of living outside his mother's body.
Since he was in his mid 40s, the Loser has joked about how at a specific age, when he imagined getting money, work, women and himself sorted out he'd find himself feeling ill, see his doctor, and learn that he has pancreatic cancer and that there's no hope for any cure, as is usually the case with that kind of cancer and therefore the reason he choose it for the joke. The age he used was always 56 -- the age he turned yesterday. It just sounded right.
He spent the night in bed in the nice suburban house his late parents owned and he lives in now. He has hundreds of thousands of dollars to his name, thanks to those parents. His job sucks but he's at management level now and is secure, though he wouldn't mind if the job evaporated. Finally, he spent that night in bed with a woman he's been seeing for months now, the longest he's ever been with a woman, and he looks forward to her next visit.
The cancer is due any day now ...

This elderly woman will probably outlive the Complete and Total Loser.

Now what?

It seems that the Complete and Total Loser, in his mid-fifties, is in his first relationship. He's not sure what this means or where it's supposed to go or where it will go. The woman involved likes him a lot and the Loser likes that she feels so full and happy when she's with him. She's the mother of four children, who sound like good kids, yet the Loser is important to her when he's with her.
The Loser likes the way he feels when he's with her. She brings out his better qualities. He finds her interesting and listens to her with an open mind. She likes his jokes. 
They're getting along well sexually, too, though the Loser's libido has serious problems. When it comes to sex, his mind is nineteen, but his body is closer to eighty, and if not for the Cialis he secretly takes just before she arrives ($8 a pill!), they wouldn't be having the degree of intimacy they're having. Honestly, it's not her, it's him.

A farm couple on a warm day.

 Major problems are that she lives in a house an hour away. The Loser doesn't see himself selling his late parents' house anytime soon and can't imagine her uprooting her life to live with him in a house that's too small for her children, the oldest of which is just fifteen. 
She's smart and knows all this but is happy to take things as they come. That's rare.

Having (middle-aged) Sex

The Complete and Total Loser had sex two weeks ago. He didn't have an orgasm, but he did manage to put his penis in his partner's vagina and keep it going for some time. She liked it, but she likes it more when he performs orally on her, which the Loser is happy to do, though he sort of wishes she'd cut her pubic hair shorter. 

A juvenile representation of a vagina.

The decades of lonely masturbation may have ruined the Loser for conventional sex. His penis, used to his own firm grip, has been desensitized. When she takes him in her mouth, it feels as though he's dipped his organ in a glass of warm water. When in her, he's not sure how much of him is inside, how much outside. He likes putting his fingers in and around her better. He can feel the textures, folds, little channels and moist passageways better. 
She lives in another state and is raising children, so their rendezvous are infrequent at this time. She genuinely likes the Loser, and he her, so there will be other attempts in the near future. 

Everywhere the Loser looks what does he see? Women!

Leave me alone

I'm here, by myself, wearing sunglasses and ear buds, reading my magazine, and that's how I want it. Leave me alone. I have zero interest in talking to you. There's no one else even sitting on this bench. It's fine with me if someone does, but if they do, they're not welcome to talk to me. At all. Mind your own business. Just leave me alone. If I wanted to talk to you, I would. I have all the friends I want. Go away. Beat it. Scram.

Stop the presses!

The Complete and Total Loser may have found a woman who will deign to be with him without being his coworker. A girlfriend. That's an impossible phrase for the Loser, who has yet to have one in his 55 years.
And yet. She smiles when she sees him, she laughs at his jokes, she kisses him. All that (and yes, a bit more) and she's not insane, as far as the Loser can tell, though he may be a poor judge of that.
More later, though the Loser is old fashioned and gentlemanly about what he divulges when it comes to tits, fucking, things like that. 

The Loser knows he'll never have this—youth and love. But he may have some love.

Reading up

The Complete and Total Loser is immersed in books and videos designed to help him keep his resolution to have sex with a woman in 2014. 
He has tried to remake himself in the past and done some reading on it, but there was never as much material as there is now, and when he doesn't keep reading new things about how to talk to women he tends to run out of steam.
There are so many books and hours of videos on it now that he can't imagine that happening for quite a while this time.

The Loser may have met a woman by the time this chair is warm enough to sit on.

His inappropriate crush

There are women and there are women. Most of them are the same. Then there are the two out of a hundred who enter your psyche and stick. You know you'll never have them and it hurts, almost physically. You also know that the guy who gets them will be some big, aggressive, insensitive dick who's too dumb to see their quality, and you know, further, that that's why the girl picks them. 

You can work at getting them but it's like grabbing something slippery; the tighter the grip, the faster it leaves you. Then someone who doesn't care whether he gets it or not just reaches out and takes it with a soft clasp.
The lead singer in this video makes The Complete and Total Loser remember his youth and those women. She's not the prettiest of the women singing, though she's up there. But she has a life force and a charisma that comes out at you, through the shitty lens used to record the video and from an auditorium at a tiny liberal arts college in central Ohio. See how all the others are wearing heels? Not her. Doesn't need them. She's fine with her body and how her legs look. And she smiles as she sings. I love that.

How to pick up girls

What does a handsome, interesting guy like you have to do to meet girls? 
The key to spending your Saturday nights deeply in love—or something like it—is using your imagination!
Suppose you see a hottie reading a book. Approach her and say, "I loved that book! It's one of my favorites!" whether you read it or not. 
Women are clever, though, and used to being lied to. But hey, what's she gonna do? Give you a multiple choice quiz on it? Far more likely, she'll say something like, "I'm glad you liked it. I'm going to keep reading now." Here's where your ability to use your imagination comes in, fella! Pretend she said, "Oh? What did you like about it?" 
Then say, "I liked the characters, the story ... heck, everything!" 
At this, she may say, "Yeah, uh, that's great," and return to her book. 
At this, pretend she said, "I agree! What else do you like to read?" 
Now's your chance to take things up a notch.
You: "I like books that make me more aware of both myself and people who aren't at all like me. Books that heighten my senses and help me develop empathy toward others."
Chicks dig the sensitive type! Women, however, game players that they are, often have clever responses ready. 
She might say something like, "Please leave me alone. If you don't, I'll report you to someone."
As before, you have to be ready to counter her mind games by using your imagination. Act as if instead of that she said, "Those are wonderful reasons to read. What books have you read that have done those things?" 
You're in, big guy. 
Say, "My list and reasons are too long to explain in a short time. Why don't I buy you a cup of coffee or dinner and we can discuss it at greater length?"
Women jump at the chance to dine with strangers and she'll invariably say yes. 
You've got your foot in the door. The rest is up to you.

Girls reading in public might as well be saying, "C'mon over, boys!"

Women are just like you are

Any time the Complete and Total Loser asked women how he could better deal with women, women wold tell him that women are just people and that he should treat women as he would like to be treated.
This is bullshit, of course. Women are an entirely different species from men.

Can you tell which one's the woman and which one's the man? Thought so.

Why women intrigue

They walk with grace, their skin is soft, they think gentle thoughts, their clothes and even their bodies sometimes defy gravity, they have secret, warm places that even when rudely or clinically explored still beckon.