Blind Date Monday

Mondays are my reality TV guilty pleasure days. I don't get involved in too many of those mind numbing "reality" TV shows, but I got sucked into this season's The Bachelor (ok, and last season's The Bachelorette with ED - E.D. Ed). Who can't resist a house full of caddy women comically bearing their souls and their bresteses in competion for the heart of one man who is simultaneoulsy dating them all AT THE SAME TIME. Really, it's like the most fabulous social studies experiment ever!!! Monday has come to be known as Dumb Bitch Monday, DMB for short.

I am normally happily satisfied sprawled out across my couch with no makeup, hair a mess, wearing Sunday's clothes, and ready to roll right into Tuesday without so much as a thought about accomplishing anything for the rest of the night.

I pulled a fast one this week. A fast one for Monday and a fast one for me in general. I went on a blind date. "How Lauren," you might ask yourself "how do you get yourself into a blind date situation on Dumb Bitch Monday, if you don't ever leave your house except to go to work or leave for the airport?"

Well, I have 4-7 dormant dating profiles out there that occasionally get some kind of response and occasionlly result in one of the smart ones finding my messenger ID by reading in between the lines. Two such individuals found me a few weeks back before Christmas and hence, the chat began. What would catch my attention so intently? Music. Music as a whole, as blues, as country, as pop, and jazz...these guys both know music and they appreciate it as much as I do. You can get to some people's hearts through their stomachs, through their wallets...me, you can catch my attention with a good love of music.

After changing work schedules and driving across the country and narrowly missing a kidney infection, I plain ran out of excuses to not meet for "coffee or a movie or something" and in my haste, agreed to go out on a date with the one guy who I thought was the other guy, and well...that's how Dumb Bitch Monday (DBM) became Blind Date Monday (BDM).

Fast forward to Monday at 7:20pm, after blinding my right eye with a wayward squirt of Model in a Bottle (go ahead, laugh), I was literally blind in one eye for my blind date. As I played on my iphone pretending not to be listening for the door to open, I noticed a wheelchair bound person rolling past my window seat and towards the door and thought "I could very well be getting punked right now. What do I do if this guy is in a wheelchair? Or if he's a midget?" I wasn't nervous while I was getting ready, while driving the 30 minutes it took me to get there, while I sat in my car out front killing time watching unsavory characters smoke and spit lugies at the corner liquor store, but now going on 25 minutes late, I was nervous.

I have to stop here to say that this scene in itself is not me. At all. I don't date. Ask my closest friends...they can't even tell you the last time I ever went on a date. Yeah, I'm 28 and single and I don't date. I don't know why exactly. I'm not incapable, I'm not afraid, I'm not socially damaged, but I am mostly uninterested. I know, I know...get interested. Get unsingle. Find someone fabulous like yourself. I know. I never posted a list of 2010 resolutions at the beginning of this month, but I had in the back of my mind to do something simple. Go on a date. And so I did...

Back to Momiji sushi (which by the way, 2 thumbs down) my date arrives and very shyly says, "Lauren?". He's big. A big, big guy...not unkept or slobbish or wobbly like Santa Claus. But big, tall and wide, like Paul Bunyan with a big head like he was part bulldog...and hairy. Very, very hairy. Like Chewbacca's cousin kind of hairy. His knuckles had eyebrows. His eyebrows had unibrows of their own. The sushi was not good (my bad), but the conversation was much better, the movie afterwards was superb, and over all the blind date was not a total failure. If it was grading it, I'd say it was a B. Ok, maybe a B+. The grade was good enough that it lead to BDT the next day. Yup, Blind Date Tuesday. (editor's note: Jen's gonna kick my ass for not telling her about BDT til now)

Blind Date Tuesday was kind of as a result of BDM...I said yes to one and I was weak when in the same hour the second one asked me to go out and I said yes again. Like I said, I ran out of excuses, they had both been asking for a few weeks.

A few texts later and then a few phone calls, BDT commenced on the streets of my local college town. Steve the car salesman. Steve the car salesman parked about 6 blocks away from where we were supposed to meet, which left me walking down the cold, wet street to find him. I knew he was tall, but 6'5 on paper is a lot different than 6'5 in real life. My neck still hurts from having to look up to make eye contact. A little jaunt around sleepy Davis and we decided to just settle in the (empty) movie theatre about 30 minutes early. Great, 30 minutes of dim empty space next to a stranger. Despite my perpetual single state of existence, I am not a super picky woman when it comes to men. I date ugly, I date short, I date big, I date emotionally damaged mamma's boys. But...there are still things that I cannot get over. Small, delicate-looking, manicured, long fingernailed hands are not something I can get over. In the dim light of the movie theatre as he joked that he could have Torettes freely, and I quote "I'm really bothered by that large bump on my testicle!", I noticed the pale, uncalluoused hands of the basketball star sized date next to me and said "Self, those are a deal breaker" Again, the conversation wasn't bad, the movie was great, and inviting Lurch to go back a bar with me to hang out with some friends until we closed the bar down wasn't bad either...but we're still talking about a B.

Post date Monday, explaining my spur of the moment actions, my BF asked me if going out made me want to get out on a permanent basis and "date". No, not really. I wouldn't not go out again, but there were no sparks, no fire, nothing to preoccupy my train of thought post-date for either one of them. Well except for the fact that they both were definitley not midgets. Score for me.

My best and most accurate description of the whole two-night date process is simply that I was underwhelmed.

Now a week later, sitting here in my living room, typing away about my dates, I am ironically listening to a live performnce of John Mayer's "Perfectly Lonely"

Nothing to do
No one but me...
a simple kind of free...
...is it really hard to see?
I'm perfectlly lonely...
I have to thank the wrongs
that lead me to a love so strong
I'm perfectly lonely...

I'm overwhelmed in a life full of good things and great people. I see no reason why I shouldn't be overwhelmed in a love just the same. Underwhelmed is no way to be...perfectly lonely is simply poetic and I'm still ok with that for now.