Higher Standards

Something tells me I need to have higher standards for myself.

I also need to stop giving my friends such great sound bites....

Drama Queen

How much would my mother have killed me if I did this when I was younger? I was one step away from this kind of drama!

Homelessness....not so uncommon

Since I posted about going out with a homeless man, I have realized that it is not as uncommon as I once thought!

A friend of mine called me one evening after that post to say, "I realized, I accidentally went out with a homeless guy once too! We were in the middle of dinner when he said 'I should probably let you know that I currently live in my car'" WHAAAAT??!?! 

Then about a week ago I was at happy hour with some friends when the gentlemen across the table let me know that the currently lives in his car…cause it saves money! And is convenient!

Apparently this is not as uncommon as I thought. And maybe a new trend. 

The guy at happy hour said that if he met a girl that was not cool with him living in his car then he knew she was not the girl for him…but I guess I have a hard time with that. I like to think of myself as a pretty free, easy-going person - but I am not okay with someone living in their car. To me it speaks if an inability to provide, or balance a budget, or financially plan for the future. For some reason - I can't handle it. 

Am I alone in this? Am I being prude? Would you date someone who lives in their car? And, as someone pointed out to me, do you think there is a difference between a guy or a girl living in their car? 

The time I accidentally went out with a homeless guy

There is really no easy way to start this story. Or to explain myself without coming out as the dumb one every time.

I am going to chalk this one up to bad judgment mixed with peer pressure.

I met this guy online. But pretty quickly after meeting him, I reconnected with this guy I've known for the better part of my life. He's the coolest. And I've been having fun chatting with him. 

And herein lies the problem. I can't balance. If there is a guy I am excited about - I can't go on dates with other guys. I can't. It is so difficult for me to keep an open mind that some other mystery guy I meet online could possibly be pretty cool, when I KNOW this other guy actually IS cool. So I just choose to hold out hope in my conversations with the one I know rather than exploring possibilities with strangers. To me that makes perfect sense, but not to all my friends. One more glitch, the cool guy lives in Illinois. And is pretty passionately against long distance relationships, so chatting is all this will ever be for quite a while. Hope is really all I have at this point. I would be holding out for quite a while for this one.

So my friends convinced me I needed to give the online mystery guy a chance.

In the midst of my internal battle on whether this was true or not, online man had sent me three emails trying to convince me to grab coffee with him. I decided (against my better judgement) he deserved points for persistance (stalking??) and what could the harm in ONE cup of coffee be?? (This might be a good point to interject that it is always good to listen to your gut. If you gut tells you that you probably don't want to go out with someone, you're probably right).

He drove to Pasadena to meet me. We had coffee. It wasn't great, but it wasn't torture. He loved to talk about himself, which was mostly fine because he's done lots of traveling and had some cool stories. I even let it slide when he talked over my stories or doubted it when I said I had done some trekking of my own in Nepal. Apparently I look weak.

But the best part was in the last 10 minutes of the date when he chimed in with this gem: "Oh, another interesting fact about myself, I live in my van!"

um...um....that's unique?

I guess it was nice of the guy to move to Pasadena for an hour an a half to have coffee with me. But I don't think there will be a second date.

I think holding out hope for Illinois is sounding better and better with each online date I go on....although, he did tell me his van had TWO beds in it! (not a joke, unfortunately).

"you are starting to become unrealistic in how bad you are at dating!" - Friend