Meet the parents

So I met Brian's parents and sister and pretty much everyone else they know tonight. It wasn't a pleasant experience for me really. I'm an introvert, low-key, quiet, not chatty and not boisterous. They are the opposite of all that. Brian left me alone for more time than I was comfortable with, and he drank way more than I was comfortable with, especially since his son was there. I was the only sober one over 18, including his 20 year old sister and there were a lot of kids there. I am not conservative in many things but I do not like drinking to excess. I've only been really drunk a handful of times and I was just not comfortable. His parents barely spoke to me and frankly, weren't very good hosts. His sister only spoke to me after she was drunk. A few of the family friends fussed over me briefly, making sure I didn't need a drink and stuff. I chatted with a few of them, some repeated the same damn story 3 or 4 times. It is just really not how I wanted to meet his parents for the first time. The majority of the conversation with his parents was just making sure I was not drinking and would be driving Brian and his son home safely. I really kind of hate how this is going one step forward and two steps back, I'm doubting again if I want to continue seeing him.

Seeing someone

I made it official on OKCupid, seems like Brian and I are moving into the more serious dating. He keeps talking about me meeting his parents and it looks like it might happen this weekend. And he wants to do a B&B weekend in St. Pete soon and visit one of his friends out there.

1. I've never hung out with a boyfriend's friends before. (Even though we haven't actually used the terms boyfriend and girlfriend yet, for simplicity's sake that's what I'm using here.) Granted, the only one it was really possible with was Brent and, even though most of his friends were mine first, I never hung out with them. Which coincidentally, probably made it much, much easier for him to cheat on me.
2. I've only ever met the parents once too, again with Brent. That was always strained because of the race and cultural difference I think. Hopefully, there won't be many problems with Brian's parents. I may have to keep my heathen blasphemer mouth shut more than I'd like.
3. This is all just very weird, surreal even. 

So is this how it starts?

Do you remember the one HIMYM episode where Robyn has a new boyfriend but she's all "me, me, me, I, I, I"? The one at Halloween with Marshall and Lily as the awesome pirate and parrot? Well, I have Robyn's problem to a degree. To start at the beginning, I've been told the yard has chinch bugs and 2 weeks ago I bought the treatment for them but couldn't afford the spreading equipment. I'm used to taking care of things myself, sometimes it takes a little longer, but I always get it done. I know I talk like that, I have that mindset. Brian offered to get his dad's for me to borrow, instead of me spending money for a new one, and I said OK. Some guys like to feel that they're needed, so I let him come to my rescue. We talked about it Sunday morning, he was going to his parents' later that day and I was going to get it from him today after work. But when I asked him if he was able to get it, he said he forgot. Grrrr. So now I'm out of money again, my poor lawn is suffering and I'm annoyed.

I know it's a dumb little thing to be annoyed at and he could have lied and said his dad said no or something. But is this how the disappointment will start?

Updates

Update work: On Friday the manager that held that meeting on Thursday that I wrote about, thanked me for stepping up and saying I'd take more work. The manager under him (there are 4 levels of management above me, just in the building, it's a bit excessive) will be away for a couple weeks in June and he said I might be able to pick up some of her duties. Really looking forward to the chance to show that I can do more than fill out spreadsheets and send emails to people. I really hope there's room for upward movement in this company.

Update dating: Things are improving, we had another night together and it was good. I'm glad I talked to him about that instead of just calling it quits. Still getting some mixed signals about the seriousness level though. I'm not sure if he was joking or not but he asked if I wanted to go with him to his parents' house today. I declined and then he joked more that I should go and wear black lipstick and fishnets. So I think he was joking.

After we've been apart a few days, then get together again, he always says that he missed me. And I'm sitting here trying to figure out if I miss him. I really enjoy spending time with him but I don't know if I miss him when he's gone. I'm so used to doing whatever I want when I'm alone and I like that. Still need to find that balance I guess.

'Scuse me for having a work ethic

I'm about 6 weeks into my new job and it's frustratingly boring. I work for a sub-contractor and I don't know if they get paid by the body or what but it does not take five full time people to do what my department does. Pass information back and forth, fill out a few Excel spreadsheets (half of which all say the same damn thing). I could do 2 or maybe even 3 other people's job in my dept to fill an 8 hour day.

We had our weekly meeting today, one of them anyway, and the boss asks me point blank if I have enough work to do. I say "I could use some more work." and I get the stink eye from the WHOLE meeting. Excuse me for hating sitting around and doing nothing for half the day. It might be a little different if I had full run of the internet to keep me entertained but it's monitored closely and I can't stream music or TV or anything. There's only so much Solitaire a girl can play before she goes mad!

Also, their processes are so inefficient! It's hard for me to be purposefully inefficient, it's not how my brain works. I'm paid well, too well, for the level of work I do but I just don't know if this place is a good fit for me. I don't know if I should just shut up and accept a decent paying but super boring job, and next time I'm asked if I have enough work, lie about it? Or start looking for something else that may or may not be any better for me?

Anniversary

Yesterday was my 4 year anniversary of moving to Florida. Still quite happy here compared to how things were in MD. I'm positive I wouldn't own my own house by now if I'd stayed there, so there's that. I still lack a social life for the most part but it wasn't much better in MD either. And even with love bugs twice a year it's still better than scraping ice off my car all winter. Considering finding a part time job to pay some debt down faster, a few minor financial setbacks added up to a major one. Now that I'm out of work by 4:30pm maybe I can find some retail gig in the evenings or something, not ideal but I gotta do what I gotta do.

S'pose that's all for now.

Tentative

So I talked to the guy, seems he is somewhat inexperienced and not quite so sexually liberated as I am. Which sounds ridiculous because there is plenty I'm not comfortable with, I still consider myself to be inexperienced. But I think that can be worked on, he seems open. At least he's not a completely selfish lover, he just doesn't know any better. I always thought I'd be better off with someone more experienced than myself but I like this guy enough to try. And we talked a bit about the child issue and he understands I'm not ready to spend any time with his son at this point in the thing.

So, still casually dating, for now.

Been a while since I've remembered a dream...

08:20 am

This is a doozy, and fading fast.

I'm walking through my neighborhood and saying hello to friendly-type people. I go in my house and there's a psycho murderer inside. I run to the kitchen, grab two knives and escape through the garage. I run to the same friendly people I was just talking too and they all have fake faces put there by the psycho and they try to attack me.

I manage to get far enough away where I find people he hasn't... corrupted? And find one friend. We start running together. We meet another small group of people who seem safe but then turn on us. Running through streets and alleys and buildings being chased by a mob. We enter one building and start climbing stairs/scaffolding. Higher and higher. We split up to confuse the mob but it doesn't work. We reach the top, ridiculously high, can't see the ground. I actually think something like "Who needs a ladder this tall?". So at the top and we're clutching the structure with the mob coming up. There's a mirror hanging up there too for some reason, full length, I can see both of us. I (we?) decide I'd rather jump and die from the fall than be taken back to psycho killer, so we do, but at the last second we're stopped from falling and restrained.

Cut to an outside area, I'm unrestrained but unable to get up from a chair. I kind of feel like a gibbering idiot with periods of lucidity. (Now that I'm awake I might compare it to Firefly River Tam) my friend is still there next to me in a similar state. My brother is there, trying to take care of me. Weirdly random things happen... someone is reciting Hamlet badly and gets hit by my friend. I eat weird combinations of foods all mixed in something like a pudding cup. I can see a large apartment type building not far away, all the patio furniture on the balconies are draped in white fabric and the few people I see out there are dressed in white too. Someone drives by where we are and dumps a bunch of junk out of their car, including an empty child's car seat. My brother starts to walk away as I'm about to ask him to bring his dog next time for a visit. I see the car seat and just start sobbing. Then I woke up.

When I woke up it took a few seconds to remember the chasing mob part so I'm not sure if they were one dream or two separate ones.

Journals

So, from this point backwards is an archive of the majority of my OK Cupid journal entries. I didn't want to lose my sage words :) For posterity's sake, it was a great free dating site, until Match.com bought it and slowly started removing the features that made it great.

May 6, 2011

Seeing rumors that the journals are going away. Noticed some of the buttons are gone form the journal page so I guess it's plausible.  I've been backing up the majority of my posts to a Blogger site. I got to 50 and it yelled at me for posting too much and is making me do a captcha thing each time so I guess I'll stop for today.

Stupid Match.com, it's all their fault.

Chicken

May 6, 2011

Completely chickening out about ending things. I didn't want to wait until Sunday (the next day we'd both have time off) to talk about stuff so I wrote up a whole letter explaining all the things that are bothering me. I don't have an email for him so I was going to send it through a FB message but today he texted me and he got bad news about his job ending in the near future so it would be harsh to send it now. Right?

And I still hold out a small hope that my experiences so far are a fluke and things will improve. Such an idiot :) I really do like spending time with him, that's the kicker.  

Damn it. 

The latest...

May 5, 2011

We haven't talked since Tuesday so maybe he's of the same mind as me that this (whatever "this" is) isn't going to work out. 

I'm disappointed and sad about it though. Disappointed because there was much hope in the beginning that this had some potential. And sad after spending time with his son because I realized that I'm a mother with no child. It's all I've ever dreamed of being, it's the only thing I wanted to be when I grew up, a mother. And with every passing day and failed dating attempt it seems less and less likely that dream will be realized.

I hope I do talk to him this weekend, he needs to hear the reasons so maybe the next girl he dates will have better luck. I want to do it in person even though it will suck.

So I'm updating my profile here to reflect that I don't want to date anyone with young kids, I know they (in most cases) don't need another mother but it's too emotionally hard to not be one.

*sigh*

May 3, 2011

So I caved and met his son tonight. I've spent a lot of time around kids in the past but it's been a while since I've been around one under four. And unfortunately, I can't help but judge his parenting, and I find it lacking. Granted, it was only a few hours so maybe he's not always so distracted with TV and his phone and doesn't let the kid run around and barely discipline him... I don't really want to know. I found myself biting my tongue all night to suppress my suggestions/criticisms, it's not fun.

I do like hanging out with the guy, but so far all the "beyond friendship" aspects are not meeting expectations. And he seems completely clueless.

Unimpressed.

May 1, 2011

I find myself desperately missing a certain ex-lover. One that knew the key to his pleasure was mine. One that always made sure I was satisfied too. Are there any men left that are not solely focused on their ownselves? 

That was rhetorical, not looking for offers.

Endeavour

Apr 28, 2011

Due to the awesomeness of my friends and where I live, I will going to the final shuttle Endeavour launch. I am super excited (despite the expected terrible traffic woes). I also get a bonus house guest and puppy for 2 nights, a friend who I haven't seen in about 6 years. She should be here in a couple hours. Woohoo!

Define casual...

Apr 25, 2011

Casual dating was the verdict. I asked about the online dating and he didn't seem to care either way, so I'm hanging out for bit but it's unlikely I'll accept any dates.

He did want me to meet his son today, which to me, sounds a little more than casual. We didn't have a chance to discuss it in depth but today wasn't a good day for meeting, especially sprung on me at the last minute. I think it's too soon, but we'll have to discuss it.

To suspend or not to suspend??

Apr 22, 2011

I think I might be dating someone now, we haven't actually talked out any specifics like if it's going to be serious-shouldn't-be-on-a-dating-site-dating (which I'd like) or a more casual type thing. 

I do like reading journals here, it's really the only thing I do these days unless I see a new profile that has some potential. But I do hate when people who are unavailable still have accounts, like they're rubbing it in the rest of our faces... and I don't really want to be one of those people.

I haven't told my family or any local friends about the dating yet, but my Twitter people know. We've been out twice, which has more to do with opposing work schedules than anything else. We text or talk pretty much everyday though. Plans made for this weekend too. I'm excited to see where this goes.

Any (possibly) final words from any of you?

Good night

Apr 17, 2011

Had a nice date with the afore mentioned ex-coworker. Offers for more dates and even help with yard work! :)

Quiet! You'll miss the humorous conclusion.

Apr 8, 2011

Definitely in my Top 5 episodes ever. 

So many quotable, silly lines.

You see, it was the duck, and not the man who was talking.

Pretty close I'd say...

Apr 5, 2011

Conscientious

You feel it's important to work according to a plan and finish every task, to do things correctly and thoroughly.

You are not the kind of person who abandons a project before finishing it, or slacks off when you've lost interest.

Scrupulous

You are an honest, fair person. You don't lie or cheat to get ahead. You treat others with respect and hope for the same in return.

You do not feel that you are above the rules that everyone else follows; you are definitely not willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead.

Organized

You like to think a task through before you embark on it. If it's the slightest bit complicated, you make a list (even if it's only in your mind) and methodically work your way through it. When you have a goal in mind, you're not satisfied until you reach it.

You are not one of those people who ignore the details, and you don't understand how anyone can get anything accomplished without thoughtful planning ahead of time.

Prudent

You look before you leap, think before you act, consider what you're about to say before you open your mouth to speak; that's why you rarely have to eat your words.

You usually don't get excited easily or blurt out the first thing that comes to mind without considering the consequences.

Introspective

You like your own company; you're a very interesting person. Tracking your own mental processes, knowing what you're thinking and why you do what you do, is important to you. Often, what's going on in your mind is more compelling than what's going on outside. For the most part, those with a high score on the "introspective" trait enjoy reading, taking long walks, learning new things, and other solitary activities.

You are not someone who is constantly looking to be among a group of friends; you never feel bored when you are by yourself.

Reserved

You are somewhat shy, or at least unwilling to spend all your time socializing. With you it's true that "still waters run deep," which is why many of your acquaintances never get to know you well.

You are not always ready to talk at the drop of a hat. Whether you're in the office or at a party, you're not likely to be found gabbing away in the middle of a group of people.

Discreet

You tend to hold onto your thoughts until you have something important to say, and even then you're not comfortable imposing your ideas on others unless you know they're truly interested.

You don't enjoy talking for the sake of talking, and you have no desire to be the center of attention.

Responsible

You fulfill your obligations and responsibilities, are true to your word, and generally obey the rules. While the majority of those who have a high score on the "responsible" trait enjoy traveling, they are usually very happy to return home — and don’t mind staying put for a while.

You're opposed to making hasty decisions, you don't insist that you're above the rules, nor do you feel compelled to color outside the lines.

Focused

You know how to lock in on what's important. You quickly prepare yourself for a task, you don't procrastinate, and you don't let up until the job is done to your satisfaction.

You are the opposite of scattered. You don't procrastinate before starting a task, and you almost never lose track of what you're doing.

Aesthetic

You appreciate art, beauty, and design; you know that they are not superficial but absolutely crucial to living the good life. You have good taste, and you're proud of it. Those with a high score on the "aesthetic" trait are often employed in literary or artistic professions, enjoy domestic activities — doing things around the house — and are enthusiastic about the arts, reading, and travel.

You don't think it's pretentious to be moved by art and beauty. You're not one of those who believe it doesn't matter what something looks like as long as it does its job.

http://psychcentral.com/personality-patterns/

Addiction

Apr 3, 2011

I went to Lowe's for hardware to fix my closet door and left with a mango tree, a kiwi vine and some other greenery. Loves the plants. I remembered the hardware too  :)

New chapters

Apr 3, 2011

Well, my last day of work was yesterday. Disappointed but not surprised that no one made a fuss. Some people that have left get a mass of coworkers out for a celebratory dinner. Not I. I am unloved. Or it was just impossible since I was working when everyone else got off work.

I did exchange numbers with the guy mentioned in my last post so maybe we'll go out sometime.  I could very easily talk myself out of it though. Mostly because he's mentioned going to church a few times so he might not look favorably on my atheism. If he calls, we shall see.

Only today off to recuperate and to switch gears to the new job. Going from 2-midnight to 7am-4pm is going to be rough for awhile. Must go to bed early tonight so I'm rested for a boring day of new employee orientation tomorrow! Yippee.

Yesterday, when I said...

Mar 27, 2011

"I have to remind myself too often that I'm not as cute as I used to be and when guys are being nice and friendly it doesn't mean there's any attraction or anything more to it than nice and friendly. But one day I hope to be wrong."

There's a small chance I was wrong and someone is/was interested in me. But I think I may have accidentally rejected him. I was tired and the conversation was interrupted and I'm not exactly sure what happened but we didn't finish the conversation. And now I can't stop myself from wondering how the rest would have went. I'm an idiot.

Random thoughts and observations...

Mar 26, 2011

I have to remind myself too often that I'm not as cute as I used to be and when guys are being nice and friendly it doesn't mean there's any attraction or anything more to it than nice and friendly. But one day I hope to be wrong.

Today I saw a post from a guy equating women refusing to date smokers (he is one) as the same as refusing to date fat people, hippies, vegetarians, or bimbos. None of those other traits directly affects other people like smoking does. Ridiculous to compare them and everyone has the right to weed out whatever they feel is undesirable.

Another post today was complaining about materialistic women only willing to date men with higher education degrees. He never made any reference to those women actually wanting someone who made a lot of money, just that they have a degree. Sure a degree may give you higher earning potential but it's certainly not guaranteed. And a materialistic woman would probably latch on to anyone making lots of money whether he had a degree or not.  He ended his rant with some religious nonsense about how a degree wouldn't help a man's soul. 

There was something else but I forgot...

P.S.  I'm annoyed when people have various thoughts and post separate entries for each, one after the other. It's not so hard to make one post now is it?