So...Ireland.

Some wee castle in Ireland....

From Lookin4luv:

"I AM LOOKING FOR LOVE, WILL SOMEONE FIND ME!!!.WHY IS LOVE SO HARD TO FIND??. WHERE are ALL the good women?? There are days I wonder, WHY can't I find someone??..Who would of thought at 50+ years old I would be looking to start a new relationship?...I am looking for someone to love and share life. Not looking for someone who when things get difficult runs away. I am not the typical man, enjoy spending a quite night at home with my mate. Seeking encouragement from a great woman!! I am not very handsome, so if you are into looks, move on. I have beauty in my heart. I am looking for someone to spend the rest of my life with!!!"

Mother of god, calm DOWN!!!

wow.....

How DO people connect?
What does it mean to connect?
How do people, singles, FIND each other in the thousand upon thousands of choices.
Chance Encounter?
Fate?

I met a man online and went to Ireland to meet him.
There.....
I said it.

It wasn't quite that simple...
or quick.
But that is the gist of it.

Here's the thing...
I  like connecting...
or really, communicating.
I NEED to communicate. 
Part of my online profile:

I am a communicator....!!
It's what jazzes me up and revs my engine. Talk to me....
About my day,
About your day,
about big and small ideas,
about how ridiculous life is because it sure as hell can be!
If you dont like to talk on the phone,,,or text,,,or chat....You may not enjoy me... :-)   

I got a note from a guy recently,  who seemed interested in connecting. I checked him out. Nice looking, seemed like an adult, etc..so I said "Sure, how do you feel about calling?"

I get this back:

Ahhhhhh terrible esp if I don't know the other person.

It may be better if we do the 20 question routine.

Let me know your thoughts. Thank you, R

Um...ok. 
But how were you wanting to CONNECT?!?

When I first started playing online, I would just chat via text. Then I progressed to the phone, if the man I was talking to seemed safe. 
I will say, it has back fired a couple times, and here is why:
I am good on the phone. I am comfortable and chatty, I put people at ease and foster a sense of, shall we say, intimacy. No, not phone sex....
SHARING.
Of ideas, and feelings, and life. 
Its great, except, 
It's not real. 
It creates a heightened sense of artificial closeness. And when you finally meet that person, frequently the flesh and blood version is a bit.....lacking perhaps? 

Like the guy with BO so bad I could smell him from 4 feet away. 
But great on the phone. 
Or the guy who's pics were clearly not only NOT recent, they were not from this DECADE. 
(Think Colonal Sanders crossed with Gollum...not good) 
But great on the phone. 
Or the guy with terrible teeth, I mean terrible, who taught me to always check profile pics for shots of them smiling. 
Totally great on the phone.  

 I guess this all  sounds a bit shallow. But connecting is such a fragile science. 
If I were to meet any one of these people BEFORE chatting, we wouldn't BE chatting. 
Is that bad? 
Or is it just that I have learned what I can compromise on and what I cant?
Shouldn't we all be paying attention to that?

I am also 100% sure that it is not just one sided on my part, although no one has come right out and said it (But you sounded so much ....thinner)
Or some men loose sight of the fact that talking on the phone, regardless of the level of discussion, does NOT constitute a commitment on my part to spending the bulk of my spare time for the foreseeable future with them. 
This "communicating" stuff is part of the PROCESS...
One guy and I connected well but I realized that it just wasn't going to go further since he lived 2+ hours away and had sole custody of a 9yo boy. (yes, I am serious, I am not interested) This man was NOT going down without a fight ,,,,he campaigned for a couple weeks  ("my son and I want you in our lives!") trying to convince me that it "was worth it"  and I did finally have to block him.
 But those times are rare. 

Back to Ireland. 
This man, we'll call him Jack, and I connected. We messaged quite a bit online, then moved to email. Soon we had exchanged phone numbers, although international calling was not handy. We even got to where we were having Skype "dates". I was aware that it was kind of , well, crazy, 
but it was so fun! 
And we could CONNECT. 
Jack got the whole talking thing. 
He told me about him, he asked about me, he sent me thoughtful bits through out the week that let me know he was thinking of me.
It was really exactly what feeds me. 

And one day, I just knew, I wanted to go meet him.
 "What the hell" I thought "I can go to Ireland!"
So I did. 
And?
It was great. 
Mostly.....
Jack was an attentive and gracious host. ( His terrier of a Scottish woman  room mate was another matter) and we traveled all over Northern and western Ireland. 
I had a great vacation. 
But, although it was a bit of a fling, we both suspected that it was not THE romance that we both hoped for.  
For one thing, we moved at a very different pace of life. The whole time I was there I was itching to move...DO something. Typical American I guess but it was not to be ignored. Jack was more, let's say, sedate. 
And I stood out a few other times as ...AMERICAN. 
"What do you mean there's no hot water?!?"
" That is NOT a large ice water. Try using your biggest BEER glass" ( what IS it about ice water there? Completely baffling) 

Anyhoo.....

Then there was the dinner incident. 
We had traveled all day, and Jack suggested a burger place he knew about in the town that was "simple".. I said fine. 
We walked in and,,,,I turned into the biggest American princess EVER. 
It was filthy. It was 2 steps BELOW  McDonalds. There was no pretense of actual food on the menu. 
 I looked at him, waiting for him to come to the same conclusion I had , that there was no way we could eat there. 
He was happily perusing the menu. 
I didnt speak up ( a bloody miracle) and ordered food that i thought maybe i could manage. 
I couldnt. 
He ate mine and his. 
We went back to bed& breakfast with his 4 evening tall boys of Stella Artois. ( Another red flag for me...EVERY night, 4 tall cans of cheap beer GUZZLED down....)

I didnt want this to MATTER. We connected so well, we really seemed to communicate. Except, for me, the spell was broken. How could someone who "knew" me think it would be ok to take me to that place for dinner ( OK, I get that I can be a princess, but whatever). And then just chomp down my dinner as well as his without thinking something may be ..wrong?

The rest of the trip was fine, in many many ways. I loved Ireland. When I left he expressed wanting to come visit me in New England. I just needed to get home, so we didnt talk much about it. 
You know what?
He did come. 
And any lingering doubts about our connection being stronger than my concerns were quickly put to rest, best summed up by saying that he drank too much and showered too little. 
He told a friend on Facebook (Note: do not leave your Facebook page open around me) that I was "difficult" in my home environment. 
He laid on my couch, eating, drinking and reading for the whole time he was here. 
He left early. 
No, I did not kick him out. 
Yes, I asked him to stop drinking in my house. 

It was a learning experience. 

What did I learn?
That, while I like communicating,  and I am drawn to it and easily seduced by it, 
it is not the whole enchilada. 
Connecting is fragile and complex. 
It is seeing the other persons face while you talk. 
It is processing body language and demeanor.
 It's their eyes and smell and smile. 
Is that shallow?
 I dont think it is. 
I believe its the chemistry, the magic, of falling in love. 
Isnt it?

I cant wait to do it again......

S'all good....

SG

Embracing the fringe.....

We all have those times where you get the distinct feeling you are not, shall we say, fitting in. For me this category of life experience stretches far and wide...starting as the only  raging liberal at gatherings with my immediate family.

I was the young mother on the beach at the local lake reading Cosmo instead of Country Living or Self.

I was the Not-so Soccer Mom, dressed in black and wishing the team would maybe NOT make it to the play-offs.

I was the co-worker who refused to participate in the "secret Santa" hooha because it stressed me out.
And...I didnt like people.

But I was also the Mom that let her kid wear a cape and yellow rain boots to pre-school almost everyday because that was HIS thing. ( One of the other Moms once said " Why is he wearing a cape?"
My response? "Why aren't WE?"...

We were the family with a swing in the living room because,,,well, because we could.

Anyhoo...

I know, dear reader, that you think my life is all online dating hi-jinks. One exciting (pathetic) encounter after another with a  steady stream of diverse (weird) and interesting (scary) men.
But...
Swannygirl has a life.
I am a grandmother. More specifically, Meema.

And the Meema part of my life recently brought me to the world of "Dance Recital".
Oy Vey..
Talk about not fitting in.

Grand daughter #1, Lovebug, has been taking dance lessons all winter. She turned 3 in March. It was something for her and I to do together and it was mostly fun. Class once a week with other kids her age. It was low key and fairly non-structured, the kids had fun following the lead of their VERY energetic teacher. The Moms, occasional Dad, and a couple G-moms hung out and watched, but mostly gossiped and gabbed.

I had noticed from the get-go that Lovebug and I tended to have a much more ...let's say "relaxed" attitude towards the whole venture. I feel like 3-year olds should not be put into high stress situations as a general rule of thumb. But I couldn't help but notice the difference in, shall we say, GROOMING that was happening with many of the other little girls. Hair done perfectly, Tights and shoes to regulation. Whole outfits of frills and ribbons. And all of this by 9am!
Lovebug and I were usually 2 minutes late and I would be chasing her around to get her dance shoes on, hoping that they were a matched pair. She loved to talk to everyone and in the class, would run around  "free form" quite frequently.

I thought she was brilliant.

It was a win in my book. She was having fun, we met a bunch of nice kids and their parents, and she and I usually went out for breakfast afterwards. Yay!

But then talk of the RECITAL started. My stomach clenched, but not wanting to project onto Lovebug, I kept it to myself and, well, kind of ignored the whole thing.

Let's just say, that ignoring it didnt make it go away ( WHY does that never work?!) and fast forward to a couple Saturdays ago.

I had frankly considered sitting out the recital. The costume (pink/purple/glitter nightmare) was expensive and then we had to buy tickets as well. I also had a sneaking suspicion that Lovebug would not be thrilled with the whole activity when it came down to it.
We had a conversation that went something like this:
SG - So we have your recital coming up for dance class.
LB - What's that?
SG - It where you get to do your dance on stage with your friends and all the mommies, daddies and grandparents get to watch you!
LB- (with lip curled perfectly) I am not doing that.
All righty then.
I said something non-committal like " we'll see what happens".

The weekend arrives. LB spent the night before at my house.
We had a wonderful morning.
We went for a walk with the dog, caught a toad, watched dragonflies, practiced tricycle riding and hung from the jungle gym at the playground. Lunch with "our Jane" of french fries and pickles and then it was time for nap.

All the while the costume hanging in her room at my house....with an air of foreboding.
OK, that part may have just been ME.

LB woke up from nap a little bit, shall we say, out of sorts. Have you tried dressing an unwilling tearful 3-year old in tights and tutu? I was sweating and rumpled to say the least.
But...
she RALLIES, because she's so awesome!
We sing in the car on the way to the auditorium. We talk about who will be there and about her friends dancing.
We walk into that place smiling and happy and ready to DO IT.
And .....boom.
That feeling. No LB , we are not in Kansas anymore.

These women and girls are...polished. Hair, make-up, nails, outfits. As I watched one mother carrying her darling's costume in a plastic cover gently across her arms so not to muss it, I was remembering that LB had gotten some pee on hers earlier and I had forgotten to sponge it off....oh well.

Three different mothers offered me make-up for LB while we were backstage waiting. By this time I've adopted a slightly "mother lion" air and just want to get through this with the fewest casualties possible. LB had her whole G'rent posse out there waiting plus Mom and Dad.
Then, one of the other mothers was talking to me and, with a look of REVULSION told me I had a tick crawling on my shirt. I thought she might actually faint, especially when i picked it off with my fingers.
Welcome to my life dear...
That tick was the least horrifying thing that happened that day as far as I was concerned.

We got closer to Showtime. LB's little band of dancers were going on third. But when the first group lined up to go on stage, all hell broke loose. All but one of the group started crying, LB included. Most were passive but LB had a "get me the fuck outta here" air about her...
I talked to her. One of the Dance School aides was bribing her with candy.
I was TORN....so friggin torn.
This isn't a wimpy kid, She is game for a lot. But she was giving a very clear "NO, Meema" message.
And I didn't listen.
I waited until she was distracted by a video on someones phone and I went to my seat. Except I didn't sit down. I waited to the side of the stage, with a couple other anxious parents, in the back of my mind thinking "if its really bad I'll scoop her up".
The group came out..and?
She was SOBBING. Actually Boo Hoo'ing. Wiping her tears with the foot of her prop teddy bear.
Behind me, I hear my son swear.
And say something about going up there and getting her.
He is my son.
But I said "give her a minute" ,,,,
God dammit,,,it was terrible. She never stopped crying. The stupid song was blessedly short. Every one of those kids was crying except for one who was a total rock star..
I flew back to the stage hallway before she came off the stage and she flew into my arms, still crying.
All done LB, all done with dancing.
"OK Meema!"

I told her she had done a great job, she was brave and wonderful and strong.
All the time angry...at myself.

Why, WHY, do we not listen to ourselves?
When do we stop?
What are we teaching our kids when we are not true to that voice inside?

I  believe in pushing ourselves, in the challenge of new things, in trying things on for size.
 But it should be our CHOICE ,,,to say no.
NO, this one is not for me.
NO, I thought I wanted to, but I don't.
NO, I might later but not right now.
NO,  I need more time to think.
No, no, no........

Lovebug was fine, of course.  She sat in the audience with the rest of us, watching the other kids, joyfully playing in the arms of the G'rent posse, being silly with her baby sister and gleefully testing her parents.
She is a mighty girl for sure.

But I will not skip this lesson again with her, or with myself.
 Listen to yourself baby girl.
 Listen to your heart and listen to your gut.
You are the expert on You.

S'all good.
SG

Only the lonely.

The gorgeous and talented Tippy Cat. 

From "Big Bill" in Obscurity, Maine...

       "I got the diabetes.
         It took my toe.

         I still get around.....                                                                                          mostly. "

Sigh.....

We are all so...vulnerable.

I rarely send messages out on the site. It takes a really GOOD profile to get me to comment on it or "approach" someone. So I appreciate it when a guy reaches out to me.
I appreciate it and yet, I am still a princess about who I let in.
I struggle with  the idea that I am too picky, too quick to discount someone based on their pics ( I cant possibly date someone who would wear THAT shirt) or a clunky profile description (spell check pal,,try it). 
I am ready to own that I could be more, shall we say, open. 
But....
Guys, think about what you're projecting fer crissakes!
A steady stream of just,,ridiculous messages come in. 

"i am just looking to have a good time with a lady whatever interests we can afford at the time, not really looking for full time partner. something easy first a movie or coffee, dinner, drive sight seeing, concert play or just use me to go somewhere you don't want to go alone i am very easy. anything is bettor than what i am doing now."

Christ almighty, hide the sharps....

A favorite (?) not long ago was this gem, One sentence, 2 words:
"Engage me"
Maybe I was having a bad day, I dunno. But I got pissed. 
Engage you?!? 
Engage ME muthafucka!! You narcissistic neanderthal!! 
No,,, I didn't  send it. 
Delete, move on...

One note from "Planetary man" was so fascinating I almost suggested meeting just so I could see what he was like in person, because I was strongly suspecting either Aspergers or just a terrible sense of humor. And no, I am not dissing Aspergers  so calm down. You just don't encounter this kind of thing on dating websites very often:
( a little background info...when someone looks at your profile you get a notification. I usually look at theirs when that happens, to see what they are like. This guy looked at mine so I checked his out. And yes, I am hearing how rude that sounds. 

Thank you for viewing my profile. Your image captured my attention as well, but I suppose that the computer has alerted you to that. You have a nice smile and make good eye contact.
There are a number of points in your profile that suggest a mutuality and at the risk of sounding too clinical and scientific, this may warrant further investigation. 
Now that I have placed myself in a somewhat vulnerable position, I will confess that I am not sure how to proceed. I am hoping that if you have a vague curiosity then you may choose to respond.
I have tried to infer some meaning from your profile name. At a loss, I checked with Mr. Google and found several very different definitions and a few that were not at all complementary. So, you are a woman of intrigue.
I hope that you have a pleasant balance of the day.

Take Care,
PlanetaryMan

I confess, I was intrigued by the sheer WEIRDNESS of it. 
I responded:
Wow,,
Thank you for your very interesting note. I would say, now that you've put yourself out there that proceeding would depend on my response. Unfortunately I don't see us as compatible for a call or meet but am happy to chat on here if that interests you. 
If not, good luck to you and try to enjoy the process. 
SG
Ps..my name is simply a morphed version of my actual last name. I am however, definitely a woman of intrigue. 
Have a delightful evening.

After that? Nada. Which is what so often happens. 

Yesterday someone called "seekingAsianlady" sent me a wink. That's just...confusing. And disturbing. 

And the steady stream of "Hi"..
From men 10 years younger or living half way across the country or in another country entirely. Just "hi". I dont even know how to acknowledge them. If you are so cramped up with shyness that you can only manage a "Hi" then perhaps this is not the forum for you? And why are you looking at my profile anyway if you are in Alaska?!?
Hi? 
Goodbye....

Sometimes a message looks ok at first glance and then,,,its not. 
 I got a fairly innocuous note a couple weeks ago:
"Hi, how's your day going ? I like your smile and profile."
Ok, not terrible although I would bet money he hadn't actually read my profile from his very general comments. But then I noticed his name.."WillUloveme776". 
And then I noticed his profile pic, which was him in what looked like a pair of too small boxer briefs standing outside on a deck somewhere. He was flexing. 
My day was fine until I saw that,,,and can now not UN-see it.
No, just no. 

I really do try to have a "we're all in this together" attitude with the online stuff. I assume everyone is just doing their best, even if it is hopelessly lame. I have a friend that approached it like a job..She said she just did the "head down, forge ahead" thing, filtering through the crap and going on as many dates as she could stand, many of which were tortuous.The good news is that she did meet a great guy and they are still together. 
I don't find I have the stomach for that. 
When I show up to meet someone, there is always the expected first awkwardness. But then, you know, it should pass and we should be comfortable. If I am cringing when he speaks, probably not a good sign. If his glasses are so dirty that I cant concentrate on what he is saying, also not a good thing (Yes, this happened. Yes I said something. No, I am not proud of it....although not consumed with guilt either)
Other first impression deal breakers ( for me):
Reeking of cigarette smoke
Nose hair...( I cant even have a conversation about this one...it completely tweaks me out)
His car has parts wired together ( Fine, I'm a bit of a snob)
He tries to kiss me within 30 seconds of meeting.
He tries to hold my hand at any point during the first date. Stop it. 

My most recent "meeting" looked promising. We met to go for a walk after chatting on the phone for a week or so. I didn't have a strong pull to him but felt it would be a pleasant time.  At first  it was kind of "meh" but then? 
It turned terrible. 
In the  first 15 minutes he launched into a story of how he had trouble with pests under his shed at home. He said " I had to trap them to get rid of them, 13 all together. Possums, woodchucks and a cat" I assumed, because of our previous conversations that he had used Have-a-heart traps, Because that is what kind, liberal people do. 
He didn't. 
 After noting the look on my face, he got defensive " I gave them a choice! I put out both the humane trap and the steel jawed traps. They all chose the steele traps."
And then? 
He was talking about his Swing dancing lessons....
Blink, blink. blink.....
I was horrified. 
I couldn't respond. 
I also couldn't end that goddam walk soon enough. 

Just for the record, I have had great first dates. I have met wonderful men online and am friends with several of them still. In fact I seem to have a knack for making "friends" online ( one said I "give good phone"), but at this point I'm stacking up male friends like cord wood, enough already!

So, I guess for me its "head down and forge ahead".... Maybe I'll plow into someone soon. 

S'all good
SG