The Idiots Guide to Wooing Women on Match.Com Monday, Apr 30 2007

After writing my “Woe is me, I’m so lonely” post on Friday (which I must say was very cathartic), I figured maybe I should do something about it, so I once again hit the hallowed pages of match.com. 

I’ve been on and off match.com for several years now.  I’ve never had a lot of luck with it, with one exception — last year I dated a guy that I met on match for about 6 months.  It was a fairly good relationship but in the end, just didn’t work out.  Other than that, mostly it’s been a pretty fruitless search.  But every few months I dust off my profile, add a new picture or two and start searching to see if maybe I’ll hit the relationship jackpot. 

I will fully admit that I’m picky.  And there are some things that guys put in their profile that turn me off right away.  Even though this is “Her Hangout” and these helpful tips will probably never be seen by my target market, I’m recording them for posterity here. 

Noodle’s Tips for Not Looking Like a Total Tool on Match.Com 

• Put your shirt back on.  No, seriously, put it on.  It’s very nice that you have a good physique.  But I see a picture of a guy with his shirt off and I feel like it’s all about looks with him.  Or perhaps he is too poor to afford shirts, which would certainly cut down on the establishments in which we will be dining.  Just…keep it on for a little while.
• While speaking of profile pictures, it’s a little weird to include pictures with other women.  Okay, they may just be your sister or your oldest friend or the sickly woman to whom you donated a kidney.  But I’m going to assume they’re your ex-girlfriend, and that’s just wrong.  Crop the ladies out. 
• Also, make sure it’s a picture that actually shows something.  Like your face.  I got an e-mail the other day from a gentleman who’s only picture showed the top of his head.  I try not to make snap judgements based on appearance, but I would like you to actually have a face.
• For the love of god and all that is holy, show some effort in your online ad.  Use capital letters and punctuation marks.  Use spellcheck.  Avoid stupid acronyms.  Try and make yourself seem intelligent.
• TELL ME SOMETHING ABOUT YOURSELF.  I see a lot of ads filled with vague concepts like “laid back,” “lots of fun,” “not an axe murderer.”  That doesn’t tell me much about who you are.  If you’re a rabid fan of your college football team and plan your life around the games (hello, ex-boyfriend!), say that.  What turns you on?  What turns you off?  What do you do in your free time?  What are your goals in life?  Do you have goals in life?  I’m not totally adverse to touchy-feel concepts like “I’m a good guy,” but back it up.
• Avoid mentioning your relationship history in gory details.  Go ahead and fill out the question about whether you’re single, divorced, etc. but let’s save the whole “My ex is such a biatch” or “I have commitment issues” spiel for the first date, shall we?

I’m not saying I’m an expert in online dating by any means, but I do work in PR so I know a little bit about promoting one’s self.  The nice thing about sites like that is that everybody is there for the same reason and there’s no shame in it.  So take advantage of it, boys.

(The downside is that match.com has made stalking next to impossible.  If I happen to see that a co-worker has a profile, I would like to be able to look at the profile out of curiousity and not have the dude know that I was looking at it in the first place, because then it’s just weird and awkward.  ALSO, I know that ex-boyfriend has logged in recently because match.com thinks we’re a 97% match.  To which I say, “Ha!”)

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One is the Lonliest Number Friday, Apr 27 2007

I’ve been lonely lately.  Not in a “oh, I wish I had someone to have dinner or go to the movies or go shopping with” way, but in a deep, gut-wrenching, primal, painful way. 

Lonely in a way that keeps me up at night, thinking that if I had a freak accident and died in my home, it might be days before someone figured it out.  Lonely in a way that has me craving physical contact with someone, that wishes there was someone who would wrap his arms around me at the end of a long, awful day and just let me wallow. 

I have great parents and a family that loves me.  I have wonderful friends.  There are kids who think I am truly the coolest person ever.  I feel like I make a difference, like there are people who respect my opinion and rely on me.  But none of those relationships can fill the hole I feel.  I want to be someone’s first call. 

First calls are very big for me.  When something really really good happens, or really really awful, there’s that one person who’s your first call — probably a spouse/partner or a child or a parent.  I’m not anybody’s first call.  Everyone I know has someone more important in their life than me.  I guess it’s a feeling of not being needed.

It was hard, to be at my grandfather’s memorial service and spending all weekend with extended family and friends and not really have a personal life to talk about.  To feel like everything I do and I am revolves around my job and my volunteer work.  To feel like a failure when it comes to the things that should be most valuable.

I’m scared that I might be alone forever.  I’m scared that the ever-widening gap between all of my friends with their spouses and their kids and me, all by myself, might obliterate our friendships.  I’m scared that maybe I’m doing it to myself, that maybe I’ve thrown away relationships I should have fought harder to save or that my quirks and my needs have made me unloveable. 

But mostly I’m just tired.  Tired of being alone.  Tired of feeling like I’m intruding on other people when I need someone to talk to.  Tired of holding out hope that I’ll meet THE one.  Tired of tagging along.  Tired of always being the bridesmaid, the friend, the sidekick.

29 has been a tough age for me.  I really thought I would have had everything together by now.  I didn’t think it would be so hard.  A lot of things have come into focus for me and I all of the sudden realized, “Shit, I’m not 24 any more.  I can’t bounce through life, paycheck to paycheck, thinking things will all work out in the end and that any moment someone will come along and save me from my own stupidity and loneliness.” 

I don’t know…I don’t know the answer.  Maybe there isn’t one, except to get the hell over myself and buck up and keep on going.  But sometimes you just have to take time to admit that you’re lonely and feel sorry for yourself for a little while.

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Streamlined Thursday, Apr 19 2007

Someday I will be a streamlined air traveler. I will pack all my belongings for a trip, whether two days or two weeks, neatly in a small black suitcase that will weigh 4 pounds. I will take 7 garments and 1 pair of shoes and manage to create 42 separate outfits, any of which are suitable for the beach or a black tie gala. I will have one small cosmetics bag with every imaginable necessity for hair, face and body.

The clothes I travel in will not wrinkle. I will cruise into the airport toting my small suitcase and a chic black shoulder bag, with all the required reading material and work files and gum and mints and lip balm and lotion and water, not to mention the latest electronics and all the batteries/cords needed. They will not tangle. The bags will be light enough so that I won’t require the services of a chiropractor when I return.

I will go on a four-day trip without managing to look like a Sherpa accompanying Sir Edmund Hillary’s party up Mt. Everest. I will overcome my compulsion to pack quadruple the number of outfits a weekend jaunt requires. I will realize that almost anywhere I find myself, there is generally a Target/Wal-Mart/drugstore and other similar signs of civilization nearby and I do not, in fact, have to bring EVERYTHING I OWN. I may even take a chance and — gasp — use the blow dryer provided by the hotel, rather than bringing my own along, even though the short stubby hotel blow dryers eat my hair.

Someday, I will be a streamlined traveler. (And while I’m at it, 50 pounds lighter and 4 inches taller with much better hair.)

Unfortunately, the streamlined me is not venturing to MI this weekend. The neurotic, obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive me is traveling. So while I have most certainly over-packed to a power of 10, I find a small pride in the fact that I am only taking 3 pairs of shoes. I guess I have to start somewhere.

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Little Memories, Part II Thursday, Apr 19 2007

Yesterday I wrote a big warm fuzzy post about my paternal grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa.  It’s not as easy to write that same kind of thing about my other sets of grandparents, Nana and Grandad.

Don’t get me wrong, they were wonderful people and I know they loved us, but they were definitely not the spoiling, doting type.  We saw far less of them than we did my dad’s parents.  I just never formed the same bonds with them.

Nana and Grandad both had Ph.D.s in botany.  Grandad taught plant physiology (whatever that is) at a major university.  There were rules about faculty members being married, so when he took the job, that meant my Nana couldn’t teach there as well.  And she was considered overqualified to teach high school.  She stayed home and raised their four kids — my mom, her twin brother and a younger brother and sister.

Nana and Grandad were both very intellectual.  Analytical.  Visits to them always included some interesting discussions.  Nana, especially, had very strong opinions on everything.  They were liberal — politics may be the only thing I inherited from that side of the family.  Every summer they would take their kids to Colorado, where the family had built their own A-Frame cabin.  They were big into the outdoors, into nature, into a simpler way of life. 

They were definitely not gooey and gushy about their grandkids.  There are 9 of us total and a running family conversation is which set of us Grandad and Nana liked best.  They probably thought we were all a bit spoiled and coddled by our parents.

One of their passions was restoring the natural prairie in Illinois.  And Nana was very big into computers — she had a Commodore 64 for years and years that all the grandkids loved to play games on.  She would always buy us Christmas gifts that were educational or global or something — craft kits, books, jewlery handmade in some African country. 

Grandad had a stroke in March 2003 and died a few days later.  After that, Nana relocated to New York State to be near one of her sons.  She got sick last fall and passed away in December, just a couple weeks before Christmas.  We didn’t have a funeral or memorial service or anything, but my mom and I did fly up for a weekend to attend a little reception at her retirement community, so I got to see some family then. 

I’ve often thought about the contrast between my mom and my dad’s families.  It’s really clear to me to see how my parents’ personalities were shaped by their background.  I have to wonder what my grandparents thought of each other.   In the end, I guess I’m  just grateful that I had such a long time with all my grandparents and that I got to know them as an adult, rather than having vague memories of them from my childhood. 

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Venting Wednesday, Apr 18 2007

For a change of pace, something a little lighter — a collection of the words and phrases which my uber-annoying moronic co-worker uses that make me roll my eyes.  And wish I was deaf.

•  Someone is a “great American”
• “Have a blessed day”
• “Hook it up,” as in, “Can you hook me up?”  “Are you going to hook it up for me?”  “He can hook it up good.”
• “Multi-tasking!”  This is his favorite explanation for why he can’t find something or can’t answer a question, because he is multi-tasking. 
• “Oh poot!”
• Somebody or something is going to “beat his butt.”
• Wishing someone a ”Happy ____ Holiday” weeks or months later.  He was still using “Happy New Year” in March, y’all. 

He also tends to mispronounce/misuse words with a Dubya-like frequency.  Some especially funny ones:

• “Fuq-waah” for fushcia.
• Asking someone who was having a coughing fit if he needed the “hemlock manuever.”

I’m sure there are more examples that I just can’t think of at the moment.  Add to this the following other annoying behaviors: talking aloud, reading aloud, YELLING INTO THE PHONE FOR NO APPARENT REASON, occasionally falling asleep, being generally sort of clueless and out of it and a tendency to have emotional, ah, “issues.” 

And now I will go back to expending a hell of a lot of energy on a rush project that is, in my mind, somewhat pointless.

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Little Memories Wednesday, Apr 18 2007

It’s funny, the little things in life that will spark a memory.  This morning I was in our cafeteria at work, fixing my coffee and I opened a couple of those little cups that creamer comes in — you know, the plastic ones?  All the sudden I found myself thinking of my Grandma.  She was a big coffee drinker and always ordered it when we went out, but she never used the creamers.  It was a treat for me to open them and drink the creamer.  I still do it to this day.

It’s been a tough few months for my family.  My maternal grandmother (Nana) passed away in December.  Then my paternal grandfather (Grandpa) passed away in February.  There were the last two remaining grandparents that my brothers and I had.  I know that I’m a very lucky girl — as the oldest on both sides of my family, I probably had a closer relationship and better memories of all of our grandparents.  I even had two great-grandparents that were alive until I was high school aged.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine wrote a story about memories of her grandmother that was published in the newspaper she works for.  I cried when I read it.  It made me want to stop and try to write down some of the memories that I have of my grandparents, before they fade with time.  So that’s what I’m going to do here for a couple of days.

I’ll start with my dad’s parents, who were Grandma and Grandpa to us.  For all of my life they lived in Michigan (my grandmother’s home), although previously they had lived for a lot of years in Illinois, which is where my grandfather came from.  My dad’s whole family is very warm and caring and extremely close.  They have a great sense of humor.  Grandma and Grandpa were the typical doting, spoiling type of grandparents.

Grandpa spent most of his life as a farmer, raising Hereford cattle.  Even after he retired from farming full-time and they moved to MI, he kept a small herd at a farm outside of town.  A visit to the grandparents always meant a trip to the farm to see the cows, a hay ride, driving the tractors on grandpa’s lap and picking vegetables that he grew in his garden.  He also grew beautiful roses and other flowers in small beds outside of the apartment they lived in.  He was a nurturer.  He loved to see animals and plants grow.  He sent us hundreds of pictures of his cattle over the years (and let me tell you, you’ve seen one Hereford, you’ve seen them all).  All winter long he would feed the squirrels that hung around their small patio, and yes, we were sent lots of photos of his squirrels too.  He wore boots and cowboy hats and bolo ties.  He looked a lot like John Wayne but he never hung up the phone without saying that he loved you.

Grandma worked at the university dental school, and we made a lot of visits there too.  She had lots of jewelry that was fun to play with.  She was a packrat and it was truly amazing how much stuff they had crammed into their small apartment.  She saved things like all the clippings from when JFK was killed — I’m like her in that respect.  I loved looking at old family photos with her.  Grandma told great stories.  I once asked her how she met Grandpa, and she told me that he liked her because she was a dancer and had “great legs.”  She loved to travel — she and my aunt visited us when we lived in Korea, and then both my grandparents and my great-aunt came to see us in Germany.  Everyone loved her.

On Sept. 11, 2001, we found out that my Grandma’s cancer had spread and was inoperable.  She passed away on Oct. 2.  No one expected that she would go first, and it was incredibly hard on my Grandpa.  She had done everything for them — bills and mail and shopping and cooking.  Since then it’s been pretty hard on my dad and my aunt.  Grandpa had a lot of medical issues and finally moved from Michigan to Seattle about a year and a half ago, to be closer to my aunt and her family.

He got sick last summer and died in his sleep in February.  I’m glad that it was peaceful for him.  He’s been in pretty bad shape these past few months.  Every so often I would call and talk to him, and he always sounded so happy to hear my voice.  I miss both of them so much.  I’m sad that they won’t be at my wedding, that they’ll never meet my children. 

This weekend I’m going to Michigan with my parents for a memorial service for my Grandpa.  We’ll have another service in Illinois with the entire family in June.  Despite the occasion, it will be good to be with everyone again.  We don’t get to do that nearly enough.  But there will be a huge hole where my grandparents should be — smiling and laughing with the rest of us.

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Unspeakable Tuesday, Apr 17 2007

How do you find the words to describe what happened yesterday at Virginia Tech?  How do you being to understand what occurred, how many lives will be changed because of one tragic moment in time?

The worst massacre in U.S. history…worse than Columbine.  Worse than the University of Texas.  And this one hits so close to home.

My workplace is filled with Virginia Tech graduates and parents of current students.  We employ a number of Tech students as summer interns.  There is a young woman who worked in our office a couple summers ago who is currently a senior there.  She will graduate in a few weeks but it will never be the same for her, for any of them.  There are kids from my church at Tech, kids my brother went to school with, friends of friends…you never imagine something like this can happen so close to home. 

Virginia Tech alumni and students and fans are fiercely proud of their school, their Hokies.  There’s a bumper sticker you see on a lot of cars around here that says, “If God isn’t a Hokie, why do the leaves turn orange and maroon in the fall?” 

For most of the country, Virginia Tech may just be another university, another team they’ve competed with on the football field.  For most of the country, this is indeed a tragedy, but one that seems so very far away.

For Virginians, for those of us who know students and faculty and alumni, it is too close to home.  Too hard to comprehend.  Too painful to think about the loved ones left behind.  Too difficult to imagine that from this day forward, Virginia Tech will be synonomous with tragedy and violence, that the name will be bandied about by politicians and activists and media pundits as they argue for gun control and against gun control and for and against many other things.  It is all too much.

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Panic! at the Office Friday, Apr 13 2007

Ohmigod, must catch up…too many e-mails…phone won’t stop ringing…not enough people in the office…so much work to do…am avoiding PowerPoint but it’s inevitable at this point…I was only gone three days, why does it feel like three weeks?

The highlight of the morning?  Some kind woman has purchased a giant bottle of moisturizer for the bathroom.  My hands have been so dry that I’ve run out of the moisturizer I keep in my desk so this is good news.

I have a bunch of really great posts I want to write but yeah, it might be a while.

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“Notworking” Thursday, Apr 12 2007

I spent the last 3 days at a huuuuge conference.  There were 700+ people there, people from gov’t, non-profits, private industry, you name it, anyone connected vaguely to the environment and natural resources in the state.  I’m not a scientist, I’m a wordsmith, so most of what was discussed and presented was over my head.  We were supposed to be doing lots of “networking.”  Mostly what I did was go from booth to booth to pick up geegaws and trinkets and crap that I have no use for, except that it was FREE.  I also drank quit a bit, played tourist at the cool military college where the conference was held and tried desperately to stay awake during some spectacularly boring panel discussions.

I have deemed this whole charade “NOTworking.”  But hey, it got me out of the office for three days.

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Me, A – Z Friday, Apr 6 2007

Meme stolen from Mallory in the Middle…

A is for Age: 29

B is for Booze of choice: A margarita on the rocks with salt.  And don’t bring me a straw, because that’s just an insult.

C is for Career:  I work in communications for the federal gov’t.  Any more than that and I’d have to kill you.

D is for your Dog’s name:  My parents have a sweet elderly dog named Faye.

E is for Essential Care Instructions:  Give plenty of personal space.  During times of high stress, administer a margarita.

F is for Favorite food at the moment:  I’m craving sushi and I’m having some tonight!

G is for favorite Games:  My friends and I love playing board games.  My faves are Trivial Pursuit, Cranium and Outburst.

H is for Hometown:  Hampton, Va.

I is for Instruments you play:  None, sadly.

J is for favorite Jams:  Lately I’ve been into music that’s good for walking/running.  I love “Grace Kelly” by Mika.

K is for Kids: None yet.

L is for Last kiss:  Last weekend.

M is for Most admired trait:  In myself?  I’ll say decisiveness.

N is for Name of your crush:  I haven’t had a good crush in a long time!  My celebrity crush is George Clooney.

O is for Overnight hospital stays:  Just one, when I broke my leg in 3rd grade.

P is for phobias:  Clowns.  Large costumed characters.  And falling down stairs.

Q is for quotes you like:  “I can be extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.”  — Margaret Thatcher.

R is for biggest Regret:  Losing touch with friends along with way.

S is for Sweets of your choice:  Right now it’s PEEPS!!

T is for Time you wake up:  6:45 a.m. on weekdays.

U is for Unique Facts:  I have lived in 3 foreign countries.

V is for Vegetable you love:  Mushrooms, spinach, asparagus, olives, avacados, tomatoes. 

W is for Worst Habit:  Biting my nails!  They’re in awful shape right now and I’m getting a manicure tomorrow.

X is for X-rays you’ve had:   Let’s see, my two broken legs probably involved a number of x-rays.  I’ve had many x-rays of my sinuses.  And most recently, I had some x-rays of my back last fall.

Y is for Yummy food you make:  I make a really good baked ziti.  And pralines at Christmastime.

Z is for Zodiac sign:  Scorpio, baby!  Mysterious and intense and passionate and powerful, that’s me.

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