Friday's Flexuose if not Forficate Frantling

So all y'all are talking now and then about OKCupid. So, while I pay rapt attention to whatever it is they're jabbering about in this online meeting, let me tell my OKC stories.

Initially, a few random messages over the summer. I didn't really understand the system. I'm used to writing so much that we become fast friends before we meet (c.f. the ladies above linked, whom I've known forever but met for reals in connection with my sabbatical). There's an entirely different mindset to using the internet just for a few quick exploratory pokes and then meeting for coffee. Took me awhile to grasp that.

1) Shortly after Burning Man, a lady my age and I corresponded briefly. She looked fine in pictures (i.e. in good shape), and though she lived way down in Stockton I figured why not meet when I'm driving back up from So Cal. So after visiting my son in his apartment down there, I drove home and stopped in Stockton and called. The voice I encountered reminded me ju-u-ust a little bit of Selma Bouvier but I was young and callow and ignored the alarm bells. I waited briefly in the bar of a restaurant and was joined by an auburn-haired woman who reminded me first-off of those women who used to socialize with my chain-smoking grandmother when I was eight years old. Not an auspicious first impression, nor was it improved by a voice redolent of truck tires on a gravel driveway and a snaggletooth that made my left eye blink in self defense every time she laughed. She did laugh often, and that's a good thing even when the laugh reminds one that it will soon be Halloween. We had a nice time, i.e. I bought her a cosmo and she talked and talked (and talked) and unintentionally revealed a penchant for getting revenge on former beaus. It was a delightful experience, and made the fact that I lived a solid hour's drive further north particularly worthy of appreciation.

Lesson: Zero tolerance policy towards lifelong smokers. (Excepting a girlfriend of a year and change who is being grandmothered in.)

2) "We're almost neighbors, we should meet for a drink." That was it. I get short messages ("You're sorta cute. Hi.") and typically ignore them. I like a woman who expresses her soul. OK, I'm picky. But somehow the timing was right, so what the hell. She lived in the town I work in, which made us even more neighbors than she thought. We met in the parking lot of the chosen bar/restaurant, somehow just knowing from body language (car language?) who we were. She was a slender blonde my age and nearly my height when in heels, full of energy who likes live music and drives a Mercedes. We had a nice visit (in the bar, not the parking lot), and have been going out ever since.

We actually broke up a couple weeks ago because she had percolated my non-exclusivity and decided it wasn't right for her. I was very sad about that. I made sure to bring it up because I am going to visit my gekko in a couple weeks and I didn't want that to be a problem. Well, it was; but recently we started again, and though I'm not entirely sure why, I don't need to know immediately. All I really need to know is that she knows I am still not exclusive. She hasn't asked for details. I suppose most people wouldn't, perhaps? So I suppose she's normal, and people like me, us, are not. Dunno. But we like each other, there's a certain chemistry and affection, so what the hell. Week at a time.

3) This story deserves it's own poast (if not series) and has nothing to do with the online world but plenty to do with love and dating and unconventional life decisions, and so this sentence is just here as a placeholder / reminder / tease. Heh heh.