PoF Adventures: Not Interested

I'm on the dating website Plenty of Fish (PoF).  I got on it because my ex-boyfriend said  that it the biggest dating website.  Sadly, you can say that you are interested in women or men, but not both.  I had it on women for a long time, but was only getting pretty butch women to contact me.  I switched it to men, and have had better luck.  I'm not attracted to many of the guys who message me, but it's nice to get contacts.

I've learned a few things about PoF. First, if you have a profile picture of you in Disney ears, eating a Micky Mouse ice cream, guys suggest that you go on a date to Disneyland. I finally had to put in my profile that I'm not actually a fan of Disney.

I’ve also learned that guys follow whether you’ve messaged other people. As soon as I sent one response, I started getting all of these other inquiries. This one guy seemed attractive and active, so I responded back. First, I’m actually suspicious of attractive guys contacting me. I figure they’re just trying to get laid. Not only is this totally discriminatory, but it sorta ensures that I end up with someone that I’m not attracted to! 

But this guy’s message was also pretty vague.  He said something like, "Hey, I like your profile."  So I messaged back, asking what in my profile he liked.  His two responses were that I lived near him and that I seemed to like simple things.  Ooooooookay.  Let's definitely build a relationship off of that!  But I responded, saying that I had moved so I actually didn't live that close.  He responded that that was okay.  That seemed weird to me because I just knocked out one of the two reasons why he said that he was interested in me; 50% of my interest should've been gone!  But I gave him my email address anyway, and then he messaged that *I* didn't seem interested.  Whatever.  I almost argued with him, but then just decided to let it go.  We clearly weren't compatible. 

Soon I'll post about another guy from PoF.  The dating scene is rough these days!

Addicted?

Last week, I was feeling really behind on packing for an upcoming move.  So I told myself that I wasn't going to go to the gym after work.  I would go straight home and back. 

Well, on Monday I did go straight home.  But then I went on my 3-mile run.  I  hadn't ran in awhile, and didn't want to lose my momentum!  It took less time than it takes to go to the gym, so I did have time to pack that night.

A few days later, I figure that I'm on-schedule for the movers (after I postponed them a few days), so I decided to go to the gym.  I did pack some that night.  But I also turned on the first season of Heroes.  OMG, I love, love, LOVE that show!!  I watched for 3-4 hours into the night.

Now, the Heroes is not really an addiction.  I mean, I can stop anytime that I want.  And even if it is, I only have a couple of discs left.  And I'm not watching past the first season because everyone tells me that it gets bad.  But the gym, or working out in general?  I told myself that I wouldn't! But, then I did.  Sure, circumstances made it more feasible than I had predicted, but still?  Being addicted to exercise is definitely one of the best addictions to have, and I love being lazy enough that I'm not concerned that I'll take it too far.  It still makes me wonder if my interest is more like a compulsion, or more me being responsible (rigid?) in trying to meet one of my goals?

Openness

The online dating site PlentyOfFish.com (PoF) gives you the option to take a personality test.  It describes your personality in a lot of different areas, and describes how these will impact your relationships.  Although it got most of me right, and this blog is about one area that I think it got right, that I am highly open to try to new things.  It had a caution attached to this: "But, your openness might occasionally cause a certain degree of dependency on your end because you may be so open that you easily adopt the preferences and habits of your partners and gradually relinquish things that make you so unique."  I found this intriguing and thought-provoking.

I can totally see what it's saying.  It's like that movie Runaway Bride.  In it, Julia Roberts' character likes her eggs cooked in whatever way her current fiance likes his eggs cooked.  If he likes them scrambled, so does she.  If the next one likes them over-easy, that's her favorite way to eat them.  SPOILER (sorta):  In the end, she finds herself, and realizes that she doesn't even like eggs!  I've considered this phenomenon in relation to myself, but haven't thought hard about it.  The PoF survey should make me stop and think.  If I'm so open to new things, it might be really easy to conform to who I'm with.  Especially since I think that I'm the kind of partner who wants to spend lots of time with their significant other, so that necessitates that we participate in the same activities.  I don't want to drop my activities to do theirs! 

I'm now more aware that it's a challenge of mine to keep my own things, my own quirks and unique hobbies.  At the beginning of relationships, I find it exciting to learn about the person's life, to participate in their activities and meet their friends.  May be because so much of that would be new to me.  I imagine that most of these things would quickly become "not new" for me, and I'd want to continue to seek out new and exciting activities, though.  I guess I need to find someone who is as passionate as I am for trying new things.

Also, I highly value independence, so being dependent on someone because I adapt to their (more stable?  sedentary?) habits and interests is problematic for me, fundamentally.


Finally, how did PoF get me wrong?  It said that I wasn't rigid or linear.  Seriously?  If you've read the Coffee Day blog, or know me AT ALL, you know that PoF totally got it wrong on that one!

Coffee Day

Awhile ago, I instituted Coffee Day at work.  I decided that drinking several cups of coffee a day, each with several tablespoons of creamer, was not helping my effort to eat healthier and lose weight.
There's been some confusion about Coffee Day, however.  See, it only applies when I'm at work.  For example, yesterday was not Coffee Day, so I had tea at work.  Then I went out to dinner and had pie (for Pi Day), so of course I had coffee with my Red Velvet Cake cream pie.  Because the after-dinner coffee was not at work, yesterday was not my Coffee Day.
Today is my Coffee Day because I had an early-morning reception at work.  I was hoping for coffee and croissants, but only got the coffee part.  
Anyway, now, I have fat-free creamer at work.  So I'm re-thinking this whole Coffee Day plan.  My biggest diet hurdle is fat, so may be I can drink unlimited creamed coffee if the creamer is fat-free?  I might decide to make an exception to having only one Coffee Day a week while I have the fat-free creamer, but it makes for a somewhat unsatisfying cup of coffee so I probably won't get that kind again.

Conversation with IT Guy from Work

Note: IT Guy (ITG) has a somewhat thick accent.  I think he's from Egypt. He's soft-spoken and uber-polite.

Me:  Blah blah blah, the boxy thing that shows all of my files, Explorer or something, crashes when I use the web editor, blah blah.

ITG: I've actually never heard of that problem.

Me: So I'm special?

ITG: [apologetically] No, you're not special.

Me: What, I'm not special?
ITG: [nervously, and with some stammering]  No, no, you're very special.  Uh, I'll come over right away and see what I can do.

Super-sweet IT guy.  He's fun to poke.  But it's always at my expense, or I'm overly nice to him.  I'm not the kind to play on someone's niceness or different social skills to be mean.

BTW, he never figured out the problem; Windows Explorer is still crashing on me when I'm updating our website. 

Blazing Saddles

I've heard about Blazing Saddles for a couple years now, since I've been hanging out with self-identified geeks.  Before that, I just thought that it was a regular John Wayne-esqe Western like the Dirty Dozen or something.  I finally watched it last night.


It's hard for me to like crazy cinematic moves like destroying the fourth wall.  It's just not my style.  I'm still not sure what I think about the Scott Pilgrim movie.  In Blazing Saddles, I was sitting there confused; why are they acting like their characters but on different sets? 

Then there was the obvious racial issues.  I get that it was critiquing racism, using stereotypes to make fun of the stereotypes.  The problem is that White people probably think that it's funny because it's exaggerating stereotypes and the true nature of Black people, while Blacks are probably thinking that it's making fun of Whites and the inaccurate and ridiculous stereotypes that they hold.  So the racial satire could still be confirming the stereotypes for Whites.  Not cool.

And the social issue that wasn't mentioned at all was sexism.  There were two women in this film: a school marm and a prostitute.  Not exactly a great diversity of characters.  At least neither of them were really stereotypical. 

I'm glad that I watched it, but I don't think that I liked it.  I was told to watch it again, that I would find it more amusing.  Um, not so sure that I'm up for that in the near, you know, ever.  But you never know!

Prayer as Meditation

I attended an adult religious education workshop at my new UU church that is designed to help participants recognize their own spiritual path.  The first session was about being open to different religions, religious practices, and religious ideas since they might actually have components that fit you well.  Basically, it was about leaving your religious baggage at the door.

As the the workshop was made up of UU's, we targeted prayer as a practice that we might have baggage around.  We compared prayer to our ideas of meditation, then practiced a prayer/meditation.  Our activity was to imagine three different people, wish something positive for them, to hope that something positive and somewhat specific happens for them.
The first person that we were to choose someone was someone that we're close to and love.  I chose Gram.  She's gone, so I wasn't sure what she might need.  I chose to wish that she knew how much I loved her and how much I admired her, how much we all loved and were inspired by her, before she left us.  And even though I don't believe in heaven, I hoped that she could look down and see us happy.  I believe that people's energy returns to the cosmos, usually dissipating itself.  But Gram was so stubborn that I can imagine her holding her energy together for awhile. ;)  Anyway, this part of the exercise had my crying.
The second part of the activity was to wish/hope for positive things for someone that you don't know.  I chose someone at work who is a single parent to her own kids as well as other family members' kids.  I wished peace, rest, and happiness for her.  For me, this was the easiest one of the three people.
The third person was someone that you are in conflict with.  I chose my ex.  I was definitely in conflict with him that week!  It was really hard to think of something positive that I wanted to send him.  Well, something positive for him, rather than positive for me.  ;)  I think that I ended up wishing that he really does find someone who fits him, who loves all of the parts that I loved as well as someone who can love and appreciate all of the parts that drove me crazy.  I teared up a bit on this one, too.

This was an emotional activity for me.  In our discussion after the prayer/meditation, most of the other participants mentioned how it was difficult to find someone that they didn't know well but still wanted to wish good things for.  Two of the 11 participants wished positive things for me as the person that they don't know well.  That makes me feel pretty special; they could've chosen any of the hundreds of people that they run into regularly and they chose me!

I have to miss the next two classes, and may change congregations, but this workshop made me feel even more connected to the congregation.  It also supported me after a very tough week.  Thank you, UU prayer!