Pittsburgh Internet Dating Stories

A while back I had a Sunday morning first date at Starbucks on the Southside. I won’t use his real handle; let’s call the guy … “Arrogant.” I dressed nicely and wore make-up, but he showed up in a ratty old t-shirt and baggy cargos, and looked like he had just crawled out of bed.

He was also a good 50 lbs heavier than his photograph!

He was very aggressive - telling me he was the best thing on match.com and that he had dated many women through the site. He told me some of the stories - and many were indeed hilarious - including a story about a thirty-something woman whose mother had gone on the date with them, and then gave him a bag of tomatoes at the end of the evening. I asked him why he put up with that and he said it was because she (the daughter, not the mother) was so hot.

He asked me directly if I was interested in him. I told him “actually, no, you’re too heavy for me”.

Normally I would not be so brutally honest, but his arrogance had offended me, and I felt it was deceptive to post a photo that did not match reality. He had talked about the physical characteristics of the women he had dated, so I figured his physique was fair game.

For the blog, I wrote him to ask if I could share his stories. It wasn’t really smart, but I guess I figured my comment about his weight wouldn’t have really bothered a guy who knew he was God’s gift to women.This is his answer:

Yes, BlueEyes I remember you. How could I forget the only person since 4th grade whose called me fat? But if that wasn’t embarrassing enough to you, you didn’t relent when I attributed the weight gain to surgery and an unspoken complication requiring me to take medication whose side effects include weight gain and fatigue - not a good recipe for maintaining a healthy weight.

Unfortunately for me you left me with no ammunition when formulating a comeback. Or perhaps I simply chose to invoke “do unto others.”

And now you have the temerity to ask to mine my experiences for your gain? You might want to take a cue from your self-reported affinity to “learn new things” and learn the golden rule.

I felt bad - I had really offended him. He was a jerk, but I don’t like to make enemies - not in this small town. Who knows when I might come across him again in another social or professional setting?

What have you done when the photo did not match the reality? Were you honest or did you mutter a face-saving line and slink away?

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I joke I live in Pleasantville, but it’s only Mt. Lebanon. Everyone seems to know everyone, they all go to the Friday night football games, the moms all stay home and bake cookies and work in the PTA , or seem to. Like in Lake Wobegon, all the kids are above average. This last point is an indisputable, proven by the fact that 80% of the high school student body is on the honor roll, the high honor roll, or the highest honor roll, and the senior class medium QPA is hovering close to 4.0. (I am making this up, but I think it’s true)

One tradition we have on our street is the Ladies’ Neighborhood Happy Hour, recently changed to Ladies’ Neighborhood Respite Hour for reasons unknown to me. We rotate homes and get together every Friday at 5:00 for an hour of socializing.I can’t make them all, but I get to as many as possible.

The ladies on our street range form young mothers in their mid 30’s to grandmas in their 70’s. Most are married, but we have 2 divorced and dating ladies in our group, Shelly and I, and we both like to talk. Luckily the married ladies tolerate our stories and are quick to give us their advice.

A few weeks ago, we were at Shelly’s house. She had a dilemma and wanted advice. Shelly is sharp and intellectual woman in her early 50’s and much more picky about her dates than I am. I’ll have a coffee with anybody - I just don’t see the harm. I have yet to lose control because of a double espresso and allow a man to take advantage of me. But Shelly prefers to vet her dates through long email exchanges (she’s a writer) and will only then move to the telephone, and then, if they are lucky, they get a face-to-face meeting.

A good looking 38-year pediatric oncologist (I’ll call him PEDON) had emailed her, and despite the 17-year age difference, she had decided to email back. He was witty, articulate, and interesting, but made it clear in his emails that he didn’t want an internet pen-pal - he wanted to meet her.

Shelly was torn. She passed around copies of the emails and asked the neighborhood girls what to do.

It’s so much easier to make decisions for others - every single lady, including the very proper wife of a local politician, told Shelly to go for it. They all had dating advice, despite the fact that some hadn’t dated in 50 years or more.

Somehow dating can seem like so much more fun when someone else is doing it.

Shelly took the advice and got together with PEDON. At the next Happy Hour we found out how it had worked out. They had met at Mitchell’s Fish Market at the Galleria for a drink, and had gotten along well. He was genuinely attracted to older women.

But 2 weeks later it was all over. He had ended it because he felt she wasn’t serious enough - he was looking for a long term partner, some one he would settle down with and spend the rest of his life with. Shelly, recently divorced after 30 years of marriage, wasn’t ready for that yet, and he was moving on.

It does make you question conventional wisdom. I always ignored the winks and emails from much younger men because I assumed they were looking for something superficial. Maybe next time I’ll wink back.

That would be the advice of FRIEND who earlier commented on an earlier post:

"I guess I am too old and too tied down for the almost 50 year old playboy set, hmmm, maybe there’s a reason my boyfriend is 35. What do they say about not teaching old dogs new tricks? Always wanted a puppy when I was little…… dreams do come true."

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Here’s a story “treefrog” emailed me and told me I could post:

I got a wink from this nurse, Madison. She was pretty intense from the very
beginning. In our first phone call, she called me and we talked from 11pm
till 1am. Talked about family, kids, divorce, dating, everything… She told
me she had a twin sister with borderline personality disorder. My ex is BPD,
so that piqued my interest. I figured that by learning more about snake
handling, I could protect myself from future venom.

Madison joked around a lot in email, giving me a hard time about other dating
I’m doing, joking about what we’d do on dates. When I suggested we meet, she
emailed me “You promised to rape me, remember?” I wrote back that “That was
strange. I prefer lighter humor”, to which she replied “if you don’t like my
sense of humor you could always kiss my ass or stop calling me. … You
probably can’t handle me!”

I had serious doubts about her, but to learn more about borderlines and to
test my dating reflexes, I proposed we meet.

Madison didn’t want to call it a date. It consisted of sitting on her front
porch and talking for 3 hours. We dined on bottled water and grape popsicles
that she fetched from her fridge. She did not dress up at all, but had sloppy
hair and wore frumpy t-shirt and shorts. She would be pretty good looking if
she lost 50 pounds.

She told me about her family; how her mother spent Madison’s teen years lazing
in bed all day while the kids cooked meals and ran the house. Madison, who is
5 years younger than me, then said: “do you need to go to the bathroom? Those
OLDER bladders sometimes can’t hold much”. I rolled my eyes and told her that
I’d never had a woman utter the word “bladder” on a first date. She acted
offended and threatened to hit me. I told her I’d leave if she did. Then she
threatened to “bring out the mean Madison” and accused me of saying that she
had multiple personality disorder. “This woman reminds me of my ex”, I was
thinking.

As we spoke, she made occasional “accidental” touches to my thigh, which I
tolerated uncomfortably for a while. She ribbed me about how I managed to
date 20 women in 10 months. She asked if I have a little black book, and
whether I’d be tearing her page out at the end of the evening. She jokingly
told me that I’m anal retentive and have obsessive compulsive disorder! When
I made a remark, in exasperation, about this “date, or non-date, or whatever
the fuck you want to call it”, her response was “OOOH! Now you’re getting
dirty! That’s turning me on!”. This woman is strange!

By that time I had pretty well ruled her out for a romantic relationship, it
was midnight, and I wanted to get home. I said “I enjoyed our conversation,
let’s get together for a walk some time, I need to go”. I was feeling mildly
repulsed on physical and psychological levels, and didn’t want to encourage
any advances, so I offered a handshake, only. She took my hand, and for an
awkward 30 seconds wouldn’t let go. She told me she wanted a kiss, I
reluctantly said OK, and she started to give me an extremely passionate kiss.
After enduring it for a fraction of a second, I pulled away. Fortunately, she
let go. That super-clingy handshake and kiss bugged me more than anything
else. It felt like being smothered by my ex. Yikes!

When I got home, I felt relief that I hadn’t let her go further with me, proud
of myself for dodging the viper.

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NYIF had many great moments - not just suggesting I get breast implants and my teeth filed on our first date. We were both Catholic (in fact NYIF had a prominent position in Pittsburgh diocese), and discussed how we could reconcile dating other people while still being married in the eyes of the church. NYIF volunteered that he had his rules about this, and that he subscribed to Bill Clinton’s definition of sex.

Wanting to know what I might be signing up for, I googled this, and found insight in Bill Clinton & The Definition of “Sexual Relations” from bandersnatch.com

One must remember that Clinton was 51, meaning he developed his definitions of sexual relations back in high school in the 1960’s… it is quite possible that Clinton, as many fellow baby boomers, does not consider fellatio to be “sexual relations”.

The phenomena of young ladies drawing a firm (but exceedingly fine) line between all manners of sexual arousal and intercourse (not the term actually used in the situation) was especially evident in extremely religious young women of the time… Apparently school yard Catholic dogma of the time defined “sex” as fornication, a serious sin, and … oral stimulation as maybe not even worthy of confession.

I guess that would explain why it was so important that NYIF’s date’s teeth be filed smooth.

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It was my first date with “New York IF” from Match, and I was nervous. I was recently separated from my husband of 20 years,, and this was my first “first date” in 22 years. We had emailed, talked a little on the phone, and he seemed fun, smart, and concerned about me. We agreed to meet at the Roxy in South Hills Village for a beer, and I made sure my hair and make-up looked good. NYIF, a nice looking man in his late 50’s, seemed happy to see me. He said, “You really are cute!” and we settled down to drink our Guinness and start the process of getting to know each other.

He started telling me about his ex-wife. He had made her who she was, and instead of being grateful, she had left him suddenly after 30 years. When he met her when she was a young, skinny, dirty-blond thing with bad teeth, but he had fixed her up over time, getting her the right clothes, haircuts, dental work, and eventually, a breast augmentation. He told me he had been very pleased with the results. It was at that point that he looked over at me with an appraising eye, took a good look at my chest, and told me, “Dear, if you have the money, that’s something you might consider yourself.”

I did not leave then. I actually stayed to hear how I should get my teeth filed (”I’m surprised your dentist hasn’t already recommended this to you.”) and how I needed to stop saying “yeah” and say “yes” instead (”It’s so much more sophisticated.”)

And then I went on one more date with him before I smartened up! But the story does not end there.

A few weeks later I met another man on Match who I hit it off with, and we started dating. A month later, things had progressed, and I decided it was time to shop for new underwear. I went to the Pussycat lingerie store in Squirrel Hill, and as I was admiring my profile in one of their sexy “contoured” bras, I remarked that I couldn’t believe my first date in 22 years had recommended I get a boob job.

Gail Gross, the owner, had been serving me. She stopped, looked up at me in surprise, and asked “You didn’t meet him on Match.com did you?”

I said I did, and she told me about another woman she had served a few weeks earlier from Fox Chapel who was thin and blond like me. The lady came in devastated - she had been told on the first date with a man she had met on Match that she should get breast implants.

“She was really shook up, not laughing about it like you. ” Gail said, “It really hurt her.”

So I decided to set up a blog so Pittsburgh singles could share Internet dating stories, lighten up and laugh about it. After all, this is supposed to be fun. This is what you were looking forward to when you were stuck in that unhappy marriage and wanted out so you could meet some interesting people. Let’s share the different versions of “interesting” we’ve found. Please join me and please feel free to post!

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