Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Beautiful Dreamer, la da da dee....

So there's this chick where I work -- we'll call her Beautiful Dreamer -- and she actually did all this online dating stuff for quite a while before I started. She's so very much different from I, though not in good/bad ways. Just in different ones.

For instance, she really dove in head-first to the shopping idea of Yenta.com. She winked her little fingers off, and got into these massive email back-and-forths and epic phone calls with the various dudes she found to pursue. She had dates, many dates. And she was always, without fail, unendingly enthusiastic about every part of the process. And where as I saw danger and concern and threats, she always took these total stranger-men at face value. On everything. I found that simultaneously sweet and flabber-boggling. For example:

She finds a guy she likes, based on emails and phone calls, and suddenly they both find that they're available for a date. But only if they take immediate action -- date! Now! Go! So she does the following:

  • Has him pick her up at her house. Which requires giving him her address. "Here," she says to this guy whom she has never met and who could be a cowboy, but could be an axe murderer, "come see where I spend my alone time, with nobody to know if I were to be murdered all axe-style."
  • She doesn't tell anyone else she's going out. She's alone (ostensibly -- she has little kids, but they weren't home so for that night she's alone) and there's nobody who checks in on her to know when she's suddenly missing. No call to a friend or co-worker to say a quick "hey, I'm going on a date with this guy I don't know to location unknown for completely not known by me activities. If I'm not home by some set time I'm probably dead and I just wanted someone to know that I'd like them to play "Don't Fear the Reaper" at my funeral." My favorite part of this detail was the reason she gave for not telling anybody what she was doing: she knew everyone would tell her not to do it. Know your audience!!
  • She lets him drive, and decide where they're going, and what route to get there, while she opens the bottle of wine he brought. (I'll hold on while you finish shaking your head in "what the hell is this girl thinking?"-ness...) They drive, and drive, and drive, and this girl KNOWS how to get where they were supposed to be going but never says "so, are we going to by way of Paris or something?"
  • They get there and enjoy some wine, sitting in the car and admiring the view.
  • OK, just in case some of view missed the significance of that part, I'm going to break it down for you: A) they enjoy some wine, often considered to be a beverage of alcoholic nature, while they admire the view at this place that B) took a really long time to reach and, therefore, will probably take about as long to return from, and they do this from C) the car, which is the only place they have to hang out, and which therefore makes the drunk driving that he's got planned later so much easier to get to.

Here, for me, is the most amazing part of the story: she didn't die! She's not chopped into tiny girl-hunks, scattered across the closest body of water to previously-mentioned lovely park, feeding tiny fishes who would have also shaken their heads! But as she cheerily regailed me with tales of what was, to her, a sweet and romantic first date with this guy, yadda, yadda, yadda, I sat there frozen in horror! I had to swallow my own tongue to keep from screaming "What the bloody, demon-infested HELL were you THINKING!?!? Are you out of your M-I-I-I-I-I-I-N-D??????" Because, you know, she was so chipper about it. And I'm apparently so paranoid.

Over time I became really good at the smiling nod and vacant stare, which seemed like the response she wanted. She really didn't like it when I threw my pesky real-life concerns out there, ruining what were such dreamy dude-moments. But trust me, there were many other stories which would send chills running up and down your sane spines.

Next: How a Euphamism is born...

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