Money Can't Buy Me Love

The date I am about to describe to you almost makes me uncomfortable just writing about it so I hope you can appreciate JUST how uncomfortable it was to experience it live and in color.

I was set up with a man who we will call "Hefner" as this was the name given by the very observant homeless man who walked us from the restaurant to the car. In 3 short blocks this severely intoxicated man was able to accurately peg my date's personality.

We had agreed to meet outside his posh downtown condo and walk 3 blocks to a near by wine bar. As I pull up in my modest, fuel efficient vehicle I see a young man in a dapper suit waiting on the street corner. As he approaches to greet me I take note of his Michael Buble shuffle - fit for a dance floor - not a street corner. He greets me with a wink and a "Good evening Doll". I immediately begin to disengage. Doll? When did I become your Doll? Between having never met you and shaking your hand? He then puts out his arm inviting me to grab his and stroll merrily towards the restaurant. I hesitate, link arms awkwardly for 37 seconds then make up an excuse to release my arm. I have an itch - the beginning of the rash he was about to give me perhaps?

By the time we reach the restaurant I am well versed in JUST how important he is. After all, he is a wildly successful energy trader who owns 7 houses. As we are getting seated, he puts in a request to have the lights dimmed. I can feel the rash developing. We sit down and take a glance at the menu. Hoping this would be a one glass wonder, I assertively state I will only have a glass of wine. He tells the server we will have a bottle, asks for his suggestion and then orders the opposite. When the wine arrives, he arrogantly swirls it around, sniffs and analyzes and declares he is not quite satisfied but will keep the bottle. He winks again and declares he would like to make a toast "To the beginning of a wonderful blind date". I vomit and then cheers this cheese ball.

"Hefner" made great attempts at getting to know me, but unfortunately every question he asked he was just so eager to answer for himself that there was little room to interrupt. I begin to give him one word answers as that's all I could squeeze in. He acknowledges this and says (wink) "I am sorry, its not my intention to interrupt you, I am not that type of guy. I mean look at me, I wear great suits to work everyday and may be very successful but I am a very laid back, considerate guy." Are you? At this point, I tried very hard to manifest the chandelier above my head to fall down and violently take my life. It didn't budge so I skip out to the washroom. Why I didn't just keep walking is beyond me. I went back for more!

I returned to the table and decided I was going to treat the situation similarly to the way you would when encountering a bear in the wild. I decided to disengage entirely and play dead. Things took a turn for the worse as this only enticed him to try harder. As we were sitting there in silence with nothing but a terrible techno song pounding in the background he says "I just love this jam!". Jam, as in song? Followed by "Speaking of jam, what is your favorite kind?". I give him one word back, "Strawberry" I say. He sneaks out to the bathroom. While he is away the server approaches with a tray of mini strawberry jams. He looks at me with pity, shrugs his shoulders and walks away. When "Hefner" returns he winks again and tells me that he made special arrangements to get me "all the strawberries in the house" and that he "Ok'd it to have them slipped in my purse before we leave." I acknowledge his odd effort and decline the offer to steal 7 jars of jam from a classy establishment. He also proposed we make arrangements to have our table, yes WHOLE table, moved outside to the court yard so we could "enjoy our wine under the moon light". Oh dear god. Fear not, I declined. With the double rejection, he begins to try harder!

He starts to ask me about my family and quickly cuts me off to, of course, tell me about his. He decides he'd like to "sing me a few lines of a special song". I grip my seat and tell him he should not do that. I get fairly adamant about it but nothing stops this tenor. Yes folks, he began to sing "Young at heart" at the table, loud enough for our neighbours to hear. He says "Its the only accurate way to describe my parents" and then requests that we toast his mother and father. WTF?! I don't even know your last name let alone your mother and father. I declare that it is time for me to go. He takes out his money clip, waves his credit card in the air to get our poor servers attention, pushes his chair back and stands up. I am hoping he is about to declare the obvious (TERRIBLE MATCH) but no, he is a getting up to ask me to dance -in the middle of a crowded restaurant - with techno music playing in the background. Thank you Ryan Gossling, but this is not the Notebook. This is actually the worst date of my life, so please, please sit down. I got up and walked past him and hit the ladies room again. I give myself a pep talk and reminded myself that there are only a few more minutes left of this torture.

As we are leaving the restaurant a lovely old man named Clayton Wolf approached us. He was missing 97% of his teeth and slurred the majority of his words but managed to create dialogue. This dialogue being the best conversation I had all night. As "Hefner" tried to encourage the bum to leave us, I encouraged him to stay for the 3 block walk. And so he did. Mid way he stopped, swayed, turned to me and said "Who is this idiot? Hugh Hefner??" and points to the 'dapper' man beside me. I crack up and look around me for cameras. I thank "Hefner" for the glass of wine and bid him farewell, shake Clayton's hand and thank HIM for an enjoyable date.

I hop into my car and begin to pull out when Clayton bangs on my window. Expecting him to ask for some change, he simply looks at me with his glossy, tired eyes, he winks and says "Your platinum babe".

I'd like a divorce...

I am now clear on what it would feel like to be in a less then satisfactory marriage to a man. ‘Ken’ and I went directly from date 3 to common law status. This of course, was not my idea.


Date 1-3 were wonderful. Here he was, a handsome, successful, small town boy with funny and enduring quirks. He was affectionate beyond description and this spoke right too my piscean heart. Later on I would learn that this was his only redeeming quality.


Date 4 took a bit of a turn. We had a date night planned. He mentioned he would be late. What he didn’t mention is that he would arrive disheveled, reeking of a combination or Whiskey, bug repellent and body odor with no clean attire to change into. When he arrived I greeted him to help him carry his numerous unorganized, variety of bags up to my apartment. Immediately he declares he needs a shower and I echoed his declaration. He also casually mentioned he needed to wash his clothes as he was getting picked up at 6am for another sporting event tournament. You are sleeping over? Puzzled, I put his clothes in the laundry all the while curious as to what he would put on post shower. Oh, that was not a concern for this man. He decided it was perfectly normal to kick back in his ginch for the remainder of the evening. I found his un-natural ability to be completely comfortable around me to be somewhat enduring. I sure should not have shared that vibe, however.

Fast forward 2 short days. I receive a 5 minute warning that he is back to see me post sporting event again. I give him the benefit of the doubt that he will arrive in better shape then last time. WRONG! Same scent oozing from his pours. How this man ever had hand eye coordination on the field after consuming such a quantity of booze is truly beyond me. I spot a change of clothes and feel relieved. I also spot women's deodorant and feel confused. Shortly after arrival I spot him with his head in my fridge. I acknowledge and he says he is searching for snacks. I cheffed up some 'grub' and we settled in for a movie. Within minutes I had a dead rhinoceros on my lap. So deep into drunk REM sleep that the man cannot be woken. I blast music, vacuum, gab on the phone and nothing. So I leave him, continue on with my date with myself and eventually take myself to bed.

I wake up to a naked beast lying next to me who claims he has been up all night with a particular bowel disturbance. How romantic? He requests to be left in bed for the day. I leave for work and hear no further from him throughout the day aside from a text asking where I hide my bathroom tissue. At this point his once enduring qualities were on trial.

I return to a dehydrated human who's sex appeal was slowly dwindling. This dwindle picked up quite the pace. It appeared as though he had moved in. I got the sense that he was not going home. I admit, I am majorly faulted for giving people too many chances and empathy usually gets the best of me. This is the point I should have taken the man to his home that may or may not exist. However, my faults got the best of me and I didn't kick him out. No, no, I waited 2 more sleeps! 2 more baffling days of a common law relationship. He kicked it in ginch on the couch and now and then I would interrupt him with his hands scratching his man parts. He continued to battle his bowel disturbance's...in my wee one bedroom condo. He ate dinner out of a pot and had to be told to do the dishes. I found dirty socks between the couch cushions and a pair of his underwear behind the bathroom door. He made me privy to the fact that the take out we ate gave him horrendous gas. So bad that at times I had to leave the room. Is this what it is like after a few years of marriage?! One thing was for sure, I could now empathize with those nagging wives out there who's sex life no longer existed in their marriage. I HEAR YOU LADIES!

This morning I evicted my live in boyfriend.

As I watched 'Ken' enter the doors of his apartment, I felt peace. There was nothing to hide with this man. If this is what showed up in the first 4 dates, then it can only get worse from here. I pulled out of his visitor parking with confidence. I am filing for divorce for irreconcilable differences.

A Night of Mansomnia...

A few successful dates have occurred with 'Ken' and most recently this Man of men, spent the night amongst my bamboo sheets. It was more of a sleep-less sleepover in my opinion. No, no - no tangling in these sheets occurred. In fact would you believe me if I told you that this rhinoceros sized stud was more of a Koala bear in bed then ME. Let me remind you that my layer is of size…and I am NOT. At one point around 2:37am I began to slip off the edge as ‘Ken’ had cuddled his way right on top of my pillows. Luckily his tentacle like arms had a solid grip and he must have sensed the slip and gripped tighter.

Part of the reason I lay awake for 6 of the 8 hours spent in bed last night, was due to the fact that my core temperature was reflective of the Sahara desert as I used a 6’3 male as my quilt. The other reason is that I have some sort of a psychological barrier built up around the ability to get shut eye with an attractive unfamiliar man in arms reach. Unfortunately I believe this is a reaction to the fact that it has been sometime since I shared space with a male. The sad truth. Here is how it all goes down:

• 1st sleepless hour goes by and I begin to notice the insomnia taking over
• 1:45am - I begin to really stress. I have an 8am meeting and I remember I am running very low on under eye concealer.
• 2:20am - begin to feel rage for the man next to me who is on the brink of snoring. Snoring makes me SNAP
• 2:50am - I wake the snoring man up to declare to him that I am STILL wide awake.
• 2:51am - the man reacts gently, kindly, compassionately with a sweet ‘I know babe’ and my rage immediately disappears. Love is in the air again
• 3:30am - I begin to tear up and formulate my ‘calling in sick’ phone call. Then I ingest 1 gravol.
• 3:50am - I ingest a 2nd gravol
• 4:30am - after waffling between rage, grogginess and depression my body finally surrenders to the sedatives and I pass out.
• 6:30am - alarm goes off, I sneak out of bed careful not to disturb the sleeping giant, put coffee on, try to squeeze the last drops out of my tube of concealer, and then finally just cut open the tube and scrape the inside to cake over my large black bags under these eyes.

Next sleepover I am hoping to get 3 hours instead of 2. I figure if I push on through, it can only get easier from here. That is, if Ken sticks around long enough to break the cycle of mansomnia.

...In a Barbie World

Live sporting events are back on as far as date options go! A real success this was!


A long over due blind date occurred last night. ‘Ken’ (for his uncanny resemblance to Barbie and KEN’) finally became real the other night. I virtually met this man 2 years ago when I first fired up the online dating profile. We chatted, but failed to unite in person. Our paths crossed again. At first I was concerned that he was STILL single and then quickly remembered that I too, am STILL single so I invited the banter.

Our first ‘meeting’ - a real live baseball game… with his FAMILY?! Oh, no big deal I can handle this. I primp myself up in sexy yet athletic evening wear and venture off to a small town to enjoy a local game. All was well right up until ‘Ken’ asked if I wanted a hot dog. I tensed up and feared the worst. Past experiences have left me with the overwhelming sense of abandonment. Would he ever return from the concession? Or would I be left lonesome, sitting yet again with the opposing teams fans?

'Ken' returned. At this very point I considered the date a success. All the rest was icing on the cake. He continued to charm me with his stunning blue eyes, chivalrous behaviour, inquisitive persona and manly stature. Second date is scheduled and I am in charge of planning it. All I know is it will be something 'active'. Let's see what those man hands are made of 'Ken'! Wink wink!

I have had a re-lapse...

Admitting it is the first step...

Who could it be? Man child? Ferris Bueller? Hockey guy? Cheese guy? Zeus?

"Blue eyes" struck the heart string...again!

While out gallivanting at a large outdoor festival in the city, 2 date run ins occur. First I see Hockey Guy. I spot, eyes meet, he approaches, we embrace and I continue on. Re-lapse free! Very impressed with myself, I acknowledge how far I have come in my dating world. This lasted about 38 minutes until the next sighting occur ed.

After a couple drinks in a crowded bar I decide to pull up a stool and people watch. Being quite the scene, I was enjoying a good chuckle glancing around at the drunken debauchery that is unfolding around me. All was well until MY blue eyes crossed paths with a pair of wildly familiar, striking blue eyes...and at that very point my stomach dropped into my right cowboy boot.

"Blue Eyes" was sharing an evening at this very same establishment. I immediately approach him. He awkwardly exchange salutations and stare at each other a few short moments. We wish each other well and carry on... I am overwhelmed with a desire to cuddle with this man once again.

I leave shortly after this encounter as it shocked me right into sobriety. I must contact 'Blue Eyes' but HOW?! I deleted his digits and his friend status on FB. Ah, nothing gets in the way of JiJi striking a match. I send him a FB message as we do not have to be friends for that to happen. I make it short and sweet...He responds, I respond, he responds, I respond, he responds, I respond and now I have a date with 'Blue Eyes' next Wednesday. Whether or not this is a terrific or terrifically horrible idea is up to the universe at this point.

In this case, I know 'Iron Fist' would NOT be proud, but sometimes one must stray from the strategic plan and take risks in order to grow the business. And this, my friends, is definitely a risk. To be continued a week today!

Never date a man that quotes Nickelback lyrics...

I am almost ashamed to admit this one.

We will call this man "Hollywood" simply because he has this word TATTOOED ACROSS HIS BACK! This should have been my first clue to turn the other direction, but nope, I just had to see for myself.

"Hollywood" was a blind online date. After our first few emails were exchanged he decided to add me to facebook. A standard blind date move. Curious, as his pictures were very intriguing, I accept his friend request. I begin to creep and notice some professional modelling photos. I inquire. This man declares he was Mr.June in a national bachelor calendar. Oh. dear. god. I creep more and discover several pictures of this man with his face rammed between 2 large busted, Pam Anderson look-a-likes. We are a match! True compatibility! Just my style.... oh wait! My overall assessment at this point is: Legit Douche Bag. He puts out the date invite, I decline stating that we are just too 'different'.

A few weeks later I get a phone call from "Hollywood" almost demanding I give him a shot and stop judging him from his facebook page. The hopelessness in me gives in. You're right "Hollywood" - maybe I AM being judgemental! Date 1 takes place and he managed to appear more 'jock' and way less 'loser'. Date 2 occurs and my previous assessments proves accurate - LEGIT Douche Bag. He picked me up in his oversize truck and took me to lunch where he wore his white sunglasses the entire meal while in the shade. We then drove down to the park for a walk. During the ride, he rolled back the sunroof, dropped the windows and CRANKED a mix of Usher, Nickelback and Lil' Wayne at an obnoxious level. This is when I almost wished death upon myself. During the walk I noticed him staring for several minutes at a beautiful women nearby. I acknowledge this lengthy gaze and he declares that he has 'an eye for seeking out potential models and THIS girl should be a model'. Awesome... I contemplate regurgitating my frozen yogurt at this very moment but decide it was the only thing giving me pleasure so I keep it in. Thank baby Jesus that the storm clouds rolled in and tragically we had to end our date prematurely.

"Hollywood" is seeking additional dates, all the while posting new and improved pictures of himself in wife beaters surrounded by trashy women. Fear not...all offers will be declined from this point onward.

A doozy of a date...

There are those that are Monday- Thursday dates and those, that twitterpate on date #1, that skip right to weekend dates. Saturday night is top date real estate. This prime time slot goes to worthy contestants only. Up until Saturday night at 845pm, “Slick” had qualified as a worthy contestant. This fellow blew my socks off on our first mid-week date. Doors were held, bills were paid, seats were tucked in, jackets were assisted on, and follow up was outstanding. He was handsome, successful, charming… and an arrogant asshole! Who knew!

To set the scene, we are in a very popular modern Indian Fusion restaurant in the heart of the city. Its Saturday night, the music is loud but not loud enough to cover the epic argument that is about to go down. Next to our wee table is a pleasant older couple, tourists who happen to fall upon this dynamite establishment. My heart goes to them for destroying there experience.

We have appies, and all seems well aside from “Slick’s” salesman tendencies beginning to ooze out his pours. Is the truth slowly unveiling itself to me? We begin on the discussion of our past travels. How cliché? (Ease up – it was the second date!) We land on a country we both had visited. A tranquil country focused on sustainability, Eco tourism, and preserving their land and culture. “Slick” makes it known that he was intending to invest his overflowing pockets in a high rise on the beach. He asks my opinion and I gently state that I fancy the idea of a small cabin in a quaint tucked away town. He digs for my reasons so I gently share with him that I would have a hard time investing in a high rise as I wouldn’t feel good contributing to a project in a town now full of local prostitutes and drug dealers their to keep the high rise dwellers entertained. Please keep in mind that I presented my opinion in the utmost gentle way sure to not offend him. He snaps and says (air quotes) “I really (sarcasm) appreciate your HIPPY mentality, but my outlook is if shits going to happen anyways, I may as well be a part of it!” He curses under his breath, shakes his head and drops his fork.

What an interesting outlook I think to myself. At first I burst into laughter. Did he JUST say “Hippy mentality”? So I ask him to explain a little further what exactly did he mean by this. His response: “Well, like I bet you recycle and stuff! You know, dead beat hippy mentality? ” Oh shoot! My bad, I am sorry for caring about this precious earth we live upon, but even further, what does recycling even have to do with this conversation? Did you just say DEAD BEAT? Guns are now A-BLAZIN! This is where I paused and asked myself, does this deserve me to quiet down and keep this rip-roaring argument on the low-down or do I unleash and make it known that this man has just ruined any chance he had? I raised my voice. I strike back and question his intriguing outlook and bring up topics such as prostitution, slavery, and any other controversial topics that are ‘happening’ in the world that perhaps he “may as well be a part of”. He retaliates then apologizes and we continue eating our chicken vindaloo in complete silence. Date wraps up, he takes me home and requests another date?!

Hate to tell you “Slick” but your sales-man tactics worked…once! Your true colors are bright and blinding. Good luck destroying the earth and your dreams of ever having a relationship.