where is he?

ugh, dating. as charlotte from sex and the city said, "i've been dating since i was 16, where is he?" i'm trying to think of my first date, hmm. oh yeah, i think i was 15 - i know it was before i could drive. i was an after school ski instructor at the local ski "hill" in my town. i met a guy somehow who was also a ski instructor. i have no idea how we got to talking and how it turned into him driving me home after our classes and going on "dates." i don't even remember what dates we went on. i think we went to the movies. i don't think we went out to dinner. i remember his name, kind of what he looked like - he was tall with dirty blonde hair, he was from another town, a couple years older than me, and wanted to go to villanova. i think we stopped "dating" when the ski season was over. he was my first kiss. at 15. is that old? is that young? i don't know, but almost 10 years of dating later and about 35 guys i've kissed later, i'm so sick of dating and just hooking up.

i didn't really date in college. i was with one guy for a year and then kind of hooked up with other guys for the other 3 years. i didn't really start dating until i moved to new york. i know the best way to meet someone is through a friend. unfortunately, most of my friends are single girls who don't have any guy friends. i have dated a couple guys that i met through my friends, though. i started dating one guy i met through a friend about 6 months after i moved here. we went out for 3 months - the longest i've dated a guy while living here.

other than that, it's been a date or 2 or sometimes 3 with the occassional hook up. most of the guys i've gone out with have been guys i met at bars. we're drunk, or at least buzzed, he buys me a drink, we talk and we're getting along and he's cute enough. he asks for my number and i give it to him. i don't always remember his name when he calls and i hope that i recognize him when we meet up. (one time, the guy and i admitted that we probably wouldn't recongize each other when we met, so he had to clearly explain to me where on the street he was waiting for me. i know, that's bad.) for some reason, i haven't been able to get past 3 dates with a guy i meet at a bar. and that could be attributed to the unspoken "rule" here in new york - the 3 date rule. guys expect to sleep with you by the 3rd date. if you don't, what's the point? they'll just go out to one of the hundreds of bars in the city and meet another girl who will. now, not all guys here follow that, but it's to be expected, especially when dating a guy you meet at a bar. and that's not really a rule i want to follow.

i hate first dates. everytime i go on a first date, i hope that it's my last first date. but, i have to go on dates. i enjoy the company of guys, and the attention, and the affection. i can't get that out of 1, 2, or 3 dates though - it takes time, and i feel like guys here, or at least those my age, aren't interested in anything more than sex. of course, we all want that, but what about being close to someone, being able to talk to and rely on someone, and having someone to enjoy doing nothing with? and once you have that, you have someone to have sex with all the time and not have to go through that first time sleeping with someone awkwardness, which is never good. why aren't guys interested in the more than just sex thing?

so, how am i supposed to meet a guy who wants to get to know me and not just my body? i've talked to people about this, and everyone says you can't be looking for someone, it just happens when you least expect it - and i totally agree, but i have to do something. i'm not going to meet a guy sitting in my apartment. so i've thought about the things i like to do: shopping - not going to meet a guy there, reading - don't want to join a book club, helping kids learn to read - how will i meet a guy doing that?, taking a class in painting or writing - don't know if i'd meet a guy there, but i'm going to do it anyway, live music - i'm going to 3 concerts in the next couple months, so we'll see if i meet someone there. the guys i want to date like sports, which makes it hard for me to meet those guys because i don't like sports - baseball is ok to watch and i can't sit through a football game. and i don't like playing sports - i wish i enjoyed softball because i would love to join a softball team, but i can't catch, throw, or hit. i'm such a girl.

a guy called me last week who i met about a month ago at a bar at 3am. we only talked for like 10 minutes, but i gave him my number. he said he'd call the next day, but i didn't hear from him until 3 weeks later when he texted me to make sure i remembered him, and then when i wrote back, he called me a week later to see if i want to go out. i was impressed that he called me because guys these days rely on texting too much, and i was going to call him back, but i was just feeling unmotivated. i barely remember him and i met him at a bar a month ago. something about that makes me uneasy. if it takes him a month to get around to calling me for a first date, what is it going to be like if we start dating? i haven't been on a date for awhile, so i was tempted, but i don't want to just go back to his apartment. i want something more meaninful. and someone who takes a month to call me for a first date is not someone i want something meaningful with. so i'm not calling him back. he scored points for calling, but it was about a month too late. now what am i supposed to do?

i heard today that a girl i work with who is my age, attractive, and normal when on a date she met on eharmony. she said he was normal and they'll go out again. she had to run to a meeting, so i didn't hear any more than that, but it intrigued me. so tonight i went on eharmony. i filled out the survey, looked at my personality profile, and checked out some of my matches. it's only been about an hour since i finished filling out the survey. i have 7 matches, 3 of them are in the city. the other 4 are from connecticut, new jersey, or upstate. i have a hard enough time dating someone from brooklyn, let alone from new jersey, so i focused on the new york matches. i haven't paid the $60 a month to join (that's a lot of money to try out online dating), so i can't look at pictures and i'm not sure if i could communicate with people yet. out of the new york matches: one guy seems ok - he's 29, works in finance, likes humor and family, one guy is 23 - too young, and the other guy works in a bar and doesn't remember the last book he read - eh, not interested. then there's one guy from connecticut who "requests communication." he's from another state, so that's annoying, but it's a 30 minute train ride away, so it's not the end of the world. he likes sports, music, and family - all good to me. i think i'll communicate back, if i could do that without paying the $60 to join, and see how it goes. meeting someone over the internet makes me really nervous and i'm not sure what type of guy does online dating, but what else am i supposed to do?

where is he?