First up: while I write this, Katie is sitting in the airport with - according to her notes - fifty pounds of books and some assorted bread products, about to set off from Paris on her long, loooonng journey back to Berkeley and the sunshine of San Francisco Bay.
Bon Voyage, Katie.
I miss you like crazy, as do all who had the pleasure of meeting you on your European adventure.
For the chattering types among you (and you know who you are, especially those of you who have been emailing Katie on the subject), that is not the reason I've been moping around the house and playing old vinyl; much as I appreciate the compliment of being "romantically" linked with someone as way out of my league as Katie we are friends and nothing more.
I've been reading back in my archives and it seems I suffer an attack of the lonelies around this time every year.
So you (and regrettably me, too) are going to have to put up with it for a while.
Hokay … so we return yet again to the perennial, miserably dreary subject of Old Dive's long-standing lack of a love life.
Here's the rub:
Saggy, balding, ugly middle-aged git would like to meet smart, cool, funny, academic-yet-arty woman with a view to living happily ever after.
He: cooks, cleans, is fully domesticated and as a bonus, leaves the house in the middle of the night and doesn't come home until bedtime.
She: would preferably be pretty (in a long dark hair and glasses, sexy librarian way), on the skinny side and slightly kooky.
She should not:
- smoke;
- be covered in tattoos like an elderly sailor;
- chew food with her mouth open (I once dated a girl who did that; the silver lining being that I lost a lot of weight as I couldn't sit at the same table as her without gagging);
- leave crap all over the house and the towels screwed up on the bathroom floor;
- enjoy TV soap operas and "reality" shows;
- come with kids and pets attached;
- have a hairier back than me;
- be called Biff …
Though to tell the truth I'll date anything that still twitches when you kick it.
If any of you know of a woman like that - or indeed any desperate, lonely woman with poor eyesight and low self-esteem - please let me know so we can move on to stage two of Dive's dilemma, where I actually get to meet an attractive woman and my brain immediately freezes, leaving me standing there with a glazed expression and my mouth flapping open while I try to form the word "Durr".
Stage three is my inevitable rejection. I'm particularly experienced at that one.
Sorry to rehash this same old crap but it's as much a part of autumn as falling leaves and delayed trains.
49 comments:
You and I need to talk :D
We talk lots!
Mind you, it's usually about food or work. Hee hee.
I'll put on my Love Coach hat. It's a pretty hat :D
Now I'm stuck with the mental image of you wearing a big, pink, pointy wizard's hat covered in little silver stars (plus matching robe, wand and accessories).
Unfortunately, you tried the Love Coach Hat on me before and in its infinite hatty wisdom it concluded that I am my own worst enemy and need a good slap; a conclusion with which I whole-heartedly concur but which still leaves me without a woman to pamper and embarrass.
Dive, there are a plethora of good points about yourself that, for motives I fully understand (but don’t exactly condone), you failed to mention. I know YOU know what they are because two of them are insightfulness and intelligence. What's more, I know WE know what they are because we are also relatively insightful and intelligent.
You're a spendthrift when it comes to the plusses of your friends and idols, but a miser when it comes to your own - which, I think, is a damn shame. Loosen those purse strings, buddy!
Hee hee. You are too generous, Lucio.
I may have the odd plus point but that does me no good at all when faced with an attractive woman. I just freeze up and turn into a blithering idiot.
The last time it happened (Hi, Marina), I just stood there stuttering and spuffling, unable to string together any coherent words at all until she gave up and went away.
Which is at least better than another time when I plucked up the courage to speak to a woman and she turned, looked me up and down scornfully and said simply "Piss off, creep."
It's a fun life being an ug. Hey ho. But at this time of year we have great sport trying to get me a date. It always ends in disaster but that makes for a better blog post.
I'll come back to this in a min when I get it on full screen. Don't ask. In the meantime, I have sourced a pic of the model proposed by the architects for the Cheltenham plans, Dive. Over at mine. Your expert opinion is?
Dive I shouldn't be laughing
Yet I laughed
A lot.
It's a credit to you that you can you be so funny on such a bleak subject.
I don't own a Love Coach hat, nor do I have the magic wand to turn you into something you're not. However I do have a solution :
Whenever you really want to seduce a particular girl, tell her to go and read a blog. She'll know that you can write better than you can speak. She'll know how bright and witty you really are and she'll love you for it.
As an added bonus she'll know what to do and not to do and she'll remember to pick up her wet towels when she's finished with her shower.
And all will be well ever after.
Amen.
(come to my place and you'll see the wedding)
I've had more than a little bad luck with women over the past few years, Dive. From it I've learned that they love it when a man can be self-deprecating, but hate it when he can't NOT be. My ex-wife pretty much said this to my face as one of the reasons she wanted a divorce. Since then, I've moderated my modesty - not, I hope, to the point of becoming an insensitive blowhard. So, show us some coin: or, better, some green!
Dive, big mistake, I meant to say
"when you're interested in a particular girl, tell her to go and read YOUR blog." (not a blog, any blog, dummy)
(had to laugh at lucio's comment just above)
Right. Well. I pretty much fit the bill, Dive. lol! Apart...from...
1. I'm not skinny.
2. I have 3 children, all pretty much grown up.
3. And here's the rub. I occasionally (not each time) get hooked on Big Brother. It's a psychological, academic-originating experiment, dammit!
he he. I guess I'm out of the running then.
p.s. It wasn't me. I didn't email Katie.
4. I just cut my hair, after some 19 years of having it almost down to my waist. If only you'd said. I might have informed you before cutting it. lol.
I love these posts. It rains good (and bad) advice and I never take any of it. Hee hee.
Lynn: I'll pop over and take a look.
Nathalie: I'm glad I can raise a chuckle. Any woman looking at my blog is going to leave the country pretty damned fast!
Lucio: I shall try. That's good advice.
Lynn: Yup; you're safe until the kids have left home and you've smashed your TV.
And I like your hair like that.
"being "romantically" linked with someone as way out of my league as katie"
It's comments like that that keep you out of contention,dive. You never know who's league you're in until you really try.
Rich: the weemen who have told me to piss off when I DO pluck up the courage show me quite clearly whose league I am in.
he he well Dive my children are everything to me, whether they're inside the home or not. Anyone not interested in them, in the remotest sense, is not on my radar in a romantic sense. So... you're safe! lol.
Kids are fine when they get old enough, Lynn; say around thirty-seven or so.
Dive, I've got no advice. My last relationship ended in a courtroom. I walked away with $100 and a third of my clothes. So, when it comes to this kind of thing, I'm a poorly-dressed and ill-equipped to speak on the subject.
I always thought my friend Kathy would be perfect for you. She lives in Oxford. She loves to travel speaks 4 languages - she has kids but they are all grown up.
Next time I'm in the big blighty we'll meet you in London and have coffee or tea. She's really very lovely and one of my best friends!
T: Bummer! Actually, I'm not likely to act on any of this advice, or indeed ever get a date; it's just nice to make people giggle at my misfortune.
Shazza: It is kinda scary to think that you'd consider anybody perfect for me. Poor Kathy would never speak to you again if she knew!
Plus, Oxford is slightly further from my home than Timbuktoo, so she's safe from Dive-dating.
Dive. Joy, Lucio, Rich, Myself, we've all tried to tell you that you are your own worst enemy, indeed you admit this yourself. Each time someone comes up with a positive suggestion, you bat it away faster than fly. I have a suspicion that you know exactly what your own good points are, are not actually looking for someone to settle with (even one in possession of all the boxes ticked on your 'requirement list' - a concept which, in itself, is a repellent - and actually only like to write about the absence of one! I refer you to your own words. "
T: Bummer! Actually, I'm not likely to act on any of this advice, or indeed ever get a date; it's just nice to make people giggle at my misfortune. (I'm not sure this is a misfortune; perhaps you actually prefer being single at the moment. I know I do and it's okay to say that - my words in brackets).
Shazza: It is kinda scary to think that you'd consider anybody perfect for me. Poor Kathy would never speak to you again if she knew!
Plus, Oxford is slightly further from my home than Timbuktoo, so she's safe from Dive-dating. (so here again, nooooo don't suggest this perfect woman for me. I don't want her. Go away)
I am my own worst enemy and need a good slap; a conclusion with which I whole-heartedly concur but which still leaves me without a woman to pamper and embarrass. (why would you want to embarrass a woman, Dive? I can't believe you would be like that)
we have great sport trying to get me a date. It always ends in disaster but that makes for a better blog post. (I'm not sure it does, I think everyone wishes you the best and the disaster is perhaps self-propelled).
So, you don't want to date a woman named Biff? Why is that, exactly?
I do know my good points, Lynn, and I know I'm my own worst enemy.
Going home to a cold empty house night after night, decade after decade does indeed suck rather a lot, however, and it would be nice to have someone to share it with (as long as she didn't fill the bathroom with stinky Lush gunk).
I have tried desperately to find a partner and even though these posts are facetious in the extreme and played strictly for laughs the constant stream of rejections does hurt.
I've come to the conclusion that I am intrinsically undate-able; I wish I knew why.
And I don't want to embarrass a woman; they just seem to get embarrassed having me around.
Robyn: It's a Back To The Future thing. Hee hee.
Er... I don't know what Stinky Lush Gunk is, so I would never be guilty of that!
Well I'm looking forward to meeting you Dive for that coffee and nothing about you will embarrass me, I assure you. Apart from the me-bashing, and I think Lucio hit it on the head; "From it I've learned that they love it when a man can be self-deprecating, but hate it when he can't NOT be"; I am at a loss as to why you are rejected so much. If, you are. What sort of shallow women have you been approaching, anyway? :)
And I'm sorry that you're hurt. You don't deserve to be, Dive. Oh and you are NOT an ug. Stop saying it. x So there.
Well, I couldn't possibly know one of these so called "chattering types" (spinning in a complete circle looking around behind myself) but they sound like perfectly lovely people who only want the best possible life for each of their unattached friends.
When someone poses a problem, it is only natural for someone else to try to fix that problem.
I think perhaps you ARE fine by yourself or you might notice an interested party from time to time.
Perhaps you are needing to work on that scorned by life and God angle before moving on to romance.
I don't know. What I DO empathize with is the nervous thing you do when you meet new ladyfolk! I had that trouble back in my single day. I found myself not being totally myself around date potentials (because let's face it, I'm a bit much ;). Jamey had to sneak up on me from the friend zone for me to be caught in true form. This of course was after a few jading relationships had gone by.
It seems like you make friends just fine. Hows abouts we start there...hmmmm???
Oops, why am I so chattery?
Now, off I skip whistling one of my favorite Fiddler on the Roof tunes. "Matchmaker, matchmaker make me a match. Find me a find. Catch me a catch!" :D
You don't like Lush, too??? That's great coz I hate the stuff.
Hahaha. A pink hat, with lots and lots of hearts :D
Well, we haven't really sat down as Coach and Coachee. So how about I give you a freebie session? :D
Hey, I can hear the rain. Your train should have left Liverpool St 2 minutes ago. Hope this doesn't mean docking at Norwich later than usual.
What is Lush?
Notice I did not try to give advice. Truth is I have none to give. :-(
Yeah, what IS Lush? lol...
Ew, Lynn! Stinky Lush gunk is from that awful Lush soap shop in Covent Garden. They even have a branch in Norwich. It probably smells wonderful to most people but to an anosmic like me it fills the air with the taste of old washdays and rotten fruit.
Of course we won't be embarrassed when we meet; we'll be having coffee and a wander and a bloody good laugh together.
And I've not been approaching any shallow women (or any other kind) for ages. They don't tend to hang around when they see me coming.
Shan: I am indeed fine living by myself … about twenty percent of the time. The other eighty percent hurts.
Thank you for applying your matchmaking skills … hee hee … but Blogville - at least for me - is a place for friends and neighbours to meet and have a giggle; if it were a dating website I wouldn't be here.
I'll take all the advice my friends and neighbours can give me, however, when it comes to trying to find a partner.
Joy: I always knew you were a woman of exquisite taste.
I'd clam up so tight if we were ever to do a Love Coach thing; even just thinking about it I can feel the defensive walls going up and the gates clanging shut.
I just can't talk about stuff like that; which is why I air it here, hiding behind "Dive".
The train was only around twenty minutes late, thanks.
Hi, Cali: Lush is a crappy hand-made soap place that smells like someone's poured rancid fruit punch down a hospital laundry drain.
Their Norwich branch is located right opposite my fishmongers' which gives and … er … interesting piquancy to the atmosphere between them.
Lynn: the same answer goes for you. Hee hee.
you make me laugh, sugar..and i NEED to...*sigh* xoxoxo
(i'm moving..there it is)
Moving, Savannah? Where to? Somewhere nice, I hope.
Do let us know when you are ready.
xoxox
Care to move to our - mine and Dive's - neck of the woods, Savannah?
Now that's the best piece of advice I've heard all day!
Do you think she'll go for it? :D
If she did move to our neck of the woods, what would be the first thing that you'd do?
Cook up a storm!
C'mon Dive, don't put yourself down like that.
Second, that feeling of needing someone else around and that black feeling that happens at this time of the year are separate and unrelated, and fixing one isn't going to fix the other (at least not permanently). Did you get that Lumie lamp yet? If you only knew what a quick and dramatic effect they have, you'd rush out and shell out the necessary - it's a very small price to pay for having your good spirits back again. Do it. Now.
If you knew how spooky that comment was, Pea!
Joy and I were just talking about that very thing and how much it helps your SAD and how it unfortunately doesn't seem to work with hers.
I'm fine. You know me better than anyone in Blogville. I just crave the occasional hug when the house is dark and empty.
Oh, and boobies, too, of course!
Hee hee.
Well that sounds just fab, Dive. A wander, a coffee, a talk and a laugh. I can't wait. Oh and you'll get a hug too - with boobies. I'm quite big on hugs - and fairly big on boobies. Er...clothed, you understand. LOL he he.... :)
What's in a name? I once knew a wonderfully, intelligent, droll woman who had the unfortunate luck of having parents who named her "Bunny." (And no, Bunny wasn't a nickname. It was her birth certificated name...)
And don't rule out kids or pets....you may surprise yourself by falling for some woman named Squeaky who has a toddler and a pet poodle...
If I found the woman you describe I would tell her to read your blog for a week or two. She would love you as we all do! You might have to lighten up on some of your requirements. I don't know very many women who would qualify. I certainly wouldn't! I might not leave any stinky "Lush" around, but I would certainly mess up your towels!
OK Dive. I know you are very comfotable in the kitchen. Even in fly over land where I reside there is a mixed cooking class where singles meet to take cooking classes and meet other single people. Surely you have this available too? The way to a woman's heart is to liberally apply whipped cream to her body and taste for the proper amount of sugar and vanilla.
Dive, I am currently working on a short book for my niece, Alina, who recently turned two. Its premise is simple: How can we navigate our way through life knowing that, regardless of our circumstances, we are all (in reality) unfixed stars within unfixed constellations? The answers to this question are, of course, legion. However, I do think that - regardless of whether we are with someone or alone - it is best not to cling to any fixed assumptions about ourselves: or, just as importantly, about anyone else.
Also, I believe one of the worst defenses against the prospect of being hurt is to consummately belittle and, in effect, "reject" yourself in advance. Yes, you may have beaten them (whoever they may be) to the punch, but at what cost?
But you know all of this, don't you?
Lynn: Hee hee. I can't wait!
Maria: Squeaky Kate went back to New Zealand so I can't ask her out.
And I'm afraid kids and pets are definitely out (except the odd cat). I love other people's kids and animals but I won't have them in my house. If Nicole Kidman wanted to move in here with a cute labrador puppy I'd still say no.
I yearn for a partner but shit; I'm about to turn fifty and I cherish the peace and quiet I get at home.
Neetzy: Those things on my "no-no" list are (mostly) from past experience. So they remain no-nos.
Mark: I wish we had a singles culture here. Honestly. But we don't. The closest we get to a "dating scene" around here is farmhands picking their favourite pig.
Lucio: I do know it, of course. I hide behind the "Dive" persona so I can air my feelings in a facetious and silly way. I'm pretty groovy and I know it. I get on great with women (witness the Katie posts) but unfortunately, whenever it comes to trying to date a woman it all falls flat.
Hey ho.
Dive, you're turning 50, not 90! When you say you wouldn't have someone's children in your home - yet you've said you don't mind 'children' if they've grown up. Fast forward the relationship for a second. You have a wonderful woman in your life and she has grown up children all in relationships of their own. Christmas and birthdays, dinners - what are you going to do? Ban them from the house? Never invite them to dinner? Unrealistic, my friend, and a sure-fire way to stay alone. No-one will accept you into their life but have rules which keep her out of yours. Having your own quirks, your own peace, your space is one thing. Non-compromise is quite another.
Lynn, there are plenty of women out there without kids. Women with kids are welcome to enjoy them, but please don't expect me to share their fascination.
Ever tried internet dating? You enter your requests and bingo, a match is made. At least that's what I've heard - I've never actually tried it.
I know how lovable you are and how huggable so be yourself and things will be fine. Yes, you're complex and discerning but you're not on the scrap heap yet dear friend.
What happened to the lady you met at the museum?
Mme, no I've not tried internet dating.
I did look at a couple of sites once but what I saw so appalled me that I would never do that.
Basically, they seemed to involve paying money to somebody for matching up tick-boxes from a series of arbitrary and pathetically inadequate questions.
Thank you for being so kind, by the way.
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