Tagged: dating
Review of Christian Mingle Movie Preview
Click here if you haven’t seen the preview (it’s worth it–trust me). The subject line I chose when sharing the preview with my brother was “worse each second.” His response included, “Offensive to anyone with a brain.” Another friend said “ridiculous” and meant the word’s literal definition. Running only two and half minutes in length, the damage it causes is immeasurable.
Choosing a place to begin is proving difficult, so I’m just going to go free association from here on out. Who knew you had to be white to be a Christian? Who knew you had to have a full head of hair? And wear checkered button-down shirts tucked into khakis? Actually, I think we all knew that. I didn’t know Christians kissed outside, but come to think of it I should have. I am happy to see that, like in real life, once you have a black friend, you get to tell them they all look the same.
I for one can tell you no matter how happy my family looked in church, discord was the norm at home, especially during the holidays–even the big one. (What Ma?! I’m just acknowledging they were stressful.) But yes, Christians do certainly seem to be happier in public, don’t they? I think it’s because that’s when they try. Oh, and the fact that they have all the answers. And that’s why we should all marry a Christian. Or date one. Or at least subscribe to Christian Mingle. The good news is you don’t even have to be Christian or single to get a credit card.
In conclusion, I’d like to demonstrate my ability to simplify a movie’s raison d’etre from the trailer.
(Summoning deep slow-paced Movie Preview Man voice) Christian Mingle: Because Lord Knows, A Woman Without A Man Is Worthless. (Speeding up now) Coming to a theater near you.
A Woman Distracted
“It’s true,” he told himself, “she could be more beautiful. But then that more beautiful female would no longer be the woman sitting across the table now, the one called Noa-.”
“Noa-,” Pete said, as he noticed their hands almost bump while reaching for a chip, “if our hands touch while grabbing a chip, you know that I’m going to read into that, don’t you?”
If only for a moment, Noa- shook her head and cast her eyes about. She was smitten. She then found the strength to rebuff Pete’s subtle, though ingenious play and said, “Pete, there’s never going to be anything to read into.”
Laughing heartily, Pete soon noticed the jaded, slightly-too-terse, and preferring-a-thousand-yard-stare-to-eye-contact server walking towards the trio’s table, meals in hand.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” George said as piping hot fajitas along with the fixin’s were lowered to him.
Feeling the pressure to finish the complimentary chips and salsa before they were gone for good, Pete snuck in a few last bites before reaching out to receive his chimichanga. “Thank you,” he mumbled, unable to hide that his mouth was full.
Finally, the lady lowered Noa- her plate. Noa- didn’t notice. Like a student pretending to be reading her textbook in her lap, or perhaps just behaving like an adult with an office job, Noa- clearly was attempting to hide her addiction.
“Noa-,” Pete said, smiling. “I can’t believe you. You’re sitting across from two of the most eligible bachelors in,” he hesitated, clearly searching for the proper radius, “in America, and rather than enjoy the company, you’re on your phone. This is what’s wrong with the world.” Turning to George, he knew he had nailed it.
“America, eh?” George asked. “I thought you were going to say Denver, but I can’t argue with America.”
Noa- smiled at the attention, but still couldn’t quite pull herself away from the device.
“My question,” George began, turning towards Pete and filling the conversation’s lapse, “is who could be more eligible?” Upon uttering the inquiry, his countenance reached an uncommon gravity, which led to a rephrasing of the question. George asked again, “Or rather, how could I be more eligible?”
“Yeah,” Pete chuckled, his belief in his hastily developed though now affirmed sentiment strengthening with every passing second, “how exactly are we not the most eligible?”
Hoping She Was Asleep
A pair of pink sandals, a pink stuffed penguin named Pingu, and a pink, doll-sized tutu (which H- had used on her polka-dotted stuffed puppy as a bathing suit all day) made it clear that the two men were not alone in the house. This particular Friday night’s late hour ensured the girl-child was deep asleep in her room. It also ensured that any interested onlookers, the likes of which James Fenimore Cooper’s noble Chingachgook would label “blackguards in the grain”, would not be surprised to see George and Pete staring at two respective laptop screens as they intermittently stated their latest life observations. Those screens, naturally, were filled with images of women supposedly interested in dating. Well, at least George was viewing a proper dating site. Pete found himself fighting the good fight, that is, deciding how inappropriate it would be if he friend-ed a woman on LinkedIn because she was a smoke-show.
“Pete, just do it. It’s not a crime,” said George.
“I know that it’s not a crime,” Pete said with a touch of exasperation, “I just think that it’d be tasteless. Plus, this chick has 500+ connections. Apparently it stops counting at 500. I can already tell that there’s no promise there.”
“What does the number of her connections have to do with anything?”
“Look, I really want to believe Rudi’s advice and just try to find a woman with whom I enjoy spending time. But I’m just saying let’s look at reality for a second. She is gorgeous, posts videos on youtube of her singing with her sister, and has over 500 connections on LinkedIn. Whereas I don’t really like people, am pretty sure that I don’t even know 500 people, and I certainly don’t want to be dragged to events where everyone spends all their energy pretending that they’re not pretending, blah, blah, blah,” he said, running out of air. “Plus, it appears that she enjoys her job. And that means she’s not interested in kids, raising a family, etc.”
“Fine. You’re right,” George conceded facetiously, “don’t click connect.”
“You know what guys in the Air Force used to say?” Pete asked, his tone somewhere between frustrated and bitter. “Poverty is the greatest aphrodisiac.”
Opening his eyes wide, as was often the case when he liked what he heard, George nodded and said, “I’ve been trying to find a poor woman for forever. Or at least one who grew up without much. That type of woman would know how to budget, not be comfortable spending a lot of money, be happy just to have a steak every once in a while-”
Laughing, Pete asked, “Ha. You’re serious? I thought you were joking at first when you agreed.”
“-I’m totally serious. Especially since reading Anna Karenina and all those scenes of the simple life of farming.”
“I told you man. That’s what Tolstoy did at the end of his life. He practically gave up his nobility to work out in the fields,” Pete added, “and he had 13 kids.” He then paused just long enough to form a point. “The trouble is, I have no idea where or how to even start to look for a woman like that.”
“All I know is that a big step in problem solving is voicing the problem.”
“My mom asked if I’ve ever considered a deaf woman.”
A Jaw-Dropping Woman
“Welcome back George. How was it?” Pete asked, strictly observing the custom of not giving George time to settle in upon returning from his trip before beginning the questions.
George’s eyes had the look of a man searching for an appropriate opening to the story that he knows will be well worth telling. “It was good. Seattle has some good weather and good scenery,” he said.
“Yeah, but that’s just in the summer, right?” Pete asked.
“Right. The point is, I don’t think I could live there unless some company paid me a lot of money,” George said, repeating “a lot” for effect. “Oh, and Pete, I have to tell you about the girl,” he excitedly recalled.
“That’s right. You actually got to meet her. Though you had essentially made up your mind before the trip that she wasn’t the one for you, right?”
“Yeah, she’s definitely not for me. She was hot, but she kept reminding me of my ex-” said George.
“Probably never a good thing.”
“-and besides a bunch of little things, you should’ve seen the place she lived in!” George recalled, his animation for the story growing exponentially now. “I don’t know where they got the figure from, but it was a downtown apartment and everyone in it kept saying it cost six hundred thousand dollars,” George said, cutting himself off there with a stare that is usually followed by a stroke or heart attack. Thankfully a burst of laughter which most would categorize as the sound of a man going insane ended Pete’s concern and preceded, “Oh, and you won’t believe this. She had some nice bookshelves. So I took a look-”
“Bad books, right?” Pete guessed.
“-no,” George said, his eye-lids still completely out of sight. “No Pete. Not bad books, fake books.”
“Whaaat?!”
Now nodding, George continued, “Yeah, I saw a book that I didn’t recognize, so I pulled it off the shelf.” Then flipping the pages of an imaginary book, he said, “When I opened it, the pages were blank.”
“Get outta here!”
“She had decorative books Pete,” George concluded. “Pete, the woman had books on bookshelves purely for decoration.”
“I don’t even know what to say.”
“Of course, she did have a big TV though,” George said.
The two single men would have laughed themselves to death if it wasn’t for the eerie silence that accompanied each necessary breath. The silence that these two knew ought to be filled with the sound of crying babies, children’s laughter, lids rattling on a hot stove, the clothes dryer buzzing for the fourth time in as many hours, bad piano playing, lousy excuse giving, and sometimes–just sometimes–the sound of a loving wife’s voice as she mockingly whispers, “Isn’t this everything we hoped for and more?” with an inner strength and resolve that have, as of yet, avoided language’s shackle.
Why I Hate Blogging
“No, ‘hate’ is not too strong,” he said, raising his voice. “I think it is perfectly descriptive. I. Hate. Blogging.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause it gives me hope,” he lamented. “I hate that I sit there, typing away on those loud keys, pouring out myself in words, and afterward I discover a few other humans ‘like’ or ‘follow’ the blog.”
“Not makin’ sense friend.”
“Okay, let me put it this way,” he continued laboriously. “I feel alone in the world sometimes. You know, the whole ‘misunderstood’ crap people talk about? Yeah, that’s how I feel sometimes-”
“We all do, dude.”
“-Right. But there is a difference. I can write. I can communicate myself to others. I can waive a flag letting people know ‘I’m alive. If you are, too, let me know.’ Not everyone can do that. So I started writing. I started putting myself out there–no holding back. I even wrote a post which taught some of my senior-citizen followers a new curse-word, which I have since made private because it was so shameful.”
“The ol’ ‘fucktard’. I remember that one.”
“Yeah. Anyhow, every once in a while people respond favorably. I was shocked that people responded at all. So, you can imagine how it feels when people respond favorably. More than favorably, sometimes people will comment in a way that shows they got it. And in getting it they get me.”
“I see, Pete. I see. You hate blogging because it gives evidence that there are people out there who get you. But, you think this doesn’t really count, because you only know this via the computer. And this digital evidence, as it were, downgrades it to little more than hope.”
“Exactly. See, that’s why I’m telling you this. You get me. I get you. But I don’t feel like there’s many others out there. And so this blog, then, is little more than the force that propels the emotional pendulum which swings from ‘Hey, life’s great. It’s filled with people who live on this planet’ to ‘how is this world even self-sustaining?'”
“Well, as you know, I don’t know what to tell you. Cheer up. I like reading your stuff. It makes me laugh.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. Thanks.”
Come See My New Blog!
I can’t lie. I’m pretty excited about this. I’ve recently decided to create several new blogs.
While WordPress is great, I’m going to employ other hosts. Slightly different from this one, my new blogs don’t have a dedicated URL, but I think it might actually be better this way. To find them, you’re going to need to visit either OKCupid, eHarmony, or Match.com. Now, other people blog there too, so you’ll have to search for me. Since I know you like my writing already, at least a little, I’ll give you my screen name to make it easier: meanknowitall2637864473. (It’s the same for all three sites).
You’ll find that the posts will be a bit different than you’ve grown accustomed to. To be blunt, they’ll be more personal. I guess I feel this “Captain’s Log” concept is a little too lofty at times, and that that loftiness limits me from being, well, me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going anywhere, I just also want to create posts where I can really paint an accurate portrait of myself for the world to see.
Oh, and pictures. I can’t figure out how to post pictures on here, so that’s another reason for the additional blogs. On these sites you’ll be able to see pictures of me. Trust me, they will be recent and not taken from too great a distance. Along with pictures, another new feature will be a safe way to contact me. I feel like sometimes some of you would like to send a personal note, and as of now, the only way to contact me is via the not-exactly-private comments section. So there’s that to look forward to.
I guess, I’m being a little vague about the content of these new blogs. The new content is going to be written for a singular purpose. I am going to write posts that I believe will attract women to me. The posts will attract women to me so fully that they will never want to leave me–even after they discover I have major imperfections that I view as strengths.
If this is something that interests you, but you’re not a member of these sites, don’t worry. While yours is the more difficult path, all you have to do is demonstrate your devotion to me through good ol’ fashioned creativity. What do you think? Do you have what it takes?
Regardless, I’m overly flattered that you read this, though, I have to admit it is pretty good. Maybe see you soon.
How To Ruin Food
(If you’re short on time, skip to the bottom for numbered instructions.)
“I really shouldn’t eat this, what with it containing 12 grams of saturated fat. Oh well, I’ll put in extra time at the gym tonight,” he said scarfing down the burger.
“I know. I really went overboard last weekend on the late night snacking. I think I ate two entire bags of chips and salsa,” she replied in kind.
They continued this way for the duration of the time it took for them to wolf down other foods they shouldn’t eat because of words and numbers on the packaging. I know because I was eating with them. You see, they were my friends. I hadn’t seen them in such a long time, and I had finally made time to grab a bite to catch up with them. By the time the food–if we can even call it that anymore–was finished, I was able to ask, “So how’s life? What have you been up to?”
“It’s good. Really good. Oh, but look at the time. I really need to get going if I’m going to make it to the restaurant on time after work tonight. I really need to stop eating out so much,” she said.
Instruction for How To Ruin Food
Step 1 – Believe that there is any relationship between nutritional facts and self-discipline.
Step 2 – State the relationship.
Step 3 – Repeat Step 2 until time runs out.
A Letter to Friends Who Challenge Me – That I’ll Never Write
Dear Friends Who Challenge Me,
I’m writing to you on this fine September day because we need to talk. Please understand writing this letter was not easy for me. I can already hear some of your responses and I have only completed three sentences. I simply wanted to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
You see, you have all–unintentionally I hope–ruined my life. Up until I met you, I was happy-go-lucky and really thought I knew which way was up. I went about my days with little or no concern for…anything, really. The people I surrounded myself with would empathize with my every feeling. If I was sad, they would shower me with sympathy cards. If I was happy, they would throw me a party. If I was mad, they would come rushing to my defense. It was really quite wonderful.
Then you guys entered my life. I can’t even remember which of you I met first, or how we met. What I do remember is how I felt as you didn’t empathize. At first, I can’t deny that you had appeal simply because you were different–as if a lightening bolt. But over time, I learned to love you guys. You provided a balancing perspective that I nearly forgot existed. I treasured the perspective. I finally felt grown up.
Living with you in my life taught me to really evaluate the situation. Should I be sad? Should I be happy? Was anger really the appropriate response? And no matter where we disagreed, you always let me make up my own mind and go my own way. Your authenticity tore-down the shelter that my fear and laziness constructed.
Just the same, I think the time has come for us to part ways. I know. I know this is difficult and confusing for you to hear. Believe me when I tell you I haven’t come to this decision lightly. My problem is I just can’t relate to ‘normal’ people anymore. When they live and talk, I want to be authentic with them, as you have been authentic with me. It doesn’t work. These new friends go silent. They have no response. Some of them become visibly agitated. I have been called “mean.” Their shelter is too strong. More than that, they don’t even want to believe they have one.
You and I know that they’ll be happier without it, but I am still mad at you. I feel so lost in these new situations that I really do think the best thing is for me to rebuild my own shelter. I think it will be nice to take a break for a while. I hope you can understand this decision, though I know you never will. Maybe we’ll meet again someday.
Once Your Friend,
A Mugwump
What Was She Thinking?
Sitting across from her, he took took a breath as he finished talking. He could only wonder what she was thinking. Reminiscing, they discussed how they first met. He told her how nervous he was, how excited he was, and how all he wanted was to be able to know her thoughts. She smiled politely at this, and replied in kind.
Wrapping up the meal, they walked silently to the car. He couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking.
He told her about his day, and she laughed at the funny parts. He told her how he learned a new joke, “How do you make an octopus laugh?…Give it ten tickles!” She laughed harder.
Arriving home, they began their separate nightly routines and he sat down to his computer. As he piddled around, he heard her turning pages, walking around, and turning on the tv. Her thoughts eluded him.
He’d had enough of the screen for one day, so he went to her. She was watching tv. Watching her, he lingered in the hall a little before entering the room. He asked himself, “I wonder what she’s thinking?”
The next morning as they ate breakfast they chatted about the headlines. He asked her how she expected her work to go, and she said, “Good.” She volleyed the question back, and he told her how he had a 10 o’clock meeting, followed by lunch with a friend. Continuing, he told her that his afternoon was booked with two more meetings, but he should be home at 5 o’clock because the last meeting won’t go long. She said, “That’s good. So will I. Chicken tonight?” He agreed. She had to get going, as hers was the longer commute. As she walked to the garage, he wondered what she was thinking.
Arriving at the office, he ran into Jeb, his co-worker. Scanning the room to be sure the wrong people weren’t around, Jeb whispered, “Hey man, you ever wonder what women are thinking?”
“Yup.”
Virtue’s Secret Hiding Place
Like the sun dimmed by an Iraqi dust storm, virtue was never difficult to see. He knew it existed even though he couldn’t always see it. Like that sun, for him, virtue drew his attention before he even knew why. And he desperately wanted to be counted among the virtuous men.
The trouble was that life kept taking up his time. When he was young, he knew he wanted to give 10% to the church. But if he gave 10%, he wouldn’t have enough money to live on. Later, he recognized he told little-white-lies too much, and vowed to stop. The next moment, he had to decide whether to tell his mom that he was watching a rated-R movie at his friend’s house. He decided to lie.
Later in life his struggle continued. Once he knew he was neglecting his friends and family by working so much, but he just had to put in a few more weeks of over-time to help finish the big office project. He knew he was a kind person at heart, but he never took the time to display that kindness to others. When he learned that love was an action word, he really believed he would start really showing the people he loved how much he loved them by his actions. He was going to spend more time with them; he was going to give them small gifts; he was going to listen better; he was going to pay them more compliments; he was going to give them more hugs. But then a new project started at work. And the church–that he still wasn’t tithing to–softball team had a big tournament this weekend, so he had to put loving off.
Forever frustrated, daily he noticed more and more men living more virtuously than he. Moreover, they seemed to do it effortlessly. He didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t deny what he witnessed. These other men seemed to actually thrive on their actions. When they spoke honestly and from the heart, people listened and reciprocated. When they were with their friends and family, he could see a real joy existed in the interaction. When they spent a little extra time being kind to everyone they met throughout the day, the earnest thanks they received became the envy of his eye. Taking time to learn and speak the love languages of their loved ones, he noticed these men were no less productive at work; furthermore, rumors of their deeds preceded their presence everywhere.
Looking everyday until he died, he never did figure out where they found the time.
Captain’s Log 