internet dating | thirty-somethings

Modern Dating: A Field Guide

by vivaciousdeb

So, as you all may (or may not) know I’ve been reading this book called “Modern Dating: A Field Guide.” A company contacted me because they wanted to read the book and write a review on it. I was super stoked! What an honor!

I’ve never written a book review so this is a learning experience for me. I promise I will try my best! Here it goes, y’all:

Modern Dating: A Field Guide (Harlequin Nonfiction, May 2013) From Chiara Atick, blogger and staff writer on HowAboutWe.com. [The back of the book gives a great explanation of the book, so I’m just going to copy it on here] “Modern Dating offers advice on modern challenges, like how to send relatively unembarrassing sext, how to create a fail proof first date idea, and how to make sure you’re getting into a relationship for the right reasons. Instead of telling you How to Win a Husband n Just 3 Easy Steps!, it will gently guide you through all the triumphs and pitfalls of what dating is actually like, from one-night stands, to confusing texts and emails, to your first online date.” Here in the U.S. the book runs for $19.95 and comes with a free three month trial for HowAboutWe.com (a $54 value). Does this price seem like it’s a little high? If it does, don’t worry…It’s totally worth the price!

The book is incredibly relatable and talks about topics that I’ve seen all over the blogging world (yes, including my very own blog). What I love the most about this book is that it goes from a woman embracing her single life to the dating process and finally the actually relationship. So even though the book is geared toward the single woman; I think every woman can relate to it regardless of her relationship status.

I’d like to talk about my favorite points of the book:

It teaches us that it is perfectly okay to be single! I really want to say that this is my favorite thing about this book. It teaches us that once we truly accept being single and actually enjoy being single, then finding a guy becomes much easier.
When it comes to online dating, the online profile is THE most important aspect of being successful. This book really goes through the do’s and don’t of dating profiles.
Being successful with online dating is also messaging many guys all at once! We can’t get hung up on one guy and put everything else on hold.
Paying for dates is such an awkward moment and I really love how the book breaks it down
After the date, we can all get a little awkward and don’t really know how to deal with certain situations (i.e. the guy texting you but you aren’t interested).
75 out-of-the-box date ideas!
Statistics and facts make me happy so I absolutely loved all of that in the book.
I really liked the way reading the book felt. Meaning, it felt like I was chatting with one of my girl friends.

What I didn’t like:

It’s basically a non-stop advertisement for HowAboutWe.com

Yes, that’s all I didn’t like!

The rest of the back cover says “Frank, funny, and totally relatable, this is a book that really gets at how women are dating today – the ideal travel companion for your dating life. The only rule is that there are no rules, but this book will be there for guidance, or just for laughs, every step of the way.” I couldn’t agree more!

So what does all this mean? It means, I really enjoyed reading this book and I believe any single woman (especially women going through online dating) should read this book. I’m pretty sure I’ve said in previous posts that I wish there was a book people could read that could help them with the online dating process, this book is it!

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Mr. 007

by vivaciousdeb

Back in October, I met a guy…we can call him Mr. 007. We really hit it off, or so I thought. We had a couple of dates, we even made out! It would’ve probably gone further had I allowed it.

In the midst of our “hanging out” phase, I found him on instagram. Yeah, I know…it’s stalkerish, judge me if you want. I noticed he was hanging out with a particular chick quite often. I tried not to think much of it because I have a lot of guy friends so I can’t be too judgmental. One night he called me around 10:30pm saying I should come over. We all know that’s booty call time. I prefaced my answer by saying I really don’t want you to get offended and explained to him that I wasn’t going to come over because I actually kinda liked him and didn’t want to ruin things by bringing sex into the equation too soon. It was a little more wordy than that but you all get the point. He got super butt hurt and sorta became an asshole. I’m pretty sure he had been drinking. We said our good nights and what not. I never heard from him again.

Until about last week. Yes, last week. THREE months later. He hits me up out of the blue saying it’s been a long time since we’ve spoken blah blah. I respond hours later because “I was busy.” We end up actually talking on the phone later on that night and made it seem that I was the one that didn’t contact him. UM NO. I told him he got all butt hurt when I didn’t come over late at night and never heard from him. His response actually surprised me, he said “I can see why that left a sour taste in your mouth, I apologize.”

Wow. He apologized. Cool! I told him it was fine because we had only hung out a couple of times.

Anyways, I end up checking him out on instagram again. Well, because I needed to see what happened during this three month hiatus. Turns out…him and that broad became a couple. I think they’re broken up though because he had a recent picture with #singlelife. WTF?

Mr.007 disappeared for a couple of days and said he wasn’t ignoring me and he was just busy. We talked a bit the next day (on saturday) but I haven’t heard from him since. It was a few texts back and forth but he completely ignored my last text. And boom, he’s gone…again.

WHY MUST YOU CONTACT ME IF YOU DON’T PLAN ON GOING THROUGH WITH IT?! Just fuck off Mr.007. If you text me again, I’m probably going to say…listen if you’re into me then take the fucking time to show it, if not…delete my damn number.

Sorry for my rant. I’m irritated, hungry and all alone in the office today.

life in all its glory OkCupid Real Life single life

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Mr. Calm and Collected

by vivaciousdeb

There have been new developments with Mr. Calm and Collected. We still haven’t met. I attempted to bring up us meeting in person and I failed miserably. I’m generally a very open person and very comfortable speaking my mind; however, when it comes to guys (I like)…I get very awkward. I don’t know why that is but it’s been like this for as long as I can remember. Anyways, here’s how our conversation went down:

I may or may not have handled that the way that I should have. I got awkward, I didn’t know what to say. So I figured I wouldn’t bring it up anymore. Fast forward to a couple days later, this conversation went down:

We had a wonderful phone conversation later that night but no date was set for us to meet.

We’ve continued to exchange numerous messages to each other and he just keeps getting better and better. It’s getting out of control. Turns out he played soccer for 15 years (I’m brasilian, this is a major deal for me!), he understands/appreciates my obsession with penguins (my obsession may be a little unhealthy but he gets it), he is a pretty big fan of amusement parks (EVEN DISNEYLAND!!!!), and the fucking icing on the cake: HE HAS A MOTORCYCLE. If it was possible for me to cream myself, I would’ve when I found this out.

Now, I don’t know if this is necessarily weird or bad or I don’t know…but he hasn’t complimented me. Is that weird? I’m not fishing for compliments or anything but when I tell him how awesome he is or that I think he’s super cute, he doesn’t return the compliment. Like I said, I’m not fishing for compliments but that’s generally how you gauge whether or not somebody is interested in you romantically, right? I could be wrong because he does a considerable amount of time messaging me throughout the day. That means he’s interested, right? Ugh.

Is there a certain amount of time I should wait until I bring up us meeting? Should I even bring it up?

life in all its glory

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dreaded questions

by vivaciousdeb

Obviously when you’re getting to know somebody…you ask many questions. Sometimes you don’t really know what to ask or say and you end up asking something ridiculous. Here’s a list of questions I absolutely despise:

1. What do you look for in a guy? Okay, so I understand the meaning behind this question but I really don’t know how to answer it. Sometimes I just want to say: “I don’t know, somebody decent enough to be in a relationship.” I don’t want to sit there and list all of the things I’m looking for in a guy. I also have a short little paragraph written in my profile about some things I’m looking for.

2. When was the last time you were in a relationship? Honestly, why does that even matter? I’m sure it’s because you want to see if I’m not over an ex or something. But it’s super awkward answering that question. Why? Because I’ve never really had a long term relationship. I’ve had very short relationships (and not many at that). Does that make me weird? I don’t know. I had a guy ask me that and then later referred back to me never being in a relationship as if I was some kind of freak.

3. What do you do for fun? I know I wrote about this in my last post. This one is awkward for me because I do all sorts of random things. I do whatever comes up.

4. Why are you single? Now, this is by far my LEAST favorite question. I hate it. This question is usually following some sort of compliment: “Wow, you’re so awesome. Why are you single?” Listen dude, if I knew WHY I was single, I wouldn’t be single! Are you expecting me to say some crazy ass reason? Like…”Oh I’m actually a psychopath and I enjoy killing small animals.” (This isn’t true just FYI). Why does there have to be a reason, anyways? I’m single and that’s that. Get off my case.

I’d love to hear what other questions you all don’t like being ask! I’m sure I’m missing quite a few.

dating life in all its glory single life

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do I dare?

by vivaciousdeb

I’ve been speaking to this pretty awesome guy for about 3 weeks. I’m going to nickname him Mr. Calm and Collected. He’s very poised, calm, proper, and all around fantastic! He has a good job, he’s good looking, family oriented, and other great stuff!

We’ve exchanged a lot of messages and even though we haven’t met yet, I have a major crush on him. Every time I get a message from him I feel like a little school girl because I get all giddy (ridiculous, I know). We’ve briefly talked about us hanging out in the future but no plans have been made. I did tell him initially that I like taking my time getting to know a person so is he respecting that? I’m sure he is. How long is too long?

I’m beginning to get very anxious! I want to meet him already.

Which brings me to the point of my post…do I ask him out if he doesn’t do it? How long should I wait? I mean, he’s got to be interested if he’s invested so much time in getting to know me, right???

On one side, I’m very traditional in the sense that I feel a guy should be the one to initiate the asking out (I know I may get some uproar about this) but on the flip side I’m a feminist and I believe there shouldn’t be an expectation of one person like that.

I’d love to hear what you all think!

dating life in all its glory OkCupid Real Life single life

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yet another award….

by vivaciousdeb

The award this week is: DOUCHE BAG OF THE WEEK. In my very first post, I wrote about that guy that wanted to jump into a relationship after a couple of dates and how I shouldn’t have been so damn surprised about him being controlling and possessive.

I’m the one that broke up with him because he was a little nuts. So anyways, I got a message from him on OkCupid. Him messaging me isn’t even the worst part…HE DIDN’T EVEN REMEMBER ME!

Our conversation was as follows (my commentary included):

Him: “good evening, hi how are you? I liked your profile very much and know we would get along great. we share allot in common and enough differences to make it fun. let’s take the time and get to know one another.”

Me: (I’m thinking this dude HASSSSSS to be playing some sort of joke on me, obviously I have to respond to make sure). “wow. is this a joke? or do you really not remember me?”

Him: “I just moved back here from NY … did we meet?”

Me: (He must’ve moved there after him and I had our fling as it was just about a year ago) “yeah…about a year ago.”

Him: “Lol really no way. What happened?”

Me: (WOWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!) “wow…lol. clearly i made a wonderful impression. just didn’t work out.”

Him: “Why didn’t it work out?”

At this point I don’t want to respond because clearly he’s a dipshit and it’s a waste of my time. After not responding for nearly 30 minutes, he says:

Him: “lol ok maybe you just didn’t find me attractive interesting or stimulating 🙂
In any case I wish you the best since your still on the dating site.”

WHAT THE HELL! Hey jerkoff, you’re controlling…and possessive…and non-gentleman like…and just plain weird. And just a reminder, YOU’RE still on the dating site too!

Ugh. How could he not remember?!?!?

Awards dating life in all its glory OkCupid single life

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