Not Quite Spicy Enough...

Low Sodium Taco Dude (LSTD) didn’t have a lot in the plus category before we actually met up for our date. He and I met on OKC back in November. He wooed me with discussions of Buffalo chicken wings, a topic I can probably talk about for longer than I should. After a few weeks of chatting online I told him that I wasn’t really interested in having a penpal. He agreed, not looking for a penpal. Awesome! Yay! But then he never pulled the trigger and asked me out.

So, um, if you don’t want to meet up, then wtf are we doing here? Since the timing was dead center in the holiday season, I decided to give him until the beginning of January to let his testes descend and find the balls to ask me out. He never did, so I just stopped responding. I know you could argue that I could have asked him out too, but honestly, as a female I want to be asked on the date. I feel that if he had actually had enough desire to see me, then he would have made plans to do so. So, I said next!

Fast forward to last month when I get an OKC AND gmail message from him. He was inquiring on whether I had recently taken the N train because he thought he saw me….no, sir, you did not. Good opener, though! For whatever reason I decided to give this dude another chance and *I* asked him if he wanted to meet up a few days later. We made plans to meet at 7p at a bar in his neighborhood. Around 645 he text saying that he was running about 10-15 minute late.

7:10p: I’m texting my friends trying to occupy myself

7:15p: I’m texting my friends that he has yet to arrive

7:20p: I’m texting my friends asking how long I have to wait before leaving

7:25p: I’m texting my friends saying this is bullshit and I’m ready to leave

7:27p: He texts me asking where the bar is

7:30p: I’m about to just leave because who arrives 30 minutes late and doesn’t even bother to look up where the bar is??

Color me not impressed. He rolled up 30 minutes late dressed in what can only be described as an outfit that was purchased in 1997. What am I trying to communicate? This dude wasn’t making an effort and to me, that’s pretty lame.

I somehow managed to survive around 2 and one half hours with him where I learned the highlight of his weekend was making low sodium tacos and going to bed by 9p. If that’s his idea of a rocking good time, him and I are not going to have a whole lot to talk about. When I tried to discuss the amazingness that is travel, he told me about his recent trip to Pittsburgh. Having never have visited Pittsburgh, I inquired as to what one would see while traveling there. He told me about a sandwich he had eaten. Now, I dont know enough about Pittsburgh to know whether there is *really* nothing to do besides eat sandwiches, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that LSTD was probably the problem, and NOT Pittsburgh.

LSTD wanted to go out again. I did not. Upon further examination, I have deciphered why the men I date once have such an opposing view of how the evening goes. He thought it went well enough to want to see me again. I wanted him to lose my number. Let me translate what happened.

me: So, do anything fun this weekend?

LSTD: oh…yeah…I made tacos! I made low sodium tacos!

me:

what I'm thinking: really? REALLY? THAT’S what you did on a Friday night?!

here’s what I’m actually saying with my chin on my hand, leaning forward to communicate interest: oh really? I LOVE tacos! Mexican is my favorite!

And therein lies my main issue. I feign interested when I should be trying to escape through the bathroom window. I did, however, excuse myself to go the bathroom and flag down our waitress asking for her to deliver the check.

I know this isn’t a baking recipe, but it just seems fitting.

Should you desire to make LST for yourself, here’s how it’s done:

Ingredients

1 tablespoon Chili Powder
2 teaspoons Onion Powder
1 teaspoon Ground Cumin
1 teaspoon Garlic Powder
1 teaspoon Paprika
1 teaspoon Ground Oregano

Directions

Mix all ingredients together. But don’t rub your eyes because you’ll be in pure misery, just like I felt like on my date.

Lessons for men learned from online dating

As you already know, your fearless Dating with a Dash-ers are no strangers to online dating (see Exhibit A, Exhibit B and Exhibit C offered by Emily). We know the sweet highs of sucking face with someone 6 years your junior and the spiral of depression inducing lows of foot fetishism that OkCupid is infamous for. It’s with this experience, that the ever-modest Gentleman X brings you, his loyal and oft ignored (sorry!) readers, the first annual “Lessons for men learned from online dating.”

Lessons for men learned from online dating

Lesson #1: Cast a wide net. For the purpose of this story I sent 50 messages to 50 different girls on OkCupid. Each was a personalized message of about 2 paragraphs, demonstrating that I had read her profile and asking questions for her to respond to. Of those 50 girls here’s how it broke down:

This means that out of 50 personalized messages, I got 2 dates, exchanged messages with 5 girls who just stopped responding after 1-2 exchanges, and 10 girls looked at my profile but elected not to respond. A staggering 24 girls (almost half!) took no action whatsoever, and didn’t as much as look at my profile.

The lesson in all this: message absolutely anyone you think is remotely attractive/appealing in personality because you won’t even get a chance to make an impression with more than half the girls you message.

Lesson #2: Girls get a ton of messages, so make yours count. Since I refuse to admit the lack of response has any correlation to my own shortcomings, there needs to be serious investigation as to why this number is so low. The most obvious conclusion is that my profile is somehow lacking. With that in mind, I asked Mandy and another female friend who is on OkCupid to review. After thorough inspection, it passed both tests with NO suggested edits, with one friend even saying “You seem great in it! I’d date you.” Profile inadequacies were quickly ruled out.

If not the profile then what is responsible for the girls’ inaction? There was only one way to find out. To thoroughly understand the female experience on OkCupid, my roommates and I created a female profile on OkCupid. We used only photos that did not show a face and very basic interests that we think the average girl is interested in (read: multiple references to Zumba and shows on Bravo!). The results were staggering. Within TEN minutes of creation, we got 8 messages from interested men. Two hours after activation, we had 25. All of this without even showing a face. For all these guys knew, she looked like Eric Stoltz in Mask under that blonde hair. The only conclusion we could draw from this is that every girl gets an insane volume of messages and that to break through the clutter you have to be good. Clearly, I don’t know what that entails, but my suggestions are don’t misspell, use emoticons, or mention any weird fetishes. Or do none of that and am still average a 4% success rate like me.

Lesson #3: Like anywhere in life, there are crazy girls on OkCupid and there are incredible girls on OkCupid. Undoubtedly, two of the most confusing interactions I’ve had with girls have come from OkCupid. Both got to the 2-3 date limit, and both ended at the suggestion of the girl. One because of cited “baggage issues” and the other because she “wanted something casual and going on more than 2 dates with me would send the wrong impression.” If any of you female readers can shed some light on what those mean, please leave them in the comments. Because as a man, I’m going to chalk them both up to “she’s just not that into you, man” and write their names legibly in the crazy/unable to maturely express herself column.

Conversely, I’ve met some really intelligent, beautiful and ambitious girls on OkCupid. One even ended up as my girlfriend (albeit for only 4 months). In these situations, I felt no chemistry, generally wasn’t interested or thought we weren’t all that compatible after all. Though, to my credit, every girl was given what I thought to be a mature and honest explanation in all three situations.

OkCupid is like any bar, grocery store, or women’s penitentiary; there are some really crazy girls on it and some awesome ones. Guys, it’s in your best interest to try not to like the crazy ones, but we all know that’s a lot easier said than done.

I could continue for hours on the other lessons I’ve learned from it but Mandy says I’ve gotten to have a wittily tied in recipe to share. So without further ado, I bring you an easy to make, French chocolate cake that is perfect for any date. The lesson in this one is much easier to learn then all the ones above. Girls just love chocolate cake and think a man that can cook is attractive.

Molten Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

3 eggs

3 egg yolks

4 ½ tbsp. flour, heaped

¾ cup sugar

6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate

4 oz. butter

Preparation

1. Cut chocolate into small pieces. Do the same for the butter.

2. Melt chocolate and butter together in a double boiler (i.e. grab an oven mitt, a Pyrex glass bowl and small pot of a little less than equal size of boiling hot water and melt the chocolate in the glass bowl, as it sits just barely in the water)

3. Beat whole eggs and yolks with sugar added for 12 minutes (you can take that hand mixer your mom got you when you went away to college that you’ve never used and prop it up on a small box so you don’t have to hold for all that time)

4. When the chocolate and butter mixture is melted, combine with eggs, yolks and sugar (make sure to add chocolate to eggs and not the reverse)

5. Add flour and mix batter well

6. Place butter in well-buttered and floured ramekins (or cupcake tins you get at the grocery store hanging from racks slightly above eye level) and bake for 12 minutes in a 400° preheated oven (Make sure you don’t overcook it, the center is supposed to be melted)

7. Serve with vanilla ice cream (get Haagen-Dazs or something expensive like that cause it matters with this)

Updated: Where I’ve been and the lessons I’ve learned

Talk about being lax in keeping this up to date! I can’t speak for Gentleman X or my lovely friend Mandy (because they have their own tales to tell), but I can keep you up to date on what’s been going on for me the last nine months.

Dating wise I have been on the following: OkCupid and Eharmony as well as being predominantly occupied by a certain male of the species (mentioned in this post )

As it would turn out, that was not nearly the end of that story line. There was quite a bit of back and forth and escalation of that relationship (and please note that I’m using relationship little “r” and not Relationship, because he was certainly never my BF). We were enjoying each other’s company, and I’ll let you fill in blanks of that one. This continued until October-ish when the aforementioned male met someone else and actually started officially dating her.

So that sucked.

What did I learn here? I learned that spending time with someone you work with (and thankfully we never actually worked together, because that would have made all of this THAT much worse) outside the work place, in a non-work form, really comes back to bite you in the ass when you don’t particularly want to see them on a day to day basis. Going to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee all of the sudden becomes a game of subterfuge. Cue the Mission Impossible theme music because I was skulking around corners hoping to not run into him.

Okay, it wasn’t that bad but it wasn’t awesome either. I wasn’t avoiding him because I was some sort of scorned female; I was avoiding him because I was PISSED. There was a lot that was said and I could elaborate at length, but I’ll just give you this one gem. While pointing to a car nearby, he commented, “You’re like this car. There’s nothing wrong with it; it just doesn’t have a sunroof….”

Color Me Mad for the worst analogy ever, but I couldn’t blame him for not feeling “it”.

Besides the “don’t dip your stick in the company ink” lesson, I also learned that timing is a bitch and sometimes it’s just not going to work.

So, truly, for the first time in almost two years, this dude isn’t in my orbit.

Let the dating commence.

Update: As an addendum to this post, I wanted to add that the three paragraph recount of what transpired is only one side of the coin. One can clearly not sum up an entirety of a situation in three paragraphs without omitting copious amounts of details. I do not mean to say, dear reader, that you're too thick to have assumed this on your own, I merely want to do due diligence in saying this is not a full story, and it's only my side. The End.

Recipe:

Boiling Water (we're going to start at the basics here people)

Find a pot (read: boy)

Fill it with water (read: go on a date)

Turn up the heat (read: let chemistry do its thing)

Watch it boil :)

The Crazies - Story #2

This episode of The Crazies is a little bit longer because this guy continued to send me messages. Here is his attempt to convince me he is not crazy. Fail.

Email Title: hello

Body: You were one of my quiver matches and i usually just glance at the little paragraph hit ignore and keep moving. for some reason i kept reading yours. i guess cause i saw you've been to n.o. and i wanted to see what you thought of it. but still i kept reading then i perused your pics and your eyes are amazing and your a very beautiful woman. I know you must hear that everyday from a million guys. i do think we have lots in common. i would love the opportunity to get to know you better. if anything at all a new chat buddy is great I'm really hoping to hear from you. but if not god bless and all my best wishes. personally i find it hard to see a pic and just start writing to it. i'm surprised i've written this much.
besos
alex

After this initial email, he repeatedly IMd me. Basically every.single.time I signed on. I never responded, which is why his persistence is somewhat remarkable.

Email title: hey dear
Body: My greatest ally and my greatest enemy.... Honesty.... I know that I've visited your page a few times. I've seen that you've visited mines. I would love to chat with you I do think your extremely beautiful and eloquent. I don't have mesmerizing blue eyes like you or a that smile that rivals the sun in its warmth. I can definitely guarantee good conversations and my complete honesty. I really don't come on ok cupid that much. Every now and then I pop in to see if I've been lucky enough to receive a message but usually not and it's kinda depressing to not get any. So I try and stay away for as long as I can then I get bored or lonely and pop in again. your probably asking yourself why is he telling me this. Again that honesty thing gets me. My reasoning is that maybe if I give her my face book info she'll contact me?? I know I know wishful thinking. Anyways I'm sorry for bothering you. While I would love to hear from you I understand that I am just one of the millions contacting you. I wish you all the best in your search. God Bless...

After THIS message, he continued to "wink" at me and saved me as one of his favorites, and yes, still continued to IM me. To be honest, I feel kinda bad about it.....

Nevertheless, desperation is a cologne that doesn't smell good on anyone.

The Crazies - Story #1

I feel the need to start a story thread here because lovely Mandy and I often swap stories of The Crazies that contact us. It's entertaining and therefore perfect fodder for this blog. These will be short little vignettes. A mere breath of a story. They're so compact but yet, oh so potent. Just like a SBD.

My most recent communication from OKC:

Email title: Ur the 1

Body: I think I'm in luv with u, everything on ur profile, I feel like I kno u, its seems weird but maybe in my past life u were my wife!

That's not crazy, not crazy at all.....

The Freak Flag

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been in contact with dudes on OKC. Here is my one large takeaway and piece of advice to the opposite sex.

We are all sexual beings (some more than others) and I understand that we all have our “things”. For me, I like hands. And broad backs. I like manly men. Rugby players and Paul Bunyons are right up my alley. There are boob men. And ass men. And men who like skinny girls, curvy girls, and everything in between. We all have our things, I get it. However, I don’t want to know your sexual proclivity within the first five minutes of chatting with you. That is not enough time. But it IS enough time for me to say, um, okay, you just flew your freak flag too soon aaaaaaaaaand Ima peace out now.

When I am IMd on OKC I usually respond when 1) I’m in the mood to :-/ (I know) and 2) your picture seems attractive to me on some level, and lastly 3) if you start of the conversation with some sort of compliment. This will at the very least elicit a “hey” back.

On a few separate occasions, I have been in conversation with a dude and it’s gone something like this:

Dude: you’ve got a beautiful smile. How’s your night going?

me: aw, thanks. :-) it’s going well, you?

Dude: blah blah blah, more flirting

me: teehee, flirt flirt

Dude: talk nonchalantly about how awesome I am

me: I find that very interesting!

Dude: (out of blue) will you send me a picture of your feet?

me: _______no response______

Dude: hello? Did I say something?

me: ______no response_______

Dude: so, no picture?

Dude: how about I come over and give you a foot massage?

or:

Dude: Hi….I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re beautiful

me: hey :-) thanks!

Dude: talking talking talking about something he’s seen in my profile

me: yeah, I’m half Canadian but I was born in the US

Dude: I love Buffalo! And chicken wings!

me: {thinking, ooooooo, I think I like this guy!} I have to warn you though, I’m a chicken wing snob….

Dude: (conversation segwaying into what we do professionally) I’m an “Ad Man”

me: I throw him some ad jargon to show I’m advertising savvy and interested in him

Dude: you know what I do! you’re brilliant!

me: :-)

Dude: tell me about your legs

me:{AW MAN! flew his freak flag, aaaaaaaand I’m done}

Ad Man had potential, and I would have definitely gone on a date with him. Incidentally, I did flirt with him a little bit longer and gave him my number, which he called and that I let go to VM. What can I say? I think of myself as a ’nice girl’, but no I’m not perfect. Why didn’t I pick up the phone when he called? Because he flew his freak flag too soon. It does not bother me that legs are his thing. Totally fine. But to bring it up on this medium and that soon, it just doesn’t jive with me.

I guess I’m looking for a little bit more of a gentleman. I, too, want a gentleman on the street but a freak in the bed -- as they say. Let’s fly our freak flags people, but in the right place and time. Just a thought. Incidentally, if you want to send me a picture of you that shows your non-hobbit-like hands, that would be okay too.

Introducing Gentleman X!

Good morning ladies and gents. Is it nice where you are? It’s beautiful here. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Gentleman X, the ladies of Dating with a Dash of Salt’s charmingly anonymous heterosexual male friend. After a year and a half in a committed, monogamous relationship, I have been released into the wilds of singledom, thanks in part to a puppy (story to come at a later date). With little fanfare, I find myself thrust back into the NYC singles scene, and therefore in a position to provide the much needed testosterone shot to this blog. Ladies, join me as we laugh at my shortcomings and difficulties connecting with others. Men, join me in the times we will toast my successes (rate of frequency to be determined). Ask me anything and rest assured, the things Mandy has asked me will ALWAYS be more obscene and personal than anything you come up with.

So right off the bat, let‘s address the elephant in the room. As a 24 year old straight man living in New York City, it is NOT hard to meet girls. It’s a fact, there are more women than men (unless it’s Fleet Week), and the areas where it’s easiest to pick up a girl are common knowledge. That said, it can be a daunting task to meet a girl that one really likes. Let’s check a scenario:

It’s Saturday night. Yours truly is in the basement bar of a club in Union Square. Music is playing, lights are low, and there is drinking to be done. I weave my way through the crowd, towards the bar, to grab drinks for my two friends and I. Cocktails in hand I slowly make my way back to my group, only to be stopped by three girls. “It’s her birthday!” yells one, while pointing to her friend. We exchange pleasantries, and I end up dumping the drinks and talking with the girls. Inevitably, I find myself talking only to the tall blonde, Lucy (name was NOT changed to protect the innocent). She works in advertising (me too!), likes the Kings of Leon (me too!) and plays tennis (not me, but I rock at badminton, close enough). We talk for a bit, and I excuse myself to rejoin my friends after getting her number. She gives it, seemingly eagerly and says she is looking forward to hanging out with me.

Fast forward the requisite two days and it comes time to call her (question for the girls: is it two days? Does a man need to wait to call you?). I step out the front door of my office, dial her number and let it ring. After a time, it goes to voicemail, so I leave a message. Lo and behold, it’s more than a week later and nothing; No call, no text. Lucy has gone from being a pretty, seemingly cool girl to a careless, self absorbed primadonna in the blink of an eye. Why even give me her digits if she wasn’t responsive? Is it that hard to lie and say “I have a boyfriend” if you aren’t interested? Don’t make me plan out calling you and then go through the hassle of leaving you an awkward voicemail. I hate voicemails. I don’t even leave them for my family members.

So Lucy, this recipe is for you. Don’t waste my time. Get some balls and don’t give out your number to dudes you don’t want to call you.

Chicken Cordon Bleu Balls

9 ounces ground chicken
1/4 cup cooked, diced ham
1 egg
1/2 cup Italian style bread crumbs
8 ounces Swiss cheese, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
canola oil for pan-frying

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Combine the chicken, and egg in a large bowl until well blended. Gradually add bread crumbs until the mixture loses its stickiness and can be easily formed into balls.
3. Form the chicken mixture around the cheese cubes and chunks of ham, forming 2 inch balls. Place on a plate.
4. Heat 1 1/2 inches of oil in a deep skillet to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Fry the balls until the outsides are golden brown, about 4 minutes. Drain on paper towels, and place in baking dish.
5. Bake in preheated oven until cooked through and cheese is soft, about 20 minutes. Cool briefly before serving.