Player

In a fit of boredom, desperation, and curiosity, I joined a couple of online dating sites. One free, one paid. Both have slightly different concepts in how they go about matching people up, and I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Ho-boy.

Short version: I have three first and one second date this coming weekend AND another man I'm texting almost all day every day.

Did you count that? Four dates and five suitors? Who AM I?

Long version: I don't even know where to start. I sent out a handful of little nudges to a few guys I thought were attractive and received a few in return. Many of mine were ignored, and I ignored a few sent my way as well, but then a few turned into actual conversation. And then actual date invitations. I was headed out of town for work almost immediately, so I had to postpone all but one first meeting until after I got back.

I didn't even expect that first first date with The Pollock (he's really of Polish descent), to go as well as it did, but it did. Not only did the date itself go well, but we continued to text each other for the next two hours after we went our separate ways. Knowing we were both out of town and busy meant we didn't talk much over the next week or so, but once I had returned I, as promised, called him to schedule another date and he returned the call last night. Yes, I know I called first, but all other communication to this point had been initiated by him.

We talked on the phone for over 30 minutes, and I don't even like talking on the phone. I wanted him to get to the making plans for the weekend point sooner, but he didn't and that's okay. He called as soon as he could (work has been crazy and he's on total outside world lockdown when he's there, thank you top secret government work) and it was fun to hear from him. We should be seeing each other again this Saturday night.

Then there's The Wordsmith. We've been emailing and playing WordFeud (a smartphone version of Scrabble) and looking forward to our first dinner for a couple of weeks. He's made an effort to keep getting to know me while I've been away, and I'm impressed. Initially, I thought he was going to win over The Pollock, but now I don't know. I'll evaluate after our date on Friday.

I also have dates Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon. These guys don't get nicknames yet because I've hardly talked to them since arranging our plans and I don't anticipate them making the cut. I also had a date this last Monday evening. It was a fun activity (pub trivia), but the date itself fizzled. Oh well.

Oh! And there's the guy I was just starting to get to know and then ran into at a social event on a date with another girl! It was actually the girl I was talking to first because she came over to compliment my dress, then her date came back from wherever he was. "You look like this guy I've been talking to online." "What's his name?" "{Insert screen name here}" "[Laughs.] I thought you looked familiar too." And now his date and I are Facebook friends and I don't know if either of us have heard from him again. I certainly haven't.

I haven't even made an effort on these sites for almost two weeks, because I cannot keep this pace up! There are a couple guys I'm talking to and haven't made plans with yet, but after these other guys I'm actually meeting, the conversation already seems forced and I don't want to waste anyone's time.

And! Two guys whose radars I thought I'd fallen off months ago are starting to creep back into my life. I'm not anticipating anything actually happening there, but it's still more dudes to keep track of!

Part of this little experiment was definitely because I was striking out in my normal circle - the guys I meet through my Mormon circle. Too much drama, not enough dates.

Then suddenly last Thursday, I sent a flirty tweet to a single, Mormon guy I know solely on Twitter - because, well, why not? And, unlike the last time I tried flirting with him, he actually responded. We quickly moved the conversation to direct (private) messages and, by the end of the day, had exchanged phone numbers and moved the conversation to text messages.

And we haven't stopped.

For the first few days I was hesitant and thought to myself "Wow, dude, slow down. Don't force this.", but I'm starting to change my tune. We have a LOT in common and plenty to talk about. John Denver, as he shall be known, is clearly smitten with me and has actually said that - I'm not just inferring here. So, not only do we enjoy many of the same things, he's open and communicative about his feelings in general and his feelings for me specifically and often, something I've been saying for a long time will be a characteristic of my husband. After too many "does he or doesn't he" scenarios, I need someone I don't doubt really cares for me.

John Denver is many of the things I'm looking for, but I'm still hesitant. 1 - It's only been a week. 2 - I have, at least for now, a few other guys in the lineup (I cannot stress enough how much this has NEVER happened for me). 3 - I still don't know what he looks or sounds like. I know what he used to look like, but he's apparently lost a LOT of weight since then (which is good, because he was severely overweight, something I'm not attracted to) and has no recent pictures to share. What he sounds like is important too, for a variety of reasons. Maybe it's shallow, but physical attraction is important too.

Chances are very good right now that all these relationships will naturally play out and all but one will end soon enough that I don't even have to tell them I'm considering so many others. And chances are good that the things I'm worried about with John Denver specifically will be answered quickly.

Obviously, there's lots to evaluate about each of these men and they still have plenty to learn about me. It's just so flattering AND overwhelming that all of them have shown up at once. I hardly have time for one relationship, not to mention five!

I'm willing to give it a shot though, and I will certainly keep you all posted!

A grateful guest

If you haven't seen yet, Laura at Living a Big Story is doing a wonderful Mother's Day series this month with 12 different women as guests writing about their experiences. Each woman has her own story to tell of who she is and the journey she has traveled. The series is about some of those different journeys.

On May 11th, I was the guest. I feel very honored and grateful that she felt I had a story she could share on her blog. My post is titled "I Needed Those Ten Years." Go check it out, as well as all the other wonderful stories the women are sharing. And then maybe find a place to share your own story.

Beauty or Beastly?

I must say I was rather intrigued to read about dating on Scientific American. Many things intrigue me there, which is why I browse it regularly. But the science of dating always seems a bit odd. This particular article is titled "Play Up That Ugly Trait" which is definitely attention grabbing.

After analyzing lots of data on an online dating site they found a correlation between how much attention she got and how controversial her beauty was rated. We're going to ignore the whole rating beauty thing right now because that has other issues. It seems that when some men thought a women was beautiful and other men thought she definitely wasn't, the woman got a lot more messages than if all the men thought she was beautiful.

Of course you can't assign cause to correlation, but it is an interesting observation nonetheless.

I think for me, I don't need everyone to think I'm beautiful/smart/lovable, as long as the people that matter do. The rest of the world can hate me for it, sometimes that just makes things more interesting.

Distance makes the heart...

There are two possible conclusions to that phase. Distance either makes the heart "grow fonder" or "go yonder." And a lot plays in to determining which direction it goes.

My experience ended the best way possible, but there are a lot of reasons why that happened. People used to ask me how I handled being 800 miles away. But that was how we met, we didn't know any different the first 2 years we knew each other. And that helped. If we'd started closer and then been that far apart our story probably would've had a much different ending. The heart would've gone yonder. But that's not to say that the distance made the heart grow fonder initially. Because it didn't do that either.

Long distance relationships have several challenges in common with regular at-hand relationships, but they also have their own set of problems. And at the same time they also have some of their own advantages.

Here's just a few of those challenges and advantages from my own experience.

Advantage
- The relationship is based on communication, because that's all you have. I've been in relationships that were based on the physical, and that always implodes. I've been in relationships that had no base, and those fall quite fast. But learning how each other communicates can be huge.

Challenge
- Some people develop multiple personalities when they communicate through technology. Who you think you are communicating with might not be the person you'd communicate with in real life. That's not so much a problem with the distance as it is with the person. I'm actually very wary of people who act one way on-line and a completely different way in real life. It feels like a lie to me. If someone says "but I'm real nice in person" I don't want to be friends with them.

Advantage
- Speed. There generally isn't any in a long-distance relationship. You get time to think and for things to develop. Leaping before looking is much less likely (as long as you aren't psycho and up and move right after meeting).

Challenge
- Speed. There isn't any. There are so many things about a relationship that develop through the day-to-day of life and they just can't happen over a distance. Distance allows you to not see each other at the end of a bad day at work. It means that when you are together you are at your best, your house is clean, and you put on your first-date behavior each time.

Advantage
- Depending on just how you communicate, your entire relationship can be documented in writing. We used email and instant messenger mostly and it is real fun at this point to go back and read those.

Challenge
- It is real easy for one person to make more out of the relationship than the other. While this is true of any relationship, when you have more time to think between interactions, when you don't have the intricacies of body language to help you interpret what is being said, it is very easy to misunderstand each other.

You can develop good friendships over a distance. But if you want more out of the relationship, you just have to be closer. The distance part of our relationship gave us a solid friendship built on communication, but when my life brought me closer we still had to build our friendship all over again, this time based on life.

Linksies 2

Ten Rules For Being Human - Everyone should follow these. Think of how much better relationships with other humans would be!

Students of Virginity - Harvard students stand up for virginity. This makes me very happy.

Women most beautiful at 31 - It's all about the confidence, baby.

The Joy of Celibacy: One Author's Year Without Sex - I'll see her 1 year, and raise her my several and counting.

Anguish of Romantic Rejection Linked to Stimulation of Areas of Brain Related to Motivation, Reward and Addiction - Science ran with my thoughts on breakups being like drug withdrawals and agrees with me!

Relationships Improve Your Odds of Survival by 50 percent - And not just the romantic ones. Friends and family too!

We're on Twitter! Follow us, s'il vous plait.

Chicken

In over a decade of dating, I can count on one hand the number of times I've given a guy a my phone number. You know what I mean. So you can imagine my delight on the rare occasion it happens. It's quite the compliment. Even when you're walking from your office to the neighborhood deli and some random guy says "Hey, your smile just made my day, can I have your number?" Of course, I'm not going to give it to THAT guy, but when there is a mutual spark, you both recognize it, and you exchange contact information, it's pretty sweet.

The last time this happened was at a local burger joint in May. He initiated the conversation by joking about being in my way while I was waiting for my food.

"What, from staring at the grill?"

And it continued from there. When my food arrived, I decided to see how he would respond to my indicator of interest.

"I'm Jinxie, by the way."

And then he shared his name. I realized I didn't have my phone (odd, that) or any cards on me, and even though he'd been fiddling with his phone earlier, he offered his email address, since it was pretty easy.

I should have realized this was a sign. He later tried to say he was trying to judge if I was just being friendly or if I'd really been flirting, which I'd thought I'd communicated by telling him my name. He should have more fully taken the bait.

Twenty-fours later, I emailed him. Said hi, said it was nice to talk to him. He added me on Facebook almost immediately. The rest of our conversation went something like this:

"It was nice talking to you too. Dinner sometime?"

"Love to."

"Restaurant A or Restaurant B?"

"I love restaurant A, but I've never tried B. Either sounds good to me."

"Great! When?"

"How about Wednesday or next weekend?"

crickets

For a week.

The next Thursday, the day after the first evening I'd given as an option, he started chatting with me on Facebook. After the usual pleasantries, he said he was going to lunch, "but since I'm out in A City Farther Away, I probably won't run into any certain cute girls while I'm there."

Umm, okay.

Later that afternoon, he IMs me again. I ask him how his lunch.

"Great, but I think the server was flirting with me. But she wasn't a certain cute girl, so I wasn't into it."

"Oh."

"But I think this cute girl is out of my league. Looking at her profile, she's so adventurous. She travels, she's artistic, she probably thinks I'm boring."

"You can't be a complete bore. She probably wouldn't talk to you if you were."

But all he told me when I told him that I needed to sign off was not to be a stranger.

Right then.

He's since un-friended me.

I know it can be hard to chat up a girl, but, really, what part of yes didn't he understand? I gave him all green lights, and yet he convinced himself that I couldn't possibly be interested.

This is one of those times I can honestly say it's his loss.

True Love Waits

A non-LDS bride recently posted on A Practical Wedding about why she waited to have sex until they were married, and her experiences before and after the fact. I wish I could have written that post (and only partly because it would mean that I was married and having sex by now ;) ), but it pretty perfectly sums up our own feelings here at IWS.

Check it out.

A Date-ready home

According to an article I read on Glamour magazine's website, if I'm going to invite a date into my home, I have to turn into a neurotic, OCD mess with no personality.

I'll recreate the list here, with my commentary:

1. Dust the high places.

Okay, that's fair. Dusting is good.

2. Bake or cook something.

Maybe, but only if it's something you do anyway. As you may remember, Cher from "Clueless"

totally burned whatever it was she was trying to bake. Does your house have to smell of

chocolate chip cookies? No. Clean? Yes.

3. Edit your house for telling items.

Mousetraps, financial statements, self-help books (especially those about dating and marriage—I have a ton because of this blog), and medicine like Imodium…need to go!

This is where the neurotic starts to set in. I'm not about to go through my bookcase and hide the things I don't want him to know I've read, even the copy of "The Fat Girl's Guide to Life" that's on my nightstand right now. In fact, I saw someone checking out my nightstand reading stack (p.s. I live in an efficiency, everyone who crosses my threshold enters my bedroom) the other night. They would have also spied my journal, a book by Spencer W. Kimball, and a book about World War II. Judge me for all that, I dare you.

4. Maintain some order.

This, I agree with.

5. Remove the "funny" magnets.

Currently, my fridge door has a handwritten note to myself that says, “Nothing tastes as good as healthy feels.” That’s fine, but considering I never read it, why risk looking like I have issues with food? I also have a chart for pairing wine (wino?), and a magnet that poses the question, “Was he worth shaving her legs for?” Wow. That cannot be good. And another one that says, “Girls are better than boys.” Wait a sec. Maybe I do have some kind of issue. And I almost bought Erica this funny magnet set of grown men crying. Probably should hold off on that.

We all want someone who shares our sense of humor, right? Worrying too much about what he's thinking about what's on your fridge or around your bathroom mirror is just too much work.

6. De-clutter with fewer girly items.

If you own multiple candles, picture frames, throw pillows, stuffed animals, live cats, knick-knacks, or tchotchkes, minimize! He doesn’t want to feel like he’s visiting Grandma.

All these things around my house? They have stories. Even the ugly purple fairy and that non-descript rock. Ask me about it, and I'll tell you. For example - that stuffed dog? From a teenaged friend who was sad that I couldn't have a real dog in my apartment right now. My house does not look like Grandma's attic. It looks like me.

7. Sexile your roommate.

Well, fortunately, that is one perk to not having sex. No one has to worry about certain sounds wafting between the walls. I don't have roommates now, but when I did, we were all smart enough to leave the common areas if it was clear that our male guest might want to not just sit on the couch. But the rule of not making your roommate uncomfortable or banishing them forever definitely stands.

8. Create flattering lighting.

I’m sure you don’t have laboratory-like bulbs in your home, but check for bad overhead lighting and any shadows that could make you look like the two-face on Seinfeld.

OCD, much?

Extra points for:
9. Freezing some glasses and stocking the fridge with beer (and hello, food!).
10. Knowing how to control the temperature on your thermostat.
11. Possessing knowledge of the best restaurants that deliver in your 10-block radius.
12. Putting together a date playlist on your iPod. (Click here and here for music to make out to.)
13. Arranging fresh flowers (particularly if his mom is Martha Stewart or a Steel Magnolia).

9. Yes. Well stocked fridge? Good idea. His favorite drink? Only if he told you that, and you didn't get it from Facebook.

10. That's probably a good idea.

11. You should do that anyway, but for you.

12. I have one. But I've never used it. "Oh I'm sorry, I see that you want to kiss me, but first I must put on my 'Snog Songs'" Ruins the mood. And perhaps the song. (Phil Collins' "You'll Be In My Heart", I'm looking at you.)

13. So, we don't want to remind him of his grandmother, but we do want to remind him of his mother? Incidentally, I do have fresh flowers right now, and Junior saw them last night was actually proud of me for buying myself flowers. But this currently only happens a couple times a year, nothing to stress about unnecessarily.

Honestly, just make sure your house is clean and presentable, and it will be fine. Junior didn't even care that my sink was full of dishes the first time he came over, just that he really liked that my house is a nice, little home.

Just how I like it.

Thanks, but no thanks

One of the talents I envy most in others is the ability to wrap their thoughts and feelings perfectly into 2-5 minute musical segments. There are some songs that just perfectly communicate what I'm thinking and say it better than I ever could.

Roxie made a suggestion for a theme song for this blog. I heartily agree, but I'd like to throw these two in the mix as well.





Unfortunately, thanks to a little surprise I found in my Facebook last night, this is more along the lines of what I'm feeling today. Warning: adult language, which I normally wouldn't put on this blog (or any, really), but she just captures the feelings so nicely. If you'd rather not listen because of that, no problem, as you can get the gist of it from the title.



Remember when I left The Homeland and said I was glad not to have accidentally run into certain people ever again? (Except when I visit, just ask Trixie, I'm on high alert the whole time.) The internet has changed all that. It's also a good confirmation that I really need to work on forgiveness this year.

Substitution

I recently attended a dinner party comprised of three married couples, a single male friend, and myself. Somehow, the subject of the various forms of online communication was brought up - email, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

We had organized this dinner via Facebook and email, and at least half of us have blogs, so we all understand the appeal of them. It was the use of Twitter we debated. One of the other women tried it, didn't really get it, and stopped tweeting pretty quickly. I was the one who taught the other singleton about it a few months ago, because I do use it (as my real self), regularly. No one else had really even tried it, so of course they don't understand it.

One of the husbands said something to the affect that whatever he has to share that he might tweet about, if he tweeted, he just shares with his wife. He may have added another comment, but I can't remember at this point. Whether he meant to or not, his subtext was that maybe I wouldn't need to tweet if I had a spouse to talk to, that I was substituting my lack of romantic life with an online one.

I took the bait and told him that maybe he was right. I do live alone and have my own office at work, seeing only one or two people in person a day on average, so maybe I do need an online outlet to get my daily connection fix. We all shrugged and the conversation changed.

Then I got to thinking about it. Maybe he is right. On the other hand, maybe he isn't. Yes, the internet, in all its outlets, is my primary form of communication these days, but I'm generally talking to people I know in real life. My boss and colleagues and I communicate via email, as we all work in different buildings in our local metropolitan area. Trixie, Roxie, and I chat online almost everyday. My extended family writes emails to each other at least weekly (my immediate family I do talk to on the phone). My Tweeps (followers on Twitter) and Facebook friends are mostly actual friends and we rely on the internet to communicate around the globe. I'm not just posting to the void, I'm talking to actual people I know and love, and a few friendly strangers who are listening in.

I don't think this will stop when I have a boyfriend or husband. It hasn't stopped for Roxie. Many of the other people I read via blogs or Twitter are married or otherwise involved. So, for this husband, it's not his way of communicating with the outside world, but it is mine and there's nothing wrong with that.

Tidbits

My mother and I were discussing my holiday travel plans and how I'm considering venturing to Manhattan for New Year's Eve in Times Square. I just don't know who to go with, as it's not something I'd even consider doing alone. An entire day of mostly standing around with several thousand strangers? No thanks.

Me: It's hard to plan such things two months out. And who knows? What if my travel friends are dating someone by then, since it's a notorious date night? What if I'm dating someone? Then again, knowing my track record, I won't be.
Mom: You know, you shouldn't say that, because one day you will be. You never know.

Thanks, Mom. You're totally right. I really should curb the self-deprecating talk.

Also, this article really spoke to me, from the annals people who say it way better than I ever could. Change the specific people and locations, and I've been there and had the exact same revelation.

Maybe I could meet up with her for a New York New Year's Eve!

Some back story

Having now posted how the next volume in the story of HP and I got started, I should probably tell some of the back story.

HP and I are an internet meeting gone very very right. We met through a friend of mine on an internet dating site and started sending messages back and forth every few days. Within a few weeks we'd moved on to hours of instant messaging every night. In just over a month I'd invited him up to where I was living so we could meet. He came and we had quite the first date, three days long. We went to a museum. We went to a musical. We went to dinner. We met friends and family we both had in the area. And we had our first kiss.

We saw each other a few times that year and continued to talk almost nightly.

But distance is hard, and so after a year of that things slowed down. We still kept in contact, but the frequency was much less.

About two years after we met though, I had a career change that brought me to where he lives. Being in the same city helped us pick up a bit where we left off. We saw each other more and interacted more. Our friendship grew and we started seeing each other rather regularly. In January of this year we decided that we were in fact officially dating with a capital D.

We just really fit. I couldn't have imagined someone more perfect for me. And I also couldn't have imagined meeting someone the way I did.

The importance of conversation.

Time for another bad date story.

For a time I was semi-active on an online dating site, although most people deluded themselves into thinking it was a networking site. It isn't. It's a dating site.

One guy I started messaging seemed real interesting. He'd had some adventures in his life and wasn't as weird as some of the other guys I'd talked to. We decided meeting might not be a bad idea since we lived relatively close to each other (different suburbs of the same area).

I'm a woman. So that means in this scenario he should generally be the one to suggest the activity and set it up. He understood that much, kind of. His idea of inviting me on a date was to send me an email 3-4 hours before the start of the activity.

This failed many times. For several reasons.

1. While I check my email frequently, the odds of me checking it within the time before the activity isn't good.
2. I have a life. I do not sit at home eating popcorn every night, not planning things, just in case some guy calls me at 6 to see if we can get together at 7. (Exception, Boyfriend does this now, but it's totally expected. There are certain nights during the week that we just get together on. So I expect him to call when he gets home from work and then we figure out what we both still have to do that evening and work out when we can get together. But this is not how we started dating. This only works because of where we are at in our relationship now.)
3. If he can't figure out how to ask a girl on a date, what else doesn't he know how to do?

So after doing this for a few weeks and it NEVER working out, and him not getting the idea that asking in advance means more advance than travel time, I decided to set the example.

A local theater was performing "Steel Magnolias" and I wanted to see it. So I invited him to meet me at the theater in a week and we could see the show together.

Good date etiquette:

1. I set it up several days in advance.
2. I had a plan!

He seemed nice enough, but we just couldn't get a conversation going before the show. It would start, but then he'd just stop, like he'd said everything he needed to say. The same during intermission.

After the show we went to the local eatery for some food. Again, the guy could not carry a conversation to save his life! One of us would start a topic, and after just a few minutes he'd just stop. He could talk about a lot of things, but only for a few minutes. It was exhausting! I like to talk, but it has to be an equal balance. I'm not one of those people who can carry the whole conversation on my own. It was bad.

The local junior high was having a dance that night, and many of the students had come to the same eatery after the dance. I was an elementary teacher at the time and knew a lot of them. It's always fun for me to watch my students see me when I'm not at school. I think in some part of their minds they really do think teachers live at school.

He and I went back to the theater so I could get my car, and that was it for the evening.

I didn't hear from him again for a couple of months. And then it was another invite to do something in a couple of hours. By that time I'd moved states. Poor guy. It looks like he never learned.

The highlights of the date for me:

1. The show was amazing! I'd seen the movie before, and the movie pulls on your heart. But it's nothing like the live play. And the playwrite wrote it based on the lives of his mom and sister and the women in his town.
2. Seeing my former students at the eatery. Always fun!
3. Driving home and thinking about telling the Boyfriend (who was just a friend at that point) about it. He liked hearing about all of my bad dates.

And you know it's a bad date when they guy you are on the date with doesn't even make the top three highlights of the evening.

The Love Letter

My mother loves making cards. She makes them for every occasion you can think of, and even a few you've never thought of. She sends them to everyone all the time. She's someone who hasn't forgotten the satisfying feeling of mailing something physical to someone, nor of receiving a physical note in return. So I really shouldn't have been too surprised at the card I received in the mail from her today. Although it still makes me laugh.

The card had hearts on the inside and out. One of the ones on the inside was a fuzzy heart sticker even. The inside of the card read, "Sounds like love is in the air. How exciting. Love, Mom & Dad." I didn't realize walking through a jewelry store with someone was cause for a congratulatory greeting card. Leave it to my mom.

On the whole though, I feel that our society has gotten too far away from the beauty that is a well crafted love letter. My relationship with the boyfriend has been in writing to a very large degree. Both of us are computer geeks and are at a computer for a good portion of our day, so we have email conversations back and forth all the time. It's great because we have this written record of our relationship (which also means I can look up what he said months/years ago and has forgotten). Even when we are sitting right next to each other in a church meeting, we write back and forth to each other, passing notes. At least we aren't talking and disrupting the lesson. We have a notebook I keep in my bag for church for that very reason.

But we also know when it is time to put down the pen or keyboard and actually talk, face to face, about what is really important. Unlike some guys who feel it is okay to apologize via text message (how old is he? 12?).

There is a time for fun banter through technology. And there is a time for eye contact and touch and hearing each other's voices with their words.

And I hope there's still time for a good love letter too.

Linksies

A few fun love related things from the interwebs:

Weird animal mating calls

29 falling-in-love movies we actually believe in

10 great love affairs in history

AFI's Top 10 romantic comedies

Enjoy!

What will these kids think of next

Facebook has added a whole new dimension to relationships. The last time I blogged here was right after Kitt and I had decided to make our relationship official (Definitions). I must admit I didn't understand how big that was. I have since realized it is huge.

The next day I got home in the afternoon and checked Facebook. The first thing I noticed was that I had a relationship request. It said something to the effect of, "Kitt has requested to be in a relationship with you. Accept. Ignore. Block." For some reason, making it public like that seemed huge. I clicked, "Accept." (He said if I'd done something else we would've had to talk some more.)

That one click of my mouse opened a whole new can of worms. We watched members of the ward comment on the status change to each other (nothing like church gossip!). We both got comments from various friends. One of my friends was upset she hadn't been told the story yet. And another friend called me that evening to get the story and was wondering why she was so out of the loop. It hadn't even been 24 hours yet!

So it's big, and it's out in the open now. And I kind of like it.

Discussing Facebook with him, we agreed that it would not be the appropriate way to propose. No matter how technology changes our lives, I hope it will never be acceptable to propose by sending the message, "Bob requests to be listed as engaged to you. Accept. Ignore. Block."

There's desperate, and then there's...

Facebook is an interesting entity. There are some people who like to update their status at least a half dozen times a day to let everyone know what they are doing.

I've noticed a theme in the status updates of one of the people on my friends list. Occasionally she talks about work, but generally she's telling everyone her latest heartache about a particular male.

Her status updates from the last several days read as follows:
Monday
XXXXX misses him. He's her best friend. She can't wait for things to work out.... 1:05am
XXXXX thinks he is very worth waiting for - the most amazing man she's met. However waiting is hard! 12:59pm
XXXXX finally feels okay with waiting for him. He likes her. Wants to date her. It will happen when the time is right. All will be ok! 10:36pm

Tuesday
XXXXX is glad she finally feels at peace with waiting until he - her best friend - is ready to date her. It will be soon. He wants to. Just needs more time. She has faith. 1:06pm
XXXXX just bought herself a ticket to him dating her sooner - a NICE gift certificate to Sportsmans Warehouse, candy, 6 snowmobile mags, 1 hunting magazine, fishing calendar - he'll love her! 10:35pm

Wednesday
XXXXX can't wait till he get's his "congrats on your promotion" package! 1:53am
XXXXX can't wait till he professes his undying love to her which he has & will once he gets the package - especially the gift card from sportsman warehouse!! 10:04am
XXXXX had the best fun conversations with him throughout the day!! 5:00pm
XXXXX & him had the best conversations today & every day! They go so good together - like pb & jelly! Well they have been best friends for forever... 5:35pm

Thursday
XXXXX is on cloud 9 - man she loves talking to him! 9:38am
XXXXX is soooo happy! All she can think is wow! 2:51pm
XXXXX just had the most amazing conversation with him. They really like each other. I think he will start dating her very soon. Fingers crossed everyone! 9:12pm

Friday
XXXXX really hates waiting for him but he is worth it.... 5:56am
XXXXX thinks today will be tough after talking to him all day & night yesterday....she misses him tons but will survive.. 10:20am

Now, there are several thoughts I have about all this. One, I don't think you can buy a relationship with a care package. But maybe I'm wrong. Two, this girl is obsessed! If I were the boy and I could see all of this (I'm assuming he can't because of how she writes), I'd be scared and would run so fast in the other direction all she'd see would be a large dust cloud.

I've been twitterpatted before, definitely. I've had moments when there was a far off glint in my eye for a few days and I'd randomly giggle because of a boy. Heck, I still randomly giggle about the boy, which after this long I think is a good sign. But I hope I NEVER drowned everyone in so much sugar. Diabetic coma anyone?

I honestly hope something works for her soon. Sometimes waiting is exactly what you need to do. But I'm afraid what the status updates might start saying if they do. eek!