I'm (cough) fine. How are you?

A friend I hadn't seen in a while recently asked, "So how's your dating life going?" Reasonable question, I guess, and since I haven't written about any dates in quite some time, perhaps you're wondering as well.

So how is my dating life going? Well, let's see.

• The other day I logged on to the site where I currently have a profile posted for the first time in a couple of weeks, and I saw that the most recent guy to view my profile has a tagline that says, "It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose." Really, dude? Really? This is the guy you want to call to mind when trying to gain a woman's trust and interest? I don't know how that's working out for you, but I won't be finding out myself. As a sidenote, remind me not to go out with anyone driving a white cargo van or citing a penchant for at-home taxidermy in his list of interests.
  
  
• I've also been viewed by an English professor whose vocabulary and presumed grammar prowess might make up for his geographic undesirability, but I may never find that out for sure because we are too busy engaged in a ridiculous Hotlist standoff to actually correspond directly. He "Hotlisted" me on April 8. I saw that note in my "Who's viewing me" list, looked at his profile, and thought, "Eh. He could be interesting... Maybe I'll send him a message later... Or maybe I'll just put him in MY Hotlist, too, so he sees it as a green light to step up and contact me." He did not contact me. He did, however, re-Hotlist me the following day. Apparently he'd rather play Hotlist tag than actually spend precious points to email me. This "post-for-free, pay-to-email" system has some flaws, obviously. At meMarmony, the men may be lazy, but on this site, they're lazy and cheap! Methinks it's time to change venues again.
  
  
• Do you remember The Neighborhood Giant? He mysteriously popped back into my Inbox last week just as unexpectedly as he vanished from it nearly two months ago. I briefly considered holding a little poll to let you guys decide whether I should take him up on his invitation and see him again. (Remember how fun that was with the meMarmony guy known as "Med"? Was that really only a year ago now?? Dang, it seems like way more bad dates ago than that.) I decided against the poll pretty quickly, though--partly because that's just the sort of seemingly harmless little game that got Noelle in trouble last week and I'm maybe a little gun shy because of that, but also because I knew I'd already made up my mind. Yes, the guy vanished with no warning or excuse after a seemingly good second date. Yes, he has the annoying habit of emailing as though he's Twittering--like he's adhering to a self-imposed max number of characters per message and couldn't possibly type more than two lines. But despite any annoying habits and fuckwittery, we actually did have a good time on those two prior dates. The more I date, the more I realize what a rare stroke of luck it is to meet someone with whom I have any connection or chemistry at all... someone I feel I'm actually conversing with, not just talking at and listening to. And if that isn't enough reason to give TNG another chance, need I remind you that the man is 6'7" (six-foot-SEVEN!) and lives a mere two miles from my house? Do not underestimate the appeal of height and proximity when you are a taller than average girl and gas is well over $3 a gallon. I am nothing if not practical, as we all know.
  
  Unfortunately, it seems I may be in one of those "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" situations, because it's been six days since our seemingly good third date and I've yet to hear from the man at all. Since TNG has established a history of being less than ambitious with the follow-up, I suppose it may be a few days too early to assume myself a fool just yet, but the Magic 8 Ball I shook in my head reads "Outlook not good" anyway.

All of that aside, I had a mostly fun weekend. Fun = a Friday night chatting with a few good friends old and new and a Saturday night of too much wine and cheese followed by too many gin & tonics at a bar with an alarming amount of bad hair. Not-so-fun = The sore throat I'm rocking after several hours spent shouting over the noise in the bad hair bar and several more inhaling possibly carcinogenic dust while laying carpet tile in my basement yesterday afternoon. (I WILL finish that half-assed remodeling project eventually... presumably just in time to enjoy the cool, naturally air-conditioned comfort of those concrete block walls during the ungodly heat of an August night.)

On top of all that, it is finally spring, which I know not because I did anything crazy like go outside on what was purportedly a downright lovely day yesterday, but because the panel on the video billboard on my way to work that indicates the current temperature now features a picture of a robin in the grass, rather than a worried-looking melting snowman. Whoo. Thank you, Clear Channel, for that helpful visual aid.