Oh goodie. More words that will bring the Googlers here. Can't wait.

All right. So we're 12 days into NaBlo here, which is only a few days shy of halfway (Whoo; I can totally do this. Surely I can.), and it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps I should be making some sort of list to recall which dates I still want to write about. I don't know why it took me until Day 12 to think about this. Obviously I do love me a list. As evidence, I will tell you about the list I just found in my desk drawer tonight. Long, long ago, near the end of my first stint on meMarmony, I decided to make a list of all the men I had dated from that site thus far. I think I envisioned some sort of meMarmony recap but then abandoned the idea either because I knew it would be an unreadably long post or it was simply too depressing to recount all of them (or possibly I just got distracted by something shiny).

So anyway, I have this list. And since I had started the list, apparently I decided to continue it, meMarmony match or not. There are no months or days assigned to any of the names on the list, but I am pretty sure it comprises all of the men I went on dates with in 2006 and the first part of 2007. There are 22 names on the list, which seems like a lot, and yet I'm not entirely sure the list is accurate, because I don't see Index Card Guy's name on there, and wasn't he during that time frame? (Let's see... Yes, he was.) Then again, it suddenly occurred to me that I don't even remember Index Card Guy's name. Was it Tom? Tom doesn't sound familiar... and yet, there's a Tom on the list. Who the heck was Tom? Also, what was the "Nonfiction Means Not-True?" guy's name? Could he be Tom? People, why don't I remember this stuff??

Ahem. Anyway. The list. Numbers in parentheses are the number of dates I had with each. (See? I'm not just a one-date girl!) Comments in italics are confessions and various memories as I perused this list for the first time in forever tonight.

Stephan (3)
Judd (1) (stone-faced gun-toting liberal who asked me to move to Canada with him)
Jeff R. (1) (possibly The Virgin, though I'd never tell you for sure)
Jeff H. (3) (dude I used as an excuse to ditch The Virgin; ditched me for another girl one date later)
Grant (1) (boring, and the worst kind of arrogant--the kind with no reason to BE arrogant at all)
Tim (1 non-date/maybe-date)
Adam (4)
Ken (2)
Kevin (2)
Jason (1)
Niles (2) (Oh my. Niles. See? I KNEW there was a reason for making this list! I MUST write about him this month yet.)
Mike R. (2)
Mike M. (1) (Two-Mike week! I remember that...)
Tom (1) (Tom?? Seriously, who was Tom? I'm telling you: Bells? Not ringing. AT. ALL.)
Jason (1) (Wait a minute. There were TWO Jasons? I remember only the Jewish one. Who was this?)
Joe (1) (Behind his name, I have written "The Mute," which is the only way I remembered who this one was.)
Ted (1) (Oh, like you guys didn't know that was his real name.)
Joe L. (8)
Jeremiah (2)
Quinn (1)
Jeff H. (again) (1) (Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.)
David (1)

You're exhausted and small-talked out just thinking about that list, aren't you? Me too. Also, still can't remember Index Card Guy's name. That one's going to bug me for days.

Wait! TIM! I think it was Tim. No idea why he didn't make the list.

So. Plenty of material there, I suppose. Today, however, I pick Ken.

As I may have mentioned or you may have surmised, I'm back online again, signed up for a one-month stint at the site that's probably best known in Internet dating but which I'd yet to try myself thus far. This time around I'm approaching it a little differently... or, trying to, anyway. Though it may sound backwards or closed-minded, I'm being pickier than I ever have before. Namely? No more "benefit of the doubt." If there is nothing whatsoever of interest in a profile, I'm ignoring or clicking "Not Interested" on any messages or winks. If I look at a guy's picture and honestly cannot imagine kissing him, he gets no attention from me. Shallow? Perhaps. But physical attraction means something, whether you want to admit so or not. Can a guy I'm not attracted to initially grow on me, if his personality, wit, and intellect are above par? Absolutely. But unfortunately, that is not the way online dating works. You introduce yourselves online; you go on a date. There is no casual, "getting to know you" phase before that "Date" label is applied. I have done this enough to know that if I'm not attracted to a man initially, I won't be attracted to him two dates in, so I've decided, for this trial month anyway, not to try.

Let the judgy, chastising comments begin, if you must. This is just how I'm rolling this time.

That wasn't always the way I approached this, however. I promise you: I have TRIED to be Open-Mind Girl. Case in point: Ken.

I knew from my first look at Ken's picture that I wasn't going to be attracted to him. But he was smart! Well-traveled! Interesting! He had a picture of himself surrounded by a flock of penguins at the South Pole! Who else has a photo of themselves surrounded by penguins? Hell, who else has been to the South Pole?

And so I decided to give Ken a chance. I thought that if his personality was as interesting as his resume, surely I could overcome the strange-shaped face and protruding teeth. Naturally, neither of those things panned out. He actually grew less attractive to me the more I listened to him talk. By all means, I am a friend to the nerds, but Ken was the worst kind of nerd: the kind who thinks he's overcome the awkwardness of his youth, but in fact, has only augmented his nerd status with unjustified overconfidence and misformed social skills. There is "nerd" in a good way and nerd in the "drive people away" way. Ken was unfortunately the latter.

I'm not sure exactly why I went on a second date with him. Stranger still, I don't even remember where our first date took place. What I do remember was sitting at St. Paul's Happy Gnome and deciding halfway through my burger that I would not be seeing this man again. I don't even remember how we got on the topic, but for some reason, he mentioned eggs, and I casually said that I've never liked them. It was a random piece of information that he could or could not have commented or asked further questions on. Instead of any normal, casual follow-up words, however, he looked at me, eyebrows raised, and smirked, "You don't like eggs? Well, I guess I'll have to come up with something else to make to impress you when you wake up at my house."

I'm no huge prude, but it's important to mention that up to that point, we'd had NO physical contact whatsoever. No kiss, no hug, no handshake. Not even a casual touch of the forearm to emphasize a point. There was no context to warrant that presumption. I had already decided I was not attracted to this man, but the visceral reaction I felt when he spoke those words... the way my body involuntarily shuddered and I nearly choked on a bite of burger... that reflex only solidified it.

I'd actually been feeling under the weather all day, and I'd mentioned it to Ken when we first arrived. From that point on, I decided my cough should quickly and inexplicably grow worse. My head should hurt more and my nasal passages should become even more clogged. In short, I hurried things along in the name of illness and left within the half-hour.

I was just trying to come up with a neat and tidy ending for this post when I remembered that I did allude to this date once before. A quick search for the word "visceral" in my archives found it, and I remembered! My word, Ken was "Sheep Testicles Guy"! I have no idea how I momentarily forgot that, but I think that about wraps this one up, don't you agree?