Adventures in Speed Dating

It was one of those days when I was "busy" in the way that only someone standing around watching other people doing stuff can be. I've never really understood why they like me to stand there and watch them infuse drug. I mean, I can tell you the drug infuses at a rate of 480 with set volume of 50 (and now that I write that I'm not even sure that is accurate) but I can't tell you what that means, how it was calculated or why it's right. Yet they want me standing there all day "just in case." If there's a grammatical emergency I can help you, anaphylaxis or malignant hypertension, not so much. It's why I'm going to nursing school, but that's neither here nor there.

So anyways, there I was, busy watching other people be busy when a nurse on the unit, we'll call her Lori (mostly because her name is Lori) asked if I wanted to go speed dating. Now before you start judging let's clear up two things: the event would be free for me to attend and the day before I had found out that my ex-boyfriend was legit dating someone new. So stop judging.  However, in the very least I did  learn a few things:

Lesson #1: Couples and Married people think that Speed Dating "sounds like fun.

It’s kind of like how camping sounds like a hoot until you do it in Florida in July.  I do appreciate though that when I call them and say “I’m going speed dating!” they find a way to put a positive spin on it. They are very good friends. So while tomorrow I may try to convince you that I'm living Sex in the City, Gainesville Edition, there’s no question in my mind: love that person sleeping next to you and appreciate that you came home to them instead of going out speed dating.

Lesson #2: I am the asshole 29 year old who went to the 35 to 45 year old speed-dating group.

I found myself guiltily telling a series of lies, each one more egregious than the next, in order to atone for this.  Are you really thirty-seven?  I WORE SUNCREEN BITCHES!! I TAKE EXCELLENT CARE OF MY SKIN. It's  not exactly an unforgivable transgression, and I can always take some comfort in knowing that in fifteen or twenty years I'll be the 44 year old woman at her third round of speed dating thinking "that bitch is SO not 37." And I'll be right. It’ll serve me right for my assholetry.

Lesson #3: Going to the wrong age group means you meet people who are waaay too old for you.

Duh right?  Still, there was one guy who was marginally nice. He was charming(ish), good looking and had the ability to hold a reasonably entertaining 5 minute conversation. (It’s deceptively difficult.) Yeeeahhhh…his daughter is only three years younger than me. So there I was in the wrong age group and wondering if I can put a comment in my "no thank you" box that says "you aren’t repulsive but I'm a dick who came to the wrong age group and you could have begotten me with your first wife."  I went instead with a classic no thank you, it just seemed simpler.  

 Lesson #4:  Speed Dating is like a goddamn firing range.

 5 minute conversations, over and over, and over…and over again. Delivering the same less than cleaver platitudes: I got my master’s degree in secondary education because I thought I wanted to teach...until I started teaching!  Or, “wow, working with" cancer patients must be tough?"  "You know, it’s like any other job, good days and bad days."  After fifteen or twenty of these you can only wish that you were on the business end of a firing range.

Lesson #5: Ain’t nobody got time for this shit.

Free or not, chances are it won’t be happening again.

You can't win if you don't play

As I’ve started to put the past 6 months down in writing,  I've started wondering: why in God’s name did I decide to venture into online dating again? Writing things down can make me overly introspective at times which is either an excellent reason to keep blogging, or a truly stunning argument for stopping all together.  Hindsight isn’t 20/20 unless you bother to look back over your shoulder though, so I’m going to go with the former and just keep on, keepin' on with this whole blogging business. Seriously though, I really started to wonder, what actually started all of this?   Then it came to me, one word: Stefan.  Stefan (pronounced Stef-an, not Stef-ahhn) was my  A&P 1 teacher this past summer, upon whom I developed The Biggest Crush.  (Don't worry Mom, I promise this isn't as questionable as it seems, keep reading. :)). 

I was a little bit nervous to go back to school las summer.  School in general doesn't make me nervous, but facing down the very same science classes that I so successfully avoided during undergrad and graduate school made my tummy do a little flip-flop.   So imagine my pleasure when on my first night of class, uncomfortably wedged into a right-handed desk I found that I was to be taught by my own personal version of a bad boy: an incredibly attractive, slightly nerdy and British. Yes please.  

So in order: physical attractiveness is one thing, and a great thing at that but all on its onesises it can get old pretty quick.  Add intelligence (I like 'em nerdy) and kindness and now you've caught my attention.  Add in a passion and love for teaching and well...do you like beavers?  Cause DAAAAAAMN.  (Sorry, I just had to do it.)  This was certainly not part of the plan when I registered but suddenly in addition to trying to memorize the whole of human anatomy in 8 weeks I also had to find time each night to alternate  between paying attention and mooning.  Life's rough huh? 

So when did I revert back to being a pre-adolescent girl you ask?  Probably about the same time that I stopped sleeping and started drinking Diet Coke and eating Sour Patch Kids for dinner on the reg. Seriously though, Stefan totally joined in on my Sour Patch Kid consumption most days before class. That's right, we bonded over sour chewy candies. Boom.  With such a solid basis upon which to place my confidence I decided that it was time to take a leap: I was going to ask Stefan out.   What? is that not a logical next step?!  Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?   He’d laugh in my face, call me fugly and walk away?  Well yes, that would be crushing, embarrassing and mortifying, but if fear of that worth never knowing if our Sour Straw QT was simply congeniality run amuck through a caffeine induced haze or a little bit more more?    Nope.  

So as the semester drew to a close I plotted my moment of probable humiliation.  How does one ask out their teacher after the end of the semester without coming across like a total crazy? Not possible.  So rather, how does one ask out their teacher after the end of the semester in a way that leaves some shot of success?   A work email takes a borderline inappropriate message and turns it seriously inappropriate and, if misconstrued could also potentially threaten his professional livelihood.  I wouldn’t take too kindly if someone did that to me even if they were as charming and delightful as I, and so this left Facebook.  Even in retrospect this makes me queasy. 

So, the day after grades were submitted I sat on my couch in my favorite sweatpants and lucky gator t-shirt staring at my computer, reminding myself that expressing interest in a person is a compliment which, even if unreciprocated, is generally still flattering and as such appreciated.  Anyone with manners can figure out how to reject you kindly via an email.  Right?  And please oh please oh please don’t let him call me fugly.  

So I did it.  I sent the darn message and asked my former teacher out to coffee or a drink.  Then walked to the bathroom and vomited.  Seriously, it was that bad.  Bad enough that I might put it down as one of the bravest things I’ve ever done.  I’d  generally rather risk bodily harm before rejection and yet I faced it down with the hopes of spending time with someone smart, interesting and (it has to be said) oh so pretty. 

And you’ll never guess…he was flattered and but that for the distance he’d love to.  The distance you ask?  Yeah...the kid got deported back to England.

Ain’t that a bitch? (Either that or a REALLY good lie to get out of telling me that he thinks I'm a hose-beast.  I'll take it either way. )

So there it is: I had a crush.  The universe reminded me that there are really smart, funny and appealing guys out there and that the only way to find out which ones they are is to go and find out first hand.  I find being alone to be entirely delightful (nobody to interfere with my string cheese eating or West Wing watching!) and hugely preferable to being with the wrong guy, but what about the right guy?  There it is: what about the right guy?  That little thought rankled and rattled around my brain for rest of the summer until once again, my period of perseveration ended in an abrupt decision and action.  You’re never going to win if you don’t even play the game.  

 One act of bravery (and yes, I consider asking out my very recent A&P teacher out on a date to be brave) inspired another act of bravery.   My first act resulted in an entertaining pen pal and drinking buddy if I ever happen to be in England, what would my second act bring?  

I'm back!

Have you missed me?!  I hate it when my life gets so nutty that I can’t and/or don’t want to write anything at all, much less proofread it for spelling and grammar errors and post it on the internet. With the addition of classes these last nine months, my life qualifies as beyond nuts.  Add in that there were parts of my life that I felt as if I shouldn’t be posting on the internet that it got difficult to write and I just threw in the towel for a few months. How do you write about your life when you feel obligated to hide parts of it? 

I’ve been single now for almost a year and a half and up until this point, I’ve refrained from posting the more entertaining aspects of this single life because a certain ex-boyfriend was still a friend and I worried about inflicting unnecessary hurt or sadness.  It might be my blog and the internet may be a free forum but those of us who post our lives for all to see are still responsible for the things that we put out into the world.  I know that I’ve unintentionally hurt people with things that I’ve written and so I try to ask myself before I post: is it kind? Kindness isn’t a very a tall order especially when its someone you care about and I wanted to take whatever road would keep him in my life as a friend. You can pick whatever road you want but when it gets rocky you may very well find yourself walking down it alone.

My personal road got REALLY rocky last month.  I’m sorry to be vague but you’re just going to have to trust that about a month ago my life got turned upside down and at times I’ve had to look reeeeally hard just to recognize it.  I am rarely, truly down for the count but I have been and as I’ve been climbing out of the valley, I’ve had to face some very real truths. 

Truth: There’s nothing like being truly down and out to find out who your real friends are.  It’s nuts (or insanely lucky) that I saved this lesson for 29 but there it is.  A few people who I previously considered to be “true blue” have somewhat disappointingly faded out but far more heartwarming has been the so very many people who were there before I even thought to ask and haven’t budged since.  It’s challenging at times not to focus on the losses (hey, it still stings) but since we are speaking of truths:  losses notwithstanding, I am beyond blessed to be surrounded by amazing people.

Truth: Once somebody shows you who they are, what their priorities are or what kind of friend they are, no amount of arguing or trying to make them feel bad for letting you down will make you feel better.  There are certain things that can’t (or shouldn’t) be unseen and there comes a point where you should just walk away.  

Truth: this might be redundant but it bears repeating, I have SO MANY amazing, wonderful, warm, loving and supportive friends.  With an arsenal like that, it might hurt to walk away from the not so great ones but it’s not hard.

Back to my point: I am free from my emotional obligations (both real and imagined) to hide my okay-ness (or not so okay-ness as the case may be), AND my classes this semester are not quite to all-encompassing as they have been in semesters past.  So, what does all this garment-tearing, tear-soaked, soul-searching mean for you my loyal readers who have been suffering in the silence of the last six months?  It means the return of…..dating stories! Okay fine, it just means the return of the blog period, including some dating stories here and there.  They’re being told a little bit in retrospect but don’t you worry, time may dull the pain of loss but it certainly has not dulled some of the more fan-damn-tastic details of the last six months.  

The time I went to the fire station

It's a bit of a story but man, did you know how much they fit in those trucks and how very little leg room there is in the passenger cabin?

February 16, 2012

Oh, and there's no pole.  Just a set of stairs and a filled in circle in the ceiling.  How disappointing is that?

In the Interest of Doing the Bobcat Pretzal

Dear Future Hotter Anna,

I will have you know that today, instead of going home and watching Gossip Girl on the couch, I chose to go to Big Ron Yoga.

Just in case you don't remember, the first time you went to Big Ron's Yoga you hated it because Big Ron's Yoga is Hot Yoga.  But you've continued to go (albeit a bit irregularly) because it's hard. It's harder than running and it's harder than graduate school and something that hard warrants a little effort no?  Come to find out you don't take well to being bad at any kind of exercise.  Despite your complete lack of athletic prowess up to this point, you seem to pride yourself on being a physically strong-ish and capable person and sucking at yoga was a bit of a blow.   Honestly, I did this today (and every other day) with the hopes that you might exist one day.

I've been dreaming about pancakes since this afternoon.  Specifically, I'm dreaming about the homemade banana pancakes with warm butter, maple syrup that are literally EVERYWHERE on Pinterest today. Even more specifically, I want these pancakes:

Even though all I wanted today was these banana pancakes I still went to 100 minutes of yoga in a 105 degree room.  Truth be told, as usually, I felt pretty awesome once it was done.

I tell you all of this so that maybe in five or so years I can do this:



When this happens, I really hope that you take a minute to thank the current, soon to be former chubby, not so strong or coordinated Anna for todays decision.

Love,

Still-Getting-There-Anna


Holidays in the Orifice: Part III

BMTU Research represented this year at the Heme/Onc, Cancer Center holiday shindig.

It was at this par-tay that I managed to cross off an item from my never-even-thought-to-put-it-on-the-bucket-list list: start a conga line.  A VERY successful conga line if I do say so myself.

December 10, 2011