A Semi-Public Flaming

Only semi-public because I won't post the name or photos of the person I'm about tell you about. You may recall that I posted a personal ad on Craigslist the end of January. I've gotten a number of nice responses and entirely too many offers to 'frost my cake' (my posting title was cake seeks icing), if you know what I mean. Really now, if I'd been looking for a casual encounter don't you think I'd have posted it there?!? Anyway, there was a fireman, we'll call him 'J', who answered my ad, seemed a little intense, but I was curious. Along with photos in 'normal' situations he included a photo from the neck down completely nekkid and completely, um, at attention! I should have listened to my spidey senses which were tingling in a big way. I replied to his response and he telephoned me, I was caught completely off guard because it was during work hours and days after I'd sent my reply; I figured he'd moved on. I was very busy and asked if we could talk after I got off work, then I never heard from him again. Ok, fine, no problem, moving on with my life, there were other guys who had responded to talk to and have bad first dates with.

Fast forward to last Monday, St Patrick's Day, after work I went to Westlake Center to See's Candies to get myself a Rocky Road Easter Egg, my only homage to Easter. Then I was meeting a friend, Kyle, in the bus tunnel to head home. Down in the tunnel we were chatting about the butter cream eggs I was given every year and the fact that I have NEVER liked butter cream eggs when a guy walks up and asks if my name is Melissa. Yes, I say hesitantly, wondering who the heck this guy is. He says his name is 'J' and hands me a card with his number and email, it was the guy who'd answered my ad. It finally clicked just before he walked away. Kyle was wondering what the heck is going on so, during the bus ride home I filled her in on the details.

That night I sat down and composed an email to 'J' asking how the heck he'd picked me out of a crowd like that, never having met me and only having seen a couple of photos. We exchanged a couple of emails, including another photo of his 'unit', and made plans to meet for lunch on Wednesday. Now along with the regular conversation in the emails he would often proclaim that I was hot. Ok, once is flattering, twice is a little cute, more than that makes me wonder what's your angle, what's going on here. I mean, come on, Heidi Klum is hot, Naomi Campbell is hot, Nicole Kidman is hot; me, not so hot. I'll accept cute, attractive, athletic, there was a guy who wrote that I was adorable, I really liked that one! Not so much hot, though, the wobbly bits rather cancel out any potential hotness, know what I mean? And there were also a fair number of comments made regarding what he'd like to do to/with me in the bedroom. While I'm not necessarily against this type of conversation it seemed a bit premature and again, the spidey senses were tingling.

Wednesday rolls around and we meet for lunch. It was a good lunch, we went to Jimmy's On First, there was conversation and laughter, it was generally a good time. When it was time I got back to the office he drove me back and as he was dropping me off he leaned in for a kiss. That was fine, but the next thing I knew there was a tongue trying to tickle my tonsils and I felt as though my lips had gotten caught in a vacuum cleaner hose! Oh, and two words for you 'J': chap stick! Once I was able to extricate myself from the vacuum I made my way back into the office my mind a whir, what the heck had just happened and did I like it?

A few hours later I left for the day to meet Fran, Lillian, and Robin at Collin's Pub for belated birthday dessert and they wanted the lowdown on my date. On my way to meet them 'J' called and left me a voice mail thanking me for a lovely lunch and I'm such a great kisser and XXX things he wanted to do with/to me and again how hot I am. Fran and Lillian are so in love, it's a delight to see them together. I was able to be there for their wedding last summer, such a wonderful celebration of love and happiness. I aspire to find something like that. Lillian commented that if you have to ask if this is love, it probably isn't. I had lots of fun with the ladies, laughter is cathartic.

When I got home I tapped out a well thought out email to 'J' saying I enjoyed lunch and meeting him, but that I was rather taken aback my his sexual intensity, that I'm looking to get to know someone, develop a solid friendship with them and when sex is the next logical progression in our relationship, then go there. That I understood his need to present the entire 'package', so to speak, for matters of full disclosure, but I felt it's really about more than the size of his penis.

I didn't hear anything from him on Thursday, no emails, no phone calls. Hmm, perhaps he didn't like my email. Oh well, decision made. Then as I'm loading the car from a Costco trip he calls; I let it go to voice mail, it was cold and I wanted to get into the car. Once in the car I listen to the message he left. Holy crap, what a pretentious, entirely too full of himself ass! He told me that I needed to get off my high horse and ride the wave, the tsunami, and if I am cap-a-ble of enjoying myself we should get together. Ya right! Insulting me is really the way to bring me around! Well, decision made, not that I wasn't already leaning towards giving him the boot anyway. For some misguided reason I was thinking about sending him a final email telling him off, but Kyle, after listening to the message, pointed out he didn't even deserve that much.

Sigh. Dating is hard, not that I ever expected it to be easy, but dang! What ever happened to decency and civility? Am I that old fashioned? Thankfully I've had some nice dates and met a few pleasant guys so I'm not ready to give up entirely. But 'J' makes me really glad that I have my dog boys. Everyone should have *some* unconditional love in their lives.