Between a Rock Climb and a Hard Place: Part IV of The eHarmony Experiement Diaries

This is the latest post in the series called The eHarmony Experiment Diaries. You may want to read the previous posts in order: I II III.

I can't make this stuff up, y'all. Dating for Dummies, yup, I'm serious.

I don't know why I let the date with A get to a second location. That frustrates me. Honestly, there are too many times in my life that I am lucky I didn't end up dead or worse. It's a complicated thing where one part of my head is telling me "uh, girl, get out of this, now" and the other part is saying, "you're fine, just go along with it and it will all be over soon. How bad could it really get? In fact, maybe it will get better!"

There have also been important moments in my life where I have felt uncomfortable with someone and afterward if I said something about it to someone else, the complaint was given a dismissive reply or simply shrugged off. The message I would get from this was that I was overreacting and didn't have a right to feel what I did (and therefore I was clearly crazy, being prudish or demanding too much respect). Oh he was just a little drunk, Jill. Oh he didn't mean anything by that, those were just words, he's a guy. Well, it's not like he grabbed your boob or something. Or, I don't know what happened, I don't want to hear about it, just stop embarrassing us and never speak of this again.

I struggle a lot with where to draw the line and where to just put up with the uncomfortableness until it's over.  I feel truly fortunate that so far I haven't landed myself in a really bad situation.

***

I sent A a note on Sunday morning asking if he could return the movie for me. He wrote back that he would. Later, he emailed me again.

I enjoyed your company on Saturday. So, think you're up for rock climbing?

I replied:

Hi A, I enjoyed your company on Saturday too. I know you're looking for someone who can keep up with you though, and I know myself well; I don't function at the same high gear you do. I must graciously decline your invite to join you on a wall climb. I certainly do hope you find that someone to go with though.

Jill

Thankfully, he returned the movie before I turned him down.

I wrote JM back and we agreed to meet up that Tuesday. I really was enjoying trading emails with him as he had such a good idea as to what he wanted in a relationship, and we seemed to want all the same things. We planned to meet at a gelato place in the Village. When I got there he was waiting for me, leaning against his car. "It's closed," he said. "They're closed for the season."

I felt mucho embarrassed and quickly thought of a Plan B. We headed to Carlos and Murphy's for nachos instead.

JM was a good, gentlemanly date, he even pulled out my chair for me. The conversation we had was good, but some how though he just didn't look like his pictures that'd had me sighing every time I looked at them. I think I had in my head a certain idea as to what my dream Farmboy would sound like, what he would wear, how he would carry himself, and JM was nothing like what I had pictured. It was like I had fallen in love with a character in a book and then saw the movie and was disappointed with how he was represented on screen. As our date went on I could tell that JM was a country boy at heart and he would never be happy in the city. I knew I could never make a life for myself in a rural setting. Even if we went out again and I got past the contrast between the JM from my head and the real JM, our hearts could never be completely happy in the same space. The next day JM emailed me and asked if I'd like to meet again for dinner or a movie. For the second time in only four days I had to find an honest and sensitive way to turn a guy down:

JM,

One of the things that really shined through for me about you yesterday is that your heart definitely beats for the country. I think that's a wonderful part of your character, but I don't think it matches well with my heart, which beats for the city life. I think your uncomfortableness with the big cities is not unlike what I feel about country life. Rural Manitoba is a great place to visit, but it's not a place I could ever see myself calling home. I think you deserve someone who loves the rural life and feels as comfortable in it as much as you do. I know you are looking for your soul mate so I wouldn't feel right about getting in the way of your path to her. For those reasons, I'd have to decline a dinner or movie date.

I felt awful that day. The eH thing was starting to wear me out. I was getting rejected by guys who looked interesting and now I had just turned down two guys who had some kind of interest in me. This was different for me and I found it frustrating. Was I too picky? Asking for too much? And, when I would try to keep my mind open and not get too keyed up about an upcoming date, the let down that followed a bad one, along with the desire to quickly put myself back in the game was emotionally exhausting. Online dating is not for the faint at heart. I thought this was supposed to be fun. When does it get to the fun part?

Soon.