How much is too much?

In the post "Let's Forget About the Past", I talk a little bit about some of my worsts.  Ever since The Offender, I've been really hesitant (and rightfully so) about going into a relationship, or on a date even, without having enough back up information.  For the record, I highly recommend googling someone before going out with them.  But, then the question becomes - where is the line?  At what point do I have too much information about someone to make a decent decision?  I've discovered the baggage without getting to know the person.  And god knows, no one's baggage is pretty.

I'm supposed to go out with Linguini (Linguist = Linguini, no?) on Wednesday next week.  I hadn't really looked at his profile since we started communicating over a week ago.  In a pre-slumber boredom, I decided to go through the "Questions" that OKC offers.  For those of you unfamiliar with the process, you are supposed to answer questions on the site to determine who would be a good match for you.  The answers are displayed publicly, and those people that are either freakishly nosey or depressingly loaded with free time (I'm the former, thank you very much) can go through them.  And that is precisely what I did.

What I found was more information than I should know.  Turns out that this guy felt the need to answer a lot of the sex questions (which is not unusual for men), and he's quite "experienced".  Now I'm no prude or Virgin Mary, so I'm not exactly sure why this is freaking me out.  It must be because he's displaying his dirty laundry on a website, but then I am too.  I guess I found the line that determines what you want to know.  I don't need to know about past experiences...especially before a first date.  Good god.

I also discovered that he was previously married.  This is clearly something that should be discussed later in the relationship...think like 4th/5th date.  This is information I'd like to know before I sleep with you, but doesn't need to be on the table immediately.  And here I am, ruining all the surprises for myself.

I'm still planning on going out with Linguini, but I'm a little less excited than I was initially.  It's kind of terrible, isn't it?  I managed to freak myself over things I shouldn't know and shouldn't even be concerned with at this point.  Never again, Questions...your content is more than I can handle.

Yes.

As I am sure that my reading public has been on the edge of their seats waiting for me to return to my perilous adventures in online dating, I am back to say that yes, I have resumed my quest.  So, to give a brief update, here's where we currently stand:

I've been emailing with a teacher/education plan writer/linguist who asked me out for drinks.  Pros - he seems smart and has a beard.  Cons - he lives in St. Charles (but will work downtown starting next week, so maybe it's doable), and he was a little quick on the draw on the drink invite.  Granted, I can't necessarily complain about that...I spent quite a few blog lines ticked about chatting for too long with no date offers.  Either way, it seems like we'll get along well enough to survive a couple hours of beverages.  I need to get back on my say-yes-to-everything mentality anyway.  It got me to see a Ladyhawke show last night (fantastic, btw) so good things clearly come from "yes".

I heard back from a tall ginger I emailed too.  I'm typically not into redheads, but for whatever reason something about this guy must have tickled my fancy 3 weeks ago.  We'll see if he writes back to me - he did enjoy my use of the Oxford comma, so I feel like this could go well.  I'm a sucker for nerd and intellectual humor.

Now for the fun part...the weird messages that I've received.  The first one came from username BaaadBooooy6 or something eerily similar and bro-tastic.  What did this douche want?  Apparently, he and his girlfriend wanted to suck titties together.  "That's it."  I think I may have given them more credit than they deserved on the quotation punctuation.  It was the most straightforward (and forward in general) message I think I've ever received.  My prudish side was very uncomfortable while the rest of me wanted to call his girlfriend a slut.  Knee jerk reaction - I'm not saying I'm proud.

And my favorite message - drumroll in your mind, please - "Will you want to be my friend?".  Now it seems innocuous, but I want to go through my initial thought process and how this all ties up in a big fancy bow. 

First of all, I read that like "Will you be my friend?".  I thought it had to be one of two things.  Either a) this person is a nutjob and is seriously asking someone with an internet dating profile to be his friend or b) he's got a good sense of humor and realizes how awkward this entire process is and thought it would be a cute introduction.  Please believe that I'm aware of how farfetched scenario "b" is, but I'm still a romantic (and sad sap optimist) at heart.

Needless to say, it was clearly option "a".  After scrolling through the profile (which used absolutely NO capital letters) and reading that he wanted a "good woman to move in with".  I was curious enough to flip through pictures...

Let's flashback two years ago.  My best friend and I are feeling stuck and decide to join a bowling league as individuals.  We drag our other friend along and sign up hoping to meet some fun new people.  On the first day, my friend K meets her team.  They're all 20-somethings.  Maybe not perfect, but a fun enough group to enjoy 3 games of bowling one night a week with.  H and I were on the same team, which we weren't initially that excited about.  How could we branch out?  We ended up being thrilled as the two other members of our team consisted of a Middle-Eastern man in his 40's who wore a lot of flannel and carried a beeper and a 20-something bowling aficionado who qualified for the Special Olympics.  Yes...to put it in the worst slurs possible, it was us, a terrorist, and the poster boy for special education.

Back to present, who is the person that wants to be my friend?  Why, it's Mikey from bowling!  The kid who road the short bus and bowled obsessively yet still managed to not be very good.  Yes, there really are mentally challenged people on OKC.  Part of me wants to report him and prevent this from happening, but a bigger part of me feels like he deserves to find someone too.  So for now, just keep watch for Mikey.  If his #1 interest is bowling, I wouldn't recommend responding.

Delayed Response?

So, I'm well aware that I've been pretty lax about posting these past few weeks.  I've been in the midst of a hunt for a condo, and work has started to consume my life (as it will through October 15th).  And it's inexcusable.

In all fairness though, I haven't had any interesting developments lately either.  All of my previous contacts have fallen off the face of the earth.  Which, while I'm disappointed to some extent, I wasn't exactly over the moon about anybody either.

The latest OKC development is that I seem to be on the short list for Indians and men under 5'9".  This has made for some fairly interesting opening messages.  I think one of the worst parts of this is getting a message from someone, being entertained, and then realizing they are 5'6".

I have nothing against short guys...in fact, I think most of them are the nicest and best in bed.  But, I'm 5'9" (minimum) and I would prefer not to be an Amazon in the relationship.  I'm not sure what I can do about it, and I'm certainly not going to be the bitchy girl that writes "you must be this tall to ride this ride" on her profile.  But, I've been dealing with a fair amount of disappointment lately.

As far as the Indian faction, I think I'm going to tone down on the tanning.

I need to resume my message assault too.  I've been so consumed with everything else in my life that this has taken a bit of a backseat.  No one to blame but myself if I can't find someone to do the Halloween couples costume with...