Someone is Staring at You in Personal Growth

I believe in personal growth. I really do. As I mentioned before, I am suddenly WAY into beer (see "Salami and Sitar...") Prior to just a few months ago, I never drank beer. Suddenly, I'm madly in love with it.

Same goes for olives..I spent most of my childhood avoiding all olives, wrinkling my nose when they appeared in a salad or on a pizza. I picked them out carefully, leaving a small mountain of wan olive fragments piled on the side of my plate. Now, I crave them. I tasted some lemon-stuffed olives from The Spanish Table while on vacation in Seattle, and I was so utterly taken that I *needed* to buy them. But I had a dilemma--if I bought them, I would have to check my carry-on bag when I returned home to LA. I. Hate. Checking. Bags. But you know what? I did it. Because I HAD to have those olives. (My mouth is actually watering as I am writing this. I think I will take a break to eat some out of the jar in my fridge. Hold on.)

Yu-u-u-u-um.

I'm back. I was tempted to crack open a beer that was conveniently located next to the olives, but since it's not yet 11am, I decided to wait. Anyway, my point is that life is unexpected. Taste is unexpected. What one is drawn to, what one needs, desires, and craves, is prone to change. Pretty obvious, right?

So here's my question: if taste is not fixed, if we accept that our tastes will naturally change and shift in all areas in accordance to our personal growth, why is it sometimes so difficult to date outside our comfort zones? Dating online has posed an interesting set of challenges to (what I like to believe is) my open-mindedness. Online, volume is paramount, and I have frequently felt that quality is...to put it euphemistically, "compromised".

To exert some quality control, I basically divide the guys I meet online into the following categories:

Obviously Douche-y
Undercover Douche-y
and
Pretty Normal

Here are some examples of guys I was "scientifically matched" with:

-A 5'2" dental hygenist riding a miniature horse who listed his teddy bear as one of the things he can't live without
-A seismologist (cool) who listed "below the rim balla" as his profession (not cool)
-A guy who posted no picture but put "Ninja" as his profession :(

On second thought, maybe these guys aren't the best examples of douche-y. Maybe they are just weird. Perhaps better categories would be:

Obviously Weird (Ninja)
Undercover Weird (I'll get to this one momentarily)
and
Pretty Normal

Now, a word on Undercover Weird...I'd like to talk about a man I dated last year. I like to call him "Gay Greg". On paper, Gay Greg was just perfect for me: a jazz musician and teacher, he owned his two-bedroom condo in West LA, near where his sister and her family also resided. He was tall, blonde, and very cute. Truth be told, he only fulfilled 2/3 of my criteria--he was smart, and he was kind, but he wasn't in any way witty or funny. But since he was pretty beautiful, I let that one slide.

When Gay Greg and I started dating, and he called me just to chat pretty much every day. We had long phone conversations about music and Shakespeare. We could talk for hours. In retrospect, that should have been a red flag...I don't know any straight men that love to talk on the phone THAT much. All was well, until date #3 when he peeled off my clothes on his king-sized bed and I, in breathless anticipation, peeled off his...to find...ummm, nada. No action down below. No full salute. No half-salute. No salute at all. I was completely naked for the first time with a man who absolutely loved to talk to me on the phone but who had zero desire to bone me in the flesh.

Needless to say, it ended abruptly (Gay Greg called me to end it shortly thereafter.) So perhaps Gay Greg wasn't actually Undercover Weird, maybe he was just Undercover Gay. And I soldiered on, because you know what? I'm an Undercover Optimist (even after all these tales of woe). I still believe, even after a limp phallus on a cagey jazz musician, that true love is out there.

The bar was set pretty low after Gay Greg. I then dated "My Chi Would Like to Bang Your Sweet Spirit..." (see "Domo Arigato, Mr Gelato") and part of me thinks it went on as long as it did because I was so relieved that he always had a hard-on. It's a real ego boost when the neighbor downstairs is always happy to see you.

I initially thought both Gay Greg and Mr. Chi were both Pretty Normal. But I'm obviously wrong (Mr. Chi is a great example of an Undercover Douche-y guy.) So maybe I need to change my tact? I don't know...but I'll let you know when I find out. In the mean time, I think I'll hit Personal Growth...