I'm thankful...

...that I've never been handed one of these.

I'm curious if any member of the male race (or female, for that matter), has ever ordered this hilarious alternative to business cards. I'm even more curious to know the success rate of these bad boys.

I, for one, would totally be calling, texting and e-mailing Mr. Chad Fulton, stand-up guy. Who knows? I might even get a little crazy and facebook him, even though his card doesn't say to. I like to walk on the wild side, and something tells me Chad does, too.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I just like smiling...smiling's my favorite

I have ventured into the world of online dating.

It's not so bad. No horror stories...yet.

But I have found that a majority of these guys are a tad on the dorky side.

Now, I'm not snobby enough to think I don't have my own dorkish tendencies - I correct spelling and grammatical errors on practically everything I read and I get excited when I see things in Latin (I took it for 5 years in middle/high school and then for 2 semesters in college).

However, these dudes tend to be mildly socially awkward and just a bit too dull for my liking. I need a little wit, sarcasm and friendly banter mixed in.

On Saturday, I went on a second date with a guy who fit this description. He was sweet and I mildly enjoyed our first date, so I thought, What the hell? Maybe he was just nervous on the first date and would come out of his shell for date #2.

...I thought wrong.

As we're standing at the host stand, waiting to be pointed in the direction of a sparkling wine tasting event he turns to me and says, "So...what's your favorite color?"

My initial thought was - I haven't been asked this question since second grade when it was cool to bond over cerulean and red-violet crayons. Then, the mental image of Will Ferrell answering the phone with, "Buddy the Elf, what's your favorite color?" popped into my head and I literally had to bite my tongue and turn my head to keep from laughing in this poor guy's face. Thank God the host came up right then so I didn't actually have to answer that question.

As sweet as this guy was, I just don't think I can stomach any more questions that should only asked by seven-year-olds and elves.

Justa, justa, justa, justa, justa...justa little bit

That Aretha Frankin really knows how to put the female power in a ballad.

I know all my posts are about being single and figuring out my shiz, but this is basically what my life consists of now.

I mentioned previously that I dated an older guy for about a month before he went bat-shit crazy. Well, what I left out was that the first time we went out for drinks the bar was doing a raffle and I won a free trip to Vegas. Woohoo!

However....I ended up leaving the folder detailing my winnings in his car. Homeboy still has said folder. FML.

I still talk to this guy occasionally on Facebook, and made plans to have dinner and drinks with him two weeks ago. I completely forgot that I had plans to attend the High Heel Race (one of my favorite D.C. events) with Just Jack that were set in stone a good two months ahead of time.

So, I cancelled dinner plans, but asked if we could reschedule via text. No response.

A few days later, I sent a Facebook message apologizing and asking again if we could reschedule or if not, that we needed to swap some items still in the other person's posession. (I still have one of his hats.) Still no response.

Today, I saw him on Facebook and sent him a message. We started talking. He said we should still meet for dinner/drinks and exchange each other's posessions.

Good, great, grand, wonderful! Call me selfish, but I just want to go on that free trip to Vegas.

Well...then, this guy started in on the sexual innuendo. Here are some shining examples:

"You know, I haven't had sex since the last time I was with you. I'm all cranky. Can you help?"

and

"Maybe we can just be dinner, drinks and sex buddies once in a while."

Ew, ew and ew. I know I previously had sex with this guy, but that was two months ago and doesn't mean I want to now. It made me feel demeaned, disgusted and worthless.

I tried to be diplomatic about this all (just until that folder was back in my possession), so I said - dinner and drink buddies sound good to me.

Normally diplomacy is a good thing...unless you're dealing with a certifiably crazy person.

First, he got all huffy and short because I wasn't saying what he wanted to hear. Then, when I tried to tell him what he was saying made me uncomfortable, he blamed me and said that I started it all by referring to him as a DILF when we were still hanging out TWO MONTHS AGO. Finally, after trying to understand why he was "confused" and explaning my stance on the situation, he responded with: "Fair enough - this is really going nowhere. Starting to bore me." And signed off.

So after making inappropriate comments and making me feel like a whore, you're going to lose your temper, try to manipulate me into thinking this is somehow my fault and then do the Facebook equivalent of a hang-up?

Real classy/mature/stand-up of you. It's a wonder you're still single at your age.

But here's my question - should I have expected him to talk to me the way he did? Just because I had sex with him when we were hanging out, does that give him the right to make repeated sexual references now and treat me with a complete lack of respect?

I want to say no, but I still can't help feeling that I somehow brought this on myself, and made it okay for him to demoralize me...

Booty Texting Etiquette

I may have mentioned this once or twice, but I had a boyfriend the first two years I was in college, so when I became single right before my junior year, it was basically like sacrificing a lamb to a pack of wolves.

I didn't understand the concept of booty texts - I just figured whenever I heard from a guy, be it 10 p.m. or 2 a.m., it was a good sign. Ha! What a silly 20-year-old I was.

Now that I'm 26 and in the same predicament, I feel like I'm more immune to all the shenanigans guys try to pull.

Case in point:

Guy trying to hit on me at a bar: Are you a model?
Me: You're full of shit.

I've become cynical in a lot of ways. I think any guy that hits on me is just trying to get in my pants - and I'm sure 98% of them are. But those 2% that aren't probably think I'm a bitter bitch.

Even though I've come along way from my doe-eyed college years, I've still got a lot to learn. Guys are sneaky, sneaky bastards.

You see, I started hanging out with this guy from high school recently. He stayed over a few times, and NOTHING ever happened. I was baffled that he never tried to put a move on me. Well, that all changed when he was my date to a friend's wedding. We hooked up and after the wedding, I didn't hear from him much. (He used to text me all the time to see how my day was going, etc.) I just assumed he got what he wanted and I would never hear from him again.

WRONG!

Over the weekend, I got a text from him at 2:20 a.m. that said "Hey are u out?"

[Side note: another guy was in my bed, and he heard my phone go off so he grabbed it for me. I looked it at, said "Oh-booty text" and threw it back on the floor. God knows what was going through that guy's mind. He probably did a little fist pump thinking that he could start booty texting me, too.]

Anyway, when I was going over this scenario with one of my guy friends, he asked if it was a personalized or generic booty text. I had never even thought to analyze one of those to that degree, but he made a valid point. When I told him what it said, he confirmed that was most definitely a send-to-all-potential-hookups-text.

I felt so stupid for not even thinking that five other girls had probably received the exact same text at the exact same time.

What's even stranger is that this guy texted me as if nothing had happened two days later at 7 p.m., asking me what I was up to.

I hate to say it, because I had started to become pretty good friends with this guy, but why bother texting me anymore at all? Wouldn't it be easier to just have a cut and dry split?

Essentially, I think a guy should act one of two ways if he doesn't want anything other than ass from a girl after a one-night stand:

1) Don't contact her - no texts, facebook chats or smoke signals. That way, the girl isn't left second guessing a guy's true intentions.

2) TELL HER all you want is a booty call. In my 26 years, not once has a guy done this. I finally laid it out for a guy when he tried to make excuses for not wanting a relationship. Truth be told, I didn't want one with him, either - I knew all we had in common was under the sheets. Now, we both equally send 2 a.m. texts and it works out fine because neither of us expect it to go further than that.

I think most guys would agree that those two options are easier in the long run than dragging things out unnecessarily or having to break things off with a girl when the relationship gets more serious than they can handle. But, most guys are cowards or assholes, so I don't think things will be changing anytime soon.

Why is hitting the delete button so GD hard?!?!

I have a hard time letting go of things.

I blame this on my mother - she's uber sentimental and can't bring herself to throw away my henious self portrait from fourth grade or the dress I wore to church for Christmas in 1992.

I'm like this with notes, cards and text messages.

I've deleted all but two of The Hoff's texts to me from when we were together. They were the last two he sent me before we broke up.

And the first guy I've really gotten smitten with after The Hoff? I kept all his texts for a good month and a half after we stopped talking. Yesterday, I finally said - enough is enough - this guy isn't worth the storage capacity in my phone and deleted them all. It's an empowering feeling, but sad at the same time.

I'm like this with any sort of note or greeting card, too. I throw every single card I receive into a shopping bag. I just feel like those are things that should be treasured and saved, not tossed aside.

But sometimes I wonder if keeping Valentine's Day cards from my college boyfriend is the healthiest thing in the world. It's not like I read them very often, but the thought of holding onto a chapter of my life that is closed seems a little pathetic.

I think I like to remind myself that I was once treasured enough to receive a "thinking of you" text or a "happy birthday - you mean the world to me" card. I like reading them over and over, and feeling the giddy rush I felt when I first read them. But maybe getting rid of these things is part of the healing process, allowing me to let go a little more of a person who is no longer an everyday part of my life.

I feel like I'm learning a lot from being single. And I need to start letting go of things sooner. These little reminders do nothing but hold me back, and I want to keep moving forward.

So delete button, you and I might soon become fast BFFs.