Dating: a thing people are forced to do that no ethics committee would allow

[Theda Baratheon]

I was asked out by a fucking nightmare of a horrible customer yesterday who was also about 40 years older than me. I laughed it off but when he said: "I'll be in (pub name) later if you fancy joining me" in a suggestive voice after being a total asshole for quarter of an hour prior, I wanted to tell him "I don't think there is anything that I could POSSIBLY enjoy LESS" (big smile) but I'm lame and I didn't do that. 

[Sis Who Swears]

Noooo! Hot terrible men are the worst! Hot terrible men bearing alcohol and sending mixed signal=even more the worst. Min, you know I want to be you when I grow up, right? Set an example, woman!

Yeah, food today consisted of the worst salad i've ever had at dinner (no, no breakfast or lunch,) at the most overpriced cafe in Africa, a slice of cheese and wine. And now some more wine. It's not, per se, that the food here is bad. Nor, per se, that it's expensive (though it's both,) it's that the ratio of bad/expensive is just ridiculous. I was supposed to be taking out the guy from city hall i'm not-entirely-not-bribing for a nice meal to keep him feeling involved and mollified and generally cooperative, and it was the most frustrating two hours of my life. And it was all in French, which no offense, is just an awful language. Except actually it wasn't that bad, because that's how it goes, and I could be bribing him in actual money instead of in meals, so as these things go this is merely a company being generous with it's per diems to keep things smooth and basically fine, and I got some kind of results, and I had a really exhausting but overall productive day before that and none of my students were threatened with getting arrested and I got all my map points down at last and had the tough talk about people not actually doing the work they were, uh, hired to do and it went ok, I think, so ok.

But! All I can think now is...i'd like to talk to crazy economist dude about it. I'd like to talk to someone about it. I'd like to be back from work and having this glass of wine (soon second glass of wine) not on my own and I'd like some actual human interaction that isn't with someone i'm employing or being employed by, and Crazy Economist is who my mind keeps wandering back to, and it's the worst. I'll tell you why it's the worst - because I've been angry with him and hurt by him and that's all fine. That's great. That's a weird, obsessive complex and I totally get that I would have one of those. (honestly, I keep thinking I use this as a more hygenic alternative to cutting, sometimes,) But this thing where I'm just missing him and thinking, gosh, It would be nice to chat and all that, that's just terrible, and that makes no sense after all this time and all that angry water under the confusing bridge and I don't know what to make of it or how to make it go away. And there's no talking to him. It's not like I can send a text and say hey let's chat, and he'll be there and we'll have some mildly friendly, banal chat for a few minutes and I'll be reminded that really this is just a distant acquaintance from that one time and that's it and move the hell on. Nooooo.....he'll get back to me after ten days saying we should talk in two weeks, then he'll vanish, then i'll get annoyed, then he'll apologize and reschedule, then he'll stand me up again with some explanation about a crisis of academia requiring total devotion of mind, body and soul, that will just make me pity him and want to dig around in what passes for his personality some more, but then I'll get mad at him, and then something weird and damaged and incredibly painful will happen - very slowly - probably with a remarkable economy of actual communication. And that's not worth it. Hence this post instead.

There's lots of people who are actual friends who I should want to talk to more. There are lots of people I haven't seen in a year that I don't want to talk to at all with any kind of urgency, which how I see it as how it should be. So. I'm really unhappy with this here situation.

Ugh do we still have a drunk thread?

(Just so we're clear, i've had half a glass of white wine diluted in a cup of chamomile tea. (you should have seen my French roommate's face when she found out that this is how I consume alcohol.) I just have hilariously low alcohol tolerance.)

Good grief what has happened to me?

This was amazing. 10/10!
Is it wrong that I have a small hope that things won't work out for you so that we can have more awesome posts like this?

[Datepalm]

Oh, wait for it. Nervous breakdown over Christmas. Predictable results. Trying to contain situation but its a long weekend yet.

[Aniel]

Well I've been with my SO in the US for 4 days now, and it feels like an eternity. A good eternity. There was a lot of drama surrounding going to visit his dad's side of the family on Christmas Day, but it went off without a hitch. They had good ham. SO probably won't ever have to see them or his dad for Christmas ever again, so yay! We watched the new star wars the day before Christmas Eve and everyone liked it, but the SO keeps nitpicking stuff like "the lasers are supposed to be green!" (or was it red?) and overall complaining about any small change to existing models of ships.

Now I have a fever and am being forcefed medicine and denied kisses but I had the most amazingly accurate apple-flavoured drink yesterday Snapple).

[Datepalm]

Sigh. Some more. Breakdown over Christmas - look, I was alone on Christmas eve. Ok, now, I don't actually celebrate Christmas, but we live in a globalized, western-dominated, christian-centric world that has dripped away an insidious hollywood-driven idea of being alone on Christmas eve as a catastrophic social failure, and also I was exhausted and looking at a really long weekend and at one point the power went out (and the church across the street, and the one down the block, and the third one in the other direction, would not shut up,) because everyone I got to know around here is away for the holiday or were at company parties I couldn't attend or were sick with their boyfriend who got malaria. What-ever - all led to a number of calls (omg there are so many ways of calling a person these days. It should take a steamer a month to deliver a letter up the fucking Congo to arrive damp and ravaged by cannibals, Heart of Darkness style. Nope, can just facebook call.) and then the internet bailed on me.

Then I decided the one thing I was not was a coward, reminded myself that fucking an Arab guy is a classic bucket list thing for any self respecting Jerusalem lefty, and I might as well take up my very, very hot, blue-eyed Lebanese neighbour's ("Him? He's trouble. Don't.") invite to come over any time. (Crushing anti-climax after all that - half an hour of mutually exhausted work talk and a - seriously - juice box. Nice juice, but still. Box.)(And an offer to come use the shower the next time the water/power/etc is out.)(idek.) Which helped. But by then it was too late, the internet had mysteriously synched, calls had gone out, it was done.

Which all led to a perfectly friendly, mildly solicitous, banally collegiate bit of back and forth chitchat today (with Crazy Economist bloke,) until he vanished mid-conversation just as it began to get a bit serious (ie, edging towards the question of WHY, exactly, I had called him about nine times two days ago,) right after he said he wasn't vanishing and it totally wasn't getting too personal for him, of course not. Bleak conclusions:

1. I'm going bowling

2. I need to buy food, because I have nothing but a bar of chocolate and a slice of feta cheese which has been in a fridge with very intermittent power for two weeks and I suddenly realized the last thing I ate was yesterday. And I failed at making coffee. Probably because the milk has been in the same fridge, and just as long.

3. I should not have left an oh-so-casual final text inquiring wittily whether he really wanted to keep in touch or not. Which has gone viewed but unresponded to. Damn. You. Facebook Messenger and your bobbly head bouncy icons. Congo River crocodiles, is all i'm saying.(Also, the guy doesn't understand witticisms, (along with irony, sarcasm, deprecation and some forms of metaphor,) so what was I even going for?)

4. Banality does not seem to be helping.

Well, that was your update from what will eventually be a semi fictionalized memoir titled something like "Heart of Stupidity: Boys and Buses in Lubumbashi." I imagine.

Seriously, I'm going bowling now.

[The guy from the Vale]

Have fun bowling!

And while I can't support SWS' position of hoping for misery for you (quite the opposite!), it's still a cathartic pleasure to read your comments, if only to see I'm not alone in this madness.

[koudoulis]

I remember the days you had problems in the building with fondness...

Oh datepalm you produce exquisitly iconographic text when you are distressed. 

Btw, things are going to get more complicate before they become simpler, it doesnt help i know...

[Datepalm]

I do desperately miss only caring about plants, tis true.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

Bowling is a great idea DP. I haven't been in years.  

[Arkhangel]

Tried that 36 Questions to Fall in Love thing on a first date last night. I don't know about love, but I think it would definitely be interesting to do with someone you already had history with or were really into.  What I learned about my date, on the other hand, was that he is emotionally unavailable, has a distant relationship with his mother and the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to him was that one time he came home from a ski trip and his favourite website was down. I am not kidding.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

Tried that 36 Questions to Fall in Love thing on a first date last night. I don't know about love, but I think it would definitely be interesting to do with someone you already had history with or were really into.  What I learned about my date, on the other hand, was that he is emotionally unavailable, has a distant relationship with his mother and the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to him was that one time he came home from a ski trip and his favourite website was down. I am not kidding.

I don't really date strangers so it would be hard for me to try it with someone I don't really know but I would be curious about what would happen if I did it with someone I have history with.

[Pro Augustis]

[T]he most traumatic thing that has ever happened to him was that one time he came home from a ski trip and his favourite website was down. I am not kidding.

Keep this one close. He apparently lives a blessed life, and perhaps you too may be spared from tragedy if you are with him. Though by his side also sounds like a rather boring place to be, so maybe not worth it... 

[Arkhangel]

Er, in case it wasn't clear enough, there will be no second date. Emotionally distant and self-involved is not my type.

[Red Tiger]

Not sure why having a distant relationship with you rmom is atuomatically bad, but I can see why the other 2 are problematic.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

Why is having a distant relationship with your mom a bad thing?

I guess people feel if you're distant from your mother you'll be distant from them as well.  

[Red Tiger]

I guess people feel if you're distant from your mother you'll be distant from them as well.  

How do you feel about this question?

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

How do you feel about this question?

It isn't necessarily a dealbreaker for me. Some people are distant by nature, some people might have a mother who is distant so it isn't their fault  and some people might have a shitty  mother. It is kind of hard to tell.

[Red Tiger]

It isn't necessarily a dealbreaker for me. Some people are distant by nature, some people might have a mother who is distant so it isn't their fault  and some people might have a shitty  mother. It is kind of hard to tell.

Cool, same for me.

[Melphis Amekia]

It isn't necessarily a dealbreaker for me. Some people are distant by nature, some people might have a mother who is distant so it isn't their fault  and some people might have a shitty  mother. It is kind of hard to tell.

Yeah, basically what you said. I am more than distant with my mother - so much so that I don't see her at all for long periods on time though we live in the same house(just not the same floor, thankfully) or talk to her unless I have to or anything and my reasons for that are so solid rockets wouldn't budge that construction an inch.

It just seems really weird to me that something like that would be a dealbreaker.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

So I'm going for dinner and drinks with a friend tonight. We've been trying to set this up for awhile and since her children are with their dad tonight we can finally do it.