Dating Chronicles: That Don't Impress Me Much

Are you single? Are you in the age bracket of 35 - 45 where most of the singles are divorced? Are you dating? Are you picky? Are you discovering why all of these people are single? Me too! I’m not excluding myself from this… I know I’m a handful and it’s going to take a special kind of special to handle me… #facts - But I’m really getting tired of all my dates ending and the first thing I want to do is call my bestie and say “Girl, lemme tell ya about this one”. 

What a roller coaster ride this has been. I have to admit though, it is making for some great blogging material. A friend suggested to me that maybe I am self sabotaging all my dates so I can keep the stories coming. Haha! This could be a subconscious thing - I’m looking into it! However, I am still opposed to dating apps and I have almost decided to stop dating period. I’m just tired of the disappointment. My sister stands by her statement - “Amy, you are too picky”. This may be true, but I think this go round I deserve to be picky and I’d rather be with myself than just settling for the sake of settling. This brings me to my most recent story (not the most recent date). Let me introduce you to Mr. I’m Awesome.

Let me start with… I  didn’t want to go out with this guy. Nothing about him seemed attractive to me, except that he claimed to be a man of faith. I did the whole difference of faith thing… it rarely works out… so if ya wanna date me, you need to love Jesus. Anyway… we have several mutual friends so I asked around about him. Everyone gave him glowing reviews and said I should absolutely go out with him… at least meet him for coffee. So I hung my head in defeat… and agreed to go to lunch. These so called friends have since received a “what in the world were you thinking” text and a … you don’t know me at all phone call. 

I took some time to prepare myself for lunch. I prayed… sincerely… Lord, open my eyes and my heart and help me to not be so judgy. Even though this man looks old enough to be my dad and his social media profile looks like an ad for Tinder, he’s your child, you love him and I’ve been assured he would be respectful. Help me to be nice. Amen. - Since this guy is a man of God I knew that if we didn’t have anything else to talk about we could always talk about our coming to Jesus moments, our churches or our favorite scriptures… enough to get us through lunch. Well, I had no reason to worry about this because the man did not shut up for 2 solid hours. The entire time we were there he talked about himself and how incredible he thinks he is. I nodded so much and said “Mmmmhmmm” that my neck actually hurt. I feel like our lunch date was him trying to convince me to buy life insurance and he was the insurance.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m all about transparency and sharing but if you feel the need to toot your own horn because you are so insecure that you are afraid the person you are with isn’t going to see how awesome you are without you verbally telling them, then we have a problem. He told me everything from how much of a player he used to be to how now he turns down women left and right. (This explains the Tinder like pics.) He said, “Just because I can be that guy doesn’t mean I should be that guy.”  I went into full on actress mode and pretended I was doing a very serious scene from a movie I shot a few years ago… I had to… if not I would have busted out laughing right in his face. I know… I know… I’m awful. 

He told me about how handsome he was back in the day and even though he’s older now he still doesn’t get any complaints. (Well, not to your face.) He even shared a nickname with me that he says his friends gave him - I think this was supposed to impress me… but it made me vomit in my mouth a little bit. I’ve got a nickname for him - but I’m still trying to hide his identity… because I’m nice and just because I can be that woman doesn’t mean I should be… bahahahaha (insert eye roll). I know how much money he makes (if it’s true), every single accomplishment he’s ever made including winning the 3rd grade Spelling B and that time he outran the cops (before he met Jesus). I won't share his full resume... but he sure did. (yawn) 

I am still shaking my head at how much this guy talked about himself. Seriously… that doesn’t impress me at all. If I want to know something, I’m going to ask, and if I don’t ask… I don’t care.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m all about sharing an accomplishment or two, that you are proud of and then leaving the conversation open for the other person to comment, ask questions or share their own “proud” moment… but to jump from one thing to the next like you are checking off a list to tell me how great you are and why you are such a good catch and why I should go out with you again is not going to get you anywhere. It definitely did not get this man a second date.

There is a big difference between being confident and being cocky. Confidence is sexy… Cocky is not. Cocky is a huge turn off and actually screams “I am insecure and I need constant validation.”  I don’t have time to validate anyone, I’m not going to sit there and agree with you on every single compliment you give yourself and I am certainly not going to waste another minute with you. 

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