Date to Hate, Date to Mate!

I've been dating since I was 15. Where is he?
-Sex In the City

Seriously. Dating is proving to be a very tiring thing. After my first serious relationship, I went on a blind date spree. At first it was so much fun, whether the guy and I clicked or not -- I would go home either thinking, "This guy is very promising. He'd make a good boyfriend.", or "Oh good, another funny story for my friends' enjoyment." In the beginning of course, I was really hoping each blind date would have relationship potential. However, the odds of meeting a guy I really liked were 1 in 38209384019238418490123. And now, while I haven't given up blind dating completely, I look forward to gross or weird experiences with the men I meet so I can go home and impart bedtime anecdotes to Fifi. Not a very noble or sensible objective, but regardless of what I want to achieve in a date, dating is fun. That's why it has been going on forever, amidst all the jaded men and women (esp women!!!) who have gone through this phase and failed. Because it's really fun! A few friends told me I should publish a book about my blind dates. Maybe I'll do that later. For now, a brief summary of each date is enough.

1. MISTER POGI
A friend phoned me at 4 in the afternoon and said she wanted to set me up on a date at 830 PM with P.A., a bastketball player I'd been stalking since I hit puberty. I was elated, and 3 seconds after our phone conversation, I was frantically searching for what to wear. I was at the coffee shop 30 minutes earlier, and come 8:30, P.A. was nowhere in sight. Shit. Was I stood up? Of course not. Worse. Some guy came up to me and introduced himself as P.A.'s cousin, and said he was my date. Whoever ASSIGNED him to be my date? I was furious, not just because P.A. used his name to get his cousin a date, but also because his cousin was a complete loser. His hiphop attire sent me running outside the coffee shop, but he followed me and said he wanted to have a couple of drinks with me. Trapped. So I took him to this bar where my friends went every night after work. When my friends saw hiphop guy they told me to ditch him then and there. I was trying to be nice to avoid karma, so I listened to him go on and on about how he wanted to be an actor, that he was a runner up of Mister Pogi, and he was P.A.'s best friend. GOD. He had a digital camera with him, and showed me some of P.A.'s pictures. Well, where was that stupid hunk? Why was I sitting with his cousin, who committed grammatical mistakes every other sentence? With the help of some beer (not even half a bottle), I said I had work and stormed out of the bar.

2. THE MASON
A guy from my former work said he had a friend who was a nice guy and needed a date. I happily obliged . . . until I saw him. He was three times thinner than me, had thick glasses, braces, and later on I would find out that he was also had the dullest personality in Metro Manila. HE talked about masonry, because then everyone was reading Da Vinci COde, and I just couldn't stand the fact that he shut me up whenever I made a comment when I was just trying with all my might to be polite. He preached about the principles of masonry with sheer conviction that he looked like he was going to bite my nose if I made one comment that suggested he may be wrong. Well, the stupid part is, he wasn't a member of the Mason, just a fan. I thought it would be best to just let him talk while we were walking heading towards the movie house inside the mall. After all, once the movie would start, he would shut up. And I REALLY made sure he did.

3.OAKLEY NIGHTMARE
I date this guy who worked for Oakley. He was 6 ft flat, had pure Chinese blood but born and raised in the Philippines. He was the complete epitome of rudeness. We went to a restaurant and while I was watching the way he visciously chewed his pork barbecue, I wondered when he would offer food to me. I absolutely didn't eat anything that day because I was looking forward to a sumptuous meal with a gentleman. Well, I had neither. Afterwards we headed to the coffee shop, where he just sat while I bought myself a latte. Oh, he didn't just sit. He took a sip of my latter, which was the grossest thing a man could do on a first date. Well, that was until he brought out his Oakley borchuers and explained to me the technology behind the manufacturing of Oakley sunglasses. I don't remember how we ended our dinner, but he wrapped it up like this: "If you were my girl, I'd take care of you. But if you ever hurt me, I could snap you like a twig." Ok, mofo, no second date for you!

4. THE UNDERWEIGHT BAD BOY
Well, this guy was just 100 lbs flat, and I doubt that his head weighed anything at all. He'd been struggling to graduate from college at 24 years old, liked car racing and was known to collect girls. On our first date he was almost an hour late, and looked really weak. He was sick and was confined the next day. I thought we did not have anything in common and that he was definitely not relationship material. Two months later he became my boyfriend. And four months later I broke up with him.

And this was the point where I asked myself if the problem was with men or me. Oops.

Well, there WERE times when I would go home alone because the guy found me too dark, too giddy, too guly, too whatever, too too too too. And I just went through with that crazy phase, not giving up and not losing my confidence.

Well, now I'm dating again and though I know that sooner or later my dating energy will plateau again, I still go through with it.

Because the last time I did my online research about dating and relationships (yes I do that, got a problem with that?), there is nothing wrong with what I am doing.

Or is there?