Category: General

My email to the American Red Cross

I’ve been a regular blood donor for about a year.

The Red Cross mailed me a coupon for a free appetizer at “Joe’s Crab Shack” to thank me for volunteering.

My motivation for volunteering is to give back and do something good.

That same motivation also drives me to avoid causing unnecessary suffering to animals and to avoid unnecessary damage to the environment which will hurt the human community. The same community I give my blood to.

The environmental damage is particularly to pertinent to Maryland where over harvesting crabs has done a lot of damage to our environment.

I don’t eat animal products and I try to avoid using non-edible animal products whenever possible.

A card would have made me feel just as appreciated.

Without offending anyone, can I suggest that the Red Cross put thought into more socially responsible appreciation gifts?

I think giving away reusable bags as the Red Cross did was a great example. How about adding reusable, non-plastic, water bottles to that repertoire?

Yours sincerely

But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all,
I didn’t have a penny to pay,
so I got me a pen and a paper and
I made up my own little sign

– “Signs” © 1970 Five Man Electrical Band

I’ve read a lot of rants on the web about online dating, now it is time for me to roll one of my own.

“Rant”, as a word is too strong. “Meh”, is a bit too weak. On the spectrum, my feelings are past the halfway point headed towards “Meh”.

Lets call this an “observation”.

I like to date women in their thirties to mid forties, who don’t have children and who plan to stay that way.

I’ve noticed two patterns that frequently (not always) occur.

1. Such women are married to their careers, do not have time to or are not willing to make time to date.

2. Such women have an enthusiasm for traveling. A lot.

I’m not talking a few long weekends here and there, as well as a nice vacation. I’m talking about being a globe trotting travel bug.

I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with members of the aforementioned demographic that started and ended with the question

“What trips have you taken recently?”

I’ve just got other things going on in my life right now that prevent from wandering the globe. What can I say?

I’m a good looking guy. Intelligent. Funny. Easy to be with. Monogamous. Mostly honest. Decent living. I like to talk and communicate. I like to take care of myself physically and mentally.

These things, my past relationships, my income and my penis size ( I don’t drive a Hummer, just a Civic…. no need to “compensate”. AHEM! ) all seem to come in second.

On the upside, this question is getting asked sooner and sooner, so there is little of my time wasted.

Nothing wrong with knowing what you want.

Oy.

End of observation.

“500 Days Of Summer” is a romantic comedy, sorta, kinda.

The “Summer” in the title refers to the love interest of Tom, an architect by training working as a greeting card author. He meets Summer at work where she gets hired as an assistant to his boss.

The movie is fairly uncreative. I could see bits and pieces of other romantic comedies in this film. Yet, it had one big difference that makes me wish I saw this film when I was in my early twenties.

The star of this movie, the romance, failed.

Tom does indeed fall in love. Summer seems to be having fun too as the movie takes you through the usual scenes of the young, urban and in love frolicking through the big city. Toward the end of the frolicking scenes Summer tells Tom that she isn’t looking for anything serious. They continue the frolicking and begin sleeping with each other shortly afterward.

All seems well, but Summer refuses to call Tom her “boyfriend” insisting that she doesn’t believe in defining relationships.

One day, she disappears from the job and disappears from Tom’s life, devastating him. She reappears months later at the wedding of a common friend from work. They talk for a long time, they dance romantically and she invites him to party only for Tom to discover that she is recently engaged.

Months after that Summer finds Tom sitting in his favorite spot in a park. At last, she is honest. He asks her why she danced with him at the wedding. “Because I wanted to” is her only answer. She goes on to tell him that she learned from him and that she now does believe in love. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in defined relationships, she is married now, aferall, she just wasn’t sure that she was in love with Tom when they were together.

Oh man, where have we heard this bullshit before?

My first encounter with this idea of “not labeling relationships” was with a woman I had a crush on, Beth. Like Summer she didn’t like “labels” or “defined relationships”. Like summer she went on to have a very labeled and defined relationship with a guy she wanted as a boyfriend.

I was talking with a gal pal about this movie. The gal pal told me that she too did not like “labeling relationships” and didn’t believe in the idea of a boyfriend or primary guy in her life. When I reminded her that she recently had a boyfriend with whom she broke up with and an ex-husband she told me that they were “exceptions” and that she still held firm to her beliefs.

Translation?

When a woman tells you that she is not looking for anything serious or that she doesn’t like to “label relationships” what she really means is that you aren’t the right man for her.

She may be bullshitting you because she doesn’t have enough character to tell you flat out or she may be bullshitting you because she is not ready for the good times to end yet.

She also may not be bullshitting you at all. From her view she may be telling you the truth, but she just doesn’t know herself or life that well yet. No insult to anyone, we all find ourselves in spots in our life where we really don’t know what will work for us to make us happy.

I’m chagrined to write that after the lesson Beth taught me so long ago I went on to be made a fool of again. I believed that some people cared for me when they would not call me their boyfriend, citing their unique and erudite philosophy of “not labeling relationships”. I believed that “not looking for anything serious” could change…..courtesy loads of sappy romantic comedies I saw as a child.

Eventually I learned.

I would have liked to have seen this film a long time ago. I may have learned more quickly. I hope many people, especially young guys who are dumb enough to fall for this BS and sensitive enough for it to really hurt, see this movie.

Bottom line:
Exceptions aside, if someone isn’t looking for something serious, nothing serious is going to happen…..with you. If someone will not call you a BF or a GF after a certain amount of time in a relationship it isn’t going to happen. Move on, now.

Many people will let you go on believing something that will cause you pain just to avoid the momentary discomfort of telling you that they aren’t interested in you.