On love + dating.

Look at me going another month without a post. 

My cousin made a quick stop in LA last night on her way from Miami to Hong Kong (it's a hard life), + within three minutes of me picking her up, she asked why I hadn't updated Lacey in the Making in a while.  And let me tell ya girls, I have a lot of LITM-worthy writing to do.  So here goes:

The hardest thing in life for me is to believe in life-long love.  It's not an exaggeration.  I've felt this way since I was a teenager and first began really pondering the concept of love.  I mean, I came from a broken home (I don't have one memory in my life of my parents kissing or embracing), + although I believed I was in love at the times of my past three serious relationships, the last of those two both ended with me in an emotional tailspin because the ex-manfriends were, in the end, complete a-holes.  (If you need proof of this, please read through the posts that began this little secret blog, which detailed the ending of my relationship with NY boyfriend.)

So with that said, + with you all having a grasp on my level of bitterness after The Great Breakup of 2011, I joined an online dating site once I got back here to LA.  I'm aware that it's still considered la lame in some areas to do such a thing, but I did it.  I was trying to convince myself that there was a man out there who was good and funny and strong and all the other fantastic qualities that I have added over the years onto my "He Must Have" list.

So a quick synopsis of the four dates I've ended up going on over the past two months:

Date #1:  I met him at a cute outdoor wine bar in Los Feliz area of LA.  Cool area, cool vibe.  This guy + I had the same birthday (but seven years different), + he seemed confident and cool from our messaging back and forth.  Forty-five minutes into the date, he looked at his phone and said, "Yah, I have to get up at 5 tomorrow for a call with the East Coast."  I hadn't even finished my first glass of wine yet.  So cool as a cucumber, I responded: "Sure, well whenever you need to leave, just let me know."  "Okay," he said, as he began to put his jacket back on.  Me: "Oh.  So that means now?"  And that was that.  He texted me the next day that he was sorry, but that he had been seeing someone else and he wanted to see where it goes.  I didn't believe that story obviously, and would've preferred if he wasn't into me, he just had said that.

Date #2:  Basically the exact same thing as Date #1, but the text message the next morning was more straightforward: that he didn't feel a chemistry, but that he thought I was a really fun and super sweet girl and he'd be interested in friendship.

Date #3:  Tall, dark, + handsome.  Seemed successful.  Seven years older than me.  All was good.  Then between first date and the second date we had planned, he went out of town for the weekend.  And texted me that weekend asking me for a picture for his viewing pleasure.  The whole conversation was suggestive, and I knew what he meant.  I told him that he was barking up the wrong tree and that because his question was weird and made me uncomfortable, I was canceling our second date.

Date #4:  This one takes the absolute cake.  There are way too many ridiculous details on this one, so I'll give you the highlights.

-He brought me flowers.  Very nice.  What was not nice is that before the end of the date, he instructed me to save two of the flowers and hang them upside down so that we would always have a token from the first flowers he ever gave me.

-He kept on about, "You know what I love about how we communicate?" 

-He asked, "So do you intend to take your future husband's name? *cough cough* Strong German names are great...just saying."  (Obviously his surname was German.)

-"I mean, if you don't love babies, we should just stop talking right now." (Ahhhhh)

-"So all these road trips that you take, are you allowed to bring along significant others? So I could call you and say, 'Hey babe, I have a week off, let me come meet you somewhere!'"

-"So you're going out of town next week.  What is your daily schedule?  Because you'll be in another state, I will obviously want to talk to you on the phone."

-"What are you doing for Memorial Day?  My brothers and I always do a camping trip and I want you to come."


So wowza, that's what has been happening lately in the dating realm over here.  And it's all left me wondering where the heck the happy medium is.  Oh, and in case you were wondering, NO, I no longer am participating in the online dating world.  After all those duds, I just need a breather from men in general for a minute.  Yeesh.