YOHT – You Only Harvard Twice

I made this decision not to blog about dating while I was dating because I felt I would jinx everything. I’m kind of wishing I did make this a series, because it really does suck to only have 1 post about it. Oh well, here goes…

A guy started messaging me on OkCupid and he seemed nice and normal. No red flags.

For our first date, he wanted to meet at a nice bar for cocktails. I wasn’t terribly excited about this date, I even said so as I was leaving, but I knew I should go anyway.

I went to meet him, and unknowingly, on my walk there, he walked in front of me. I recognized him from the photos and… my heart sank. I thought “this guy? This is not going to work.” He had a bit of a slouch, and was dressed a little drab… so I called my best friend and her husband picked up. I explained the situation and him “what do I do!?” He said “you’re in NYC, do whatever you want, stand him up!” I couldn’t bring myself to do it, he was already at the bar. So her husband said that I could text him to give me the “emergency call” to escape.

Well, the date went surprisingly well. It turns out that I liked him – a lot. He was easy to talk to, we had some good laughs, good drinks. He told me that he’d like to see me again, and we went our separate ways.

We planned our second date and ended up at a nice whisky bar. We had a bunch of different tastes and chatted. We were talking about how he had moved to Brooklyn and now lived alone, but he had lived in Gramercy with a roommate – actually quite close to me – and we talked about how he made his big move to Brooklyn. He said, in typical guy fashion, that he told his roommate that he was moving to Brooklyn and that was that. But, him and his roommate were still very good friends. I asked him how he met his roommate… and…

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with this, but have you ever noticed that anyone who has gone to Harvard has to drop the H bomb within the first hour of meeting you? Well, I knew that this guy had gone to Harvard from the first date.

The guy said “I met my roommate at Harvard.”

Then a light bulb went off in my head.

I go “Did you live on 23rd and 2nd?”

He goes “yes?”

I go “Did you live on the northwest corner of 23rd and 2nd? in the tall building?”

He goes “yes…?”

I asked him what his roommates name was…

As soon as he said his roommates name, a wave of absolute DREAD came over me. I actually turned away from him and had a reaction.

Remember the unlikely playboy “Harvard Harvard”?

He first appeared in my life here and then briefly re-appeared here and here?

Well, life has a funny way of bringing people back into my life that I do not want to see.

This guy had been roommates with – OF ALL PEOPLE – “Harvard Harvard” – and I had actually MET this guy before. In his own damn apartment!

So from here I had nicknamed this guy “Harvard Two.”

So two years prior, I had dated “Harvard Two’s” roommate… “Harvard Harvard.” Seriously. Have I dated SO MANY PEOPLE in New York that I now had to date the roommates of people I had dated previously?

Or wait, was “Harvard Harvard” sending his roommate after me… after the 2 other times he had managed to reappear in my life? AND two years later!?

Well, we managed to get past the roommate thing quickly. We dated for a little over two months, but Harvard Two drove me a bit crazy – he was a TERRIBLE texter, and relied on me for keeping the conversation going. He was also not so great… in the sack. But I liked him, and he was sweet and nice. I should’ve known that sweet and nice does not a relationship make.

Unfortunately, without a “fuck yeah!” feeling nor him ever “defining the relationship” it fell apart quickly. By the holidays, I was already upset that he wasn’t texting me… and I actually thought he had ghosted out on me when he didn’t text me for 6 days.

He did text me and I wondered “ok, so if he wasn’t into me… he wouldn’t text me right? but… that was incredibly annoying… he DIDN’T TEXT ME FOR 6 DAYS!”

We set a date to meet the Friday after New Year’s… and when I texted him on Friday to see if he was still free he sent me the following message:

“Hey, I’ve had some time to think, I like you and have had fun, but don’t really feel like I see this going anywhere. I don’t want to lead you on, and hope there’s no hard feelings”

(Terrible run on for a guy who writes for a living…)

Do you recognize this message?

It’s very similar to the much longer message that “Harvard Harvard” or as I refer to him now “Original Harvard” wrote two years ago.

How did I respond?

“Cool. See you around then.”

It’s weird to feel tremendous relief after being dumped, but I was not feeling this guy. I guess I was “cuffing” him for the cold winter, but terrible idea. I’m over it.

At least for now – I will not be dating any more Harvard men. I actually went to Boston this past weekend and vistied Harvard and ran around kicking things (gently, Harvard is old).

FOOL ME ONCE, SHAME ON YOU. FOOL ME TWICE, SHAME ON ME.

So YOHT – You Only Harvard Twice. (or really thrice in this case… Harvard Harvard and… Harvard).

Love,
Anon.

Paging Dr. Late Night – The Conclusion (!?)

After a very determined moment to eradicate Dr. Late Night from my life, he messages me on Sunday Night – at 11:03pm. Living up to his name. Just “hi” but the time stamp said enough for me.

I spent the whole next day ignoring him until I received another “hi” around 6pm while grocery shopping.

Livid, I decided to respond, but I was pleasantly surprised with the results. See below.

I guess sometimes these situations CAN be resolved admirably as adults. We aren’t right for each other right now. I got to call him out, be cool about it, and kind of hope he’s a little dinged by the loss of me.

We’ll see if it’s the end of Dr. Late Night… Update in October then!

True Love, Lost

A few years ago I worked at a small start up and there was a man whose story would really touch me. This past weekend I went to his memorial service and met some of his friends, family, and his wife. The service made me realize how little you may know about your co-workers because you either don’t spend time with them, talk to them, or only keep superficial conversations.

The story of how he fell in love with his wife and the enduring love they had for each other was ultimately heartbreaking as he passed away at the tender age of 32.

The story that sticks out most in my mind is of when they had first began dating. To keep it simple, J will be the wife and M will be the husband.

J and M had just moved in together and were very fresh out of college. At their first jobs with little savings, they lived frugally.

During Thanksgiving, J wanted to go home but could not afford a plane ticket and was down about it.

One morning, J came out of the bedroom to find a stack of 52 neatly cut up barcodes from Wendy’s drink cups.

Well, M, sensing how important it was for J to go visit her family for the holiday, had gone out in the middle of the night to Wendy’s and combed through the trash to painstakingly clean and cut the barcodes off the cups. You see, Wendy’s and US Airways was running a promotion at the time. If you collected 26 bar codes, you could get a plane ticket to anywhere in the US.

Needless to say, J and M went home for the holidays.

The story really touched me as a testament to true love and is why I won’t settle for anything less.

We’ll miss you M, and take care of J for you!

(500) Days of Me and A New Chapter

500 days after first meeting ECW, I decided to end things. Only, I didn’t tell him I was ending things. In reality, I just decided to stop messaging him and responding to him.

Why?

It was time, but really, I met someone else.

I realized I was abusing myself by letting my silly friends with benefits fling go on. It wasn’t benefiting anyone.

Who is this someone else? Well, he isn’t mine. Yet. Well, I’d like that yet to happen. But this man, who I’ll refer to as DC, because that’s where he lives, reminded me that I deserved better. He reminded me what it was like to have someone talk to you and want to talk to you. To want to get to know you and not attempt to get into my pants every moment.

He says good morning and good night and lets me know that he is thinking of me. He remembers what I like and compliments me when he gets a chance.

I can talk to him without having to think too much about what I say because I know he will laugh and enjoy it, even the stupid or the snobby.

He tells me about himself and I listen. I want to know and I am interested.

I regret not letting him know more about how I felt when I met him. I was still a bit hung up over ECW. But I am glad I will get a second chance, but worried it may go completely wrong.

I worry about timing. I met him in another city, where there may have been magic that is now lost. I worry he may meet someone else or may not feel the same anymore. I worry he did not feel the same at all.

I miss him terribly when we don’t talk. I barely know him but I feel like I’ve known him forever.

I think about him all the time, but feel comforted and not insane when we aren’t talking.

I miss him and can’t wait to see him again.

Vacant Girlfriend Position for the unlikely playboy – “Harvard Harvard”

I had a lot of great one liners for this one, but he took me for a bit of a spin because I was a little bit shocked when it came to an abrupt halt.

I had matched with him on Coffee Meets Bagel. The first guy that I had matched and spoken to in fact.

We set up our first date to go to Basta Pasta – which actually, now looking back at it, dinner dates for first dates are never a good idea. You really have no opportunity for an out.

Luckily, it turned out fine. He was a bit nerdy but we had quite a bit in common. The big red flag – with all Harvard men I’ve found – is when they drop the H-bomb early on. Not only did this one go to Harvard once, but he went to Harvard twice (undergrad and masters).

Well, we went on a few great dates, he even made me a copy of Jiro Dreams of Sushi. We walked around, we talked, I met his roommate briefly and managed to dig up zero dirt. Oh well.

Eventually we ended up on date #4.

Well, things were very off on date #4, but I am pretty good at reading the signs now: he was on the outs.

Soon thereafter I received an email – yes, AN EMAIL – from him that was a long paragraph and written slightly like a job opening rejection email. See below:

I wanted to apologize for things being a little off on Tuesday. I was hesitant to be too close cause I was actually very unsure of how I was feeling about us. I’ve had some time to think about it since then, and when it comes down to it, I just don’t feel like we are the match i’m looking for right now. While there are lots of things that do mesh well and feel comfortable, i feel like part of our interactions feels a bit forced, which doesn’t really line up with the type of relationship i’m looking for. Ultimately, with these thoughts and schedule, I didn’t want to mislead you going forward. I’m sorry if i’ve disappointed you, but I think this is best right now.

I AGONIZED over what to write back.

I got the awesome advice to just not give him the time of day, so finally I went with:

“Cool. See you around then.”

Really though, let’s not see you around.

Later after some thought, I realized that I was duped! The whole situation with Harvard Harvard felt like I was interviewing for a vacant girlfriend position. He had an idea of the right candidate and this whole dating thing has little authenticity. It was just a formal interview process over time and I had gotten to round 4 before receiving a form-like rejection letter for the role…

Really? Yes, really.

Gotta watch out for those guys who sound like they have a script of conversation…

Love,
Anon