Category Archives: Coffee meets Bagel

I am not myself these days…

Posted in Coffee meets Bagel, dating, dating hiatus, eharmony, hopeless romantic, Love, new beginnings, okcupid, online dating, Tinder, year of dating fearlessly by

Do you ever feel out of sorts? I mean, for a long time? To the point where you can’t remember who or how you used to be, but something doesn’t quite feel like you’re being you anymore?

I have been angry lately, like snap back at you angry & that is soooooo not me. I’ve actually scared myself with some of my reactions lately. Yesterday I got so mad because the Sun was trying to come out, I was literally bitching out loud in the car & even forced a friend to listen to my rant, c’mon Carlie pull yourself together! But seriously the sun comes out every damn day here, sometimes you want a breather from the warm glow telling you ‘you should be happy, its gorgeous out’ (again!)…I enjoy variety & maybe that’s whats been missing. Being greeted by the cloudy morning, I was energized to go & be outside, enjoying the freshness of the gray moments. Maybe I felt part of that joy fading as the Sun tried to peak through sparking my anger, fists shaking at the sky ‘I’ll get you Sun’ (yes, I’m becoming a crazy lady)…

My anger has been bubbling up these past few days in various situations too. I’ve been very short with people, maybe some deserved my curt responses, but most have probably not ~ I’m sorry. I hear the words coming out of my mouth & it’s like I’m on a 5 second delay watching & hearing myself behave badly without any control! Who am I?! It is kind of liberating saying what I’m thinking & feeling versus putting on my sunny disposition, but usually my sunny disposition is actually me & not an act…lately it feels like an act because its how people expect me to be. Am I really a positive person? Maybe I’m beginning to embrace my inner ‘cranky old bitty’…oh god, I’m too young to be cranky already…

There’s a few areas in my life these days that are up in the air & I think, oh who am I kidding, I KNOW its freaking me out a bit, so I’m hoping this may be accounting for my anger phase. Unknowns, up-in-the-air’s, unstructured life is not my style & this process of learning how to roll with it has been a bit bumpy. At times it feels like I have a lil angel on one shoulder & a lil instigator devil on the other. One reassuring me of what lies ahead, while the other is spouting all these logistical things to freak me out. Argh! So I tune them out binging on House of Cards…not helpful 😉

I’m taking control in one area & trying a new game plan.

I’m always getting a ton of advice on my dating life. Mostly from paired off friends, who look at me with a mix of empathy & pity. Their favorite adage is ‘he’ll come when you least expect it’, or ‘it’ll happen when you’re not looking’.  Yes, this could be true, but I spent the better half of my 30’s just ‘going about life’ with lil to no success, so I decided to take action.  This dive all in, get a dating coach kind of action did bring me dates. It brought me many experiences, some good, some bad, some humorous. There’s been much education in these dating years, but it has also turned me a lil cynical at the moment. I have decided to stop taking an active pursuit in dating. I am going to listen to their advice & not ‘be looking’, but what will be different this time versus my 30’s is that I am taking an active role in living a life I love & enjoy. I haven’t been doing that lately & I certainly wasn’t doing that in my 30’s (even though I thought I kinda was).

Maybe its the ticking over into 40, maybe its the big space of unknowns I’m sitting in, but all I know is that I need to get back in touch with myself for the ultimate goal of loving myself & not finding a partner.  I have done & am familiar with what this work looks like, but when I’ve done it in the past I think I was focusing on the end goal of a partner to share my life with & not truly accepting myself as lovable while single. I get it now. I’m ready to explore.

All the walls have been pulled down today. Freedom is surrounding me! No more okCupid profile! I love my lattes, but no more Coffee Meets Bagels, The Tinder profile is down! Good-bye eHarmony! See ya later Speed Dating! God be with you Christian Mingle!

I am FREEEEEEE & it feels so good! Hmmm, I’m starting to feel less angry…phew, I think the old ‘me’ is on her way back!

xo

Who do you picture me with?

Posted in Coffee meets Bagel, Facebook, First Love at 37, friend fix-ups, hopeless romantic, Love, Marriage Bootcamp, year of dating fearlessly by

I always enjoy when friends offer to introduce me to someone 
they think would be ‘perfect’ for me. I feel it comes with a seal of approval & I will always say “yes, please” if you offer 😉
And here’s why:
One: If you’re my friend, I inherently trust you.
Two: You know me better than most others, & definitely better than a computer algorithm does (hopefully).
Three: You’re looking out for both parties interests, so likelihood of disaster is slimmer than usual.
Four: I love ya for thinking of me & joining the cause 🙂

A fun pastime lately has been finding out what ‘type’ of guy you see me with, because it has proven to be vastly different than the men I’ve been seeing.
Its turned into a fun game to pass over my phone & let my gals do a lil shopping for me on my various dating sites. I love to see who y’all would pick for me.
General consensus seems to be an arty guy, usually dark hair, most choose a hip looking guy, stylish, with a long list of interests.
And I get it, I’ve clicked on, winked, and messaged those guys too…usually feeling they’re a bit out of my league, but what the hell it doesn’t hurt to try, right? 
We could possibly hit it off, right? 
But the thing is I don’t enjoy silence & this is what I’ve gotten from this type. They don’t find me to be their type either…
So I re-calibrated.

When then presented with the current options I’m in conversation with, my friends have given mixed reactions, a lot of hmmmm’s & huh’s, 
but then they start to warm up to them…kinda how I have.
My main ‘draw me in’ feature is kind eyes, I believe a good soul lies behind kind eyes.
I have faith in this.

A friend called recently to say she met a great match for me who lived in my neighborhood, would I be interested?
Yes, please!
(Even though I’ve been on a break from actively pursuing dates online, I figured this warranted coming off the bench & getting back in the game).
She email intro’d us & there it was – his FULL name!
To Google I went! I must learn more about this mystery man!
Since I knew nothing about him there was no way to narrow down which picture was him, what profile on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, you name it-site, was his…so I surrendered & figured I’d learn all about him old-school style, actually from HIM!
But by going in blindly I didn’t know where we stood on the ‘kind eyes’ front…
He emailed me quickly after the intro, short & sweet, dipping a toe in.
I waited a lil bit (not wanting to seem too eager), I tossed out a few questions 
and the banter began.
With each email little nuggets arrived helping to form a picture in my head. I started to look forward to his responses. There were definitely interests he had that were drastically opposite to my lifestyle, but I thought ‘hey, be open! He could show you a whole new fun world’.  So I kept going forward, my friend saw something in him that I might like too. Dating fearlessly! Although I did begin to question his extensive use of emoji’s & LOL’s, was he a 16 year old girl? Nah, he can’t be, I rationalized, my friend wouldn’t play a mean joke like that, would she? Nahhhhh…
After a few days the phone number exchange happened, this is it people, voice-on-voice contact is now a possibility!
Ok, so no voice…text…(16 year old girl? Nahhhhh?). It was early on a Saturday morning, so I ruled out the 16yo girl possibility again.
I responded. Nothing.
A few hours go by. Nothing.
Early afternoon he texts back. He passed out & was just waking up.
My phone beeped again.
His photo appeared.
Oh no. Oh my, no.
A shirtless selfie with bad euro-trash sunglasses – where are your eyes?
Show me your eyes!!!
He was not my type – former or current!

I highly highly doubted I’d be his type too, but just to cinch it I searched for the sweetest, most innocent pic of myself & sent it off, the whole time chanting “please don’t like me, please don’t like me…!!!!”
A funny twist since I was always the girl ‘hoping & hoping’ any guy would like me, and  please love me. Nope, not now. 
I just don’t have the energy to go on another bad date & find a polite way to say “we’re not a match”. 

I never heard back from him 🙂

~~~~~~~~~~~

I got a recommendation last week from my amazing hair gal about a new dating app
& I figured I might as well stay off the bench and continue playing.
Its called “Coffee meets Bagel”
Don’t ask me why.
So each day at noon they send you your daily ‘bagel’. You only get one a day.
And like Tinder, it pulls from your Facebook account.
You only get 24 hours to decide if you ‘like’ him or want to ‘pass’ on him.
With each sequential bagel, you matches will improve as the app deciphers your likes/dislikes.
We’ll see…I’m a week in & only one bagel was worth biting in to.


~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last thought…

Today I spent the day on the set shooting promos for the WeTV series “Marriage Bootcamp”.
I really did not know what to expect from these reality stars, but I fell a lil in love with each of them! 
I saw the love and partnership between each couple that I aspire to experience with my man. They would not have been there unless they had hit a rough patch in their relationship, and from the what I witnessed today those hard times helped create a closeness & bond you cannot share with just anybody.
Every couple’s dynamic was different ~ this is what I observed from the sidelines…
One couple protected each other, they supported each other’s strengths without feeling threatened and spoke up for who ‘they’ were. They were not going to misrepresent their relationship & I admired their integrity to each other and their commitment. Another couple brought out the best in each other & knew when to let the other shine. I witnessed strong personalities sharing space equally. I saw insecurities being calmed. I saw warmth. I saw kind eyes. I saw passion. I saw love.
I fought off tears watching one couple & their connection. 
I am so very tired of being alone & I ache to experience what I saw between them.

I left inspired having seen love alive & in action.