If only I had superhero powers...

My friend Surfer Girl claims to have the amazing ability to instajudge a person's character. I wish I had that superhero-like quality; it would have saved me a lot of heartache over the years. If only there were a laser, similar to the infrared thermometer Leif Ericson purchased recently, that you could aim at a person's forehead and get a reading from: "A good egg," "The Antichrist in disguise," or maybe "Meh -- nice enough but boring as hell."

Even though I've always been skeptical of SG's claim, I was curious to hear her take on Leif Ericson after meeting him yesterday. He arrived at the tail end of my craft fair, and was confronted with three of my good friends. This was an intimidating scenario, and the intimidation was probably compounded by the fact that I had asked him a couple of days before why he had been so quiet when he met my friend M last weekend. (The answer: a wacky brownie had taken its toll.)

Leif was friendly, affectionate toward me, and generous toward my friends, buying everyone a cold drink even after they declined his offer. He helped me pack up my wares and offered to buy everything at double the price when I told him I was disappointed by my sales.

Nonetheless, my overprotective friends expressed some doubts. "I wonder what he's going to be doing while he's on vacation in Asia in August," said one skeptically, hinting with her tone that there could easily be inappropriate behavior planned during his Asian jaunt. (The answer: he'll be spending every waking moment with his mom. They're even sharing a tent.) "I'm not sure if he's genuine," said someone else. And from Surfer Girl: "I couldn't get a read on if he's a really kind person. And if he's the right match for you."

She hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what I've been trying to get a read on, too. And unfortunately, since I don't have an infrared personality gauge, the only way I know to get a read on those questions is by spending lots of time with him, observing how he behaves in different situations, and thinking about it. Here are a few of my observations:

• He is incapable of passing a piece of trash in the street without picking it up. A stroll down a city street or through a park usually ends with both our arms full of empty beer bottles and soda cans. We almost tumbled into the river the other day going after a few pieces of plastic that we spotted from afar. I can't think of anyone else who I'd think to describe as "a good citizen," but Leif undoubtedly is one. 
• He's generous. When I mentioned that my cousin-cousin (the term my sister and I invented for the cousin of our cousins) who is in town from Paris is interested in going for a sail, he immediately offered to take us. 
• He wants to include me in his life. He has introduced me to lots of his friends, who I like a lot. 
• He wants to make an effort with my friends, too. 
• He likes me. He texts me or emails me every day and is always affectionate toward me, whether we're alone, with his friends, or with mine. (Remember when him not being in touch enough was an issue?? Not anymore.)
• He wants to be helpful to me. He gave me plants for the hanging planters I've been making recently and offered to come to camp to talk to my students about electricity. 
• He's smart and has a wide variety of interests, from horticulture to sailing to animals. 
• I feel really comfortable with him. I slept like a rock until 10:30 in the morning the other day at his house. 

It's been a month and a half now and ten dates, more than I've had with anyone since Dreamy. I'm still far from feeling sure about him. Sometimes the process of getting to know him can be stressful, because the reality is I don't know how it will turn out. But all I can do is keep spending time with him until I do feel sure, one way or the other. 

Heathenisha

I have an alter ego on the Internet. Her name is Heathenisha.

Back when I was dating Dreamy, I still needed to maintain a presence on OkCupid to keep up with my friends' dates, check out profiles of guys they were going out with, recommend people for them in moments when they were feeling frustrated, etc. So, I created Heathenisha, a totally blank profile with my age, relationship status, astrological sign, etc. (Her name's not really Heathenisha. That's right, my fake profile has a fake blog name.)

Over time, I shared Heathenisha's username and password with friends. It started with Slinky, who by the time I was back on OkC was off, so I needed her to check out my dates. Next came Surfer Girl; we'd look up guys on our iPhones whose profiles we'd already looked at so many times we didn't want to seem like stalkers. Eventually, I gave her info to my entire dating support group.

Shortly thereafter, Heathenisha's personality started to take shape. Men are attracted to women who like red, and boy, does Heathenisha like red. She loves Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer, as well as Little Red Riding Hood and Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir. She wears a lot of rubies, and usually steers clear of pink but is considering moving in that direction. She's a cat lady, and until the staff robots at OkC flagged and removed it, there was a lovely photo of a cat as her profile pic. She's tall and full-figured. Sorry, men whose favorite color is blue: she's not interested.

As to the men who are interested in Heathenisha, there are a surprising number. (My co-worker C complains that Heathenisha gets more messages than she does.) One came from a promising suitor living in England whose username was bored_hubby (sexy!). Another recent epistle started out, "You haven't been contacted in over a week!? I find that hard to believe. RED!" As I was writing this blog post, another one came in: "I've always wanted to date a 7'5" woman who keeps halal... it's been so hard to find her!" Who knew.

Over the past week, as I've been on hidatus, I've logged on to Heathenisha's profile a couple of times to search for matches for when I go off hidatus. Let me tell you, if you ever want to feel pessimistic about dating, use Heathenisha to look for matches. It's bleak who OkC thinks she should go out with. Unattractive, overweight sports fans who drink beer on their Friday nights, are unemployed and live in the 'burbs. OkC really doesn't seem to have a high opinion of Heathenisha's potential to attract men.

Apparently, no one's told the staff robots at OkCupid that all men really want is a woman who loves the color red.

Ex boyfriend amnesty

Under the influence of my friend Surfer Girl, whose expressiveness I admire, I declared ex boyfriend amnesty last week (for all exes except La Moustache, who is unpardonable). I added Dreamy back in as a friend on Facebook, thereby rendering him very happy, and agreed to see him for lunch this weekend. I accepted Le Canadien as a friend after 6 months or so in my Facebook purgatory because sure, he was a jerk -- he left halfway through a date, never called and turned out to have a girlfriend -- but at least he was obvious about being a jerk, and in the end I may have used him as much as he used me. I called up l'Artista and listened to him talk and talk without really saying anything, and thought about how good he is at listening to me and understanding me so naturally and how very much I love him, as though he were part of my family, and how utterly unsuitable he is as a mate. And when my end-of-college crush popped up on Facebook the other day -- the one who I invited to visit me in New York, telling him I had plenty of space for guests, and who then offered to two (female) friends of his that they could crash with me -- I added him as a friend. Nice how Facebook allows us to reach out without involving any actual communication.

Surfer Girl is outgoing and emotive and has no filters whatsoever, and I admire her ability to reflect on what's happened to her, be open and tell people what she thinks of them, and then move on. (She's also one of three -- 3!!! -- of my close friends who have recently fallen in love; I'm SO happy for all of them, and also wish they could've spaced it out a bit.) Being forgiving doesn't come particularly easy to me, and I'd like to be more so. I'm also still feeling bad about Monkeyboy, and beginning to realize that perhaps I need to be a bit more forgiving toward myself about him. I've been berating myself for feeling bad and wondering why it's taken so long (way longer than it took to feel better after the end of my year-long relationship with Dreamy), but maybe giving myself some space to feel bad is what I need. I re-joined OkCupid before Monkeyboy had finished his drive home after breaking up with me, and forced myself to immediately start dating. The boys I've been going out with are cute and smart, and seem to like me and want to kiss me. And all I can think about is how very much I don't want to kiss them and how much more I liked Monkeyboy.

So I'm going on hidatus -- my first. I'm taking a couple of weeks off of Internet dating, and seeing how I feel. I'm not sure what will happen with the crop of cute boys I've been working on cultivating; I may continue to go out with them, just to make absolutely sure I'm not interested, although I'm not excited about the prospect of having to kiss them more just to be certain I don't enjoy it. What I'm focusing most on the at the moment is being kind and forgiving toward myself. And what the hell, a little bit toward my ex boyfriends, too.

Rejection

So far during this round of dating, I feel good about my stats. Until last Monday, I had gone out on ten dates with four guys, all of whose company I enjoyed, and all of whom wanted to go on second dates with me. It didn't work out with any of them (mostly because the only one I was really interested in was Doctor O), but still, I enjoyed most of the dates and felt like they were a worthwhile use of my time.

On Monday, though, the inevitable happened: I went out with a guy who wasn't into me. After four enthusiastic suitors, it came as a bit of a shock, and it took me a while to clue in to his disinterestedness. At the end of the date, though, it became crystal clear. We walked out of the bar, I turned to my date and started to say, "That was fun!"

He interrupted me when "fun!" was halfway out of my mouth. "Nice meeting you. Good night," he said, turned, and walked away.

I was hurt and a bit horrified by his rudeness. I've gone out with many guys I'm not into, but I'm always polite to them and pretend like I had a good time -- mostly because usually I did have a good time, I just knew I didn't want to see them again. My strategy in this situation is to pretend I'm into them, then when they contact me I send them a polite breakup email (composed by my sister, Ms. Swamp) that goes something like this:

It was great to meet you the other day. You seem like a smart, thoughtful, outdoorsy guy, and a great teacher. I didn't, however, really feel a spark, whatever that means -- the more I do this, the more I trust my gut instinct on this stuff. I don't want to keep taking up your time if I don't feel that potential, but good luck with everything.

They usually take it very well, and I feel that this approach makes the situation as pleasant as possible for everyone involved. In fact, I half considered letting my Monday date know that the experience of going out with him was unpleasant for me, and suggesting he take an approach closer to mine.

On the same night as my date, my friend Surfer Girl went out on a first date, too. She texted me afterwards: "My date was awesome!!! How was yours?"

Unfortunately, it turned out that her date was, in fact, adopting my approach. He wasn't into her either, but while he was with her he pretended to be. By the end of the week, Surfer Girl was obsessively checking her email every five minutes and questioning what she had done wrong.

Hearing Surfer Girl's sad tale, which so many of us have experienced at one point or another, made me wonder if my date's approach wasn't so bad after all. I wasn't that into him, so in this case I wouldn't have minded in the least not hearing from him. But if I had been into him, I would have found out right away that the feeling wasn't reciprocated, and avoided those torturous days of waiting.

In any case, I'm pretty sure I don't have the cojones to reject someone to their face, so I'm going to stick with my approach. Which reminds me, I need to send the breakup email to my date from last weekend.