I have gone CRAZY!

I often like to make fun of my brother Ron for his complete lack of communication skills. The best story of this is when I called him early in January 2005. He had moved to North Carolina and I wanted to know what he was up to. While we were talking I heard a baby crying in the background. I asked him what the sound was? He said just a moment and he put a woman on the phone. The woman was Gigi. He had been Internet dating her for the past year and she lived in Hong Kong. He had talked a little bit about her in the past and she even had sent him a cell phone from Hong Kong in which he could call her at no charge to him. I assure you Lou and I found this to be extremely amusing and we often referred to it as the "Hong Kong Cell Phone".

The story was that he married Gigi the prior spring, she got pregnant and moved to the US to be with Ron. Ron never told us that he got married or was expecting a baby. Not even when he came to Indiana twice in June of the year to see my mom while she was sick and then to come to her funeral.

So I have decided to not act like Ron and tell you a story of something happening in my life. I don't normally share things this personal...I hope it doesn't backfire on me.

I had a large quantity of time on my hands the long weekend of Thanksgiving and I decided to create a profile on match.com. I was very nervous about this and also decided to be very passive. I was reluctant to contact anyone so I just posted my profile and waited to see if anything happened and then tried to put it out of my mind. Honestly, I never thought anything would happen.

On Sunday I get an email from match saying I have a message waiting for me. I was a little scared but I opened it up. It was from a guy saying I looked like a person with whom he could have a good conversation with. I was stunned and I didn't quite know what to do. I think I wore out some carpet walking around the living room thinking. I am sure that there was steam coming out of my head. I think it took me about three hours to get the courage to write something back. When I finally decided to write something...I seemed to have developed a form of writers block. I just couldn't think about what to say. I felt like anything I did write would sound incredibly stupid. Twenty minutes later I finally created a short three sentence response and hit send. It was done!

Early Monday evening I get a response that he would like to talk to me on the phone and he included his phone number. I was completely freaked out. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to build up the courage to actually call. Rather than calling I decided to go to bed at 9pm and go to sleep. I think that it was the only way I was able to deal with it, and allow my brain some additional calm processing time.

I got up at 5am on Tuesday and checked my email and there was a second message waiting from him wanting to know if I got his first message from yesterday. I responded yes...and that I would try to call that night after work. It was 5am and I still had all day to think about it. I tried to work...but honestly I am not sure if I put in very much effort. I was completely distracted all day. I get home about 5:30pm and then proceed to procrastinate because I was so completely nervous. I walked back and forth in the kitchen trying to find things to do. I ate dinner, cleaned up from dinner, cleaned the cat boxes and suddenly it was 7:45. I knew I needed to do it but I still didn't know if I could actually push the buttons. I called the only friend that I had told this story to earlier in the week for some encouragement. She tried to build me up and to give me the courage and we hung up.

I sat on my couch in my bedroom with the door closed and my head in my hands trying to give myself some positive self talk. I tried to feed myself positive thoughts...It will be fine...what is the worst that could happen...it is just a person....I finally pushed the buttons and hit send. You know what; I got the fricking voice mail!!! Hallelujah...leaving a message wasn't nearly as difficult as actually talking to someone. So I called my friend back and we conversed for about 10 minutes when my call waiting beeped in. It was him and I knew I needed to answer it.

All of this hype in my head and it was fine. We talked for about 45 minutes. Just basic small talk stuff. Honestly, I don't remember much. I don't really think that I said much. I just sat on my bed Indian style trying to not say anything too dumb. I did tell him how nervous I was to talk to a stranger on the phone. I think he was nervous also.

So he is 32 and divorced and has a four year old girl with whom he has shared custody. He is a mechanic somewhere in Carmel and he owns a house in Lawrence near Fort Ben Harrison. He has lived in Florida and Michigan and doesn't travel much. He (gasp) doesn't really like to use the computer! He likes to fish and attends tournaments in the summer. Did I mention that he really likes to fish! I have a friend who has been Internet dating for a while and she made an observation that most of the guys posting are hunters and fishers. I guess those are the guys who cannot get girls.

So on Wednesday morning I wrote him an email telling him I enjoyed talking to him on the phone on Tuesday and we should do it again.

I traveled to Ohio to attend a funeral for my sisters father for the entire day and when I return to town at 6:15 I immediately headed to the west side of town to meet my friends for our monthly book club meeting. At this point I am dying to see my email. I wanted to know if there had been a response to my morning communication. When I finally got home at 9:3o I immediately booted up my computer expecting to find an email. There was...it was something like I was nice to talk to and we had a good conversation and he wanted to know if I wanted to go out sometime. I replied and said I would call him on Thursday night and we could talk about it.

Buy this time I am not feeling nearly as nervous. I think the first phone call was the hardest. I already had plans on Thursday night to see a movie with some friends and I got a bit drunk. I was mostly sober by the time I called him but not completely. We talked for an hour and fifteen minutes. I think it was ten minutes too long. I really cannot remember many of the topics we talked about, but just ordinary stuff. Then he told me something shocking. His friend shot a deer and it is dead and hanging in his garage. I was like WHAT! I guess it is deer season and he was waiting for it to...I don't know...tenderize? I could not get the image of a dead deer hanging in the garage out of my head. A few minutes after that I said goodnight and hung up the phone. After this revelation I wasn't nearly as enamored with this situation as I was before.

So, I didn't do anything for a few days. I didn't send any emails or call him back. On Saturday afternoon while I was hanging out with a friend he called and then sent an email. I didn't take the call because I didn't want to be rude to my friend. So I called him after I left her house that evening and we talked for about 45 minutes. This conversation ended in us making a date for the following day. So I am meeting him somewhere in Castleton after I finish going to the ballet in the afternoon. What am I going to wear????? I got some new perfume tonight so at least I will not be smelly!

So I had the date. I was completely exhausted when I was done. I met him at a Starbucks in Castleton. I wanted to stay away from food but be somewhere in public. I think it was a good choice but neither of us drink coffee (I had ice tea and he had orange juice). Things went ok. We talked for about 1.5 hours and I learned allot about him, his life and his ex wife. I don't think that we have very much in common but I feel that I need this practice. When we were leaving he said he had a good time and we should do it again. I guess I will see if he calls this week. After thinking more about this I really don’t think that we are very compatible. We are very different. I have a bit of a list but I don’t want to post it. So I am going to keep trying.
Any Advise???

So, I am sorry to all of my friends that I didn't tell this story to in person. Sometimes communicating these things are hard for me. This is my attempt to not act like Ron.