Since ending the sabbatical, I’ve been stood up by Mustache #2, I lost a Friday night to the Friday Night Thief and I revisited a previous dater (I didn’t write about it, but let’s just say, 3rd time was not a charm with Friend Zone Guy).

That said, it shouldn’t be a complete shock that I’m actually excited about tonight’s blind date.

Now, when I say “blind date” what I really mean is a friend from work set us up and forwarded me his Facebook page. Therefore, what I am not blind to is that he is tall, good looking, has a great education and makes photo videos to good music of his travels abroad. He also appears to play in a band that could border on hokey – which, if you know me, is a big plus – and he has been very nice and mildly funny in his emails.

Here’s the problem…

So far today, I giggled out loud at his email confirming the time and place for the date, I smiled to myself while walking through the office and I even had a daydream about him contacting our mutual friend for the office address and sending me flowers tomorrow.

I know…barf.

….I know.

I have absolutely NO idea if I’m going to like this guy tonight and even less of an idea if he’s going to like me, so what’s the deal?

I’m guessing that the reason for this is similar to the reason I got all excited about white rapper #2 – a younger guy with no job living in his parent’s NY basement…

I’ve been accidentally abstinent for too long. It’s a fact of single life and I blame the following people:

Friday-Night Thief

Mustache #1

Mustache #2

TMI Dan, Confusing-Name Guy

Mario the Masseur

the guy who told me that I ate a lot on our date

Laurie (the texter that turned out to be a girl)

“Let us pray” Guy

Twice-Engaged Guy

Soft-Core Porn Guy

Friend Zone Guy

Waiter-friend Guy

Pretentious Side-Note Guy

B-Looking Girl Guy

LA Guy

They are all responsible for my current situation.

Not quite sure what we’re going to do about the over-arching problem, but I DO know that between now and 8 PM tonight I need to simmer down. I don’t want to turn this poor guy into someone he’s not, and I don’t want to attack him if it turns out that he is.

I’m just going to keep telling myself: He’s better looking in his picture…his band is his life…he spends every Saturday night with his friends…he’s actually 5′6″ and posts pictures of himself with his 5′2″ friends…

Anything else?? Come on friends, help a sista out.

I’m guessing a picture like this isn’t going to help me, but you’re welcome anyway.

To prove to you that I’m not some jaded single girl that will always find something wrong with a date/dater, I’d like to give a quick shout-out to confusing-name guy for a great date on Saturday night.

This dater earned his nickname last weekend when we went on a pseudo-blind date to a concert – thanks to one of my flaky girlfriends who canceled at the last minute. I showed up for drinks before the concert and he was there with some friends. In short, I called him by the wrong name twice in the first 5 minutes (to be fair, it was close to his actual name, but still wrong). He actually had to correct me in front of his friends. It was one of those horrific “I am my mother’s child” moments.

Apparently, the incident did not stop him for asking me out for date #2. In fact, I have some friends who think that I “played it right” by showing him that he’s not important enough to me to remember his name. If only I were that sly.

So he picked me up on Saturday night and told me to bring socks. We were going to one of those trendy LA bowling alleys that has a full bar – smart. When we got to the bowling alley, he told the girl at the front desk that he had a reservation for 5:30. She looked up, smiled and said, “Oh, you’re the date.”

In that one statement from the teenager working the shoes at the bowling alley, I knew that he had not only researched where to take me on this date, but he had called ahead to make sure he would be able to get a lane before dinner. Having been on countless dates where the guys pick me up and ask, “So, what do you want to do?”, this detail pleased me.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I lost both games, which really can’t be my fault because they did not have any 9-lb balls available. I was forced to hurl the 8-lb ball – with very little control – or heave the 10-lb ball down the lane and watch it curve to the right due to my lack of arm strength.

When we got to the car to go to dinner, he pulled a single red rose from the trunk of his truck and told me it was my consolation prize for 2nd place. (cue the eye roll from the male readers). Think what you will, but this was a first for me – and I’ve had long-term boyfriends. There’s a reason buying a girl flowers is seemingly overused. It works.

Dinner and drinks were all good as well, but I’ll cut to the end of the date. He drove me back to my house and turned off the engine in my driveway. I immediately/foolishly assumed that he would try to pull a pretentious side-note guy and I questioned him: “oh, so you’re coming in?”

“No. I just figured I could walk you to your door.”

Another first.

Nice work, confusing-name guy.

“So my friend is currently in Brazil – which is amazing by the way – but when he gets back we’re going to go hiking in Joshua Tree.”

You see where this is going. 15 minutes later of him still talking…

“Whenever I’m in bookstores – and I’m always in bookstores – I see these women in their late twenties and thirties in the teenybopper aisle!”

First of all, don’t hate on the teenybopper aisle. I’m sure I will be the next to join the “Twighlight” fan club and you gotta know that I get cranky when GG (AKA Gossip Girl) goes on a 5-week hiatus.

Secondly, I refuse to “bite” on pretentious side-notes. The entire 3-hour dinner date was filled with these little gems, but not once did I follow-up to ask, “So you’ve been to Brazil, what was that like? Was it during Carnival?” You just can’t let people get away with dropping “impressive” information about themselves randomly in conversation. If you have something to share, share it.

The capper for me was that he asked to use my bathroom when he dropped me off (he lives 5 minutes away) and then came out of the bathroom, sat down on my couch and continued the bottomless salad-bowl date! The boyfriend resume bullet-points were probably enough, but inviting himself in and then inviting himself to stay definitely pushed me over the edge.