Things looked promising for a while. In fact, within a 5-day period in early February, I had four dates (which actually stressed me out a little bit --- I'm not the best at juggling, especially men . . . in second grade I accepted I.D. bracelets from 2 boys, Stanley and Gene, because I liked them both and didn't want to choose OR hurt feelings . . . of course, I got busted on the playground and then had no boyfriends or I.D. bracelets . . . since second grade, I've never dated more than one guy at a time.)
Anyway, these 4 guys . . . . all seemed nice and interesting, all good-looking. I had hope.
One was a builder who was redesigning and rebuilding a river walk in another Colorado city. He was a great emailer, the phone conversations . . . eh . . . so-so, but the date . . . oh my gosh . . . one of the worst conversationalists I've ever encountered. Looooooooooong periods of silence and pretty much monosyllabic responses to the 500 questions I asked just to have some conversation going. I finally claimed an unforgotten commitment and scooted out of that one.
The second was the vice president of communications of a major telecommunications giant . . . this one had to be a great conversationalist, right? I mean, come on, he's VP of COMMUNICATIONS. . . . Well, he had a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas about women and relationships, and I could barely make it through the entree considering the doses of sarcasm he was heaping upon me. With this one, I claimed a text message from my babysitter (couldn't figure out how to make my phone ring) meant I needed to get home and check on my daughter. When we left the restaurant and were headed down the street, he noticed he had a ticket on his car. I left him standing in the street cursing and yelling after me he would call me and I could pick up the next dinner (yeah right buddy, in your dreams).
The third one was an airline pilot. Cuuuuuute as he could be, but there simply was not room for all three of us in any relationship that might develop . . . . the three being me, him, and his EGO. Wow . . . so I'm 0 for 3 in the dating bonanza. The next one is a lawyer. One of my own. That will break the streak of bad luck surely.
Not . . .
This one was my first encounter with . . . THE METROSEXUAL.
"a usually urban heterosexual male given to enhancing his personal appearance by fastidious grooming, beauty treatments, and fashionable clothes".
I'll say . . . . Denver is rife with metrosexual men. Now, being from the South, I have not encountered this breed of men too often. I've seen them when traveling, especially in New York, D.C., and San Francisco . . . but I've never dated one. And the last three men I dated seriously were all sophisticated, intelligent men, but they would (and did) bristle at the mention of ever going to get a manicure or a facial.
Well, Denver "date no. 4" was a full and proud metrosexual. The perfectly coifed hair and the white, perfect teeth (think Tony from "Dancing with the Stars") should have tipped me off. Within 10 minutes of sitting down to dinner, he felt the need to share with me that he:
- preferred Armani over all other labels
- regularly tanned
- liked facials, manicures, and pedicures
- and . . . this was the pièce de résistance . . . for some odd reason he felt I would like to know that he . . . regularly got his back waxed (at that point, the Cajun food I was eating started to crawl back up my throat at a rapid pace).
This guy even referred to himself as a metrosexual and said his children called him that all the time.
I'm sorry . . . it is not a turn-on for me when a guy has more salon/spa visits than I do. I mean, I can be all girly girl . . . I regularly get manicures and pedicures (and being from the South, it was engrained in me that one always gets a pedicure before visiting her gynecologist . . . it's simply not proper to put one's feet in the stirrups without silky smooth legs and painted toes). I periodically will buy the Crest Whitening Strips to make my smile a little brighter. I like to do my hair and make-up and dress up to go out, but this guy made me feel like a backwoods mountain girl. I had flash forwards of him using my facial muds, my exfoliating products, my concealer . . .ugh . . . I had a sudden desire to find a man who burped and scratched or at least didn't "WAX"!!
That was my last date. I went on a self-imposed moratorium after that. Admittedly, my life started falling apart at the seams at that time, which required all of my waking hours to address, but I put the dating game WAY on the back burner.
Shortly after that, an article came out in the little area newsletter about metrosexuals and how men in Denver were turning to not only manicures/pedicures/facials/spa treatments, but also makeup. Yes, makeup. Heterosexual men wearing makeup. I can honestly say I never want to date a man who wears makeup, and I'm a fairly liberal girl. I want a manly man . . . not a gross one . . . I truly don't want a burper or scratcher . . . I love sophisticated, well-groomed, nicely dressed men with clean fingernails but . . . no makeup please.
On Saturday, my daughter and I visited a local salon for full spa pedicures, including salt scrubs and hot paraffin treatments. As we're sitting there in the vibrating/rolling massage chairs . . . relaxing . . . talking girl talk . . ., in come a father and son, who take the 2 massage chairs next to us . . . and who are there for their full spa pedicures. !!!!!!! My dad and brother would have taken bullets to the head before ever even walking through the door of a salon, much less to go there for a father-son pedicure day.
An investment banker from Boulder has indicated he would like to have dinner when he returns from overseas travel in June. I'll be checking his hands and hoping for hang nails or bitten cuticles.
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