The Nasty And Annoying Things NO ONE Tells You About True Love

As women, we are told very early on all about true love. Disney has drilled the idea into our brains our whole lives. We dream about it, we pray for it, we discuss it with our friends for hours, and yet the realities are less than 100% romance. Let's get real, when life gets tough we don't need Prince Charming we need a maid, a hefty savings account, an on-call nurse, and Samantha from Bewitched.

1. Your true love will clean up your puke after you've lost the flu battle. (hopefully)

2. You will undoubtedly fart in front of your true love.

3. Your true love will fart in front of you. (and probably relish in it.)

4. There will be moments when your sexy true love looks completely unsexy to you.

5. There will be choice moments when you consider the early demise of your one true love.

6. Your true love will leave his socks on the floor.

7. It's shocking, I know, but your true love's friends may hate you.

8. Sticky crumbs and worse will be left for you to clean up by your true love.

These little nasties can occur in any relationship, hey, we are human. We have bodily odors and faults. Just remember, you are not alone...your true love thinks you're nasty too!

The F*%#ability Factor and Me

Last week I decided to take my dating prowess to the next level after internet dating and feeling super weird about it. Even though I did meet quite a few nice guys, I just didn't feel like it was for me. With half-interested disdain, I finally picked up my copy of Become Your Own Matchmaker by Patti Stanger and decided to just dive right in.

Step one was Dating Detox. In this stage I was supposed to forget all about men and work on me. Purify my body, hit the gym, watch TV, etc....Well, that's all grand and wonderful, but what if I have already been in a self-sustained dating detox for about a year now, what do I do? According to Patti I do it anyway for a minimum of thirty days. Okay, done. Wow, step one was super easy!

Step two was going to be a little more work. In this stage Mirror, Mirror, I needed to take a good hard look at my dateable self. Well, oh shit, this is not going to be a good step for me. Let's see, Patti hates red hair and guess what? I just became a redhead ala Nutrise Garnet. Oh, and my hair is short! I was doomed from the start.

I am also quite a bit larger than a size eight, the size the book insinuates is the size where a woman begins to lose herself. The beginning of fat! Oh really?

I also had to determine my "fuckability factor." This would be my entire self, at least on the outside: hair, make-up, sexy body, teeth, skin, and clothes. I  live in Oregon. Half of the male population looks homeless. I really don't think they are wondering wether I bought my sweater at the Gap or Prada. Hell, they probably think my Old Navy tee came from the thrift-store...and there's a chance that it did!

In this step you might concider having some work done. Work, as in plastic surgery or botox, etc.. Ummm, no. I like my face just fine, thank you.

I also needed to decide just what kind of girl I am. Well, I kinda feel like I'm all of them. I'm kinda intelligent, kinda cute, kinda girl next door, kinda sexpot. What to choose, what to choose???

On to Step three, Make Your Matchmaking Map. This is all about location. This is all about the lie. If you are anti-sports, other than peewee soccer like me, you should hang at the local sports bar anyway. I can see me now, Sudoku puzzle in hand, guzzling red wine while the Superbowl (that's baseball, right?) rages on! That is so NOT my scene.

She does give a very detailed list of places to meet men and a good detailed list of places to not to meet men.

I personally enjoy hanging out at my local coffee shop. Brian makes a mean Chai latte and it's a nice place to while away hours while blogging. However, according to Patti this is most definitely the absolute most horrific place to meet men. I have to quote this part because I got such a kick out of it.

Where NOT to meet men, "Starbucks, or the local coffeehouse: If a guy is hanging out there, especially with his computer, he probably doesn't have an office to work in, or, worse yet, he's unemployed or poor. In any case, he ain't husband material."

I guess husbands are supposed to be rich, have an office, or use the coffee drive-thru? Damn! I thought husbands were supposed to be kind, love you, take care of you when you have the flu, and share a life with you. I guess I was wrong again.

In this step, I was encouraged to make bio-cards: index sized cards with my photo and stats to hand out to eligible men I might meet. Ummmm, hmmmm, awkward much? When I spy the cute guy in the grocery store, I simply whip out my 3x5 card and hand it to him. That wouldn't be weird at all. Oh, and the photo should be professionally taken, and according to Patti, inexpensive. Somewhere in the ballpark of $350 to $500 dollars. I guess I can't use an old glamour shots from high school. Damn! I am foiled again. There is no fucking way on God's green earth I am going to be handing out bio-cards. They remind me of Vegas, and the lovely prostitution fun cards they hand out in the streets....NO THANK YOU!

For a good time, call Sarah. Yeah...right.

Step  four, Qualifying The Buyer. This is where you go husband shopping. I personally love the husband racks at Macy's, especially when they make it to the 70% off rack. This is where she sums up the loser type guys and the winner type guys. Men should be masculine; women should be feminine. Bullshit, bullshit. I know lots of happily married couple made up of dominant wives and not so dominant husbands. And vise versa. Can't you just be attracted to what you're attracted too?

In this step I needed to lay out my non-negotiables, the things my future partner must must have. Here is what I said..

1. Clean
2. Job
3. Like kids
4. Ambition
5. Polite
6. Read
7. Funny
8. Compassionate
9. Know the value of a dollar
10. Brush their teeth

The top five are supposed to be my absolute non-negotiables, I can bend a little for six through ten I guess. Well, brushing of the teeth isn't for everyone!

Step five (we're almost done), Adventures In Dating, is the crazy part. The part I dread. Actual dating sucks. It is odd, forced, mean, scary, and fake. I'll pretend to be awesome and you pretend to be awesome until (if you even get passed date one or two) the bullshit dies down, and we finally begin to be ourselves.

There is a thorough list of dating do's and don'ts. I was happy to find that I don't do many of the don'ts, and I do do (haha) many of the do's. Yay! I've finally scored a point!

The First Days Of Infatuation, step six is rad! I say live it up. In my experience (not so much) a man only pretends that he likes to do the dishes and rub feet for so long. Live it up! But, of course Patti warns to keep the eyes and ears unblurry! Look for warning signs. I swear Patti, I will, I will!

Step seven, Relationship Reality Check. In this step you should have reached official coupledom, you are a we. Can you live with him leaving his underwear on the floor? Does he watch TV too loud? Can you deal? You must analyze your relationship, pick him apart and see if you still like him. I actually agree here. For Christ's sake, no one should ever marry someone they hate. In this stage, I assume you can run before it's too fucking late.

Last step, whew. Step eight, Negotiating The Ring. Oh my God! What if you don't want a ring yourself? If he doesn't propose within the first year, you are supposed to negotiate the damn ring or move on. Really???? A year seems like a short-ass time to me. How about feeling internally ready? Spiritually connected? Something? Sorry, buddy, one year, I love you, but no ring bye bye???? Weird!

Well there you have it, my pessimistic take on the Millionaire Matchmaker. Hey, I love that show. It's fun. But that is just not me. I will never be the girl searching for love in a sports bar or handing out my porn/bio-card. I will be the girl who loves herself. The girl who knows she's a great catch. The girl who has her own dreams and ambitions, but I wont ever pretend to be anything but me.

Wonder Woman and The Online Dating Debacle

I love Wonder Woman in all her cheesy glory. Blue and white star hot pants and charming gold arm bands. A mix of pure strength, femininity and utter ridiculousness. If Wonder Woman really were cheese she's not going to be a soft creamy brie or even a dry chunk of asiago. No, Wonder Woman is a good old Kraft single. She's an individual. She stands alone in the pack of muscled spandex-clad superheroes and she's entirely wrapped in plastic. Plus, just like a Kraft single Wonder Woman shall last forever.

So, I've officially been divorced now for nine months and technically separated for about three wonderful years so I think that I'm officially over the rebound mind games and I'm ready to get real about this thing people like to call dating. My first attempt was “church”, I know blasphemous to use God in such a way, but hey, people do it all the time and I figured it couldn't hurt to sneak a little prayer into my search for love.

Church was not a good choice for me, since I'm a people pleaser ( I know I'm working on that) and I was immediately accosted upon entering the building by a group of “sweet little old ladies” who in turn talked me into joining practically every church function in existence. I looked into the faces of these women with their coiffed white hair and lipstick and of course I said yes. The worst of the bunch was the choir. Actually, joining a church choir has always been a small dream of mine. I imagined fabulous rocking Sister Act like performances and “fun”. The truth was it was grueling. Three hour practice sessions once a week, and this was after a ten hour work day. Five hours worth of services on Sunday, exhausting to say the least. Then those “sweet little old ladies” ended up not being very sweet or nice. They treated every performance like we were singing for the Queen of England and between the hoity toity attitudes and shrill once first soprano voices were the nasty biting remarks about everyone and everything. These were the new generation of old biddy, and of course there were no men to behold, unless you counted the 85 year old bass in the back row or the only other member under the age of 75, a 16 year old tenor who looked like he was having just as much fun as I was.

Thus began the quest of online dating. The first thing I needed to do was choose a user name. Easy you might think but actually a daunting experience. I wanted to send the right message. Sexkitten37 just seemed too overt and very un-me while chubbysinglemomof11yearold seemed well, only too true and entirely un-alluring. Therefore, I went with wonder_woman_me – strong, yet sweet, and a tad dorky – perfect.

Choosing my profile pic was thankfully easy since I'm unbelievably photogenic and always take a candid glorious photograph....NOT. Sorry, yes another problem. I chose an upshot of full cleavage taken in a bar. The only bar I had been in in the last six months, which might be another reason I am online dating. Let's just say it was a hit and not in the way I had wanted.

Online, truck drivers love me! The scary kind, the kind you hear about passing their STDs from state to state. Guys with user names like bigrig10incher and ridemehard69. Then there are the sad pathetic guys that you just feel bad for. The men who take there profile pics while wearing a towel naked in their bathroom mirror or spitting chew outside their travel trailer that they live in with their six kids and their mom.

I soon began to understand the problem and changed my picture to the more demure almost school marmish pic that I use for my business website. This picture is professionally taken, but it looks like what it's supposed to look like: preschool teacher extraordinaire seeks love. The new picture brought along an entirely different batch of men. Solid looking men, fellow divorcees, older, wiser, and definitely less despicable...or so I thought.