Trying to Catch Up

In the effort to get up to speed with the "offline guy" situation, I am going to do my best to summarize the past couple of weeks since I've been so busy. And honestly, I've just been busy because in addition to work and keeping up with life, I've spent lots of time with "offline guy".

Carnival weekend (April 16-18): "Offline guy" and I went out Wednesday night (4/15) for the Pens/Flyers playoff game. He's a Pens fan; I'm a Flyers fan. It was a fun series to watch with him. Thursday we slept in and he met up with me later at the bar near campus to meet a couple of my friends. We stopped at our Oakland bar on the way home for a game of darts and a couple drinks. While we were there, I was accosted twice by a guy that hangs out there fairly regularly. This guy can be a little angry about things, but I usually thought it was politics, religion, and sports. He walked up to me when "offline guy" was in the bathroom saying that "offline guy" and I were dating. Since we were trying to avoid all of the drama in the bar, I told the angry guy that "offline guy" and I were just friends and had been for 4 years. That went over all right the first time. But about an hour later when I was sitting at a table with "offline guy" and another friend, the angry guy came up again. Unfortunately, "offline guy" was in the bathroom (are you noticing a pattern?) and the angry guy said something about the dating thing. I repeated my previous response, expecting it to work, but it didn't. The angry guy threatened to yell some inappropriate comments in the middle of the bar, which would have completely embarrassed me. Fortunately, I managed to talk him out of it by telling him how inappropriate it was and the angry guy finally walked away. No much later, "offline guy" and I went back to hang out on my porch with a six pack.

We were up until about 4am, went to sleep, then got up for Buggy around 8:30am. He had never seen it, so we planned on going down for a bit. By the time we made it down there, it was around 10 or 10:30. We caught the last few races and met up with some of my friends. He and I went back to my house afterward and he headed home to nap and recoup. I was planning on the doing the same, but I ended up not napping. I headed over to Bloomfield to meet up with him for the hockey game that Friday night, and then we went to the Southside to see his roommate's band and then over to the bar where my friends were partying. After the party with my friends, we grabbed a six pack and a cab back to my house. I had told "offline guy" what transpired the previous night and we decided to avoid our hangout for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday was decidedly a day of sleeping after only getting 4 hours of sleep the night before. "Offline guy" eventually went back to his place and I got ready to head up to campus to meet some friends and catch the awards ceremony. "Offline guy" met up with my around 7:30 because this band he liked was supposed to be playing. However, we walked all around campus without finding them. So we went back to Midway and checked out the booths since many were shut down on Friday at about 12:30 when we had tried to check them out. We were on Midway for a little while before catching a bus to my friend's house in Point Breeze for his annual kickin' Carnival party. "Offline guy" and I hung out, he met even more of my college friends, had a couple jello shots, and played a game of beer pong. Since we had to leave to catch a bus after our beer pong game, we gave up the table and declared ourselves the undisputed beer pong champions of the night. Even though I still think that logic is rather flawed and probably resulted from the jello shots. After the party, he and I went to another bar in Oakland for a couple drinks and some darts, then back to my place.

The weekend wasn't even over yet. We got up to watch the Pens/Flyers game on Sunday - he ran home quickly and I went to the bar to save us seats. We were content thinking that the angry dude probably wouldn't be there on a Sunday. We hung out there for the game, then went to shoot pool. Pool is the only game we've played where we're pretty equal in skill. We ended up playing for awhile then went back to my place to sleep. It was definitely fun and I took him home Monday morning on the way to work. It was definitely a great weekend and it was hard to be at work after having fun with my friends all weekend and with "offline guy".

Last week, he came out on Tuesday and Thursday for the Pens/Flyers games. Tuesday we went to the bar and Thursday we stayed in - both were fun! Even more so when the Flyers won though (for me anyways.) Friday he met up with me at the bar and we hung out there for a couple hours until we headed back to my house to drink on the porch. Since it was Pitt's graduation weekend, there were tons of parties on my street - including my house where my roommate and our other friend had started a dance party. Our neighbors were also out on the porch so we continued to party it up for awhile.

Saturday was the Pens/Flyers game 6 so "offline guy" and I watched that. Afterward we headed to my friends' place in Squirrel Hill for a pre-summer get together, left for the Lawrenceville Arts Festival to hear "offline guy's" roommate's band play, back to the get-together, and down to our usual Oakland bar. We were there for a little while. Angry guy sat down next to me for a little while, but eventually moved away. Additionally, I did get a lovely surprise that I wasn't expecting - a very obvious kiss right on the lips while we were hanging out at the bar. Since "offline guy" and I had discussed keeping everything at our usual bar as under the radar as possible, there had definitely been no public displays of affection. However, that changed on Saturday and I'm waiting for the fallout from the other regular patrons that were there. Hopefully everyone else was too drunk and there were too many Pitt graduates there to continue keeping that under wraps.

So now everything's up to speed and hopefully I'll stop slacking with the posting. Especially since it's rather ironic that this blog started as an online dating guide, but I ended up with a guy that I've known for years who refused to ever get on Facebook (which of course, quickly changed.)

Lastly for technical reasons, Friday there was a discussion about the status of our situation. Here is the recap of that conversation:

He's not looking for anyone else and really misses me when we are apart. (So those text messages are 100% completely honest.)
I am not looking for anyone else and I like just about any activity much better with him around than without him around.
We are officially seeing each other and waiting to see what happens without all the pressure of rushing anything and screwing this up.

Easter Weekend with Offline Guy

Since our office was closed on Good Friday, a bunch of co-workers went to happy hour. It was also a goodbye happy hour for the one guy who was starting a new job the following Monday. I invited "offline guy" since we were going to a bar that he and I both hadn't been to before. I was a bit freaked out because he was supposed to meet me there but I was running late. Fortunately, he got there after I did since I gave one of my coworkers a description of him, but she'd obviously never met him and it was very crowded.

"Offline guy" met the coworkers and seems to have passed that test. He also liked my coworkers and found them very fun and interesting - a good sign! We stayed for a couple drinks and then headed out to get some dinner. We ended up back at the bar we frequent and ended up hanging out with my roommate and some other friends. The rest of the night we hung out on the porch, enjoying an early start to the weekend.

The rest of the weekend we spent at our regular bar, hanging out and playing darts since it was pretty quiet because of the holiday. Sunday I went to my mom's house for Easter dinner and then he came over later to play NHL 06. It was fun! However, I haven't played video games in probably about 10 years, so I had to re-adjust to the new, fancy controllers. They're definitely more complicated than my old Nintendo controllers. Needless to say, I lost every NHL 06 game except one because he was trying to start a fight and not paying as much attention to defending my players. I guess that makes up for the fact that I won all of the dart games during the weekend.

Easter weekend with "offline guy" turned out to be very fun and it sucked when it had to end. However, I did have Carnival to look forward to that coming Thursday so it was a great distraction.

It Was Definitely An Interesting Night

I met "med student guy" at 6:30 in Bloomfield. He was definitely flirty and we hung out for a bit. I had an ok time, but it was definitely weird hanging out with someone that I had looked forward to meeting and had such long conversations with, only to feel a little awkward around. He wasn't quite as cute as I had expected, but he had glasses and a hat on so I didn't get to see his eyes very well. He ended up heading home at 8 because he had to work overnight. He expected that I would be leaving with him, but I told him that a friend of mine (and the one bartender that "med student guy" also happened to know) was coming down later so I was going to stick around. "Med student guy" said that he wanted to hang out again and I said it would have to find out because I was pretty booked for awhile since I already had plans for the upcoming weekend with the offline guy and Carnival the weekend after, also plans that included my offline guy.

"Med student guy" was doing the same stuff as before though - saying that he had tickets for an upcoming Coldplay concert and asking that, even though it's over a month away, did I want to go with him? I tiptoed around the issue and said that I would have to see what my schedule was like. Besides, all the while that I spent hanging out with "med student guy", I was keeping watch for the door for the arrival of my offline guy. Fortunately for me, "med student guy" has gone back to his typical disappearing act. This makes it much easier for me to not have to avoid making future plans with "med student guy". It's finally done!

So I waited for my offline guy, who ended up running late because he missed one of the buses he needed to catch back from the South Hills. I stuck around talking to the bartenders and people watching. I was just about to leave when my offline guy showed up. He and I hung out for a drink at the bar I met "med student guy" in and then went to a couple other places in Bloomfield that he frequents. The first place he didn't really know anyone, but he did at the second bar. I'm glad I was dressed up from meeting "med student guy" earlier since I was definitely scrutinized by all of the people he knew at the other place that were wondering who the blonde girl was with "offline guy".

I ended up getting back home much later than expected since I ended up going to the other places with "offline guy" and having too much fun hanging out with him. But it was definitely worth it being tired the next day from hanging out with someone I enjoy spending time with.

Insert Creative, Witty, and Funny Title Here

I met up with "teacher guy" last Thursday. Going into it, I was pretty ambivalent about him. We hadn't had much conversation through email or the phone, and it took weeks to finally plan a date/time/place to meet. I was right to be ambivalent - "teacher guy" wasn't much for conversation other than the following topics:

1. Coaching track this season is not fun because he doesn't have anyone exceptionally good on the team.
2. Working out is his life and he has a ridiculously strict diet that causes him to essentially eat the exact same thing everyday. (He splurged going out to dinner at Mad Mex and after eating his entire burrito, proceeded to talk about how much time he would have to spend in the gym because of it. Then don't eat the whole burrito!!)
3. His family inconveniences him on many occasions - having to watch his parents dogs or his sister's children coming over (which, by the way, he makes the kids pretty much stay in his kitchen because god forbid they touch anything. They're just kids!!)

I was happy when dinner was over and I got to go home. He said that he would give me a call and we should hang out again. I'm glad that was a lie so far and I haven't heard from him and it will hopefully remain as such.

Unlike "med student guy" who kept messaging me. In the end, I opted for choice number 3 from the previous post. Before there's an uproar as to me putting myself in that situation, it turns out that the place he suggested (because I was rather ambivalent as to where but I laid down the law as to when - no weekends and not staying out late and not on days when I already had plans) is run by a guy I met awhile ago who used to hang out at the bar I go to in Oakland. I checked with my offline guy (details on him to follow) and the guy still runs the place in Bloomfield. So it will be nice tonight if the guy I know is there because I'll definitely feel safer. I didn't tell "med student guy" that I know the guy who runs it though. I'm sure he'll figure that out if he actually shows.

However, I'm kind of hoping that "med student guy" doesn't show. When I mentioned to my offline guy that I would be there tonight, he asked if he could stop by and have a drink with me. I told him it was a meeting (I didn't say what kind) so this should be interesting. I couldn't tell him 'no'. And I'm definitely looking forward to getting to spend some time with offline guy during the week instead of just the weekend. I also mentioned to offline guy that there's a chance that the "meeting" might be canceled since it was supposed to have happened a couple months ago. So I asked if he would be on Facebook (he can't read these posts thank god!) so I could send him a message in case it was canceled. His reply was that he had some errands to run today, but that he should be home by 7.

The only reason that I'm not too concerned about my offline guy is because I've known him for years and he knows that I've been doing the online dating. He has stated that he doesn't want a relationship (but I don't know if he means something else like "not right now" or "ever") and I told him that I am looking to date someone. But I know he's not dating anyone else and we have been spending all weekend together the past 3 weekends or so. And I'll probably see him this weekend and next weekend at Carnival. He said he wanted to come with me - does he know what that entails?

So hopefully everything will work out and offline guy won't be mad. I don't think he will be. I'm also really glad he's going to be there at 9 in case "med student guy" turns out to not be who he says he is because I feel very safe with my offline guy and I trust him, which are very big things for me. I'm curious to see how this night plays out...