My date on Tuesday went well. I actually got to say, “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

His response, “Just my keys.”

Yesterday I had MY FIRST mani-pedi. I know it is uncharacteristic of me to pamper myself but my little cousin Sarah is here and Lisa treated her to a mani-pedi as a late birthday present and I decided to go along for the ride. The other reason had more to do with noticing my dates staring at my feet:

As the woman went to work taming my digits, I kept hearing her utter, “I’ve never seen so much cuticle!” At any rate, they look much better now. The toenails are painted a very sweet mauve color. I hope the stares reduce.

In other news, our very own B.Davis is a real person. I know because yesterday we connected on Facebook. I came close to not befriending him mainly because I didn’t want to shatter the vision I had of him as the Unibomber… but as it turns out, my image of him wasn’t that far off from reality.

Yeah, apparently everyone wants to ride the D-Train. I went out the other night with some friends. We sat down at the local tavern just in time to hear a musician whip out his guitar and start to play. HE WAS THE SPITTING IMAGE OF GORDON “I wouldn’t feed that to a DOG!” RAMSEY! He made a beeline for me, asked me my name and told me I could request ANY song I liked. He headed back to the microphone and he said, “I’m K___ R____ and that’s Donna!” The night was spent listening to Monkees, Neil Diamond, Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. I think I was the only one having a great time.

Wait, it gets better. A woman came over to me in the middle of his set.

“Girlie, stay away from him! He’s MARRIED AND he’s got a floozie on the side! I can’t bear to see this LOVE DEVIL get his claws into another girl!”

I faked shock and disappointment and told her I would be careful. I left early so I don’t know what interesting things might have happened had I stayed. Oh well.

My second eHarmony date occurred yesterday. It went fine. He was quite a bit shorter than me and he had two children by two different women. Couple that with no common interests or attraction… I won’t be returning his texts.

I have another eHarmonny date lined up for tomorrow. I don’t know what the difference is but I am enjoying this experience a lot more than I did the last time. Lisa and Mom say it’s because I am a totally different person now, more confident and less needy. I think it’s just the demographic. Men in their early 30’s still want cheerleaders… men in their forties are just grateful for anyone. Whatever the case, I am feeling very hopeful at this point. Fingers crossed it continues!

I signed up for eHarmony on Sunday. They immediately started sending me profiles of potential suitors. In all, I received 56 matches. I closed 13 of them due to height issues. If I wanted to date Hervé Villechaize, I’d find a shovel. Is that closed-minded? Whatever. I don’t care. For what it’s worth, I actually closed a couple matches because they were musicians. Been there, done that. Tired of always being #2 to a guitar. Is that closed-minded? Whatever. I don’t care.

Of the 43 matches, I am currently communicating with 11. Of that 11, I have emerged from the questions phase with 2. Of the 2, I have talked with one on the phone and I arranged to meet him tomorrow. He lives about an hour away from me. When I said, “You are an hour away,” he replied, “Look, I am okay with the distance. I am looking to find a mate. I don’t expect it to take more than a couple months for us to figure out if we’re meant to get married.”

“One second please.” I put down the phone and turned a somersault. “So, what are you doing tomorrow?”

It’s going to be odd. No doubt about it. I feel okay, though. I think I am coming out of the anger tunnel. I am beginning to realize that I can’t have it both ways. The old relationship is over. And it’s not important for him to apologize or do the right thing. And clearly, “doing the right thing” in my mind is not something he can do or wants to do or knows how to do. And that’s okay. I am getting over it. I understand it’s over. When I think of it like this, I feel better. And I gotta stop blogging about it. It’s not right.

Tomorrow I am going on a date!

I am trying to rise above the intense anger. I really am.

In fact, I considered buying this:

And this:

Instead, I decided I need to focus my mind on other things… such as dating nice men without commitment issues, who can communicate like normal, well-adjusted human beings. Clearly, I have never excelled in this and so I decided, rather spur of the moment, to sign up for eHarmony.

I ran searches on Plenty of Fish, Match.com and eHarmony. I chose eHarmony mainly because they were more expensive AND the search results featured guys who didn’t look like complete douche bags or cretins.

I will admit, I am already beginning to regret signing up. But I am pushing those feeling aside. I need to get out and date. I need to meet people. eHarmony is just a means to an end. I WILL BE POSITIVE! ALL WILL BE GOOD!

It was the 12th. July 12, 2006. Not the 15th.

Okay… I was on such a roll and then I totally lost all momentum. What happened?!? I dunno.

So what’s been going over here in Donna land since vacay? Not too much. I went back to Zumba class. I wasn’t terribly happy with it but I did hear that there is a new instructor teaching Zumba and she looks just like Kendra from Girls Next Door. I always preferred Bridget but whatever. I’m going to check out her class soon.

What else? I caught myself thinking, “I am just going to stay single for the rest of my life! I can find fulfillment in my business and life!” This tells me that clearly I am just scared to put myself out there…. which really means I am ready to start hunting again. So what am I going to do? I’m gonna start hunting for new meat!

First off, I’ve decided that what I really want is EXPERIENCES. I am not immediately after my future husband. Yes, I hope to find him but initially I just want to go out and meet men and talk and have fun and experience other people. I really don’t want to position this in a way that is a black & white situation. It was always about whether the guy was my future husband or not. Does he accept me or reject me? The answer was invariably NO! REJECTION! OUCH!

I can’t go through that again. Of course, I can’t go through another 5 years of waiting for a man to finally decide that he doesn’t want to marry me. That would be very bad.

So I went on Match.com on what would have been my 5 year anniversary with Pookie (how poetic!) and I performed my first search in 5 years. I had a couple of requirements. One of which was that he needed to be my height (5’11.5) or taller. I would willingly allow a deduction of 1 inch in height for each million in his bank account but unfortunately this function is currently unavailable on Match.com. I also had a couple political/religious requirements. At any rate, there was a total of 0 men at a 5 mile radius. I began expanding the radius and all I found were douche bags. I do love that term, Douche Bag. At one time I would NEVER ever use it. Now it feels positively natural.

I think I am going to stay off the online dating websites. Clearly the type of man I want is NOT on Match.com. There must be other venues for finding potential suitors. So any suggestions?