< Insert Half-Hearted Ke$ha Joke Here >

And while we're on the topic of online dating (cause, let's face it, that's pretty much what it's all come down to at this point), here is a thorough analysis of The 12 Guys You Meet on Tinder.
We will admit that Tinder is our dating platform of choice these days - maximum options! minimum work! satisfyingly emphatic swiping! - but it certainly still leaves something to be desired. The lovely Michelle Collins breaks it down for us.

Introducing a New Series: Adventures in Babysitting

There seems to have been a rapid and fundamental breakdown in understanding how to communicate effectively with the ladies among men in our cohort. As a result, online dating is such a delight. Adventures in Babysitting is a new FAB and the Shitty special series to celebrate communication breakdowns and ineffective courtship strategies in the digital era.

Ineffective courtship strategy #1:

Come out of the gate swinging...with vaguely baffling, somewhat insulting, unsolicited advice of unclear purpose.

That's Lil' Kim Jong Il, bitch.

Wondering...

Is insane overuse of ellipses in an online dating profile an acceptable reason not to respond? We're talking 20-30 occurrences in a profile that is not otherwise terribly robust. Is he just tremendously fond of dots, or does he not know how to complete a thought? If it's the former, I suppose I could get on board with a festive dot motif (assuming I could redirect this interest into other contexts - say, a festive polka dot dress for FAB), but the inability to commit to a thought - particularly in a setting that is dude's one opportunity to tell me who he is and what he's about - feels like a legitimate cause for pause.

Or maybe I just need to introduce him to the em dash.

And a Very Grinchy Hanukkah to You Too

My uncle's second wife, the one who used to be his office temp while he was still married to his first wife until his first wife discovered that the soon-to-be second wife had become so much more than just an office temp, she is usually pretty on-point with her birthday and holiday gift giving. Unlike other members of the extended FAB clan, who like to gift FAB with practical yet mostly unwanted items like plastic cutting boards and dress socks in an assortment of neutral colors and matronly, floor-length sleepwear, or worse, items that are both impractical and unwanted (I'm looking at YOU, plastic pear Christmas tree ornament that someone gave me for Hanukkah two years ago), over the years, my uncle's second wife has regularly gifted generally enjoyable items like lovely cashmere sweaters and hardcover copies of The Devil Wears Prada and the like.

Until this year.

No, this year, we were gifted with a most unwelcome copy of Haiku for the Single Girl. A quick spin around the Googles would suggest that this book is amazingly witty! hilariously relatable! laugh out loud! and genius!, but I assure you, it is none of these things. The internet, it can be pretty dumb sometimes. Instead, I would like to submit for your consideration that Haiku for the Single Girl is occasionally amusing! definitely depressing! and oftentimes downright self-loathing, implicitly misogynistic, and crudely reductive of the varied and subjective experiences of being a woman in America today, let alone a single woman.

So, yes, family. I may be pushing 33, single, have two cats, and I also may have recently taken up knitting, but you can take your witty!!! poetry, as in: "My high school sweetheart/Has a toddler, and a gut/But I'd take him back," and shove it.

Next year, please just leave me a bottle of whiskey at the door. I'm far too busy knitting knickers for my cats.

PSA

Dear Men,

Please don't invite me on a coffee date. I want a cocktail.

Affectionately,

FAB

It Must Have Been Love...

FAB fell in love on the Q train today. And then we fell out. If Jake Gyllenhaal had a 30-45% scrawnier younger brother with excellent fashion sense in an extremely understated and "I'm-not-trying-hard-I-just-always-look-this-way" kind of way, complete with well-cultivated five o'clock shadow, it would be our new man: Low Key Hipsterish Jake Gyllenhaal (LKHJG). But of course, it's over now. A day trip inside the mind of a lunatic:

He got on with me at Herald Square and smouldered rakishly in the doorway across from me until Union Square, when he decided to sit right next to me(!!). FAB wondered if her iPod was cranked up too high. Can LKHJG hear this? Should I turn it down? Should I change music? Mountain Goats!? Neutral Milk!? Robyn!? Should I mention that I like his shoes? (Gay.) Or ask him about his unusual hat*? (Gay.) That I like his pants? (Still gay.) That I want to take off his pants? (Better. But also not.)  Is LKHJG leaning into me when the train decelerates?

Once we entered the cell phone corridor otherwise known as the Manhattan Bridge, LKHJG twiddled with his pocket computer checking out the latest tweets (Tweets?). FAB glanced furtively to see what was going on in Twitterville. Huffington Post! Should I mention that FAB has her very own HuffPo blog? (Ew! No!) Can he see me trying to see what's on his iPhone? Can he see me trying not to get caught trying to see what's on his iPhone? What does it all meeeeean?

LKHJG really seems like he's leaning into me when the train decelerates, and he isn't moving his arm. FAB read somewhere that if you want to pick someone up on the subway you should just make eye contact and smile and if they return the smile you should obviously get off the train where they get off and stalk them out of the station and then something something something and then you get married and live happily ever after. I'm pretty sure that was it. The internet is chock full of helpful dating advice for the Mr. and Miss Lonelyhearts of NYC and beyond, but LKHJG was sitting right next to us so we couldn't even initiate the eye contact/stalking launch sequence even if we had wanted to.

This is a perfect Missed Connection just waiting to happen! Do people even still read Missed Connections? Missed Connections are dumb. And isn't it an extra meta-y kind of dumb if you're sitting here contemplating the Missed Connectionness of it all when you could actually, like, same something, thereby not actually missing said connection? Why don't you just say something? Oooh he's getting off at the same stop! It's a sign! I don't even live here but have to get off at this stop to get to an appointment! Look ma, I'm not even stalking, in the traditional sense! Now's my chance! Oooh can't walk that fast! Legs short! Heels high! Too many stairs! Wait, he kinda walks funny. Is he bowlegged? Why does he look like he just got off a horse? Or worse. That's so Brokeback. And then LKHJG rounded the corner into the sunset and out of our lives forever. Good riddance.

And we wonder why we're still single.


 *Look, FAB is well aware than 99% of urban dudes cannot pull off a hat and not come off as a total douchewad. What can we say? LKHJG is part of the 1%.

Dear Lovies,

I apologize for the silence this past week. And, well, for the silence for the next two weeks. I've been all a tizzy in preparation for my adventure to the non-internet-having parts of the world. (Yes, these apparently do still exist, Virginia.)

Wish us luck and we shall meet you back here again in a couple of weeks, with even more sordid tales to share.

XOXO,

Gossip FAB

Ruminating

Acute self-awareness is such a liability.

Are We There Yet?

Recently, FAB went on a date. In Westchester. With a gentleman who LIVES in Westchester. It was all very genteel and nice: dinner at some quaint restaurant on a quaint Main St. of a quaint upon-Hudson hamlet followed by a regional musical theater production. When we first told our friends of our plans, the reactions ranged from lighthearted disbelief ("Wait, seriously?")to downright incredulity ("Who do you think you're kidding? Who are you pretending to be?"). FAB has long rejected potential suitors who live anywhere other than Brooklyn or Manhattan (I'm looking at YOU, far flung parts of Jackson Heights and Hoboken).

I'd always assumed this was a mere bit of narrow-minded geographic pragmatism on my part. I mean, let's be honest, it's not exactly a breeze to get from downtown Brooklyn to pretty much anywhere in Queens that isn't Long Island City let alone reversing the trip at, say, 8am on a Saturday morning in a pair of 4 inch heels. Or whatever. And Hoboken is in New Jersey, for God's sake.

And if our friends and local color feature reporting by the New York Times are any indication, we are far from alone in this kind of attitude among New Yorkers. In fact, it's probably one of the most well-worn tropes among the 25-40 single demographic. But I think fewer of us are willing to publicly go on record as saying that I won't date you who lives in [far flung borough/far flung part of our own borough], or God forbid, the suburbs, not just because it's incredibly inconvenient, but because I think your choice of neighborhood says something about who you are, your financial prudence (apparently I only hang with the deeply financially imprudent), and who you want the world to think you are. And lacking any additional concrete input about you, I judge you. And I judge your neighborhood.

So back to the aforementioned gentleman suitor. By graciously accepting this evening of suburban non-debauchery, was I making an official statement of sorts that I've finally become one of those "real" adults who is ready to settle down into a more staid and family-having lifestyle with a backyard and 2.5 dogs (or is it 2.5 kids?), or was I simply engaging in a little aspirational self-delusion? I have to admit that the next day, while strolling through one of the lovely yet likely unattainable neighborhoods that fronts directly onto the Long Island Sound, rubbing elbows with handsome young families with their 2.5 dogs and 2.5 kids in their Sunday best, I couldn't help but feel more than a twinge of longing. And jealousy. Definitely jealousy. So, judge me. Please. Clearly, we have lost our way.

Online Dating Profile Boner-Killers du Jour

As we may have mentioned in an earlier post, perusing online dating profiles takes on a certain online-shopping-like quality that probably hasn't done great things for our character. Because of a perceived hearty abundance of inventory, we often find ourselves dismissing people based on some minutiae we saw in their profile just cause it's easy (pic of dude performing standup comedy; dude living in some far-flung corner of Queens that may actual be Long Island for all we know; dude living in Long Island; favorite books include The Alchemist and/or anything by Ayn Rand; inexplicable proper noun treatment of words that simply aren't proper nouns; dude attended University of Iowa for something other than creative writing, like, say finance), whereas, if we met that person in an organic social situation, maybe we would have actually hit it off. FAB oscillates between thinking we're being too shallow and judgmental, dismissing potential mates based on fairly arbitrary criteria, and believing we're just being realistic about what we would want in a life partner. Maybe we're doing ourselves a disservice and are missing out on potential life mates because we are snobbish and close-minded. Or maybe not. Below are quotes drawn directly from the profiles of potential suitors in the NY metropolitan area.

"I am a fun, caring, and family-orientated gentleman."

"The most important thing I'm looking for in a person is Self Respect Inteliigency Ambition Open minded."*

"I am continually trying to extend my skill set and enhance my proprioception. it's kinda metaphysical."

To be continued...


*Honestly, if not for "inteliigency," we totally would've let the lack of parallelism slide.

Thinking...

Having feelings can be a real bitch sometimes.

Sunday in the Park with George, or, You Know, Whomever

Apparently FAB has been missing out on all the hot park action. Seriously, we had no idea this was, like, A Thing. And apparently all this public porking in Prospect Park has left behind "little trails" that "are really bad for the forest floor." You know, condoms, coconut rum, gold lamé thongs, and stuff.

Per Gothamist:

"Park spokesman Paul Nelson made it clear that this didn't mean the volunteers, or the park, were encouraging public sex: 'They were cribbing the steep part for better footing and to control erosion,' he said."

Whatever, Paul.

Thinking...

I wish there were a filter on OK Cupid where I could automatically exclude all dudes in bands from ever appearing in my matches. Or from even contacting me, while we're at it. Or me them. They're just bad news.

Delta, Meet OKC

A few weeks ago, the Paper of Record reported* the impending demise of FAB's Air Travel Theorem. Dutch airline KLM recently launched the "Meet and Seat" program, allowing flyers to hand select their own seatmates based on available information from their Linked In or Facebook profiles. Being able to prescreen potential seatmates will presumably increase the likelihood that you'll actually be seated next to someone you'd actually want to be seated next to, like, say, your future spouse. Or at least next to someone hot. What could possibly go wrong?

Although unfortunately, Meet and Seat would do nothing to prevent this sort of horror, all in all, FAB would welcome the proliferation of similar programs across all the major air carriers. (Frequent near-typos have brought to our attention that we would also welcome the proliferation of Meat and Seat programs.) But even if we don't meet the future Mr./Dr./Sir Fat Asian Baby on the next LGA to ATL, applying the online shopping-ish free market forces of online dating to air travel (or train travel!) will surely lead to hilarity. Or at the very least, a pretty good story.

*BTW, New York Times, if you're asking, yes. Yes, I would like to sit next to Mario Lopez. Thanks.

Even Educated Fleas?

"They were young males on the make, and they struck out not once, not twice, but a dozen times with a group of attractive females hovering nearby. So they did what so many men do after being repeatedly rejected: They got drunk, using alcohol as a balm for unfulfilled desire.

Fruit flies apparently self-medicate just like humans do, drowning their sorrows or frustrations for some of the same reasons, scientists reported Thursday. Male flies subjected to what amounted to a long tease — in a glass tube, not a dance club — preferred food spiked with alcohol far more than male flies that were allowed to mate."

Read the rest of the article here and feel a little bit less alone in this crazy world of ours. Or, like FAB, chuckle in awe at the majesty of scientific inquiry and pour yourself another drink.