Wait, where are you going?

I love Thanksgiving. Lots of food, wine, and family time…and of course, questions from my relatives about my current boy situation. Unfortunately they always bring up the guy I talked about at the last family function and I have to first figure out A) who I was so excited about 3 months ago, and then B) how do I explain what went wrong (i.e. he got back together with his ex, he turned out to have a pretty major drug addiction, etc). So I’ve learned to be very cautious about how much info I give away to the fam at the beginning of things to avoid the risk of seeing serious disappointment on their faces at the next holiday. So here’s what I didn’t tell them this weekend…

I started dating this super nice guy a couple weeks ago. He does everything right, it’s pretty unbelievable…he orders a bottle of wine at dinner (and pays), calls when he says he will, he’s nice to my friends, etc. Think Aidan from Sex and the City. My family would LOVE him. Sound too good to be true? Yep, it is. He’s leaving Chicago in a few weeks...to spend 6 months in a third world country. So there’s that. Part of me is also a little skeptical about all this niceness. It's almost creepy how much of a good person he is. I’m just not used to it or something….but hey, I’ll take it and do everything I can to appreciate it while it lasts.

Anyway, I’m definitely going to continue hanging out with him until he leaves. But he won’t be showing up at my parents’ house for the holidays, and there is definitely no long-distance relationship in our future. So I’ll just have to work on finding a replacement guy by the time he leaves or the last couple months of winter are going to be brutal!!

XOXO, Sweet!

We means we.....

Although Google analytics may indicate otherwise, it seems people are actually reading this blog (thanks!) and want to know what happened with the dog-sled guy. So, without further ado: It turns out he's in a serious relationship (boo) AND he started a company with her, so it looks like they are in it for the long haul (boo). Just to make the situation a little more vomit inducing, I found the following on their company website in the "our story" section. (and NO, I'm not a creep, he gave me the address during our phone convo..)

"In life, things seem to come together at the right time. I had always heard about abilities of dogs to attract the opposite sex, yet I had never experienced Ozzie's magic until the day he met Lindsay.

Lindsay just so happened to have a big black Sheep Herder named Cody... Actually, Cody has an adorable and attractive human named Lindsay, who also happened to be looking for a beautiful green fenced in yard.

Lindsay and I started GreenWISE because of our love for dogs, yards, and... each other. The rest is history."

Although I just threw up in my mouth, I kind of wish it were me. Haha.
XOXO, Salty!

The royal we

My quest for a little extra cash often leads me to the suburbs for a little dog/house sitting. This evening as I was taking said dog for a walk I saw a peculiar sight: a man balanced on a skateboard being pulled by two dogs. Intrigued and a little startled, I waved hello and watched as he disappeared down the street.

Twenty minutes later I'm about to walk into a restaurant to meet my mother for dinner (dog/house sitting also comes with free sushi dinners with mom--awesome) when dog sled guy appears out of nowhere. As he stops to tie his dogs to a nearby post I happen to notice that he's a not ugly. In fact, he's gorgeous. Realizing that I was being a total creep standing there watching him tie up his dogs, I tried to save face by saying hello. "Hello" turned into a ten minute convo and eventually he suggested we hang out sometime. As I'm putting his digits into my phone feeling happy as a clam he says something along the lines of: "great, we would love to hang out. We only live right around the corner."

WE? My first instinct is to look at his ring finger....nothing. Before I have a chance to subtly explore the "we," my mother comes out of the restaurant looking annoyed. I say goodbye and depart only to be left wondering who "we" is......

Here's what I've come up with (with my comments in bold):

1. We = wife and kids and he doesn't wear his rings because he is the owner of a green landscaping company and thus it would get dirty (Not into this scenario...and he's only 28, which seems pretty young for a wife and kids, but also very plausible)
2. We = very serious girlfriend (not into this one either...but always possible, as who would choose to live in the suburbs if they are young and single)
3. We = he lives with his parents (eek)
4. We = he considers the dogs part of the family (I'm down)
5. We = he has roommates (totally town)
6. We = he loves himself so much he uses the royal we (of course this would be the guy I run into)

So, my gut would be #1, but I think I'm going to call tomorrow night and suggest a friendly dog walking sesh just to find out. If I had to put money on it though, I would bet that Friday's post includes my creepy encounter with dog sled guy and his wife (and maybe 7 children). Eek! More to come!!

XOXO Salty

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Is it too much to ask?

Minus the work thing, of course.....

Good dates come with a price

Sorry I’ve been MIA, just a little pre-occupied. Per Salty's post below, things have been kind of rough lately and I've had a lack of motivation to post anything. But I do have good news (sort of)…I actually went on a good date last week (seriously!!). Yes, I’m really capable of liking someone. The guy is super cute, nice, and funny and it turns out we have a lot in common. He’s even single (for once!). Just one problem…I’ve decided he is SO not into me.

I mean, I totally thought the date was going well, I wasn’t even drunk. He seemed to be having fun too. However at the end of the night I ended up paying for my half of the bill. Ok this is probably mostly my fault. The check came at the end of dinner and my immediate reaction was to nearly throw my credit card across the table at him and say we can split it. I have no idea why I did that, but it really bugs me that he didn’t protest at all…not once.

Usually on a first date I do the standard slow shuffle through my purse searching for my wallet thing until the guy says “don’t be silly” and covers it. I have to at least (pretend to) offer though to be nice. Anyway if this guy was really into me he would have at least tried to reject my offer to pay for myself, right?

Well things aren’t over yet. We probably should be hitting fizzle mode at this point, but I’ve decided to take this on as a challenge and see if there's any hope. I'm bored and of course the fact that he doesn’t like me that much makes him way more attractive (Sick, I know). The texting games have already begun…stay tuned.

XOXO, Sweet.

And now a word from our sponsor....

Sh*t has hit the fan at the workplace of Sweet and Salty coinciding quite conveniently with Salty beginning to feel flu-ish and most of the men in her life deciding to act like children. In an effort to keep their jobs, and to keep Salty from writing increasingly bitter posts (this was not a good weekend for her), events of the past weekend will be summarized:

• Salty went out on a limb and asked bus boy out....he said yes, he would call this weekend, but she didn't hear from him until 10:30pm Sunday night. All he said was sorry he had work parties both nights (and your phone broke??). He is now out of the picture.
• Lawyer Lad did not pull through on Sat night when Salty got locked out of her place at 1 am in Wicker Park. He is now also out of the picture.
  
• Crazy hasn't called which is fine, but crazy.
• My west coast texter pretty much called me out for being lame enough to give these guys a chance in the first place.
  

All in all, Salty is having a bad week and is rethinking her life, her boys, and her job security. More to come...

xoxo,
Salty

the bold and the beautiful.....

Let's begin by pretending I didn't write the last post....and move swiftly on to the events of this past week/weekend. To avoid a long narrative, I'll bullet the boy highlights:

• Turns out I'm not the only one who likes to send inappropriate texts to inappropriate people at inappropriate hours (good thing the gentlemen in question is safely located on the west coast---WHEW)

• Lawyer lad made a late night appearance on Friday and an early morning escape on Saturday ( I need to stop this).

• Friday night I spent an hour chatting it up with this guy who I later saw making out with another dude in the corner (of course)....but he did call me the next day. Go figure.

• The guy who ditched me for another girl last weekend sent apologetic texts that were ignored.

All this was Friday night. Saturday night was a little more interesting...which brings me to bus boy. Many moons ago I met this guy at a friend of a friend's house. He was cute, but taken, and that was about it.... fast forward 6 months. I move apartments and take a new bus route to work. Every single day I see the same guy on the bus. He looks familiar, but since I can't remember why, I just ignore him. A couple months after these daily sightings, I find myself sitting next to him on the ride home. In an attempt to be friendly I introduce myself and confess that I can't remember how I know him -- we went to high school together, right? Not so much. Turns out he was the cute guy from the friend of a friend's house. Whoops!

Anyways, we chat the whole way home and are getting along fabulously when my stop appears out of nowhere and I practically have to dive-roll off the bus. Needless to say there was no time to exchange numbers. I immediately call our mutual friend and tell her that I ran into him on the bus and ask whether he is still dating that one girl (I'm trying to avoid intentionally going for unavailable men). "No," she says "he's not, AND he asks about you all the time." Yay! So of course from then on I am super excited about seeing him on the bus and of course I never run into him again.....and then I move.

Accepting that this fellow is clearly not in my cards, I proceed to forget about him until our mutual friend confesses that he still asks about me (and that these inquiries are accompanied by a large bashful grin), and that he'll be at a halloween party she is coming in town for.

Faaaaaaaaast forward to Sat night. I am pumped to see this guy again for the first time since the end of the summer. When I arrive at the party, however, he is already several drinks into the evening and he may or may not have been accompanied by a "friend" who happens to be wearing the minist of mini skirts. I'm dissappointed that he is there with someone (even though I am assured that although they once dated, are are not anymore), but I decide not to let it ruin my night. My strategy is to just pretend he is not there--- even when he comes over in an attempt to talk, and especially when I find him looking my way.

Well, my strategy works, he clearly gets the hint and we don't talk for the whole evening. The next day, feeling a little bad, a little frustrated, and a little bored with all the boys in my life, I decide to just be bold and ask him out....he immediately texts back saying yes and that he'll call on Thursday or Friday. Eeek! Hopefully I'll have an update tomorrow....

xoxo Salty