I’m looking forward to the day when I can stop writing these goddamn dating blog posts. I know that a lot of you enjoy them more than anything else I write so, here you go, you restless mob, eager for gossip…

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Two months ago I matched with another woman with the letter A at the beginning of her name. You would think I would run out of people with that letter but apparently I’m not even close. Surprisingly, none of them have had the same name yet. This letter A was covered in tattoos and I didn’t know how much I thought that was hot until we matched. My inner emo/hipster/sk8er girl swooning went into overdrive. A was cool as fuck. We both seemed to be over the whole dating thing and just laid out who we were. At one point I laughed and told her that we were the exact opposite of how dating intros were supposed to go.

Considering how poorly my dating instincts had shown themselves to be, I put one of m’girls in charge of this one. Squad Mom, as I like to call her, told me to calm the fuck down. So, I put a timer on my messaging with A. Day after day I’d tell her that time was up and apologize. Day after day she’d say she was cool with it. Behind the scenes I was doing my usual swooning. I kept telling myself “just play it cool, bitch” when we were messaging and then I would immediately go back to not playing it cool when the messaging timer was done and A wasn’t aware… I just realized that this must be what it’s like for straight women when they talk to dudes.

We messaged for a month before our first date. We added video chats and voice messages to the mix and, to be honest, I was going crazy. It was like the 21^st Century version of You’ve Got Mail. At one point I sent her a pic of the tattoo on my upper back and she sent me the one on her lower back. I joked with her that this was the Victorian equivalent of sexting. I stared at that picture way too much. As well as the tattoos on her arms and legs. But I played it cool.

The week of our date we sent each other pictures of our kids. It was obvious that we were into each other so we took that next step with a lot of comfort. I told her about my three and she told me about her five. Yes, that’s a lot of fucking kids but I was just, like, “I’ll cook more tater tots.” As I learned about her kids, I clearly had a favorite among her five, and I told A as much. She laughed and was cool with it.

The day of our date, we met in Las Colinas, which was exactly between both of us. I told her I did that on purpose so that we were too far away from our respective apartments to make bad choices. Squad Mom had said I had to wait until the third date to “smash” as the young kids call it. A, as always, laughed and said she was cool with that. She said that she wanted the next time she had sex to be special. I immediately thought about the princess lights hanging from my headboard and how romantic they are. Anyway, I told her that we had done the exact opposite of everything I normally did so we might as well continue on that trend and pick food that you’re not supposed to eat on a first date. She chose fajitas, a nightmare for stains on a blouse and the potential to get sauce all over your face.

The dress she wore for the date was slightly see through (she wore sensible undergarments that covered everything) and I caught myself staring at her tits a little too often. But her fake eyelashes and her vivid eyes were what really captured my attention. And her tattoos. Oh, her tattoos. She talked a lot, which I was fine with because, despite what the length of these blog posts might lead you to believe, I am shy when I first meet someone new. We then got some fancy popsicles (another makeup nightmare) and walked around a lot. At the end of our date we stood next to our cars for an awkward amount of time and talked until she finally leaned in and gave me a couple of soft kisses with a hint of tongue brushing my lip. It was so hot. We both agreed that we’d made the right choice keeping the date far away from our apartments and were grateful for Squad Mom’s wisdom.

The next day we set a second date and it ended up being 11 days later because we were both Working Ass Bitches with shift work. I voiced my frustration that it was taking so long to get to that second date… not frustration at her but at the situation. She interpreted it wrong, said she was feeling pressured, and suddenly broke everything off. She then did the thing I hate more than anything in the world… she asked me if we could still be friends. I didn’t respond for a week. When I did I told her that I couldn’t do the friend thing because I would always have dating in the back of my mind. I also told her I was still open to dating. She didn’t respond. She’ll go down in the dating annals as The Tattooed Goddess.

The biggest problem I had afterward was that I thought about her kids a lot. A couple of them were going through rough situations and I felt for them. I’ve made my peace with the fact that I’ll never know how they’re doing. I’d learned a new lesson… don’t tell me about your kids until we are most definitely a thing.

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A couple of weeks ago I matched with a woman who had a short and sweet profile. She listed herself as a lesbian and not much more. She had absolutely gorgeous green eyes. I asked her if she was Celtic and she said that she was… and ironically asked me how I knew. I really liked J’s sense of humor. We laughed a lot. As we messaged it came out that she had recently come out (see that word pun there? Eh? Eh?). I asked her to tell me her Queer Story and she did… over something like two or three hours. I could tell it was important for J to get it all out there so I let her go but I was like, “I’m tired, lady. Wrap it up.” It was a beautiful moment that held a lot of power for her. She’s a therapist and my background in Pastoral Counseling kinda overlapped so we were healthy as fuck in our interactions.

After a day or two I asked her out and we couldn’t find a day to make it work. We kept messaging and I kept asking until we had a conversation that J initiated about some of her wariness. I shared some of my concerns (she was fresh out of her marriage, etc.) and by the end of the conversation I had been moved to the friend zone. She admitted that she was in a place where she probably needed to play with some boobies and have fun instead of jumping into a relationship.

I might have offered The Therapist my boobies to play with. We might have had a LOT of fun sexting. I might have inadvertently taken on the role of her sex therapist coaching her out of the shame of traditional female sexuality. I can neither confirm nor deny these rumors.

J is now known as The Therapist among my friends. Don’t you feel special to be lumped into that group?

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My single friends and I all lament about how hard it is to date now. Not just because of Covid-19 but also because… it’s just hard. Every match falls apart. So many people won’t put forward the basic effort of continuing a conversation. So many people just want sex and I’ve learned through trial and error that cis-women usually won’t say they want a hookup. They have to speak in code and I’ve had to turn into a codebreaker deciphering the subtlety of their profiles.

I just keep reminding myself that somewhere out there is a woman who is somewhat emotionally healthy, intellectually compatible, and has room in her heart for three beautiful young men as well as a middle aged transwoman. I realize that is a BIG ask but I keep telling myself that I’ll find her eventually. Until then, I guess you get blog posts.