#4 Quarry House Tavern

On August 12th, I posted a list, provided to me by friendly Bocce-ers, of the Top 5 Places to Meet Decent Men in DC. On Friday night, two childhood friends and I got ourselves down to #4.

The Quarry House Tavern, in downtown Silver Spring, passed the test with flying colors, except that I didn’t meet any men. But there was such potential!

First off I must say the bar Jedi Mind tricks you into being a little bit afraid with it’s sketchy entrance on the side of an Indian buffet restaurant. The set of steep stairs are covered by a rectangular black box that has a door cut into it. There is no sign, except a white piece of paper with The Quarry House scribbled on it and taped to the top of the black box.

Once inside though the bar has everything anyone should ever want in a bar. Amazing whiskey list. Even more amazing beer list. Dark walls covered in metal beer signs. A fantastic juke box with a varied CD collection including The Smiths, U2, Van Morrison, Elvis, Otis Redding, Run DMC, and Johnny Cash. Two kinds of tater tots (get the bacon and cheese over the Old Bay).  Friendly, well-versed staff who are required to buzz around from table-to-table on a busy Friday, but will still stop and help you choose one of the 20 beers you have it narrowed down to.

The kicker: the place is a revolving door of decent-looking, decent-acting men! Without having spoken to any of them, they seemed like the kind of guys who get together on a Friday night and drink good beer and pick decent music on the jukebox, and don’t have a desire to go to a “meat market” bar and hunt for women to take home with them. They instead leave it to chance that a girl will be impressed with their chosen jukebox song and strike up a conversation, that could turn into a date, that could lead to a second date, and maybe even a third, upon which they may get laid.

I spent the evening drinking whiskey and catching up with my friends. I didn’t have a strong desire to spend time near the jukebox and commend men on their picks. When you only get to see friends a couple times a year, it seems more important to enjoy a shot of tequila and two large orders of tater tots together. But now that I know how spot on the Quarry House is, you can bet I’ll be back, with a wing woman in tow.

Bad Day To Do List

The last two days have been frustrating professionally and personally. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time diving into why. Instead I’m going to create a list of the somewhat quirky things I did to cheer myself up. Maybe you can find inspiration to be used on your next bad day.

-Sit in Dupont Circle. People watch. Engage in the conversation with the pleasant, if not odd, young man who offers you a slice of his pizza.

-Scroll to your favorite song on your i-Pod. Hit play. Repeat.

-Apologize to the people you snap at as soon as you realize you snapped at them. This will greatly improve any chance you have at preventing a frustrating Day 3.

-Finally learn how to play flip cup at the age of 27.

-Eat Chipotle Barbacoa soft tacos.

-Don’t shop at the GAP.

-Pick up the latest issue of National Geographic magazine. Flip to the article on Somalia. Realize how lucky you are.

-Compliment someone. And then compliment someone else.

-Participate in a lot of high 5s.

-Show your co-workers the latest routine you learned in Hip Hop class. Share in their laughter. Then show it to your Bocce team. Teach them how to cross their arms “street”.

Love is Selling Online

One of my best friends, and an avid supporter of my blog, sent me the link to this fairly amusing Advertising Age column Love for Sale: What Marketers Can Learn From Online Dating by Matt Brennock.

Brennock’s introduction includes the following paragraph.

“Those looking for love online may be lacking in fancy marketing degrees…and, more than likely, a healthy sense of reality. But give them due props for going about the business of selling with a similar acumen to most seasoned marketers. We can all learn a thing or two from the brave and the crazy, riding down, down into that cyber tunnel of love, for roughly $18 a month, or about $3 a whack job.”

I don’t consider myself crazy, or brave, for taking the very small leap necessary to join an online dating site. And while the writer’s arguments about how marketers can learn from people like me are intriguing, I’m not sure the best way to go about starting the column is to insult the thousands of people who don’t think it’s so very strange, or unrealistic, to find a date online.

Brennock follows up his introduction with a bullet point containing this line, “The vast majority of people out there are hurting, confused, bitter, uncertain, cynical and, yes, crazy. So, once you’ve weeded out those potential targets, you’re left with only a small percentage of people who are at their keyboards with arms wide open.”

I’m guessing he isn’t spot on with this one. The friends I have who have successfully, or unsuccessfully, tried online dating have gone into it believing it was one more way to find a booty call, a date, or a relationship. I would not have described the online-daters who are friends or friends of friends as any of the six adjectives Brennock lists above. I don’t disagree that some people who online date fall into those categories, I just don’t think, without evidence, the sad, pathetic group should be claimed the “vast majority.”

Further down the page, the writer started to make a bit more sense to me. I am fully aware that when it comes to my online profile, a man’s first impression is based on the nine photos I have posted. And I agree that knowing the argument for why that is can help marketers.

On this subject Brennock writes, “We are all biologically programmed to be ‘about looks.’ Apple has built a small empire based on its remarkable aesthetic.”

I work online. I often hear co-workers gripping about the low quality ads that appear on sites they frequent. A close-up of belly fat or a dancing hot dog don’t do the trick with my 20 or so cubicle mates. You’d think good marketers would start taking some lessons from Apple and clean up their look.

Brennock nears the ends his strange ode to online dating with the following: “Forget metrics and science and whatever else they teach in business school. While the tools of communication change, the truth will always come down to this: We are just people trying to connect with other people in the same way we always have, whether we’re selling love or linen sheets.”

And on that point, I can agree.

The New Normal

My college best friend told me on the phone I sound like me again. Yesterday my roommate said I seemed much happier lately. And I have caught myself frequently singing in the car (to happy songs!)

I woke up three weeks ago hungover and sad. I had hit the latest “bottom.” As cheesy as it sounds, I sat in bed and gave myself two options–wallow in self-pity or push off the bottom and start making my way back to the surface. I didn’t know how much further down the “down” could go, but I didn’t want to find out.

I went on yelp.com and found out where to take beginner yoga classes in Silver Spring. I joined an online dating service. I started this blog. I began eating healthier. I found joy in being with my girlfriends. And I started going out on Friday nights with co-workers or Bocce teammates who introduced me to their friends.

This morning when I was reading Modern Love, my favorite column in the Sunday New York Times, the exact expression I had been looking for to describe my rise was written in a single line, “This was the new normal.”

The column’s writer was dealing with a break-up and a bout of breast cancer. In my case, I have been dealing with my parents rocky divorce and my own break-up. And though our pain was different, Judy Smith of Seattle and I had come to the same conclusion. We needed to accept our “new normal.”

My parents are leading separate lives. For the first 26 years of my life my mom and dad were together. They aren’t anymore. When I call my mom at the house, I can’t reach my dad. And some years, at Christmas, I’m going to have to pick. But I still have both my parents, and my little brother, and they still love me and want to spend time with me.  The time spent together has just taken on a new form.

I am single. I don’t have a last call of the day or someone to wake up next to. My best friend is out walking the world on his own, and I don’t get to know what he’s doing or if he’s okay. He’s not my best friend anymore. But I get to spend time with old friends and make new ones. And I get to write this blog, which means I get to write, something I didn’t even know I missed.

I will get to have butterflies again some day. And experience the wonder of falling in love.

My “new normal,” compared to so many others’ “normal,” is fairly fantastic. Buried beneath the sadness and pain of the last year, I found “me” again. It’s nice to be back on the surface. It’s easier to “be” up here.

21 Again

Last night I joined seven others in drinking out of an octo-bong–a wide plastic funnel with eight clear rubber tubes. The master of the ceremonies at this particular house party held up the octo-bong, and we all took a tube. After removing the plastic top that held back the beer in the tube, the funnel was raised and we all bent our knees, put our heads back, and drank up. As a virgin octo-bonger, I’m proud to say I was the first to finish my tube of beer.

My friend, who kindly agreed to join me for a happy hour, a birthday party at Fado’s in Chinatown, and a house party in Dupont, got quite the kick out of the news that I had never even seen an octo-bong. To my credit, she is a graduate of a Big Ten school and I went to small liberal arts colleges for my two degrees. We had other kinds of bongs around, just not the octo-bong.

My bong hit of Bud Light capped off a night of Blue Moon, Hoegaarden, a Lemon Drop shot, a Red-Headed Slut shot, and Blue Point Summer Ale (a Long Island ale I had never had before. I would recommend to anyone who likes summer ales).

And though the hangover was a little rougher then I’m used to, it was totally worth it.

The word I would use to describe last night is free. Not free as in no cost. Free as in I was single and truly loving it. I smoked two cigarettes at the party (my mom is going to read this and kill me). I was never a smoker, but during and after college, every once in awhile I enjoyed a Marlboro Light from a friend if I had been drinking. I stopped doing that because my boyfriend said he wouldn’t kiss me at the end of the night if I smoked. I thought that was fair. Three years later, and on my own again, it was a strangely amazing feeling when I was offered a cigarette and could say yes. I don’t think it’s a habit I’ll pick up again, but I savored that moment.

When I was 21 I would have been back at it again tonight. But I’m not 21, and I don’t want to pretend to be. So instead I watched a movie with my roommate and wrote in my blog. I will be in bed by midnight so I can go to yoga at 9 a.m.

But next week my childhood best friend and her sister are coming to town. The Quarry House and the Piratz Tavern await. Let the adventure continue.

Forward Thoughts

Girlfriends often send me forwards with anecdotes or humorous one-liners about the downfalls of men and relationships. I received the list below from a friend on Thursday. While amusing at times, and true in some cases, I wonder if words like these further divide those of us from Venus and those of us from Mars. My thoughts in blue.

1. Don’t imagine you can change a man – unless he’s in diapers. In my experience, pushing someone to change does not work out well for the person doing the pushing. People can change, including men, but they have to come to the changing on their own.

2. What do you do if your boyfriend walks out? You shut the door. Agreed.

3. If they put a man on the moon – they should be able to put them all up there. I, like most straight women, don’t actually want all men relocated to the moon. I shudder to think of a world with only women.

4. Go for the younger man. You might as well, they never mature anyway. True in some cases, not in others.

5. Men are all the same – they just have different faces, so we can tell them apart. I’ve had three serious boyfriends, with three handsome faces, and three different sets of desires, needs, and goals. They are unique individuals.

6. Best way to get a man to do something is to suggest he is too old for it. I have yet to try this tactic. Intriguing.

7. Love is blind, but marriage is a real eye-opener. No experience here.

8. The children of Israel wandered around the desert for 40 years. Even in Biblical times, men wouldn’t ask for directions. My last boyfriend had no problem asking me for directions. I was not always the best at giving accurate ones.

9. If he asks what sort of books you’re interested in, tell him check books. I’m fairly sure that response would eliminate the possibility of being asked on a second date.

10. Remember a sense of humor does not mean that you tell him jokes, it means that you laugh at his. I have no problem laughing at a man’s jokes, especially if they are in fact funny. But it’s just as much a turn-on if a guy laughs at mine. I would hope smart men know that.

Going Halfsies?

Prior to my entrance into the world of online dating, I took part in a heated debate on whether a guy “lost points” if he didn’t offer to pay for the meal on the first date. The catch, to me, was the date in reference was set up through an online dating site. I argued that no guy should lose points if he accepted an offer from the girl to pay half. I was forcibly shut down by the three women and one man who took part in the debate. This was a few months ago, so their arguments are hazy, but the gist of it was that for reasons ranging from chivalry to respect to the idea that men must win women over, the guy should offer and pay for the first dinner in full, otherwise suffer the points loss.

A friend who I told about the discussion spoke to a friend of hers who had some experience with online dating. This friend of a friend agreed with me. Her argument, which was more valid than any I made, was that both parties, male and female, paid the money and sought the dates provided by dating sites. It wasn’t as if the couple met in a bar and the guy requested the girl’s number. If while online dating the guy was always expected to pay in full he could go through his bank account damn quick, especially if was having some success at getting dates.

When it comes to paying, I’ve always been the split-it-down-the-middle type. It’s not because I’m an uber feminist. The three boyfriends I’ve had made the same amount of money as I did. It didn’t seem fair that because they were men, they needed to bankroll our activities as a couple.

On the flip side, I can’t say I am not flattered when a man treats.

A co-worker who encouraged me to sign up for online dating said when the check comes along she always asks, “Can I help with that?” The phrase isn’t as specific as saying “Do you want to split it?” and, according to her, her date always appreciated that she offered, and 19 times out of 20, said something like, “No but thanks for asking.”

When I come to the “time to pay up” crossroads, I have to admit, despite valid arguments, I don’t think I’ll dock a man points if he accepts my offer to help. To me the test will be whether or not he asks me out again.

Crash and Breathe

I fell on my head in yoga class on Friday.

I was attempting my first yoga handstand. I was asked to face a wall on hands and knees. I kicked one leg up and the other one was supposed to go with it. Instead my arms gave out and my head came crashing into the wall first and then the wood floor. I think I sent my yoga teacher into five-seconds worth of cardiac arrest.

The shock of failing so miserably at something I was confident I could do took my breath away. When I was describing the event to my roommate, I discovered it was a very similar feeling to when I have failed in other aspects of  life.

I failed my relationship. I remember clearly the moment when the failure hit. My boyfriend and I were at dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. My chest tightened and I had to remember to breathe. In the days previous I had a feeling the end might be near, but when the failure hit, it felt like being dropped on my head.

I failed again with this blog. I didn’t want my ex-boyfriend to find it. I knew if the situation had been reveresed, I would have been heart broken to see him writing about online dating and places to meet girls. I blocked him from my Twitter feed so he wouldn’t have to see tweets about my blog. I didn’t send an email out to our friends about it, just in case, and I didn’t post the link on Facebook.

So when I found out last night from a mutual friend that my ex stumbled upon Lady & Her Boys Club, I felt like I had tumbled onto the floor all over again.

My ex has always been more emotionally stable than me. And he will have the willpower to not regularly check for updates. He may not even care. But on the chance that he does, I’m sorry I hurt him.

Part of the journey is failure. The wisdom-givers drill that in from a young age. They also say it’s important to learn from failure, and to not let the chance of failing make you hold back.

I couldn’t save my relationship. I couldn’t figure out the right equation to make it work for both of us anymore. So I had to accept defeat.

I couldn’t stop my ex from seeing that I was making a very public attempt at moving on. I hope he accepts my apology, but that’s all I can do.

I couldn’t prevent gravity from winning out when it came to my first attempt at standing on my hands since I was 10. I went back to yoga class today anyways. And next week maybe I’ll give the hand stand another try.

Sometimes the build-up to a crash is long and happens in slow motion, sometimes it happens in the blink of an eye. It always takes my breath away. But it also reminds me I’m still breathing.

The Logistics of a Compliment

I put on an above-the-knee silk dress and brand new heels. I applied eyeliner, eye shadow and mascara and hurried out the door into the warm summer evening. I arrived at the Columbia Heights Metro stop and a kind woman pointed me in the right direction of my final destination. And so it began.

On the way to the bar, only two honks. But it was still daylight, and not yet 6 pm. By the time I said my good-byes to friends and friends of friends at the Wonderland Ballroom, it was 9:45 and night had fallen. That’s when the fun really began.

It started with a man on a stoop who pushed his lips together and created a squeaky noise that I believe he meant to be an air kiss. Next it was a very loud whistle from a passenger in a white car who I avoided eye contact with. After two blocks, I was greeted with an enthusiastic, but polite “hello” and “nice dress” by another man on a stoop. Then a quick and dirty honk. Finally the walk climaxed with a car speeding past, and a deep voice yelling, “In those heels, I’d do anything to you girl!”

While I enjoy the attention of men, especially when I’ve put the effort in to apply paint to my eyes and stilts to my feet, I am perplexed as to why it feels not-so-nice when I’m shouted at by passing cars. The man who said “nice dress” went over much better than the dude who was going to dirty things to me because of my heels. But I have to admit none of any of the various sounds that came at me walking four city blocks made me feel comfortable.

As a single girl, I love a compliment, but where’s the line? Am I discriminating against the men who decide the best way to tell me I look pretty is to honk or whistle? Why do I feel more threatened by them than I do by the guy who comes up to the bar while I’m waiting and buys me a drink?

It can be a terrifying world for a single 27-year-old female. I’m not naive. I have heard the stories, some from friends. I understand the importance of being self-aware and safe. But on a busy city steet when a man on a stoop greets me and compliments my outfit, even if he is overenthusiastic, I can take the compliment with a polite smile and maybe even a hi back. I’m not sure I want to live in a world where I shouldn’t do that.

Top Five Places to Meet Decent Men in D.C.

Tonight, after a brutal Bocce loss, my team gathered at the bar and started ordering pitchers. It’s fuzzy how it happened, but the conversation meandered it’s way to where I should go to meet quality, available men in D.C.

To start, a teammate informed me I needed to move to Denver. According to him, Denver has more available men than women, unlike D.C., which has a plethora of attractive, career-driven ladies and not enough men to satisfy them all. Sadly, I have a good job here, and in these economic times, it didn’t seem realistic to move to Colorado just to find a good man.

So he, and the others, including the team drinking next to us, started zeroing in on there version of the Top Five Places to Meet Decent Men in D.C. Keep in mind this was done in thinking about what I was looking for in a “decent man.” Qualifications were nice, smart, sense of humor, has a job, at least semi-attractive and likes sports.

1. RFD, Chinatown (near the Verizon Center) — A sports bar with forty beers on tap and quite a few more than that in bottles. The rule was to wear a low cut shirt OR a team jersey. My instructions were to watch games at the bar and strike up a conversation with whoever strikes my fancy. According to my three male sources, not all guys have the balls to talk first at bars.

2. Public Bar, Farragut North/Dupont Circle — A new sports bar with “fresh meat.” Low cut shirt and standing by bar apply here.

3. Tryst, Adam’s Morgan — My directions were to show up in a low-cut shirt on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon with a crossword puzzle. Find a couch seat next to a cute guy. Ask the guy for help with 15 across.

4. Quarry House Tavern, Silver Spring — This suggestion was amusing because it was prefaced with if I wanted to meet guys on the slightly “punk-ish” side. For those of you reading this who know me, the image of me with a punk rocker should make you giggle softly to yourself . That doesn’t mean I won’t try it. Punk rockers can be nice guys, too. Oh, and they like low cut shirts.

5. Meridian Hill Park — A nice change of pace from the bar scene, both guys and gals confirmed Meridian Hill Park is the place to be on Sundays for meeting people. One guy suggested I attend the free 5 p.m. yoga session wearing a low cut shirt. I’m unsure yoga on Sunday evenings in a park is where I’ll meet my next boyfriend–or even a rebound guy–but free yoga outdoors sounds like fun, so hell, why not try it?

Number one take away from this night: I need to buy more low cut shirts.

Update August 13, 11:30 am: My teammate was right about Denver. It seems I live on the wrong coast!

Romance Novels v. Real Life

I read my share of romance novels in high school and early college. My collection consisted mostly of Nora Roberts paperbacks, which were on the bestsellers lists and could be read in public without shame.

The basic formula Roberts used worked for me. Strong, career-driven female meets pesky, but very attractive man who challenges her basic way of life and makes her realize she doesn’t want to go it alone. There are fights along the way that only ever lead to two things: hot, makeup sex or romantic grand gestures. And there was never once an unhappy ending.

But here’s the problem, fights don’t always end in great sex or grand gestures. Happy endings seem to be fairly infrequent. And at the ripe old age of 21, I figured that out. So I stopped reading romance novels and I never looked back.

Last fall a friend I respected told me I had to read the Twilight series. I was clued out of what the books were about, and so when she told me that she could guarantee I would think vampires were hot after I read them, I thought she had hopped on the crazytown express.

Turns out I think vampires are hot and Twilight is really four romance novels disguised as pre-teen vampire novels. Except the happy ending lasts forever because the vampires live forever. Romance novels on steroids.

Here’s the catch about reading romance novels three years into a rocky relationship, they remind you of something important–it’s okay to want big love.

I won’t find a hot vampire who turns me into a vampire so I can be with him for all of time and have sex all night every night instead of sleep (because according to author Stephanie Meyer vampires don’t sleep).

But I can do better than someone who is never sure and won’t hold my hand.

Post-Twilight I have not returned to reading romance novels. I don’t want to believe I have to wait for the perfect man to sweep me off my feet (literally and figuratively). If I thought that’s how it worked, I wouldn’t be online dating.

Cheesiness aside though, romance novels do deliver an important message. We all deserve big love. We don’t all find it. But it can’t hurt to try.

Update August 13, 11:31 am: Looks like they have turned a classic hottie, Mr. Darcy, into a vampire, or should I say “vampyre.”

Ode to My Fross

My boss thinks she’s very clever and calls herself my “fross” (if it’s not already obvious: friend + boss=fross).

And why, you may ask, am I writing about my fross on my dating and relationship blog?

To start, she was the first person to leave a comment, so she gets an automatic shout-out. Also, she tweeted about my blog to her 342 followers, which likely lead to the 17 page views I got today.

Mostly, though, why I am writing an ode to my fross is the basic fact that she got me this far.

My fross was not always my fross. For the first six months, we were boss and employee and we didn’t always get along.

But then my mom called and said my dad was leaving. When I went into work two days later, my boss/soon-to-be-fross closed the door to her office and let me have a meltdown. And a couple more meltdowns after that. And during each meltdown, she said the words you need to hear from someone in a leadership role in your life, “Life can really suck sometimes. But you will survive this.”

And she was right. I am still surviving it.

Seven months later, when my boyfriend decided he could not move in with me, the second person I texted was my fross. She called immediately. I had to convince her she didn’t need to come over and bring mass amounts of dessert.

The next day I walked into her office and fell apart. And again, she said the right thing.

My fross buys me lunch (more than she should) and throws bags of M&Ms in my cubicle. And every time the reality of my broken family or my lost relationship hits me, whether I’m at my cubicle or in a meeting, I go into her office and close the door and she figures out a way to dig me out of the hole.

I don’t know how people survive the hardest days of life without a fross. I happened to find one at the moment when my hardest days yet were staring me in the face.

One day, hopefully soon, I’m going to go on a fantastic date. And I can’t wait for the morning when I can walk into my fross’ office and tell her all about it.