Silverbacks - Hunt or be Hunted

No, I'm not talking gorillas.

I'm talking about finally having a male version of the ever so popular "cougar."  Older men have been hunting and bedding younger women for YEARS.  We finally have a name for the guys who do it.

Pass it along, because this is happening.

What's a Girl Gotta do to get a Little Love?

eHarmony was a bust.  Again.

Plenty of Fish turned out to be gross.

I swore off Match.com last year.  Or, was it the year before?

OkCupid was nixed as soon as I was forced to listen to hipsters at an open mic night.~

And, I'm pretty sure that it was Chemistry.com who matched me up with a peer from high school.  Sure, it gave me a reason to laugh while closing down the account, but that's about it.

Maybe it’s because I had nothing else to do on a Tuesday night or maybe it’s because my thirties are getting to me, but I decided to pull out all the stops and go back to my tried and true way of meeting men – Craig’s List.*

I posted once before heading to bed.  I knew there was a chance of inappropriate photos, so I decided to check my e-mail before work.  My posting was flagged and removed, which seems to happen every time I have a lapse in judgment and head back to good ol’ CL.  So, I opted to repost before work and not touch it again until after work.^

Holy smokes.  There were freaks.  Not to mention a married guy looking for a friend and someone else trying to set up a friend for a double date.  There were guys old enough to be my father.  I’m even pretty sure that there was one high school student.  But, the ultimate response was from “anonymous.”~~

I don’t have high expectations.  A girl can dream of meeting a guy at some point during 2013, which may lead to at least one hot make out session.**

~I was talked into going to an after hours work event with one of my managers and a vendor.  Who knew that an unsuspecting dive bar would be swarmed with hipsters for an open mic night?  Not.  Us.

*Yes, apparently, it’s a thing that people are still doing.

^One more time from the top - 31 (Inner NW)

I posted last night, but was flagged and removed. I don't know what to say other than I'm a real person who's looking for an actual connection in the internet age, so let's try this one again from the top. Here's my original positing (thank you in advance for not flagging it):

TAP. TAP. TAP. Is this thing on???? - 31 (Inner NW)

I don't know if anyone reads these things any more. A few years ago I used Craig's List to find furniture, roommates, and social activities. I can't remember the last time I actually used Craig's List for anything. However, the website that want my money are full of people with great personalities that I don't want to see naked, and the other free websites are packed with the folks who don't even want to know my name before they jump into my bed. In short, it's just not working out.

Maybe it's me or maybe it's the guys I've met in Portland, but they just don't do it for me.

I want a guy who's smart and kind of cute, kind of sexy, very funny, but not funny looking. We're talking about a guy who eats meat and doesn't use a bicycle as his primary mode of transportation -- the kind of guy who doesn't have skinny jeans or an ironic mustache.

Ideally, he'd be able to handle everything from the random movie quotes that spill out of my mouth to my snarky and smart alecky comments. Needless to say, the filter between my brain and my mouth is still a work in progress. Luckily, I can take it just as good as I can dish it out, so whether he's an opinionated republican or a nice liberal boy, we'll likely get along just fine.

Okay, I'll admit it; I'd like to meet someone who knows how to make his biting sense of humor and lack of a social filter work for him, because I'm sure that the more I got to know him, the more I'd realize that he's the funniest person I know. Sure, his social commentary might not always be new or refreshing, but his impression of the gay hipster who is in denial of being both gay and a hipster can make me laugh every time.

The truth is that I'm over educated and over worked. I have a hard time turning my brain off. I don't have adulthood figured out -- yet. I don't have kids. I don't smoke. I'm not 420 friendly. I don't drink often, but when I do I drink like a fish. I like to travel. I'm not religious. I watch way too much television (everything from History Detectives to How I Met Your Mother and Match Game). I have opinions about everything from Vera Katz to Sam Adams, Sam Adams to Rogue Ales, and Rogue to Wolverine (although the latter would probably just be made up). And, even though I was born and raised in Oregon, I'm still trying to find where I fit in while in Portland.

I could be in better shape, but I'm not fat, big and beautiful, or even height weight proportionate. I'm simply on the thicker side of average, but still -- I'd like to find someone with broad shoulders and stocky build that can't keep his hands off my curves.

And, most importantly, I'm ready to meet him already!

~~The punctuation and spacing are all original:

no it is your feminism that has gotten you and us men to this point,

you women have done this to yourselves, and feminism is the cause.

you all wanted independence and all that other feminist bullshit. so now you are nothing more than a piece of meat.

because you all get everything and we don't get anything out of the deal. so we play along long enough to get what we need out of the deal (pussy)

and we flake you off. because you are not worth the stress, money, time, and emotional bullshit we have to deal with in the hopes of getting some pussy.

hookers are cheaper and we don't have to listen to their mouths constantly bitching about everything.

so now you are all saying we cant get laid so we are just not having anything to do with you period.

if you bitches want a relationship you are going to start having to give us something too. end of story. we are not going to play the game your way anymore. get it?

so now it's going to be our way or the highway. take a good look around women all over are bitching because the men are doing this. why do you think that might be?

see above statements on feminism. take your feminism and shove it up your ass's. we will not play anymore.

**Mama has needs.  Please let there be at least one make out session!  At.  Least.  One.

It's Sucking my Will to Live

Yes, I'm talking about work.

The last thing I want to hear from one of my managers and a coworker - completely independent of each other - after I put in a 50+ hour week, including nights and weekends, is that I should put in more hours.

I might understand their comments if I was a habitual time waster, had a major project in the works, or even if I wasn't efficient.  But, I work through lunches and skip on pretty much all of my coworkers'  bi-daily coffee runs (including the advice giver), I just wrapped up a major project about 10 days ago, and I've been known to do things like update reports in 45 minutes that others couldn't or wouldn't do in several months.

It sucks, but it's more than the ridiculous and unnecessary time demands.  It's the conflicting advice that is coming at me from all directions:

A coworker labeled as a sourpuss suggested to always show up to work happy, "You don't want to be labeled a grouch, like me."

Whereas the coworker who suggested that put in more hours went on to encourage me to "be more even keeled" and not be so cheerful at work.*

After all of that and passive aggressive comments from the same manager about "leaving early" (aka on time, after I worked through lunch and actively put in over nine hours that day), I feel one thing - exhausted.

It doesn't help that I had been stressing myself out and making myself sick with worry about completing the big project on time.  So, I've been taking a sick day here, and a sick day there.

Last week the other big news around my department was that - although we should use our sick time if we are sick - we need to keep in mind that the higher-ups in the department are tracking who uses sick time on Mondays and Fridays.

I pointed out during a team meeting that I've been using sick time for doctor's appointments.  I was instructed not to do it.  (Actually, it was more like a collective, "NOOO!" from the above referenced manager and the four other people on the team.)

Ugh.  Seriously.  This kind of information would have come in handy a year ago.

It all makes me so tired.  So very tired.

So very exhausted.


*This particular coworker also suggested that I be more serious at work.  Within ten minutes of this conversation she was throwing handfuls of paperclips at another coworker.