Right-Around-the-Corner

On a quarterly basis, I go through an intense "I’m-just-going-to-make-the-first-move-and-email-the-male-online-profiles-I’m-interested-in" phase. In February 2009, I carved out a chunk of time to do just that and emailed a few guys that looked interesting.

That was the first time I ever corresponded with Right-Around-the-Corner. I liked his profile. Really liked it. He seemed thoughtful and deliberate in his choice of words – indeed, he’s a writer for a TV comedy show that I don’t actually watch – and had that tall, gangly introvert look that makes me swoon. No misspelled words in this profile. And, even better, he made a few humorous references that made me Laugh Out Loud. So, I dropped him a note.

Through the intrusive-bordering-on-stalker tech features of most online dating sites, I knew two things right away –
1) Right-Around-the-Corner had immediately opened my email upon receipt and
2) Right-Around-the-Corner either didn’t look at my profile or, more likely, blocks people from seeing whether or not he looks at their profile.

And, within a week, I knew a third thing – 3) Right-Around-the-Corner was rude. He never wrote back.

In May 2009, I get an email from Right-Around-the-Corner. Not a response to my message from months before but a new message entirely. He just jogged by a woman that looked like me but was on the phone so he didn’t say anything. But he makes a point of telling me that not only did he just, maybe, almost see me but that he also “turned to look back several times.”

Now I know a fourth thing – 4) Right-Around-the-Corner’s socially awkward.

Why tell me that you just saw me? I don’t want to know that you’re NOW interested because you saw me looking particularly hot on the street one day but weren’t intrigued enough by my profile and bold, first email to do me the courtesy of responding.

But, knowing that this guy is now interested having seen me in person is a turn-on.

Perhaps he doesn't appreciate my online profile, but he likes what he sees on the street. And while that makes me feel like a cheap hooker, it also makes me feel like a cheap hooker that’s just landed a John and that’s pretty fucking special.

After a couple awkward exchanges – and now knowing that Right-Around-the-Corner lives around the corner from me – we decide to meet. Hey, why not?

I’m not going to talk about the dates that we actually went on because it's "while not on a date Right-Around-the-Corner" that provides the most fodder in the context of GIMOTI (Guys I Met on the Internet).

Quite possibly the most awkward experience I've ever had – I ran into Right-Around-the-Corner on the subway after an awkward date a few days prior. We were on the same car. I had grabbed a seat and immediately busied myself with a book as I normally do on the train. I look up and see Right-Around-the-Corner standing 3 feet away from me. He looked like he was... absorbed in thought? I don’t know. I just know that he was at a vantage point where he would clearly have seen me before I would have seen him and he hadn’t said anything.

I said something. “Hello,” I think. And then rambled because I was inexplicably more uncomfortable in that moment than I can remember being with another person in recent memory.

Even though I obsessed on the awkwardness of that subway ride for hours wondering what the fuck just happened, we went out again… and in spite of myself, I had a nice time.

So, I invited him out again and Right-Around-the-Corner responded by telling me that he just wasn’t feeling it and that given the situation – i.e., that we went out via an online dating site with the intention of a romantic relationship (true, that is the intention of an online dating site) – the bar was higher for a romance to take off. And, I guess I missed that bar. It would be the first, ba dum dum…

But Right-Around-the-Corner can’t just say, “I’m not feeling it, good luck to you.” No. Right-Around-the-Corner makes a special point of telling me that I’m awesome and that he’d like to continue to hang out and see where things go…

While I might be quirky and obsessive, I am quite literal about most things. If you tell me you’d like to hang out, I think you’d like to hang out. And if I want to hang out with you, I’ll ask you to hang out.

I asked Right-Around-the-Corner to hang out. Once. Twice. Three times. He was always busy. By the third time, I decided to get out of the “invite Right-Around-the-Corner to hang out business” and decided to just let him make a plan if he was so inclined.

And, he was inclined… to speculate about plans. Several times he invited me to be in touch about hanging out. For a while after things had fizzled. He was even specific about what hanging out could mean – dining, an exhibit, an improv show…

And on at least one occasion after telling me he wasn’t feeling the sting of Cupid’s arrow in his ass, he walked by me sitting in front of my apartment on the street without my noticing him. I know this because he, again, emailed to tell me he had just seen me. Not within a couple hours of it happening like the first time, but a couple days after it had happened. He described what I was wearing in detail. Explained that he had hung back a little to catch my attention.

But, just like the first time this happened, I was on the phone and he didn’t want to interrupt. And unlike the first time, feeling like a cheap hooker sucked.