I'm baaaaaaaaack...for now

Much has happened in the life of the good doctor since I attempted to bid you both farewell so many months ago. ECB has gone away and is but a horrible memory. The bachelor pad / nerd cave is up and running, although not reeking of as much awesomeness as I had hoped (the ginormous TV is wonderful though). The job that brought such misery and so much great material is also in the rearview, as I left for what seemed like greener pastures. Unfortunately, it sucks almost as much as the other place, but for entirely different reasons. Everyone at the new place is as nerdy as the doc, so there have been no good new stories since I left. On the bright side, the stuff in the archives is plentiful, and I thought it best to stop depriving both of you of a couple of cheap laughs.

Before coming back to technical traumas of the corporate kind though, I've started to realize that the technological revolution we've witnessed over the last couple of years has made dating very different from what it was the last time I tried and failed (failed, of course, being when I asked ECB to marry me). Some of these changes are for the better...being able to text instead of having an actual conversation, dating on the Intarwebs and the opportunity to stalk potential dates on facebook before going out with them are all wonderful, welcome changes. Of course, this progress has made the whole horrible process a lot more complicated, and enabled some rather unpleasant side effects. It is with this in mind that I bring you two quick little ditties from my last six months in romantic purgatory. You see, recognizing his inability to meet women in real life, the Doctor decided to join a dating website that caters to people like him (jews, not geeky, sarcastic assholes). Some of the resulting dates sucked less than others and a few, including one that happened rather recently, were actually pretty good. These, on the other hand, are two of the far crappier examples of what has happened since I left you.

1: Apparently stalking can work both ways, and it's not nearly as much fun as I thought...

The Doctor was "approached" via the website by what appeared to be a rather attractive young lass from another neighborhood in his newly adopted hometown. Initial conversation was interesting, and she even seemed somewhat normal. We went out and all was not as it seemed. Thankfully, she wasn't a guy (as far as I could tell), but she was completely mental. There was no follow-up call, text or email on my part, mainly because this whack job was sending them in clusters. I tried to ignore them, but the sheer volume was so overwhelming that I made the mistake of responding to every 20th message, making sure to avoid replying to anything that made mention of what would have been an absolutely awful second date. Eventually, I told her I was moving to the other side of the country for my awesome new job (that part was sort of true...it was an extended visit). She asked if she'd ever see me again and I told her I wasn't sure when I'd be back, so she should probably not wait around. While I was on leave, the texts, emails, facebook messages and phone calls went through the roof. I'd be sitting in the office in the middle of the day and start receiving emails from her with pictures showing various states of undress, providing further evidence that this broad was crazier than I thought. Couldn't muster up much of a response, other than the less than trying to not-so-subtly suggest I wasn't interested, but she never seemed to be able to take the hint. One such lovely day saw my presence required at a morning meeting that ran a little more than four hours. When I got back to my desk and checked my personal email account, I had 160 new messages - 2 mass mails, one from a friend and 157 from her, meaning she had gone from just nuts to the new realm of completely batshit crazy.

After a few more triple digit days, I decided to tell her that the higher ups at my company wanted me to stay there a lot longer than expected, possibly forever at which point she suggested coming out to visit me. At this point, my head started to hurt, so I told her it was a bad idea, but that if I ever came back to the other coast, I might call her, but that she shouldn't wait around since it seemed like this was going to be permanent. I then proceeded to block her from every method of electronic communication and thanked my lucky stars I was able to put personality ahead of looks for once. Six months later, I still get the occasional email from her (every time I block one address, she gets a new one), asking if anything has changed and if she's ever going to see me again. This odd attraction to yours truly would be evidence enough of her obvious mental problems, but there's so much more. The worst part of the whole thing...she's a teacher. I shed a tear for the youth of America every time I think about her.

2: The "pimping" of the Blackberry and the horrors that went with it...

After the first date from hell with the whack job above, I decided to move on as quickly as possible. Met a lovely young lass, very cute, semi-smart, in grad school for a profession I didn't really respect, but the positives far outweighed the negatives. We had about a half-dozen dates before my adventure on the other coast, and agreed that we'd re-evaluate the situation when I got back. One night, just before my departure, a few of my lovely friends decided to have "leave and don't come back" party for me (after 2 previous "going away" parties...any excuse to drink), at which point they made it their mission to prove to me that bar girls were far superior to these online women I was trying to reel in. They just about started throwing drunk chicks at me, which was a little disturbing, but had its fun moments as well. I ended up chatting with a little cutie who had just moved here. As an added bonus, she was part of the tribe. She was very drunk and a little annoying, so naturally, it led nowhere. A month later, I returned from my adventure and picked things up with lovely young lass. Things went well for another half-dozen or so dates, until she cancelled one because she has a bad allergy attack. She came over the next day because she needed me to "pimp out" her new blackberry. Since I was the "cutest geek she knew," she wanted my help. While I'm pimping, she grabbed my laptop and decided to play on facebook for a while, showing me pictures, including one of her with annoying cutie from the leave and don't come back party, who turned out to be her cousin. I told her the cousin looked familiar, and mentioned that a friend of mine had tried picking her up at the bar before I went away. She asked about the friend, I described, and she told me that he had no chance, since she only dates jewish guys, but that I "probably could have done her, since she's a giant slut." Not exactly the kind of thing I wanted to hear from the girl I was seeing, but interesting nonetheless. While setting up her inboxes, I noticed a text from some guy saying that last night (when she was apparently too sick to go out with me) was awesome. We weren't exclusive or anything, but she could have just told me that she had other plans, even plans with another guy. She was pretending to cough every few minutes, to keep up the whole allergies thing, so I "accidentally" deleted my info from her address book and removed a bunch of the texts I had sent her (wouldn't want the other guys she's seeing to read that stuff). Finished the pimping and sent her on her way. A couple of days later, I sent her a quick note saying that I had been thinking about what she said, about doing her cousin, and asked for the cousin's number. Surprisingly enough, she gave it to me without question...never used it, and never spoke to her again after that. Given how things went the entire time we dated, it seemed like the most appropriate way to end things.

Back to funny work stories soon...I promise.