Date 14 (unless you count the dates I had with my ex then it's like a lot more)

I know, all you all really want to know about is the date. And I'm getting there. But first I need to explain my place emotionally.
So when you've been dumped and when you're in an emotional rough patch all you focus on moving on. I did this through the use of alcohol and too many trips to Iowa City.
I went out on Wednesday night in an emotional funk. I cried my makeup off. I wasn't interested in interacting with any man. I just kind of wanted to sit there, and well honestly, I wanted to cry.
However while I was out at the bar a man approached me. He straight up invited me out to dinner. I didn't really know how to react to that because I haven't been on a date since August. I have been kind of asked on dates, but I kind of messed them up through alcoholic reactions.
I said that I wasn't sure. Honestly I was feeling sick and I really didn't want to go out on the weekend. And when I say sick I mean that I was actually sick, not from liquor, but from being sick. I had taken pain killers all week in order to fall asleep. I was just feeling terrible.
I gave him my number, forgot his name and went on with my night.

The following day he texts me asking me out. I say what the hell and end up going on a date.

The Date
We meet at Stomping Grounds at 7:00. I am about five minutes late. I really am not into it. I am still feeling incredibly ill. I am sleepy, my throat is sore, and I am emotionally drained. I am not in the mood for a date. However, I get myself dressed up and go out.
Anyways he greets me at the door. This is an incredibly good thing because I have no clue what he looks like. He is apparently an inch or two taller than me and round. His face is pink. He looks genuinely happy that I didn't flake out on him. He compliments me on my appearance then walks me to our table.
We talk for a while before we order. We avoid saying each others names. Mostly because I am pretty sure that neither of us remember them.
We order and continue to chat.
I find out that he is older than me.
Several years older than me.
Like when I asked him about Lollapalooza he tells me that the last time he went was in 2001. That was when I was ten.
I don't know how to react. I'm pretty sure he is a little nervous about the age thing. I never realized a legal adult could still have a Lolita aftereffects.
We continue to talk, but I am getting super tired. Maybe it's because of the painkillers, maybe it's because I cried earlier in the morning. I am starting to yawn.
It's not because our conversation is bad. We talk about regular things. Music, major, hobbies.
However, the big issue is I am an undergrad. I have completely different interests and a different scene than grad students.
He is looking to get married, because this is one of his last chances to find a soul mate.
I am looking for entertainment.
And I was simply not too amused.
A table of international students enter and take the table next to us. They are very loud. I check my phone and say that I have to scram.

Ultimately it was good that I went out. It is all in the process of closure or something I guess.
Yeah, this is a lot more depressing than my other posts, but I think it taught me that I don't want to be defined by my relationships. I have learned a lot through my breakup and I don't want to move backwards. This might have been an accidental slide.

Third Item

The third item is my reaction to this criticism. Honestly, most of the negative reaction I received was from men. These men were the ones who accused me of using men. They said that I wasn’t taking myself seriously. They claimed that I would never find a relationship with this process.

I think that this critique is more telling of our society and how we view women who willingly promote and publish their personal lives.

We become uncomfortable with real women explaining the details of their love lives. We squirm when the details are revealed, however we simultaneously delight in these facts.

However, I was taken less seriously as a writer because this was the subject I chose to analyze.  This is the thing I have a problem with. When female authors write about sex they are degraded and they are diminished to the genre of “chick lit”.

I am not saying that I was the most journalistic or even the most educational writer. I was doing this for fun. I started it for my friends so they could know what I was up to.  It really grew from there.

However, I did realize it was because I was writing about men in an incredibly honest way, it made men react in a negative way. What I learned is that it is more acceptable for men to write about their sexual exploits than it is for women to write about the same topics.

When women write about their embarrassing, degrading moments for the purpose of entertainment, it cannot be viewed as a statement on social commentary. It is taken at face value. The author, herself is viewed as a kind of floozy. We become uncomfortable.

But here is where the other factors come in. Because the men accused me of not being serious, implying that I should be ashamed of what I wrote, I became embarrassed by my writing. This is what prevents female writers from actually publishing their work. Women have to subscribe to the socially acceptable norms and when they decide to write outside of these norms they are degraded. This prevents women from being taken seriously as writers.

Look for example at many of the “Best of Lists” or the books that are critically acclaimed, many of these novels are written by men and they are reviewed by men. However, women are more likely to buy books than men so these reviews are used as tools to get men to purchase books. Yet the books that women buy are still not regarded with the same critical acclaim that the novels written by men receive.

So when a woman goes outside of these traditions, she is viewed as a threat to the male-dominated field and she is accused of exploiting herself and others.

Again, this was not my purpose. But these are some of the repercussions I had to deal with.

I know this was a long rambling feminist diatribe, but I needed to get it all out there before I decided to write any more on this blog.

Second Item

The second item is the criticism I got from my last round of dating.

This is a huge issue that needs to be addressed. I was accused several times of exploiting and using men strictly for writing purposes. I really want to emphasize that this was neither my purpose, nor my intention with my blog. First and foremost I wanted to meet someone. I wouldn’t put myself out there unless I was genuinely interested in a relationship. However, in this process I realized that there were the social implications I wanted to examine through my process.  I had not privy to these facets of the dating process before I went in to do this project. I wanted to see what college dating was. I wanted to see what roles men expected women to play in dating. I wanted to determine how dating was in reality versus how the media portrays the social rite of passage. I wanted to analyze how modern communication is used in college courtship. There were several aspects of dating and the dating process I wanted to examine. I think I was really successful at this.

But I want to emphasize that I was not using men. Again, writing was secondary to my primary purpose, which was to find someone I could be in a relationship with.

Update and Explanation

First I have some issues to address and a few things that I need to explain.

I am going to spread these out across a few different posts because I just typed my thoughts out and they are several pages long so here I go. 

The first and most obvious item is my hiatus. I am still not going to blog about it. The only thing that happened was that my heart got smashed and I was like that messy girl at the beginning of every single chick flick you’ve ever seen. Except instead receiving a makeover and a boyfriend at the end of 90 minutes, I just got drunk and sad. For about oh three months. It was fun, it was sloppy, it was a disaster. I don’t want to get into it. Needless to say I was not interested in dating.