Craigslist, Segways, and Again with the Anal.

So sometimes, when the kids are gone, I get bored. Like the "I'M BOOOORRREEED" kind of bored. The kind of bored where you have exhausted all possible ways to entertain yourself. The shows have been watched, old boyfriends stalked looked up online, divorce decree read over and memorized, highlighted and wept over...done.

All that's left is the drinkin'.

And craigslist.

I will say this, before I begin to tell the tale of this smidgen of horror from my life, that I think the premise of craigslist is awesome. It's a great way to get rid of "stuff". I unloaded lots of Big Daddy's stuff via craigslist after he left. Yeah, if you're still reading, Big Daddy, for your information what you left was legally considered mine, so boo hoo. I would have sold your soul too, if you'd left that in the garage with the tools. Your kids were hungry.

Anyway. One thing I always get a kick out of reading is the Rants and Raves section on craigslist. It's just a place where people can vent or spout off or babble on about whatever. There's always the political crap, lots of people bitching about how everyone else drives...it's basically like standing around at a neighborhood party after the beer has been flowing for several hours. And it's sometimes freaking hilarious.

So, I don't know what got into me (ha ha to my smart ass friends saying, "Umm..a bottle of wine?"), but I wrote a brief rant about online dating. More specifically, I wrote about how sick I was of going through the motions over and over again, doing the same old getting to know you song and dance only to end up less-than-thrilled (or worse yet, ending up with someone else being less than thrilled). I wondered, in this little essay of mine, what would happen if I put it out there that I wasn't really looking for a "relationship" per se, that I was totally not into meeting anyone's parents, or being anyone's stepmom. I was looking for a friend-with-benefits, basically. A booty call with a couple of strings attached. Someone to maybe have dinner with, perhaps go see a movie, and then go home and knock boots. Someone with whom I could hang out with every once in a while, but not have to worry about maintaining anything. Sort of like a pre-screened, no-blackouts-required several-nights-stand. Make sense? It did to me at the time, but of course, I had Mr. Merlot sitting next to the keyboard telling me what to type. Bastard.

So, I hit send. And the replies flew in faster than kids running down the stairs on Christmas morning.

There were the expected replies, the ones that were all sweaty and smelly even through e-mail: I'll give ya what ya want, baby. I'm packing some serious manhood heat and it sounds like that's just what you need. Umm, ok. Delete. Lots of angry guys read craigslist, too. Got a few of these : Bitches like you think your shit don't stink, you pass up lots of great guys like me. Sure thing, buddy. Angry Steve? Is that you? Pass.

And so on and so forth. Then I got one that I actually read through to the end. It was well written (he used punctuation and paragraphs). It was actually funny and poignant at the same time....his way with words actually started melting the icy cockles of my heart. He talked about how he was fed up with the games, too, and that if I wanted to check out his profile at Match, go ahead. He was a divorced dad of three, had a good job (sent me a link to his company's website, this was like a booty call invitation from a Boy Scout. Dude was prepared).

We corresponded via email for several days afterward. I'll call him Craig here, because it will make me laugh to refer to him as that. So Craig and I slowly learned more about each other. Turns out his wife cheated on him, too, and left him. For a chick. They shared custody of their three kids, and were kind of in the same boat as Big Daddy and I. Things with Big Daddy, at this point, were semi-amicable but on their way to being crappy again. It's how the divorce cookie crumbles, I tell you. Always good times.

So, Craig and I decided that we'd give this thing a go. We set up an initial meeting, at a little Italian restaurant not far from both of us (we were about 15 miles apart from each other, he lived on one of our beautiful lakes, which was a point in the "yes" column. Because I'm shallow like that.). We decided to have dinner and then go see a movie. A Jason Bourne movie, I believe, which was good planning on Craig's part. Little known fact: action movies, particularly action/espionage movies, are like roofies to me. Now you know.

He was pleasant, cute, articulate, and funny. I was shocked, actually, at how great this guy was. We had what was possibly the best "first date" conversations I've ever had. We talked about the pain of being dumped, how hard it was on the kids, everything. We even talked about mundane stuff like how much more cathartic it is to FILL the dishwasher than it is to EMPTY it. Craig...you had me at "fill the dishwasher".

I was putty in his hands.

To be continued...this is a longer story than I thought.