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<editorsnote> Hi, I'm Jen Friel, and we here at TNTML examine the lives of nerds outside of the basements and into the social media, and dating world.  We have over 75 peeps that write about their life in real time. (Real nerds, real time, real deal.) Sit back, relax, and enjoy some of the stories!! </editorsnote>

 

 

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Entries in single steve (3)

Thursday
Mar102011

#Disneyland: It Could Happen To You

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @SingleSteve

2 months ago the older bro told me that him and his girlfriend were planning on coming to visit and we should all go to Disneyland. He asked me if I could find a date by then. I guess in a wave of over confidence, I said finding a date would be no problem.


Flash forward to 1 week ago. Still haven’t “found” a date. Please don’t pretend to be shocked, it just embarrasses you and me both.

Side tangent: “Found” is a funny word, because I wish it was as easy as ‘finding” something. Like I could just follow some type of treasure map or even some set of clever riddles. I mean I’m pretty good at following instructions and/or figuring out riddles and clues.

 

To be fair though, I wasn’t really looking or even trying to find a date specifically for Disneyland. In hindsight I probably should have been. . .
I actually should have just spend the those two months attempting to make a girl robot to be my date, think I would have had more success than I’ve been having with the online dating scene.

So last week I put out kind of a panicked blog about needing a date 911 for the following Friday. To which I got a great response. Though most of them were Arizona locals, it’s still something. I did get a few local San Diego people inquiring about the possibility.

(Big THANKS to SUSIE for getting the word out to her local SD girls.)

It turned out to be a bigger debacle than I was expecting. So I decided just to ask an old friend from high school who lives up in LA to keep it simple. I know we would have a blast and it would avoid the whole possibly awkward and disastrous blind date situation. (though looking back I regret this decision.) So I asked girl from LA, she responded with an enthusiastic yes. She even commented on my facebook wall expressing her excitedness for the Disneyland adventure. So in the mean time I politely declined the others who had expressed an interest in going.(I AM AN IDIOT.COM)

In fact I’m hoping, cough cough, that I actually get to meet/hang out with some of them anyways. . .
Wednesday night I call LA girl to just to double confirm that she’s still on board for Friday. Why wouldn’t she be right? HA.

She casually informs me she has a test on Friday, and probably wont be able to make it. . . . WHAT!? A test!? A surprise test? A test she didn’t know about 5 days earlier? Huh?? Is a “test on Friday” girl code for something? And besides that, if I hadn’t called on Wednesday night just to confirm, when was she going to tell me about this test? I’m not actually upset that this particular person couldn’t go, but more the fact that I am now going look like a super jerk asking people I had previously canceled if they still were able to go THE NIGHT BEFORE. That’s the first impression I want to make, first the guy that passes on nice pretty girls that want to go with him to Disneyland, than the duche bag that says just kidding, I would love to go with you, the night before.

So as expected the people I contacted the night before, asking if they would be able to go with me to Disneyland in less than 10 hours, shockingly, said it was too late to be asking. Score one for me looking like a jerk.

After all that I still ended up going to Disneyland alone! HA!

 

DISNEYLAND itself:
The brother, his GF and myself had a blast at Disneyland. I’m pretty sure it’s impossible NOT to have a great magical time. I didn’t get the chance to feel like the third wheel as most rides at Disneyland are kind of a group experience.

 

I was going to make this into a whole big part with hilarious observational humor about the groups of people at Disneyland, but it’s getting late and I’m getting increasingly lazy. So instead I’ll just pop in some photos and explain some highlights a call it a night.

 

One event that was notable was the epic adventure of obtaining monogrammed hat seen below.

 

Notice it says “Single”. Getting this hat was quite the covert operation.
First attempt, I walk with my Mickey Mouse ears up to the register, happy as can be, and tell the attractive 20 something year old female I would like to purchase this hat and get it monogrammed with the name “single” on it. Out of no where, this man appears, I’m pretty sure he was hiding under the counter waiting for such an opportunity to surface. This man has a grand total of three teeth and the three teeth he does have are shaped like broken pieces of cinder block. I didn’t know whether he was going to ring me up or try to bite me. He pushes the pretty girl asides and in his carny voice he informs me that it’s against Disneyland policy to have nicknames stitched onto the hats. I told him that it wasn’t a nick name and to please proceed with making this the happiest day of my life.He then asked to see my ID. WHAT the ISH? My ID to purchase a monogrammed hat at the happiest place on earth? Instead of making a huge scene, I just got a hat that said Steven on it. You win this round you three toothed mastermind.

I promptly lost that hat 2 hours and 6 minutes later on the Indiana Jones ride. That’s right. I’m a responsible adult.
But this did give me the opportunity to battle the three toothed hat maker one more time.

This time I sent in Gabbi, my brothers girlfriend. The plan, she would go in and tell the evil hat maker her name was Sing-Le. Full Proof. She walks in, pretends to be “foreign”, pronounces her name awkward, bada bing bada boom. I was going to walk in to the store to silently observe the process and see how operation “I’m foreign” was going, but then I remembered how dangerously attractive and unforgettable I was and didn’t want to risk the operation by being spotted. There were some tense moments, but this was the winning solution which got me my over used pity party expression of “single”. I think it’s still funny? Perhaps it’s played out?

 

This could have bee you! But I blew it!

Speaking of:
I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m giving up online dating. Well “giving up” is slightly misleading, it assumes that it was working at some point.

7 Months, 1 worst date ever, about 200 dollars for membership fees, and losing my dignity is where I call it quits.
This is what I still see when I log into eharmony.com:

Really?? I’m on hold with nine girls at the same time? And this is the same screen I’ve seen for a few weeks! Not a single girl wants to proceed even past the first step, which is exchanging background info, say what!?


So here’s what I’m thinking. I open up my online dating accounts to you. Yes you. I still have five paid months before the embarrassment is officially over.

What I’ll do is give you my login and password and you can either use it for good or evil.

You could either “fix” my profiles because there’s obviously something wrong with them, or you could change all my info so it reads that I live at home and have a level 47 Mage in D&D.

I’m undecided as to let this be a group activity or just turn it over to individuals.
Suggestions?

#nerdsunite

 

Tuesday
Mar082011

#Fact: Being Funny Never Got Anyone Laid

 #TalkNerdyToMeLover's @SingleSteve

 

If I wrote a book, it would be a top contender. No matter if the book was a crazy sci-fi novel about a time traveling pirate cop.

Hear me out. I’m saying in general. I know it’s happened before and will happen again. So please refrain from sending me pictures of how ugly you are and how attractive your girlfriend is, I believe you. Actually you can send me pictures of your attractive girlfriend, I ‘m not going to stop you. Every girl says they want someone funny, I know this because every single online dating profile I have ever read, makes reference to a guy with a sense of humor or being funny. Which to me, is obvious right? Do we really need to state we want to date/mate with someone who’s funny? Isn’t that like saying, must not be a jerk, must breathe air, or must have arms? No offense to anyone without arms. But who doesn’t like to laugh!? I can’t think of a single person who doesn’t appreciate humor. If they don’t like to laugh, they probably shouldn’t be dating anyways because we don’t want to pass on their genes. I think Darwin would have my back on this one.
Listen to what I’m saying “Being Funny Never Got Anyone Laid.” LAID. Laid is the keyword here. I didn’t say “Being Funny Never Got Anyone In a Relationship, Like The Serious Kind, Where You Change Your Facebook Profile”. I’m NOT saying that.

What I’m saying is, no girl on planet earth, has ever been at a bar, leaned over to her girlfriend sitting down next to her and said “OMG that guy across the bar, looks hilarious, I think I’m going to go talk to him” Or “OMG that guy across the bar, looks like a nice guy, with a good job, who would treat me nicely, I think I’m going to go talk to him, what’s more likely is “OMG that guy across the bar, has a bejewled tiger on his shirt, I think I’m going to go talk to him” or “OMG that guy across the bar, has amazing deltoids, and I don’t even know what deltoids do, I think I’m going to go talk to him.”

 

WHICH is 100 percent fair. Absolutely. Guys do the exact same thing. Exact. Initial physical attraction is extremely important. So what am I getting at. We are all shallow. All of us. At least initially, and that’s okay. And I’m not looking to just get laid because of some physical or personality qualities, well I am, but believe it or not I like relationships, I like being in relationships, I want to have just one forever lasting epic relationship <insert puking in your mouth here>. I know this will pain you for me to say this, but I’d rather be in a relationship than single. As comical being single is for you and me. The bar is only an example, shallowness happens everywhere, and why this whole thing came up I guess is because I’ve seen it translated to online dating. I think? I hope? Otherwise I have no way of explaining how I am in communicating with 672 females on eharmony.com. And it’s not just eharmony, I have zero point zero percent luck on any of the online dating websites. I once made a fake profile: http://www.okcupid.com/profile/SanDiegoSam/ I wanted to see if online dating was as shallow as I thought. My hypothesis was correct.

 

For more details check out the blog: http://www.singlesteve.com/2009/03/i%E2%80%99m-too-awesome-to-date

And some of you are probably screaming, “YOU’RE NEVER GOING TO MEET A GIRL AT A BAR OR ONLINE DATING!”, I can tell you’re yelling because you used Caps locks. At this point you urge me to go out and just do things in the community and meet women doing the things I like doing. “It will happen naturally”, you say. I say shut your fucking mouth when your talking to me. I’m doing that all stuff, and more. I’m doing that like it’s my job. In fact, if I could brag for second, I actually do so much community ish, that I was nominated and selected as a key influencer for San Diego and I will be getting the opportunity to take a flight in a Blue Angel next year. Yeah. You heard right, a Blue Angel!? I’m pretty excited, it’s like uber bucket list type of thing.

I’m not really sure how that fits into this blog, but I really just wanted to brag. You would too. Where was I……I think I was complaining about online dating, wha wha wha. Woah is me type of thing. Anyways I’m over online dating, I’m just waiting for my eharmony.com subscription to end, then I’ll have to find some other way to waste my money on girls I’m not dating.

Speaking of, let me tell you about the last date I went on. It’s the first date I’ve been on in months, I was pretty optimistic about it. Somehow I managed to get through all 17 steps of eharmony, and to an actual date!? So I pick her up, and we go to my default Italian restaurant (I know, I know, I need to venture out more, but to my defense this was kind of a last minute date coordination), we have a bottle of wine with our delicious dinner. General awkward first date type of conversation. I suggest we go to Balboa Nights, she suggest we keep drinking, good sign number 1. So we keep drinking. We stroll down to the wine bar, a block down, where we proceed to have another bottle of delicious wine. Conversations going well, I guess? She’s definitely shy, but loosening up after 2 bottles of wine. We’re sitting close, with one hand on my leg and the other on my arm resting on the table. Things are going pretty well? She suggest we get another bottle of wine…..I tell her, if I have another bottle of wine, I will be unable to drive her home…..with the assumption we would both just go back to my place blocks away….she says yes, lets get another bottle of wine. Dear Diary. So we finish the 3rd bottle of wine, at this point we were both versnickered obviously. We are actually in such poor shape, I insist we take a taxi for the 4 blocks back to my place, as opposed to the 30 minute epic walk it was sure to going to be at that point. We get back to my place…..I’m pretty excited at this point, like the first time I heard the Beatles type of thing, so we start kissing, well what she considered to be kissing. She was the worst kisser I’ve kissed since 8th grade, no not you Hillary Volsteadt.

It was the worst thing ever, it was terrible, absolutely the worst. It’s hard to explain, but imagine if someone were to just hold there mouth slightly open with no lip movements, with their tongue slightly out. Yeah, I would later compare it to kissing a corpse to my friends. Kissing someone who doesn’t move anything is awkward. And then when she did “use” her tongue, she jabbed it out like a lizard and just kept it out, like she was trying to touch her nose? It was a complete turn off. I went from thinking it was going to be boom boom time, to thinking I’ll never be able to get an erection again. That’s a little dramatic, but after the bad kissing boom boom was definitely not going to be happening. “But Steven, couldn’t you just bang without kissing her??”, I could but then wouldn’t that make her a hooker? I like to kiss. I love to kiss. If I had to pick kissing or sex for the rest of my life, I would pick kissing. Sex is great don’t get me wrong, but kissing can be done a lot more places, a lot more times, and I don’t need to apologize for only kissing for 15 seconds. We continue to “kiss”, until we lie down in my bed in which I promptly fell into a coma to avoid kissing anymore. Of course I cuddled the shit out of her, I love cuddling, and haven’t had a good cuddle in months, so at least that felt good. I never went on a second date with the bad kisser. It’s a deal breaker. It’s not my job to teach a 27 year old to kiss. MAYBE under different circumstances, if I could see other personality qualifiers I would like to pursue. Well try again next time.

Now let me tell you about the best non date I’ve been on in a long time. It was my date for my company’s holiday party. Now date is a strong word, granted she was my “date”, but it was more like she agreed to accompany me to my party. I’ve never had any romantical interactions with her prior, I’ve know her since sophomore year in college. Actually,truth be told, I actually had a super crush on her in college, like ridiculous, teenage dream type of thing. We both worked at the same photography company, I was a photographer and she did some office work type stuff. She’s hilarious, outgoing, goofy, witty, smart, and beautiful. So now you can see why 19 year old Steven had a crush on her. Did 19 year old Steven do anything about it? You better believe it! I walked right up to her, looked deeply into her in the eyes and asked her out. Oh wait, no I didn’t. Now that I think about it 19 year old Steven didn’t do a thing. That’s okay, she’s one of those out of my league girls, that I was just content that she knew my name. So flash forward 8 years later, we both live in San Diego now, kept in contact, see each other every so often at our local alumni events, still just happy she knows my name, So sure, my 19 year old crush for sure went away, because 27 year old men don’t have crushes, but I’d be lying if I still didn’t find her really attractive, funny and other yada yadas. I’m just saying. Anyways I somehow I was able to jokingly ask her if she was going to be my date for my company’s holiday party. I say jokingly because I wouldn’t have the balls to regularly ask her to my company’s holiday party. That way if she said no, I could just play it off as waka waka, I was just being funny Steve. I fear rejection. Which is probably the root cause of me being single, but we can Dr. Phil that issue of mine at a later time. So anyways, I asked her during one of our alumni football events, I was a few beers in, she told me to re-ask/confirm the next day, so it wasn’t just the beer talking. Having a few beers in me was probably the only way I had enough liquid courage to talk coherently to her. When I talk to girls I am super intimidated by, I become speechless, unfunny and tend to make up words. This can be the case with her. I confirmed the next day and she was in. I knew and had no intentions of this being a romantical event, I just knew that it was going to be a blast with her as my date. Which it was. It was the funniest non date, date I’ve been probably ever been on. I’m just saying, it was a good time. Highlights include, a 40 passenger party of me and my other “young cool” co-workers, driving us around from PB to La Jolla in circles while we drink like teenagers on the way to high school prom. I was able to procure a contraband Four Lokos (original formula), as one of many drinks I had on the bus up to the party. Four Lokos actually taste terrible, but I can see why all the kids love it. All I had growing up was boones farm, and I had to walk uphill both ways just to get it. Here’s why I had such a good time:

 

It was just fun, you know. Like everything about it. I’m sure I started off slightly awkward because I still get extremely intimidated by her, but after our first eleventeen drinks, things got better. One of my favorite parts was the people watching, like we would both see the same thing, and without saying a word we would know exactly the same cynical, hilarious comment that should be made. I could go on and on about things I liked about the non date date, but I don’t want to be a super stalker. Basically after the party we ended up dancing our faces off at Bar West, somehow we got in with an Effiel Tower. After that we went to Mcdonalds and both ordered the same thing, a bucket of mcnuggets. We made our way back to her house, chit chatted for a bit, but then this is when I panicked. I knew from the get go there was no romantical-ness to this date, it was just two fun people doing something fun. Which I was super excited about. I panicked when I got back to her place because it was at the point when I was at her house, drunk, just had an epic night, it’s 2:37am, and I’m thinking to myself, you know what!? We just had a really really good time, why couldn’t this night be romantical?? But then I started thinking, what she must be thinking, I mean she agreed to accompany me as a friendly gesture, so if I start trying to make out with her now, she’s probably going to punch me in the mouth. But then I started thinking AGAIN, I mean, it was 2:37am, she did invite me back to her place, we did just have a great time, maybe she wants to make out with me? All these conflicting thoughts of what’s going on, gave me the panics. Because I then tried to start reading into her actions and words to see what was going on. I mean nothing changed from the beginning of the night to the end of the night, so of course this is still just a friendly get together of two fun people. Which is what my final determination of the situation to be. I do recall, as I was leaving, standing in her doorway, she gave me a long hug, and trying to muster up some words to thank her for the amazing time I had, being unable to look her in the eyes, glaring somewhere near her feet and saying “I’m impressed with everything you do”, she said thanks, and good night, and I about faced and walked away, wishing I could go back in time and say something less awkward. Really!? I’m impressed with everything that you do!? WHO SAYS THAT!? I don’t even know what means!? I’m an idiot. Apparently I thought she would be swooned by me if I complemented her on everything. Not just somethings, but everything. I don’t even know where that came from, it just word vomited out. It was one of those things where your lips move, words come out, and immediately the inner voice in your head is screaming “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”.

What I actually wish would have happened is, I wish that right at that moment as I was standing in her doorway, giving her a long hug goodbye, at that moment, I looked over her shoulder, and looked directly into the camera and said “To the cloud!”. Then I could go to “the cloud” and consult my advisers as to what to say.

I guarantee you that had I had the ability to pause time and go to the cloud, I would of come up with much better last words for ending the date. Oh well.

In summary I had a great time, I hope she did too. So now to your obvious questions, yes, she knows how to read, and yes, she reads this blog. I know me writing about this is a bit much, but that’s how it is. I write my heart on my sleeve, I word vomit what comes out, and I think she understands that. This doesn’t change a thing between us. Not a thing. I mean all I did was write about a good time I once had. And so what if I stole of clump of her hair and made it into a doll and named it after her. So what, big deal. I’m probably going to actually let her read this first, to see if she approves, and if your reading this right now, that means she does. We’ve text back in forth since, holidays hit, our relationship will remain status quo, as it should. As it should. What’s funny, is she’s actually started a blog about her dating woes as well. She says I inspired her, but that can’t be true. I’ll link it later, I don’t want to embarrass her anymore than she might already be.But if I know her, which I think I do, but I probably don’t, she finds this blog more funny, than embarrassing. Her blog is really good actually, but I find the idea that she has problems dating a little ridiculous. Wow I really should have called this blog “Word Vomit”, because I really went off on some tangents for this one.

#thatisall

Like whatcha read? Click here to follow Steve on twitter & check him out over yonder on his blog!



Monday
Mar072011

#OMG: We have a new co-editor

Alrite! After a WEEK long search across the ENNNTTIIIIRRRREEEEEEEEE interwebz, I can FINALLY announce that the search for TNTML's co-editorship has come to an end. Yep, right here. One nerd. ONE SINGLE NERD by the name of STEVE.

HIT IT DUDE!!

First, I like to start off by yelling on top of a mountain, Boomshakalaka! Second, I couldn't be more excited about this opportunity to work with Jen "TalkNerdyToMeLover" Friel. I've followed her blog, twitter, youtubes and every other piece of social media for quite some time now, not like the creepy "I find you" follow, but the kind that's normally and socially acceptable for me being some random guy from the internet. Which I guess is still kind of creepy, but I digress. When I heard she was looking for a co-editor to help her out with her blog, I leapt, literally leapt at the opportunity. Once I came back down from my 4 inch vertical leap, I applied with all of my qualifications, or lack thereof, as to why I was awesome, nerdy and perfect for the position.  

So now you're probably wondering what ARE my qualifications for this highly sought after position. Well, I'm glad you asked, one, I'm a huge self proclaimed nerd. Huge. In fact, the reason I found her blog in the first place was because I was doing a google search for "Nerd Lover", and guess who shows up!? Every nerdy guy's dream girl, an attractive, funny, witty, can operate a computer, girl who openly LOVES nerds!? WHAT the WHAT!?  I was sold. So yes, I consider myself to be a nerd. My license plate used to actually say Nerd, that was before I rammed that car into the back of another car, which I don't recommend doing.  I'm a software engineer by day, even nerdier by night. I wear glasses, know vector calculus, and refuse to date a girl that can't .zip a file. My hobbies include being awkward, video games, blogging, photoshopping, volunteering, being awesome, being awkward again, and bacon.


I've have a B rate blog where I write about the awkward, embarrassing and hilarious misadventures of being 27, single and online dating in San Diego. You can read about it here: http://www.SingleSteve.com

One of the deals I made with Jen is that I'd like to stay anonymous? If that's possible? I'm Ron Burgundy? My blog is written from an anonymous perspective because I'm just that embarrassed about my online dating adventures. Not really, but it allows for a less filtered honest perspective. She agreed to keep me anonymous, so you probably won't see any pictures of my face anywhere on this site. She also agreed to name her first born Optimus Prime for all my help. No seriously, she did.

I'm excited about this opportunity, and look forward to working with Jen! #NerdsUnite

HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAHA!! Omg this is making my life. Dude, Single Steve is HIILLAARIOUUUSSS!! I went through literally all of his posts yesterday - and dude, he gets it. He keeps it real without being too real circa national geographic giving birth type shiznat. You know what I mean jelly bean? Cray cray. Super stoked man, I'll get his bio up and all that stuffers. But seriously, the applications were AWESOME!! This was a supppperrrrrr tough choice. I'll make sure to get back to everyone this afternoon, and hey man - just because this one position didn't work out for other peeps, I'd still love to review some of your stuff to see if there's something else we can do. Me = all game. So, bring it!

Thanks again guys from the depths of my everything. It was incredibly humbling seeing the response. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

CONGRATS STEVE!!!!!!!!!!!

WELCOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#nerdsunite, bitches!

click here to follow Steve on twitter!