That Guy

That Guy
January - April 2016
(Vegan Negative Level 4 - Lame!)

I met this guy out at an event. He seemed charming and since he is vegetarian I figured I’d give him a shot. He asked me to help him go vegan and that he’d take me out to dinner and we could go over the details of veganism. (This took me a while to pick up that this was going to be a date.)

He picks me up and we go out to dinner, my favorite Thai restaurant, we order our dinner and we get to know each other. It’s nice to go out to dinner with someone that understands veganism, so we talk about what keeps him from going vegan and other topics.
As we started dating and I learned more about him and his interests, he quickly turned into “That Guy”. He started to follow (cyber stalk) me on some of my social media accounts (Pinterest, Facebook, etc.) Oddly, I didn’t have a problem with that part, it was his use of psychedelic stimulants and going to RAVES – living out his Peter Pan Syndrome. (Being 40 and still going to RAVES, living with your mom and acting more like a teenager are the traits of this syndrome. The definition of Peter Pan Syndrome for this post is Puer Aeternus: A pop-psychology concept of a male or female adult who is socially immature)

In fact, this Peter Pan Syndrome spilled over into other parts of the short-lived relationship. I made dinner one night, asking what time he’d be heading over to my place. He told me the time and I prepared the meal accordingly to be ready for when he got there. Instead, he was an hour late and never called to be considerate of my time. By about 45 minutes of him being late, I packed up all the food that has now become leftovers. Then he said that I was overreacting, and that time doesn’t exist. His co-workers told him that he was in the wrong and his mom said I was ridiculous for taking a picture of the table setting and the food before packing everything up. I wanted him to apologize to me for being inconsiderate, and instead he didn’t care……

What he had issues with me was the fact that I wasn’t a participant of such use; and since I was in recovery of my hip surgery I’d get tired by 10 pm and want to sleep and rest. I wasn’t into the idea of starting a party at 11.30 pm.

Mentioning my hip surgery, I was in my last month of recovery when I was in a car accident. In this car accident, I suffered tearing around one of the sutures in my hip, a shoulder contusion and a muscle impingement. Needless to say, I was in need of help to walk my pups and even just getting around the apartment. Well, one would think that they could rely on the person that they’re dating to help in this kind of emergency. He told me “I can’t help you because I’ll resent you for getting stuck in traffic on my way home”. Our relationship was over after that.

I’m looking for someone who wants to be there during the hard times, not just the fun times.

Atkins Diet vs. Vegetarian Lifestyle

Atkins Diet vs. Vegetarian Lifestyle
Sometime in 2003; Vegan Level Negative 2 (Lame!)

Here’s a blast from the past that unfortunately works incredibly well in the context of this blog: During Sometime in my 20s, one of my friends that I went to high school with set me up with a guy. For the sake of the blog (and I honestly don't remember his name), I'll call him Atkins. (For those of you who don’t recall immediately, Atkins was the name of a man who invented a diet that was based on the idea of super low carbs and ridiculously high protein intake. As it goes with most of these diets, the protein was animal based. Needless to say, this is not someone with whom I or any of my veg friends would get along with very well. This goes to show exactly how well this friend DID NOT know me.

Atkins calls me, letting me know that our mutual friend thought we would hit it off. We start chatting and in this conversation, he asks me out. Thinking we had some things in common I say "Yes, I'd like to.” Atkins suggests that we go to dinner and a movie (knowing what I know now, not the best first date idea). We continue to chat and I continue to flirt. Somewhere in the conversation I mention where I work and he mentions things that are important to him. (I really wish I could give more details, he really didn't give off a lot of sparks.) We set the date and end the call. I call our friend, and say he's charming, and seems nice. (Well that doesn't always mean anything.)

Atkins calls me at work and says, “I have a better idea for a date, my brother got tickets to the monster truck show. Cool, right?" (As you will get to know, I'm not really a monster truck show girl. In fact, I'm not really into the whole Honey BooBoo lifestyle.) To which my response was "You said dinner and a movie. I'm pretty sure we won't be able to hear each other in conversation at a monster truck show." (Not like one can really talk in a movie theater.) I tell my co-workers about the "date change suggestion" and they laugh. Trying to picture this one is REALLY funny: I wear heels ALL of the time (to this day) and always have my hair done, primped and prissy to all get out!!!

Here it comes to the date. I suggest a Chinese food restaurant that I used to eat at a lot so I know my usual and he orders a beef dish. We continue to chat and he's losing his charm quickly. (do you remember any examples? Maybe specifically anti-veg stuff?) Atkins complains about the food (anything beef is foreign to me), then he mentions "I should have taken you to Las Palapas. They have better food." (Let me explain: you go to Las Palapas when you've been drinking for 5 hours and want greasy tacos. They cook their beans with bacon fat, thus rendering a perfectly good veg meal useless to me.)

I stop flirting. Here is that final moment when I KNEW this wasn’t going to work:
Movie: Cheaper by the Dozen (Hilary Duff) or Gothika (Halle Berry and Penélope Cruz). Which one does Atkins go for? Well, I had to sit through Cheaper by the Dozen. Yes, he chose teen over adult. I was done and after the movie I used the excuse "it's getting late and I have an early meeting in the morning." He dropped me off at home (no goodnight kiss, no way!) and after he left, I went to meet my friends out for drinks!

Introduction...

Hi!

My name is Jackie, and thank you for checking out my Level 5 Vegan Looking for Love Blog. Here’s the scoop: I recently found myself living back in my old home town and back on the dating scene. Like any modern gal, I turn to the Internet to help me weed out the weirdos and to help match me up with men who share my interests. According to Chemistry I am naturally easy to get along with, engaging, insightful, and caring, with deep and meaningful conversations. On Match.com, I’m looking for someone to laugh with, someone who is trusting and trustworthy, as well as being someone who will fight for me but who will also tell me when I am being irrational :)

Here’s the catch: I’ve been vegetarian for 20 years and vegan for four, so this is a huge part of my life and lifestyle. My friends that love me and know me say kindly that I’m a Level 5 Vegan (borrowed from The Simpsons - “won’t eat anything that casts a shadow.”) While I’m not necessarily looking for only a vegan to get serious with (and I know there are dating sites for just that - but I’ve noted that the men on there seem to have “alternative” ideas about monogamy and nudity…!) it’s obviously not going to work out with someone who is an avid hunter or fisherman. As I’m sure you are all familiar with, there are always a couple of dealbreakers in a relationship, and there are always a few “I am not budging on my stance” topics. Veganism, and all that goes with it (the consciousness of health and environment for example) is mine.

But when life attempts to fix me up with a lemon, I hop on the computer and write an amusing entry for your enjoyment and my therapy. If you can’t laugh about it, we’re all doomed, am I right?