A Rose is a Damn Rose, So Refer to It As Such

A Rose is a Damn Rose, So Refer to It As Such

I found myself in an awkward situation at a bar with a girl recently. Since this never happens now that I’m married, I welcomed the opportunity to engage. A first-year MFA student from one of my classes approached me at a bar and very aggressively asked me if I knew her name. “[Her Name]” Blam! Right off the tip of my tongue like she asked if I knew how fast a Delorean needed to go to get back to 1955. Point, Dustin. Follow-up question. What’s her name, pointing to someone else in the program. Easy. Flux capacitor. It’s what makes time travel possible. I win. We then proceed to talk about class and the weather and other things that two people who know each other’s names talk about.

On the way home, I reflected on the situation. The implication of her question was obviously that she didn’t think I knew her name – and that I should. Does she think I don’t know anybody’s name? Or that I’ve been ignoring her? Am I that much of an asshole now that I give off an air of “Sorry, but I can’t be bothered with the names of all 25 people in my class.” I’ve never really been able to talk to girls, but now it’s because I’m not sure if I’m allowed to. Maybe I didn’t win. Perhaps it would have been better if I didn’t know her name. I did prove that I indeed knew who she was, but something in my character apparently smells arrogant or indifferent to some people. Or maybe she just thinks I’m stupid and couldn’t possibly have the mental acuity to remember everybody’s name. Or maybe she asks everybody if they know her name. Which is a weird opening line. But hey, I’m no expert with opening lines. I once said to a Young Democrat “So…” and then stared at her for the longest 25 seconds in both of our lives. I still think about her every Election Day.

As I was leaving, I went to say goodbye to this room full of girls when I noticed a guy in there with them and blurted out “Cock in the henhouse!” No one at the table had ever heard of that saying and/or it’s more offensive than I think it is. Recommendation. Don’t use that saying in mixed company without doing considerable more research on it than I did and/or you don’t care if the people there think you’re an asshole.

I Hate Fuckin Brick Street

I Hate Fuckin Brick Street

I hate fuckin Brick Street. If any of you out there are really my friends, you won't make me go back there again. Like next time I'm at a party and somebody says "let's go to Brick Street," I'm just gonna go jogging or something. Something healthy. First of all, don't ever anyone try to defend going there by saying "I want to go dancing." Because that's not dancing. I've seen dancing and that's not it. That is holding a bottle of beer and spinning around. And those are just the classy people. The majority of the "dancers" there do what is closer to an erect form of lap dance (yes, I'm aware of the double meaning). It's not dancing. It's a mating ritual. And I can't stand guys that do this gay ass dance probably started by a movie with Vince Vaughn and/or Will Ferrell. The one where they grab their foot with one hand and the back of their head with the other and gyrate back and forth as if they're getting punched in the stomach and subsequently hit in the spine with a baseball bat over and over very quickly. This is probably closer to dancing than those girls who put their hands on their knees and move their booty around in concentric circles, but at least they give me something to look at. Does anybody out there see a guy do this dance and go "Sweet! That guy is cool!" Because I can't picture anybody I know who wouldn't want to hit the guy in the knee with a 4 iron. I just wanted to go up to this guy and just shove him. If it didn't knock him over and hurt him, at least he'd have to break form and stop doing that. There was this girl who was kind of attractive that I was thinking about going over to talk to since we shared the commonality of having friends out there who were "dancing" while we were sitting in booths wondering if we should just walk all the way home again or wait and hope that maybe somebody we know might leave soon and end this debacle. Then this guy comes over and does that retarded seizure dance and actually starts talking to the girl. And then they started making out. God, I hope he knew her because if that shit worked, I'm packing and leaving this stupid town tomorrow cause I don't have a shot. I mean I can do the seizure shuffle (this is the dance's new name), but I will never stoop to those tactics. I have too much pride in whatever actual ability I have to dance. So in case you have never been there, Brick Street is one straight up grindfest. And normally I'm too annoyed, sober or outnumbered to spin my game while there. I think I actually may be passed the days where going to clubs and grinding on college girls is the thing for me to do. Or maybe I'm passed the days where they'll let me. Either way, I think I'm passed the days. If you just look at the crowd from the upper level, it's like one organism. One giant horny organism. And I liken the chicks that go there to bees. They go from flower to flower, never satisfied with just one, until they get drunk enough to let the flower they pass out in to take her home and play with her stinger (too far?). Next time I go there (in case I don't have running shoes with me), I'm covering myself in pollen. I think that's my best shot. If nothing else, it will be something to remember the night by. Other than me walking home alone in the pouring rain writing this little diatribe in my head. Maybe the next day I'll run into some girl who will be like "Hey, you're that guy from Brick Street who covered himself in pollen, right? Cool." They say there's no such thing as bad publicity. I'll prove them wrong.

Where the hell was I? Ah, fuck it.

Quote of the Day 8/14/06

"Being single is like Bridge, no one knows how to play and old people are always giving you some skewed version based on what they think they remember."

-Sisfish (the real one)

Somebody call me if you want to go watch a movie Friday night. Or sit down and have an actual intelligent conversation.

Boycotting fun for a week,

Pollen Man.

Still Standing Right Here…

And Then There Were None

If you haven't read Nerds Gone Wild yet, it will make this a lot funnier.

And Then There Were None

Crap! I got pigeon-holed! Girl A called and wanted to hang out almost the second after I got done writing that last quote of the day. I asked what her other friends were doing and she said she wanted to just hang out with me. Well, this throws a serious wrench into my plans. Especially since Girl A is my only link to that crowd. So I bit the bullet and went to shoot pool with Girl A at Balcony. It’s cool that it was just the two of us because she didn’t want to have to compete with Girl B again and it’s cool that I bought every drink. And I tried to equal her flirtivity but I just couldn’t. And then Girl C came in. Girl C and I had been out a couple times in the last two weeks. Alright, D Playa. Time to dance. And I danced. And I can dance. I think I channeled the ghost of Jesse Ghiorzi, my old playa coach to help me out of that one. Situation diffused. But then it got tough.

Later at Bagel & Deli, I ran into Angie, the feminist I went out with a few times in January who was very drunk and very loudly wanted to know why I never called her back (Dustin life update: this has never happened before and probably will never happen again). It’s almost like every outstanding relationship I was in all collided on that night. I’m a little surprised Megan “I know who you are, I dated you for 7 months” O’Brien wasn’t behind the counter throwing alfalfa sprouts at me. And after all this mess, Girl A went home seemingly a little irritated and no longer interested.
So it turns out, I was right. I lost both of these girls and pissed off a few other people in the process. It’s only been a couple weeks and I feel like I already need a break. Looks like I’m not as good at euchre as I thought. Actually, being single is more like asshole. I have a vague idea how to play, but the rules change so much, I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m sure I’ll compare it to another card game next week. Oh, and here’s what to say if you ever use that parking space analogy in front of any girl who says “Well, what about me…”

Quote of the Day 7/16/06

“Well, baby. You’re like a motorcycle spot. It’s a good spot, but not everybody drives a motorcycle.”

-Justin Somethingorother


Actually, I don’t really think that dug him out of trouble. But it was funny.

Back to the drawing board,

D Lonely.


Still Standing Right Here…

Nerds Gone Wild

Nerds Gone Wild

Ah, what the hell…

From zero to playa in 4 weeks.

Warning! Asshole alert ahead! Yeah, I can be an asshole sometimes. I’m gonna tell you about one of those times. It’s right now. And I have a few apprehensions about sending this out, so I hope you all appreciate the defamation of my own character for your amusement.

See there’s this group of girls (and guys) that I kinda randomly met playing volleyball this past Monday. They’re all college math geeks from all over the country here for a nerds gone wild trip for four weeks over the summer. I could tell this one girl was pretty into me. She was pretty cool. Her friends were also pretty cool (danger – fence straddling ahead!). Especially this one in particular. No! Stupid Dustin! Ah, what the hell… So we wound up at B Dubs late one night – me, the two of them and another quieter girl who didn’t make the cut (OK, now I’m just being cocky). Anyway, the first girl, who we’ll call Girl A was definitely making eyes at me that even an idiot (apparently) could see. But then the other girl (Girl B) who I liked got real drunk and took over the conversation. And I’m not one to shy away from vibrant conversation. The night ended up in us clearing away some tables and doing cheer routines. I was in. And thankfully I have an unbiased female confidant to help me interpret these signals like a good third base coach. She told me that they were probably both into me the way they both acted and then she proceeded to let me behind the curtain.

Apparently, there’s an inherent competition between females for a guys attention. Complete strangers, best friends, family members, it doesn’t matter. These females have some sort of code to try to vie for the attention of the other species. This code is very different from the male code, where if a female is showing interest, it is the other male’s responsibility to stay as far away from that situation as possible, even if it involves giving your friend the keys to your car and walking home. And looking back, now I see it. The more Girl B would talk to me and show me cheer moves, the more Girl A would reach across the table and pat me on the arm. So Jill says if I just feign interest in the both of them, I should be able to take my pick by week’s end, should that be what I want (jeez, I’m actually starting to want to slap myself). This is great news for me, because nobody is better in feigning interest than me. So anyway, I’ll keep you all posted on how this situation turns out (or I can just skip ahead in time and tell you that I’m gonna screw it up with both of them and probably piss some other people off in the process). But until then, I have hope. And that’s all I need. And alcohol.

And while I’m being an asshole, I may as well sell out another friend from a while ago…

Quote of the Day 7/14/06

“Women are like parking spaces. All the good ones are taken. And the rest are handicapped.”

-Keith D


Being single is like playing euchre for me. Just because I don’t like the game doesn’t mean I’m not good at it.

-Back in the game,

-D Playa.


Still Standing Right Here…

Masters of Crazy

WARNING: A lot of people were eliminated from this list because of reasons that will become evident soon enough.

Well, thanks accidentally to John's recent e-mail response to my Valentines Day cynical tirade, I figured it all out. Well, some of it. I still don't know who I am and I don't know what to do with this information, but here's what I learned. John asked how old this chick was and said that it sounded like high school bullshit. And he's right, it does. Only it's not. This chick has her masters, owns a house and has a job and everything. (OK, I just had to go back and delete like another 20 addresses to protect her anonymity and my ass - consider yourself the privileged few. Either my good, trusted friends or third rate acquaintances so far removed from my life that you can cause no harm)

So let's recap. The last three college grads I dated, who all also have masters, for whatever the hell that's worth, have the following rap sheet: One lied and told me she was two weeks late to basically avoid going out with me because she was too afraid to tell me she was seeing somebody else. Whatever happened to "I have a headache?" I guess that was too bland for her. Another got upset that I was seeing somebody else after she told me she just wanted to be friends, mostly because I was still nice to her after she turned me down. And I swear to you all, that's it. I didn't fool around with both of them at the same time or anything to honestly be held accountable for in the normal human plane of emotionally stable existence. And then there's the third. Well, we should all know what happened there. Beelzebabe reared her ugly head and spewed forth bullshit from her eyes, whilst her alter ego, "The Ultimate Quizmaster" set up impossible hurdles for me to stumble over so she could still maintain her self-respect if the relationship went sour. Damn! I don't want to shit on everybody's slurpee here, but I just hit a bad case of apples here. Deal with my cynicism. It's funnier than contentment. And now the second part of the equation. Think about the last non-college graduate I dated. Steph. She was awesome and not a day goes by when I don't wish we could still hang out (didn't know I was going here either - and I just had to delete another 8 people. But I also put one back on). But she went and graduated and moved to another country, so that rules her out now anyway. Conclusion? Don't date college graduates. So I need to stick to the college chicks that everybody gives me shit for chasing around. Or the drop-outs. I don't know about that yet, but I'll try anything once. Maybe even twice just to make sure I don't like it. But the point stands. I need to find em young and brainwash them before they inevitably get all fucked up. Shit, I'm tired of deleting names. I'm just gonna suck up those last few comments and take it on the chin.

While I've got all these names deleted, I'm going to do one of the quotes that doesn't exactly put me in a great light. I was at the post office and I needed Mike to go into my bag to get my checkbook to pay for whatever. He reaches in the bag and one particular compartment happened to contain my addressbook, my checkbook and condoms. I now realize how funny that combination of items is, but Mike thought to point it out to me...

Quote of the Day 2/17/05

"Dude, you have your addressbook, condoms and a checkbook all in the same compartment? What's in this one, a shot of penicillin?"

-Mikey McWawa


Actually, I'm allergic to penicillin. It's alpha-phenoxyethyl potassium. And don't look that up. I'm not sure that's right.

Thank God for porn,

D Wreck.


Still Standing Right Here...

Cupid's Curse Continues

Cupid's Curse Continues

So yesterday was Valentines Day. My favorite holiday of the year. It's a little like a Jewish holiday because not everybody really recognizes it as a holiday. I actually slept for 16 hours last night. It was the greatest Valentines Day ever. Except of course for the Valentines Day or Days when I was with one of my ex girlfriends who may still be on this list. Yeah, that was the best. :) I would like to apologize to all women now but you recently had a chick ruin Valentines Day for you, at least as far as it pertains to me. And this isn't even that psycho chick I've been telling you about recently. Anyway, I have a friend. She got mad at me for being nice to her. Now, I know it seems hard to believe, but that was my only crime. We saw each other a few times and she didn't want anything more. OK. Cool. I still want to be good to her, so I got her a couple flowers for Christmas. I thought I was being nice, right? Then she finds out that I went out with this other girl (and we all know how that ended), and she tells me about a week later that she left crying and she was so upset because I made her feel special and she thought she was the only one, even after she told me she didn't want anything with me.

Huh?

I give up, ladies. I tried being myself. I tried being nice. Hell, there was a span of like a month or two where I tried being an ass (comments to yourself please). Really, what are my options? I just lost a pretty good friend for being nicer to her than she wanted me to be. I realize this isn't an everyday occurrence, but I want to play the odds. What do I do? I realize that it's probably best to just be myself, but I've been trying to figure out who I am for like 7 years now. I have been so many different people and they've all been myself. So yeah, I thought to maybe do something cool for a few of you ladies out there for Valentines Day, but I thought better of it. I wouldn't want to piss you off. And just think if I missed anybody? Oooohhhh! There's a can of worms not worth opening. So I went to bed at 7:15. I assume that probably pissed somebody off too.

Sorry. I don't mean to be so cynical, but it seems I've hit a good run of bad luck here. I'm sure by next year I'll have it all figured out. Speaking of which, I was talking about the other girl I was "seeing" and yet never really paying attention to anything she said. Cause I'm an asshole. Or was I just being myself? Anyway, I was thinking of things to do for her for Valentines Day and Cespos came up with a good one...

Quote of the Day 2/14/05

"Maybe you should send her sister flowers."

-Cespos de Bergerac


Or maybe I should just chop my nuts off myself.

Happy Valentines Day!

Dustin Strangelove.


Still Standing Right Here...

When Nuts Attack

When Nuts Attack

Now I'm not going to pretend that I'm the greatest guy in the world. Well, at least I'm not perfect. You all know this. I've done some things that some girls I've dated have every right to be angry about. Megan O'Brien had every right to be pissed. As did Maryrose. OK, I'm going to stop this thread now. Where I'm going with this is that I recently got involved with someone who I used to be good friends with. Things didn't work out for one reason or another and she decided she didn't want to see me anymore. OK. I got it. We had very different interests and that was tough to get around...

-----11 days later-----

...then came this absolutely nasty e-mail. It was the most hate-laden flailing piece of anger I have ever seen. And I've seen some anger. Heck, a few of you are responsible for some. Anyway, she started by saying my quote of the day was crap, uninteresting and uninspired. Well no shit it's uninspired! I hope none of you are looking to my dinky little attempts at humor to motivate you to finally write that detective novel or sculpt that enormous red ear. Hell, I don't even really expect it to make you laugh most days. I really just use it as a transition between downloading porn and playing internet poker. If you guys are still reading it, that's an unexpected bonus. Then she went on to say that she was testing me the whole few times we had gone out and I failed every one despite the fact that she made them progressively easier. And the whole time I thought we were just having a conversation. Nope. I was wrong. And it seemed so much like a conversation. But not when you are out with the self-proclaimed "ultimate quizmaster." Nope. Then, you are under a microscope. Two weeks later, she brought up a topic that came up in passing that I didn't bother asking her about. Some musician. Apparently, I was supposed to ask her why she liked this artist. I did not. So I got that question wrong. The e-mail had a few other examples of things I didn't ask her to expand on. This lowered my overall score to finish in the same percentile as that of the average ginkgo plant. If the score I got on her little tests translated into SATs, I probably couldn't even get into Towson (zing!). So please tell me now if I've ever thought that I was having a conversation with anyone on this list and I was actually undergoing some sort of exam and wound up failing miserably. Or please tell me if I passed. Because I want to know what my GPA is for these single-blind quizzes I may have been enduring for who knows how long. And for God sakes, if you want to talk about something, talk about it. I'm not gonna put up with this shit anymore. You've been warned. I had to take a few people off this list for this quote for reasons that would be obvious to some other people on this list and the people I took off, obviously. Though the e-mail she sent was obviously meant to hurt me, it ceased to have any affect on me because it came off as a flailing anger-filled tirade. It did, however, scare me. As out of the blue as this was, who knows what the hell else this girl is capable of. I showed this e-mail to a coworker to get a second opinion...

Quote of the Day 1/31/05

"You're going to want to save this. Your mom will need it for the trial."

-Nancy, my unpaid social advisor.



You're going to want to delete this. Your mom will never need to know any of this.

Wearing a staple-proof vest,

D Rec.


Still Standing Right Here...

Rico Gawky

Rico Gawky

I'm really exhausted, but this was too funny to let go another day. Of all the stupid things I've ever said to a girl I was interested in, this is probably in the top ten. Not quite the top five, let's remember some of my other lines ("Who the fuck are you" comes to mind). But before I get into it, I need to go over a few of my theories.

Now I shouldn't let some of you women behind the curtain, but you would also be a fool to let my theories of relationships make you consider things any more seriously than your average Quantum Leap episode. These theories have to do with exceptionally attractive women. See first of all, guys like myself and Tom have been raised to believe that all attractive women are snobs. All apologies, but that's the shit you learn in high school when you run cross country and work in the video lab. So if they show any sort of interest in you, odds are that they are interested in you or at least want something from you. This is why it's exceptionally difficult to accept that an overly attractive girl that comes up to talk to you just wants to be your friend. For the record, this sounds really idiotic now that I reread it, but I didn't really expect too much out of it anyway.

Counteracting this theory is the "low self-esteem corollary." If one of these subjects happens to actually be interested in myself (or Tom), it can be quite intimidating and odds are against any sort of cooperation on our end. At least, this is my reaction. So when a somewhat unmistakable pick-up line came out of her mouth, jokingly or not (something like "so, do you have any more room in your little black book?"), my reply was something to the effect of "I don't do very well with extremely attractive women." And I didn't really recover either. Some people think that it was kinda cute. Maybe if I had thought of something to say after that other than "OK, I gotta go." But most laugh in my face. Certainly not my worst work, but I think I'm putting it on the back burner until I can think of something to use it in tandem with. And I also think I've proved the statement correct unintentionally. This is why I'm sticking with the chicks that don't think they're pretty. Whether they're right or not (that's just wrong, dawg).

So Keith D (the non-roommate Keith, as I call him when I have the time), suggested that I photocopy a page from my little black book (which hasn't had a new phone number put in it since I got my cell phone 3 years ago) and circle a blank spot in it and give it to her. This is certainly the funniest approach, but I don't think funny is necessarily the direction I want to head. So he gave me some other ideas like handing her a note saying "do you like me?" with two boxes saying "yes" and "no..."

Quote of the Day 12/13/04

"It's so old, it's kind of original again."

-Keith D


I think I'll choose funny over stupid. But I'm afraid I'm doomed to stupid anyway.

Flailing my limbs in the ocean of predictability,

D Wreck.


Still Standing Right Here...

Diving on the Grenade

Diving on the Grenade

I normally don't like to go too far into detail about my personal life on this list - wait, that's a lie. But I don't really like to exploit my failures for the amusement of the masses. OK, that's a HUGE lie. But this sucks. I've reached an all-time low in Dustin - girl relationships. I was dumped twice in the span of a week. Well, OK. I guess I was probably more appropriately dumped once and just kinda cut the second time. More like an unrestricted free agent that just wasn't signed again. But I told you I wouldn't talk about football anymore. And the first time probably wasn't so much "dumped" as it was just designating me as a transitinoal player instead of a franchise player. And the second time was probably what hurt more, because not only was that the one I REALLY wanted to work, but it was the second time in a fucking week. I mean, come on! A man can only take striking out so much before he throws the bat down in disgust and gets fined for hurling a water cooler at the heckling fans. But this wasn't even striking out so much as getting tricked. Like getting picked off on that fake baseball, throwing the potato over the first baseman's head play. See there's a not-so-affectionate term that some of us guys refer to as "diving on the grenade." It can be more tactfully called being the wing man. It's the guy that talks to the really pretty girl's... well, not-so-pretty friend so your friend can talk to the pretty chick. It's a very noble man that does this job proficiently.

This past Friday, I was the grenade. I came to that realization fairly early but chose to ignore it. Besides, we had hit it off pretty well despite the circumstances which could have possibly led us to one another. So then I thought that maybe I wasn't really the grenade, but it was just a coincidence. I can't tell if my initial thought was the pessimist in me coming out or if the justification was the optimist peeking through. At any rate, I'm willing to accept defeat again. It's the damn Valentines Day curse. Cupid's got the arrows sharpened and pointed the right way, but the tips are laced with cyanide.

Well, I was telling a mutual friend of me and the girl about how we met that Friday night. Maybe she was "diving on the grenade," but I wasn't the only guy with the non-grenade guy...

Quote Of the Day 2/12/01

"So at least you were the best of all the other grenades."

-Chris Hudsucker Augsburger


Not really, I was just the least explosive of all of them.

Kicking Cupid in the nuts,

Exploding Cricket.


Still Standing Right Here...

Looking at Girls

Looking at Girls

Hey everybody. It's been a while since I really talked to you all out there. In fact, since the last quote, I have lost my keys (but thankfully has a spare set), lost my wallet (but only for an hour), and (my favorite) locked my friend's keys in his car with the radio still on. That one's gonna be a tough one to beat. But I have confidence in my incompetence.

Well, not like I've been quoting here with regularity, but I'm not going to be checking my e-mail from Thursday until Sunday this week. I'll be away in Omaha, Nebraska with the bowling team. Another "perk" of my job. It's not the most exciting of places, and bowlers aren't the most exciting of people, but I get to go on a plane. I hope. Maybe next year I'll get to go to Topeka. Or beautiful sunny Minnesota. A man can dream...

This quote came from a guy who threw up a lot at a party I was at Friday night. He goes by the name "Clint," but also answers to "Dipshit," "Weasel Breath" and "Hey you, over there, with the deformity growing out of your neck!" We were talking about the girls volleyball team and how good looking they are individually. We got to one particular girl, and this is what he had to say about her...

Quote Of the Day 4/26/99

"She's alright if you look at her for a while."

-Clint "puts it how it is" Trice


But if you look at her for too long, she starts to call the cops.

Everyone I know has been so good to me,

Sugar Dustin.

Still Standing Right Here...