Dating Exhaustion/Failadelphia
I'm not sure if that's even a thing. But yeah... if it is... I have it. Dating exhaustion.
I just keep going on dates that seem to lead no where. Or more recently instead of going on dates from dating sites I've been trying to just go out and do things in the hopes of eventually maybe just by luck or chance ended up sitting beside the girl that might eventually be the one I end up with.
No luck though.
Last night I went out to Morgan's Pier.
I did end up sitting beside a girl and chatting... turns out she was waiting for a guy. I kind of... went back to just eating my burger and fries and drinking my beer. But she would kind of chat a little with me every now and then. So I was like... well she seem's friendly. As we kept chatting I learned it was a date... and then a date from OKCupid. She was kind of texting him while talking to me. She was nervous. We kept chatting for a while and then eventually the guy did show. While we were chatting she mentioned a few times "I don't even know if he's going to show up". I reassured her that he would show up and that she just had to have faith.
He did show up and they were really hitting it off. I decided to then move and go read over by the water after I finished eating. It was kind of a sour night though because I got a parking ticket which sucks... On my way down there I was going to park elsewhere, but I got cut off and people were honking like crazy, so I was forced to go over the Ben Franklin Bridge. Then I had to pay a toll to come back over the bridge. So that was Failadelphia number one.
Then I found a spot a little ways down from Dave and Buster's. It was 4 hour parking until 10pm. The current time was just before 7pm. I pumped some quarters into the meter and was going to pay up until 10pm... got to about 1 hour and 40 minutes on the meter when all of a sudden the meter died on me. It started to flash something strange. I was going to just move my car from the spot. When a nice parking attendant guy at the exact same time was coming down the street. I asked him what I should do and he pulled out some sort of paper that he marked up with a penn. Then he stuck it on the meter. He said... "You're good for 4 hours now." I trusted him.
But, I think that's rule number one for cities... be cautious and not trusting. So it was my fault for trusting him. We proceeded to walk down the street and chatting about how busted meters are fairly common. He told me about how the new meters cost 11 grand a piece to put in so it takes a while for them to make their money back. He said how these old meters suck and how much he hates them. The new meters are the ones where they rip out all the little per space ones and just put one or two on the whole block and you can pay with a card and put the little printed slip on your dash. He said that someone on South Street lit one of the 11 thousand dollar new fancy ones on fire.
We both kind of chuckled and said well, that's Philadelphia for you. Which is sad when you basically expect that kind of behavior from the city you live in. He stopped to ticket someone and then I said, "well I'll let you do your job." And I went on my way.
Upon returning to my car I found a ticket of my own for 36 dollars and the sticky thing that he had placed on the defective meter was missing. I tried to browse around http://philapark.org site to see if there is s someone I could contact that I would discuss my predicament with. I actually came upon a 404 error busted page at one point. I keep thinking I should inquire and try to find that parking attendant to see how it would work to have him provide testimony on my behalf to prove that the error wasn't in my incorrectly following the proper parking procedures, but that something happened to the paper he stuck on here. Any number of things could have happened, maybe the wind blew it away, maybe someone just ripped it off the meter and crumpled it up to toss away. But I don't know.
I imagine it being a big headache. I imagine the people that work at Phila Park probably aren't genuinely interested in assisting me. They are probably grumpy. They probably are told to do everything possible to get people to pay the 36 bucks. Obviously they want the money coming in from ticket revenues. So it's more in their interest. Oh well. Plan B.... avoid the city more and more going into the future. Longwood Gardens is a wonderful place that has a HUGE and COMPLETELY free parking lot that stretches for miles. And everyone there... Unlike most of the people I encounter in the City of Philadelphia... are cheerful and happy go lucky. It seems like a lot of work for 36 bucks in the grand scheme of things... So I'll probably just pay it.
But going forward if I park at a meter I'll probably Instagram it so that there is some kind of proof to set things straight. I may just start parking in the 15 or 20 dollar unlimited lots. Less headaches than dealing with street parking. This is one of the reasons why I'm generally not a big fan of cities. I've parked a million times in Wayne, Pa... Or Media. Or Phoenixville and never have a problem. Wayne and Phoenixville and Media all have nice municipal lots/garages where you can park... FREE... after 6pm. And Sundays are free to! Failadelphia... 3? Or maybe 4? I'm a small towner at heart.
I just can't help it. Small towns are just generally much more pleasant experiences verses big cities for me. So there you have that... Small towns: 1 Failadelphia: 0
Well any who yeah so I've just been going out to all these places and last night was just another bad night on top of a ton of disappointing nights going out trying to hopefully finally collide with the girl that I would hopefully one day marry. I keep thinking maybe she just doesn't live in this area? Maybe she lives somewhere completely different like Austin Texas or Seattle Washington? Maybe she's not even from this country? I don't know where she is... or if there even IS a girl out there for me. But I'm just exhausted from the whole dating experience. I feel like it shouldn't be this hard to find companionship. I shouldn't spend 2 months chatting with a girl on a dating site, finally meet up a few times, think it's going ok only to find that she actually hasn't REALLY filed for divorce yet and that she's kind of having second thoughts about it and that she's sorry for wasting my time.
It's just frustrating and exhausting and it's making me cranky at work and around friend's and family. Maybe I should just give up and just be single and just throw my hands up and go about my life. Play more open mics and work on music more. I want to go to the Nightscape thing again and I also want to go to more of the live shows they have on Thursdays. I really like Longwood Gardens a lot. Even if I never end up meeting someone there, or a girl to take there on a date... I enjoy the peacefulness of that. It clears my mind. Well, I'm going to make some lunch.
Have to go back soon to pick my mom up from her Saturday dialysis treatment. I had to get up this morning and drive her over there. Later this afternoon I'm going to check out that Egyptian Festival I was told about a while back. Just going to keep busy and keep doing things and going places... Who knows.... maybe one of these days I'll find my self suddenly in love... For now... I'll just try to avoid Failadelphia as much as possible. I still need to post a blog about my Nightscape experience. So look out for that. I will say that I DO like Morgan's Pier itself. And the people there were friendly. The music was good and the view is fantastic... It's just getting there and stowing my car that seems to be a pain. There is a lot next to them for Dave and Buster's. So I might check to see if I'm allowed to park in that lot and then go over to Morgon's Pier. Hey... Maybe the girl of my dreams has been over at Dave and Buster's when I was over at Morgon's Pier. I actually sat there staring at their big sign wondering that. We just keep almost crossing paths... So close yet so far.
I mean I won't know the girl I end up with will even exist until the day I meet her... So right now I can't even imagine I suppose because i don't know she even exists yet... true story, in like 2006 one of my super close best best best friends from high-school was telling me that she was going to enroll at Eastern University... But she was kind of scared... So she asked me if I would be willing to like come to the library there with her to study... She actually wanted me to take classes with her... I was taking classes at where I work.
I declined... and she never enrolled there. She started doing online classes elsewhere.
I should have accepted her offer though. Who knows...
Little did I know 4 years later I'd totally end up meeting a girl on OKCupid that I thought was the best thing since sliced bread... That girls I met 4 years later was at Eastern in 2006.
Not saying it would have changed things from where they are and how they are today... Or that I would have even run into her in 2006.
I just think it's funny I didn't even know that girl existed until I met her in 2010. So there I was in 2006 saying no to a place where a girl that would later drive me completely wild 4 years later happened to be.
Soooo who knows... maybe there's just a girl that I don't even know exists yet... and we could be super perfect for one another. It's just a matter of saying yes to something new. Maybe even saying yes to the right invite, or just letting someone else take me there... And crossing paths with her.
A lot of dating is about crossing paths. Just letting the world steer you to a place and a person you didn't even know existed.
The plan A could be the wrong plan and maybe it's Plan B that is supposed to be where we're really supposed to be at. No matter what we think, or our hopes or desires are.
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