2001-11-12 | 8:02 p.m.

when corduroy licorice's mother told him that he had bad posture, he stood corrected.

***

"many a man has fallen in love with a girl in a light so dim he would not have chosen a suit by it." - maurice chevalier

hmm...maybe i've been man shopping using too low a wattage. that could explain a lot. online dating boy earned big points this weekend by being the first to suggest getting together...and then lost major points by subbing a night out for a phone call that mostly consisted of him describing the stuff that was playing across his muted tv screen.

ah, yes. the death knell has once again sounded on my ether romance.

we really are just "hanging out"...and we hardly ever do that. a date a week is all i ask! i want someone who looks forward to seeing me and makes an effort to see me. and if he's up for some hot monkey love, it coidn't hoit.

today i was updating my dating coach at work on the latest. she herself found a cool guy through online dating, so she's been checking in on my progress, interpreting online dating boy's confusing behaviors and giving me pep talks.

today she slayed me with her response to his latest hi-jinks...or lack thereof.

"you are a precious gem and should not be set aside carelessly like a cubic zirconia. unless he pulls some cirque du soleil action real quick like, i think you should bail."

i heard that.

sad to tell, but i don't think this boy has much of the three-ring in 'em. he's way mellow. mellow turned up to eleven. i really don't take his ambivalence as personally as i might normally. it's just his modus operandi in every part of his life. he doesn't get fired up about much. ain't no hurry in his curry.

the good news is that "dating" him has made me realize that i am boyfriend-ready. at first, i kinda liked the lackadaisical way we were going along, but now it feels a bit too pointless.

he's sweet, funny, smart and very attractive to me, but just too much of a mellow fellow. ah, poop. and it's not just the laissez-faire attitude. there's the occasional booze ooze and other ehssues that make it less than a good match. back to the drawing board for moi. this time i'll listen to the mime and shop for a man in better lighting. ayechihuahua! see? it was so dim in here, i mistook the french crooner quote for marcel marceau's. doh!

***

in happier news, i recently got to meet one of my web icons...misterpants! my buddy a-boy introduced me to misterpants' site and it quickly became a favorite. he's got the best, funniest, oddest links ever. makes me look like an e-mail FW: goddess. plus, his write-ups are pretty darn hilarious, too.

anyways, so one day this summer i read that he's moving to l.a.! cooler than cool, i says to you. misterpants classing up the city of angles! holy spumoni. this is good ish. so i writes to the guy and invite him to meet me and a-boy for dinner. he so kindly agreed. we picked a time and place and got ready to get our introduction on.

so, i have to let you in on a little secret of sorts. i am a hopeless romantic. or maybe hopeful romantic. i dunno. anyway. i often weave great fantasies around people based on very little factual information. then i decide that romance has pinpointed us two as star-crossed loves who will meet and float away to bliss central. of course, my multitudinous fantasies have never, and i mean never, worked out to my cloud nine specifications. but i don quixote on.

this mentality may explain why i've proposed to andrew, king of diaryland, on more than one occasion. sooo...of course, i decide that misterpants and i will meet, swoon over each other...and before you know it, nictate will become missuspants! hooray!

as the evening of meeting mrp approached, i started to get nervous. this was like celebrity action! dude. so i walk up to the restaurant we had chosen and there is a cute guy standing out front. our eyes meet. we smile. "misterpants?" i ask. "nictate?" he asks. *cue the carpenters singing "why do birds suddenly appear?"*

so we make getting-to-know-you-small talk while waiting for a-boy to arrive. i think it was perhaps the third sentence out of mrp's mouth that revealed...there already was a missuspants! *cue crickets.*

shucks. missed it by that much. of course, hanging out with him that evening made me realize that he is even cooler than his site portrays. sigh.

soon after that unfortunately unfateful evening, i met the missus. wouldn't you know it? she was sweet, smart and cool, just like her hubby. ah, well. i'm happy for them both. and i don quixote on...

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