There’s a benefit to writing a blog that is lightly trafficked.  Specifically, you can say things like “I made a stealth trip to Seattle last week…” knowing that there’s a better than average chance that you’ll get away with it.

I drove up for the day for an interview, left Portland at 6:00 a.m. for a 10:00 interview and was back on the road for PDX at 1:15.  Back home by 5.

Your basic whirlwind.

No tour, just whirlwind.  I was super conflicted about it.  My parents encouraged me to drive up the night before, even offering to spring for the room…they are awesome like that.  Me, being the leading expert in the world on me, I knew that an unsupervised evening would likely end up with me trying to see all three of the Seattle Besties: my old boss, DPat; my ex and his boyfriend and, of course, ending the evening or very early morning with a podcast with my old neighbor, D-Slice.

It also would have meant I was hungover the next morning…not exactly my best foot forward.

The interview went really well and the EVP asked if I’d go look at one of his stores and give him my thoughts prior to leaving town.  Of course, I did.  That meant venturing deeper into Seattle from the comforts of SODO to either Bellevue or Northgate.

It was the perfect chance to play my favorite game, Let’s See Who’s Here.  

I maintain one GPS based asocial media app on my phone, Scruff, just to play this game.  Otherwise, it’s as worthless as any other asocial media app.  The novelty of the game being just opening it up when I walk into a business or even a different neighborhood to see who’s around.  Check out the local talent, if you will.

So I did that as I got in the car to head north.

Two things to remember:

A) The Seattle Freeze.  Mythological as it is.  <eye roll>

B) I bother to fill out my profile with enough information to give people who read it an idea of what my personality is, rather than just the basics about what I’m looking for and when I want it.

Surprised, I was, to arrive at the store with a message from another *user*.  I’m over 30, I’m surprised when anyone pays me any mind at all on these apps.

I was even more surprised that of the approximately 1000 words I use in my profile, the message I received focused its attack on one.

College

When asked what type of guys I like, I checked the box by College.

I also checked boxes by Geek and Guys Next Door.

This guy messaged me and said, “You’re 48 and are looking for a college guy?  Thanks for providing my daily chuckle”.

Now, I looked at this message and thought, “I hope I don’t get this job.  I’d rather never work again if getting a job means moving back to this social hell hole.”

But, I went in anyway and did my survey.  Stewing the whole time…thinking about how many guys I know well into their 30s that are still in College.

Thinking about how I checked Geek and didn’t expect to meet someone who was a acne faced virgin living in their mother’s basement.

Dismissing the “s” in Guys Next Door because I’m not looking for group sex or more than one sexual partner.

Realizing that this pimple on the ass of humanity likely didn’t understand semantics or what an argument with a split hair as a foundation was worth.

I was getting other messages, but didn’t look because I was pissed about my reaction to this single message.

Then I looked at his profile.

He was 58, 5’9″ and 170 lbs.

Ah, yes.  I see the issue here.

Realizing where he was coming from, how frustrating it must be to be him in a city of beautiful and unreasonably confident people like Seattle…I felt bad for him.  I understand tearing someone else down to feel better about oneself.  It’s about as psychologically sound as picking a fight over the aforementioned semantics, but that’s who I’m dealing with.

Then I channeled my inner Julia Sugarbaker and replied to his message.  Empathy only goes so far.  

Reason I’m Single #9:  Julia Sugarbaker.

I suggested that College could – just maybe – mean different things to different people.  That while it meant pedophilia to him, it evoked Ralph Lauren style and Classic American style to me.  Not that that made a bit of difference to a small-minded, narcissistically injured fella such as himself.  But I also offered that he might just want to close the blinds on his glass house because he most certainly was not going to like the hand gestures I was making at a guy who is 6″ shorter and 5 lbs lighter than me. 

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

And some other stuff.

To his credit, he didn’t block me.

Nor did he apologize.

You know, if I said that cunty fat guys ten years my senior were my thing someone would still complain and I’d still be single…because I just can’t find a hurdle low enough for someone to clear.

But on the bright side, Seattle traffic being what it is, it took me an hour to go 20 miles.  I spent one of my stops in traffic looking at the other two messages that landed earlier while I was seething.

One from an unreasonably hot 28 year old asking if I wanted or needed a blow job.

Stay classy, Seattle.

Sadly, the answers to both questions were no.  Oral sex is really great as foreplay, for me it has simply never been satisfying as a stand alone sexual encounter.  Not that that has ever stopped me from saying, “Oral sex makes a great last minute gift”, but that’s just something that I saw somewhere once that I thought was simply hilarious.

The other message was from a 27 year old totally cute College type guy…asking if I wanted to go out sometime.

Then I kinda thought maybe it wouldn’t be such a terrible thing to get this job after all.

I did once posit that the Seattle Freeze might be thawing…