Whoa.....

Good Lord, I just read about this terrible tragedy on Gothamist today. I walked by this particular Starbucks, which is a few blocks from my apartment, around 8.30pm last night and wondered why the street was taped off.

'Yesterday evening around 6 p.m., a man fell 18 floors to his death, landing in the seating area of a Starbucks at First Avenue and East 85th Street. One customer told the Daily News, "I thought it was a gunshot. I ran into the liquor store... You're sitting, having coffee. You don't expect that."'

I assumed at the time that a piece of the building had fallen off and that they'd cleared everyone out to avoid anyone being injured, but on clicking through to the article I learned that the man in question had actually jumped 18floors into the outdoor cafe area of the Starbucks below!!

Now, I don't know about you, but as much sympathy as I have for someone who clearly feels their life is so bad they have no option but to end their life by jumping from a high rise, there's another part of me that can't help but think what a horrible selfish arse he was to not only have done this to the friends and family he left behind, but also the innocent people below who were probably traumatized at witnessing his death - and there are frequently small children at that Starbucks too - but who could also have been killed if he'd landed on someone.

Good grief!! It beggars belief it really does.

Anyway enough with this unpleasant topic, it freaks me out to think about it. How was your weekend? I hope you had a good one. I had my first OK Cupid date last night, with H, a 45year old divorced fellow from Brooklyn.

He was pretty nice, I had a good time, although I am not getting a dating vibe from him just now. He's really into history, politics and the environment and it was quite a struggle for my frivolously attuned brain to keep up with some of his chat about hydraulic fracturing and the like, which I know is a critical issue for New York from what I've read in the Manhattan Users Guide, with potentially very very serious consequences for our drinking water, so I definitely do appreciate him having a keen interest in environmental issues that affect us all, especially as I am way too preoccupied thinking about critical things like how to sell more shite to people that they don't really need, however sometimes on a date you just want to see a bit more of a person's fun side don't you? Then again I did have quite a nice time overall, so maybe a second date will coax the fun side out of him a bit more. We'll see.

I'm generally not feeling the online dating to be honest. Admittedly I don't have an awful lot of time to make an effort with it, but still a good number of the men who contact me seem to be a bit weird. One sent me a note

"Hey there ok thinks we stack up. You seem kind of keen. "

Um...how exactly do *I* seem "kind of keen"??? I hadn't logged on for days and HE contacted ME!!!

Then a day later he 'winked' at me

Then a day or so after that he sent me ANOTHER note that read "I just winked at you! If you'd like to strike up a conversation with me, simply reply with something short and encouraging, like “Thanks for the wink! What's new?”

Now being busy at work, I hadn't logged into the site for days, as I already mentioned, and read any of his messages, so to log in for the first time and see 3 notes over the course of as many days definitely raised a big red flag upon which were printed in bold capitalized letters..."NO THANKS!!"

...And then there are the elderly....seriously I'm like catnip to your average geriatric. They are all over me on OK Stupid, it's quite perturbing. One man is in his late 60s and has a username which is akin to "2makebabies"* which is just....well.....ewwwww!!!

Sigh!!

I had this very same problem when I used to go to salsa dancing class, all these much much older men would be inviting me out to see live music in Canarsie and the like. I mean they were older than my Dad!!! Wrong wrong wrong wrong!!!

Online dating has reminded me that there are a lot of men out there who are seriously weird!! I'm starting to think that the single life might be perfect for me. Usually when I've tried these dating sites - I've tried twice before when I just moved to NYC and both times lasted less than a month - I've become depressed about how I will never meet anyone, but these days I am valuing my single life more and more. I also still have a bee in my bonnet about moving to California and the buzzing is getting louder. I think I just need a change of scenery although upping sticks and starting again freaks me out a bit. Maybe I just don't appreciate how good I have it in New York??? How settled I am with my job and with my friends!!

In an ideal world I'd be able to afford to maintain my apartment and life in NYC and pop back and forth. Although if I could do that then I'd throw London and Paris into the mix too. It's funny I was telling Megan from work about the old codger that is potentially after me to have his babies - ugh, I just threw up in my mouth a little - over a couple of drinks on Friday and she tried to get me to reconsider my outright rejection of a man older than my father by playing the money card....

"but what if he's a billionaire?"

"I still wouldn't!!"

"Okay, a multi-billionaire?"

"Nope." I accompanied that one with an emphatic shake of my head.

"Well....what if he bought you homes all over the world and you didn't have to live with him, say he lived in the house next door, would you date him then."

"Nooooo!!! He'd still expect me to have sex with him."

"Well yeah, but...you could close your eyes."

Honestly, she's got completely the wrong end of the stick about my shallowness that one, it's looks and personality I am shallow about, but not money.

Speaking of which it's funny how many guys on OKStupid have put their salary bands on their profile. The vast majority still respond by checking the "I'd rather not say" option, but I am wondering if those that do divulge their salaries do so tactically in order to put off the women who might be after them for their money. H was one who listed his salary band and it was significantly less than what I make - most who list their salaries do earn significantly less than I do - which kind of surprised me for someone who's been working for a number of years in a respected creative field and has a degree from one of the more high falutin' US schools, however he also made some comment about how he's been getting a lot of interest from women in the Philippines who are after "a nice generous man," so that would be one way to weed out the gold diggers.

*Creepy as I find this guy I respect his privacy enough not to out his actual profile name on my blog, so if there is someone on OKCupid with the same profile name as the one I made up then it's absolutely NOT the same person.