From Russia, With No Love

There's no Perestroika goin' on here.

Tatyana and I first started talking over two years ago on a dating site.

She was a Russian immigrant, having moved here 20 years ago, and she still speaks Russian with her children, and works as an interpreter.

At the time, I lived a little further away from her, and our schedules didn't work to meet up for our first date.

Time went on, and we both ended up in relationships that lasted over a year.

Then, last week, we reconnected on the same dating site. We exchanged emails about what we had been up to, and figured out that we should probably meet up since we always got along when we were emailing or texting, both two years ago and now.

We ended up meeting for drinks and appetizers two days ago at a nice little wine bar that was less than ten minutes away from both of us. I was actually excited, but not overly optimistic, that maybe I'd have a great first date with a Minnesota woman for the first time in years.

As we met for the first time in the parking lot, I felt a little buckle in my knees. She was even more beautiful than her pictures portrayed - a rarity in the online dating world. She was tall, thin, blond, with sparkling blue eyes and a single, heart-melting dimple when she smiled hello to me.

Things started off a little awkwardly, as she insisted on lecturing me, in her thick Russian accent, about my late arrival. I had told her I would be 10 minutes later than we planned. But she still insisted on telling me off. "In my culture, you would no longer be a man, but be a boy, for not respecting me enough to show up on time." She finally gave up the lecture when I assured her (not so honestly) that I'm usually on time. 

We had a fantastic conversation about life as a single parent of boys (she has three sons), about dating as a single parent, and about the ups and downs of relationships. I respected her bluntness. "If I don't like someone, or don't want to date them, I just tell them," she said. "I don't have time to waste." Honesty. How I love that. My dating mantra has long been "I'd rather be hurt by the truth than lied to."

We were both flirty with our words and our body language, and the conversation went on comfortably for over two hours. Knowing she appreciated blunt conversation, I finally just said, "I'm really enjoying talking with you, and I think you're beautiful, and I'd like to go on a second date if you'd like to."

She replied in her thick accent, "I find you to be very attractive, and really enjoy conversing with you. I would really love another date." We said goodbye with a nice, long hug, and as she pulled away she smiled and flashed her dimple. Feeling my knees buckle again, I started high-fiving myself in my brain for FINALLY having a decent first date again.

The plan was that we'd have our second date on Monday, the next night we didn't have our kids. And in the meantime, we'd keep texting and talking on the phone to get to know more about each other. Yesterday and today we had some very good conversations that continued to make me think things were going very well.

And then tonight, in less than a 50-word text message exchange, the Cold War was rekindled in full force (see the photo above for the actual exchange). Because she had decided to leave her kids alone tonight and go out, she wanted me to meet her out of the blue. My GMan had a baseball game, and I told her I couldn't do it, unless we met sometime after 9 p.m. when his game would be over.

She would have none of that. She wanted me to meet her right then. I told her no. Well...you can read it for yourself. But the bat shit crazy came shooting out like a Yellowstone geyser. Here's a hint to any woman wanting to date me: Don't ever ask me to put my kids behind you in priority. Ever. Because you have as good of a chance of that happening as I do scoring a date with a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model.

So, I said the only thing I could think of to what I had hoped would be my next ex-wife: 

Dear Tatyana,

Оставьте меня в покое!

xoxox

Clemmy