Tuesday, July 31, 2007

A little about me...

From time to time, I'm going to reveal a little about myself. My original intention was to make this strictly a pharmacy blog, but that's not who I am. I'm a thinker. I think about all sorts of stuff all the time. In fact, I probably think way too much. It often interferes with my personal life and relationships. Anyway... What I'm getting at is that every once in a while, I can't help but write about some of the things that are on my mind.

Alright.... In my last post I mentioned how I had a really good weekend at work. I was feeling pretty good about myself until I found out that a whole bunch of my friends had gotten together and went out on Saturday night. I couldn't go. I had to work.

You might ask yourself why I would be so upset. Well, the truth is that I haven't had many opportunities to go out since I became a pharmacist. It seems like all the weekends I'm off, nobody wants to do anything. If we do go somewhere, it just ends up being me and a couple other of my friends going out to the local bar and having a couple beers. Not that I have a problem with that. It's just that I prefer, as a single guy, to have some females around. It's not that I'm looking for someone to hook up with. I just like when girls are around. It breaks things up. It opens up different conversation beside the usual guy stuff (sports, reliving college, sports, etc.). Besides, girls look good, smell good, and give me a reason to try to impress someone. I'm not really shy, but I would say that I'm not bold enough to walk up to a girl I've never met and start talking to her. Therefore, in order to spend a nice evening with some females, there would have to be girls one of us already knows there.

That's why when I found out I missed an opportunity to hang out with a big group of people (including some cute and single girls), the realization of how lonely my job makes me hit me again. Whether it be right or wrong, I blame this on my ex. We were together all through college, and during that time, we were attached at the hip. She didn't like me going out with my friends. She didn't like me being in places where I could meet new people. Anything we did, we did with just the 2 of us. We didn't really have mutual friends. Our whole lives were each other. When she broke up with me, she just started law school, so she was in a place where she could meet tons of new people, go to a bunch of parties, go out to the downtown bars, etc. I, on the otherhand, had just started working 40 hours per week in a tiny pharmacy. There's not many opportunities to meet new people in a pharmacy.

Since, I didn't make any new friends in college, and being with her prevented me from socializing with most of my old friends, I now am in a situation where I only have about 3 friends I can call up to go out. One of those friends is in a committed relationship with his girlfriend, and he's basically never available to do anything. Another friend is not really the type you go out with to meet girls. That leaves my one other friend who is coming off of a really hard breakup (he was engaged to a girl who decided less than a year before the wedding that she didn't want to get married any more). This friend is a good guy, but his conversation abilities are limited to sports and Seinfeld. Besides, what fun is it for just 2 guys to go out to a bar or anywhere else???

I actually signed up for eHarmony for a couple months. I went out on a couple dates, but the whole internet dating thing really isn't for me. I went out with one girl who wasn't bad looking (though certainly not a head turner by any stretch of the imagination). Looks aren't really all that important to me in a girl. I mean, I need to find her attractive in some way, but they don't need to be uber hot. A girl's personality is much more important to me, and I can usually tell if we'd be a good fit within the first 10 minutes. The girl I went out with a couple times was alright. We matched their "29 dimension compatibility profile." That match was good on paper, but we just weren't a fit in real life. The real killer (and this sounds very much like something out of Seinfeld) is that she woudn't eat anything with tomatoes. That includes ketchup, tomato sauce, spanish rice that has diced tomatos in it, and really anything that even had contact with a tomato. I'm Italian. I live on tomatoes. I honestly can't picture myself being with someone that can't enjoy a good pizza. I don't think I can live the rest of my life without Italian food.

Before I canceled my eHarmony subscription, someone else contacted me, and we've been emailing back and forth for a couple months now. We still haven't met (she's in graduate school and very busy), but I'm cautiously optomistic about it. She seems like more of a match for me than the other one (and she's quite attractive too). I guess we'll have to see.

In the meantime, I actually look forward to going to work in that stressful pharmacy because at least when I'm there, I'm around other people. On my days off, I sit around and do nothing because quite frankly, there's nothing for me to do. I feel like I have a lot of friends at the pharmacy who I can talk and joke around with. I'm only a year or two older than our interns, and I'm within a couple years of age of most of our techs, so work kind of feels like a place to socialize for me. The only thing is that I think everyone there kind of realizes I have nothing better to do but be at work because I usually stop by once a week on a day off (I live less than 5 minutes away), I come in early, and I stay late often. It makes me feel a little pathetic... and I guess I am a little pathetic.

In any case... I have a few other things on my mind, but I've rambled on long enough. I have another day off tomorrow, which means some more sitting around doing nothing but eating junk food and playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma (awesome game by the way) on my Playstation 3. Maybe I'll go see the Simpsons movie... alone of course. Oh well... I guess I can sit around and count all the money I've saved by not spending it on a girlfriend or going out with friends.

5 comments:

Jenn Siva said...

You are not pathetic. A lot of us have been there. I certainly have. I compensated by doing a lot of online dating and becoming quite the hussy.

I would say eharmony is not the place to start, unless you are fairly conservative. As an investigation for hubby's company, I tested a lot of dating services and found eharmony to be really conservative and full of a lot of religious people.

I did find match.com to be a good balance.

Girlfriends ARE really expensive. Save up, because when you find one you really like, you will find many reasons to spend money.

And I miss work when I am not there. I want to stop by all the time. I call people from work on my days off to chat about work. I have a husband, a dog, a close family, and a good two handfuls of friends, but I really love work and the people there too. It doesnt mean you or I are losers, I think we just have less responsibilities.

Head up my friend.

Anonymous said...

After reading this, I'm seriously worried. Not worried about not having friends, but worried that I won't have time for myself.

Pharmacy school is totally busy. We practically don't have time for a social life, as in, we don't go out at all on weekends. The only time I get to hang out with my friends? After the end-of-semester examination. So basically, we wait until the end of the semester (we have 2 semesters a year) to have fun. And it's usually on the last day of the exam period, when we're really tired due to lack of sleep.

During school days, we have so much work to do and deadlines to meet that we really don't have time for other stuff. Some of my friends even said that there was no life. Ah, it has come to the point that I felt guilty after watching a movie on a weekday.

My friends taking other courses aren't as stressful. They get to enjoy university life and social life at the same time!

I guess we all think about things from time to time. Hope all goes well for you with the girl :) Good luck.

By the way, italian food is love! Haha. I just love anything with cheese lol.

Anonymous said...

Just a question - are you a head turner by any stretch of the imagination?
- Karen

Pharmacy Mike said...

I guess by some stretch of the imagination, but like I said in the post, I don't judge women based on looks alone. In fact, that's not even all that important. As long as I find her attractive in some way (and that girl I was talking about fits that criteria), I have no problem. I'm not looking for Giselle here.

Personality and intelligence is much more important to me. Afterall, what good is a blazing hot girl if she can't even have an intelligent conversation with me. In addition, am average looking girl who is sweet, caring, witty, and fun to talk to and be around becomes a million times more attractive to me than some model with no brain.

Anonymous said...

I met my husband on eHarmony! :) A great match. I met a couple other guys on there before him. While they were ok matches, they were definitely not "the one." I just kept at it, and I'm so glad I did. And yes, I do suppose it's more conservative than some other dating sites. But it is more of a site for people who are looking for a SERIOUS relationship and a deep commitment. Neither my husband or I are religious. When I was on match.com it seemed to be more of a meat market/easy going relationship type thing. But that was several years ago, so I can't speak for it now. Don't give up hope! :)