UNICORN SIGHTINGS!!!!!!! - PART ONE

I feel as though the seemingly countless number of posts amongst the female dating blogosphere has given the one-horned mythical creature that is the eligible man, aka "a unicorn," the kind of notoriety akin to the headlines in tabloids claiming bat children or a man that birthed a baby. THE YEAR OF THE UNICORNS. UNICORNS FOR EVERY SINGLE LADY. ITS RAINING UNICORN MEN FROM THE SKY. Insert mass hysteria here and women running into the streets clicking their heels and ripping their bodices, chomping at the bit to bridle one for their very own. *Calm yourself ladies.*

Before anybody else gets crazy, we must ask ourselves rationally and calmly: What is a unicorn exactly? Do they or don't they exist? (After all, that is the million dollar question.) And where did all this unicorn business come from anyhow?

The Origin of the Unicorn

My personal awareness of the unicorn began from a sighting on a popular post by Hilarity in Shoes on October 25th 2010 entitled: Six Different Types of 35-Year old Men in which she described (1) the workaholic narcissistic party guy, (2) the unavailable married cheat, (3) the emotionally depressed and defeated half-man of a man wet rag with baggage, (4) the class clown no-manners jerk (5) the man-boy with the ever popular peter pan complex and yes ladies....(6) The unicorn.

Hilarity defined a Unicorn as the following:

"The Unicorn is totally normal and well-adjusted. He has a good job, and makes a decent living, but is not a workaholic. He likes his family, but doesn’t live with them. He is funny, and well-informed, and cooks a mean pasta bolognese. He has friends from all periods of his life with whom he is still in touch. He is not an alcoholic, drug abuser, or porn addict. He reads. He is easy on the eyes, or even hot. He is taller than you. The Unicorn longs wistfully to meet his special someone, to lay his head in your lap to watch HBO on Sunday night after a weekend full of chores and friends and family, and to wake up with you on Monday mornings in perpetuity.The most important thing to know about The Unicorn is that, as his name implies, he does not exist."

I read this post hopeful and naive that maybe some such fairy tale did in fact exist. But then October came and went. As did November and then December. Without one, single unicorn sighting to report. And so I forgot about this magical, mythical creature having ultimately decided, in agreement, that he did not in fact exist. After all, it had been a bad couple of months of dating.

Though I never wrote about it on this blog, (the blog came later), 2010 started as awfully as it would continue in the men's department. Having just moved back to Washington D.C. I quickly met a barrage of suitors who I made out with in bars and lightly fooled around with back at their lairs. But there was no spark. There was no respect. There was no romance. When I finally did find someone potentially special (he was oober tall and athletic, he owned proper dress shoes, had an interesting job, spoke Spanish fluently and genuinely seemed to be sweet and polite) I made him wait a considerable amount of time before I gave up all the goods, only to find that he had a terrible and unpredictable case of ED. As if a man part that doesn't do it's part weren't bad enough, this man didn't take any responsibility for his man part's missing part and while I'm sure this scenario is humiliating for any guy and hard to talk about and miserable, he instead used his situation as an opportunity to belittle me and my ability to please him, making me possibly irreparably bat shit crazy in my head and self-conscious in the bed, scared to sleep with anyone else, certain I was a failure as a woman and riddled with a chronic case of performance anxiety.

Having wasted much of January through April with that asshole, I turned to browner pastures. Guy friends who didn't actually want to be my friend but just wanted to fuck me when I was drunk and vulnerable. A guy totally beneath me in class and substance that rejected me but I kept chasing because at this point I was desperate to find anything male that moved to comfort me. And then the 24 year old triathlete, while totally ripped and ready to go, had such inexperience and timidity to match my newly acquired low-self-confidence that we did not a match in sexual heaven make. Here, I would take a short testosterone hiatus just long enough to regroup and regain my bearings.

While I began in early August with determination, patience and faith, actually believing I would be successful in my search for true love or as I called the alternative Prince "Not-a-Fuck-Face" if "Prince Charming" was a similarly made-up character, not three days after I set out on my quest, than E-harmony REJECTED me from their online dating services, dubbing me, moi, this girl, essential undateable. It was a bit traumatic to say the least. How could I find Prince Not a Fuck Face if I was undateable? Was this a completely lost cause? Meaning, was I a completely lost cause? In late August, things just got worse when not one, not two, but six men treated me in a most offensive fashion by trying to trick me into sex, lashing out at me for not sleeping with them, drunk dialing me for sex, and oh yeah, just standing me up completely (because apparently even the attempt to coerce me for sex wasn't enticing enough to get out of bed for brunch).

In September, I didn't write about dating as there were no men and no dates for which to write home about. A veritable dry spell.

In October things picked up again. Before they crashed and burned. First, I found a genuinely nice, interesting, cute guy for which to lay my affections, but after spending an entire day flirting and falling all over me and getting rides from me all over town, he finally fessed up that he had a girlfriend. Who he lived with. For the past two years....Fucking Fuck Face! Fuck. Then there was the Bearded Wackadoo who stalks me when I'm out at bars and gets extremely drunk and refuses to believe that we aren't actually meant for each other and wants to have conversations at 1 in the morning as to why I won't date him since we are clearly soul mates. While I was deflecting some of his advances, another guy asked me for my number. A guy who seemed normal until he insisted that we had to have our first date watching football at his house because he refused "paying overprice for food and beer at a bar" and insisted we [could] go to my place or his.” When I told him that I didn't really feel comfortable with that, since I didn't know him well he egged me on: “Come on,” he said. “It’s not like I’m a serial killer. You’ll be fine. Come to my place.” Creepy creeperton.

After all this, who could blame me when I threw my hands in the air, the dream of the unicorn having died inside me forever and I swore that I was "Over Men Again," and not likely to be under them again any time soon.

But did I learn my lesson? oh no. Toddy never learns her lesson. Must be the brain damage from all the bourbon that does her in.

In December, I briefly considered meeting up with my longtime friend-with-benefits, Jersey Boy, for some satisfying but wholly unsatisfying relations with a man who will never be mine nor should he be, and spent the tiniest of tiny seconds of second-guessing a decision NOT to have a fling with a completely immature 22 year old international intern, leaving the country in four months when I wrote about Giving the Geeky Brit a Chance.

But alas, 2010 was to be a complete and utter romantic, dating, sexual disaster. Of epic proportions. There were no unicorns. They did not exist. There was no Prince Charming. Not even a Not a Fuck Face to keep my hope alive. I was defeated. I was downtrodden. I was done.

And yet, as unbelievable as it may sound, something or someone or someones would revive the search for the Holy Unicorn Grail yet again. The social media darlings, perpetual ladies in waiting, would arrive on the scene with new found courage, advice and renewed devotion to the cause.

To be continued...