Single In The City

People often ask me if I'm dating anyone. Or why I'm still single. And my response is always "Nope. Not dating anyone... just haven't found him yet..."

As much as I love Madison, sadly, it does not contain the greatest pool of eligible, cute, single SMART guys.
When I do find a great one, all of the single female population in Madison is clamoring for the same guy so odds are, my chances aren't that great.

More often than not I get responses to my personal ad from guys who are probably just the sweetest things and will make some girl very happy. But that girl isn't me.

We all know now about my current pet peeve in regards to grammar and basics of the English language. So when I see fellas that can't even get the spelling right in their headlines, it's pretty much a quick "no."

Therefore when I got this email yesterday, I first shook my head in utter confusion and then laughed. Then I cried, rocked in the fetal position as I sucked my thumb and looked for jobs and apartments in Chicago.


"Hi Becky I like to get to know about you .. I am very simple guy noting special working hard to have best things in life filling alonley some times because I like to have social friends spend quality time and have fun.. I have 9 years old wonderful kids ,I spend most time with her swimming actiwitiy , lots a fun so not much . rest work,work is keine boring some times . I like to know what you like to do? Talk to soon ...M"


If anyone can decipher what he is saying, I'll give you a cookie. A REALLY BIG COOKIE!
I'm truly hoping English isn't his first language. Needless to say we won't be "Talk to soon"

When Charlotte in Sex and the City said "Where is he!? I have been waiting for 15 years!! I'm TIRED already." I feel her pain.

I write this blog so that when people ask me "Why is such a great gal like you single?" I can refer them to this post and say "THIS is why people. THIS. IS. WHY."

You Give Grammar a Bad Name

Like many, I have quite a few pet peeves. One of my biggest pet peeves however, is when people can't get our language correct. Feel free to call me The Grammar Police.

Now if English is your second or third language, I'll cut you some slack. However if you were born and raised speaking The English, and you graduated from high school that has certified teachers with all their teeth, aren't married to their siblings and don't respond to the name "Billy Bob", you have no excuse.

The thing that drives me the most crazy is when people can't get even the simple stuff right. It's not "She did that two?" it's "She did that too?"
Others that drive me batty are the differences between "your" and "you're" or "there" and "their" or "where" and "wear" etc.
I don't expect everyone to be great writers but you should know the basics about the English language, right?

Sometimes, there are people that are SO out of touch it makes me physically cringe.

I once had an employee that would type "our" instead of "or" Yes. This is true. Please take a moment to cringe. Let it all soak in. I understand.

Then there was this one time at band camp where I dated a guy named Dave. Wait. "Dated" is way too serious of a term for what we were. I was communicating with a guy named Dave.
And it wasn't at band camp. I have just always wanted to say that.

Dave and I met online. (My favorite place to meet the best of the best men. But that's a post for another time.) And this guy was no exception. His sentences, if you could call them that, in his emails or instant messages would often be so confusing and make absolutely NO sense that I had zero hope to figure out what this poor sap was trying to say. So I would have no choice but to send back a simple, "Huh?"

Sadly I haven't kept any of his emails so I don't have concrete examples for you. Because I'm so dedicated to this blog, I was tempted to get back in touch with him just so I could give my readers a taste of this madness he called "written communication". But then I thought about it for more than two minutes and decided I don't like you guys THAT much. Sorry.

Anyway, because I couldn't keep this marvel to myself (I'm anything but selfish), I would forward these grammatical wonders to my girlfriend Shelly. She too was impressed with his sheer lack of anything close to remedial writing skills. It both amazed and terrified us at the same time.

Unfortunately, Dave and I didn't work out but his legacy lives on.

To this day, if one of us messes up an email, that person gets called "Dave". And it's not a compliment.

Example from just the other day:

Shelly: You Dave’d it! “when you are D are just going”
Becky:Wow! My Dave made absolutely no sense.

or

Shelly: Yeah, typically not a work though.
Becky: typically not AT work? Dave?
Shelly: Hi! Dave here. I’m back.

or

Shelly: Thing of how socially inept they are.
Becky: Dave!
Shelly: Crap! I thought he took the week off.

The morale of this story is that if Ben ever threatens not to do his English homework, I'll recite to him this little tale and proceed to tell him he never wants his name to be synonymous with a negative verb or noun. Depending on the sentence.

Kids Get It. Why Can't The Rest of America?

On the way to our friends house for dinner, Stella called to find out if we were on our way.
After I got off the phone with her, I said to Ben, "That was Stella. She's so darn cute. I love her."

To which he replied in all his 8 year old cockiness, "Well then why don't you marry her?"
"Well for one, she's my friend. Secondly, she's too young for me and third, she's a girl. So legally I can't marry her, even if I wanted to."
"Why not?"
"Because President Bush and his people say it's illegal for boys to marry boys and girls to marry girls."
"You mean like when people are gay?"
"Yep. Like Jason and Joe."
"JASON AND JOE ARE GAY?!?!"
"Yes honey."
"You mean THEY KISS ON THE LIPS??!"
"Yeah, I'm sure they do."
"Wow! I didn't know they were gay. "
"I thought you knew that. Does it bother you?"

Ben sits and stares out the window for awhile taking this all in.

Then he says in a very serious voice. "No. I don't care. I think it's dumb that they can't get married though."
"Me too. It's SO DUMB and sad. Makes me mad."
"Hey Mom? When Bush isn't the president anymore, can they?"
"Oh I hope so honey."
"Like when Obama is President?"
Sigh
"Yes. Like then."