year to date dating update

i know what you are thinking. oy. lookin at that title. it probably gets monotonous reading about my dating life. actually, what am i saying!? because a) i dont even know who "you" is these days when i address "you" because im thinking my lack of posts in the last months could have deterred the few peeps that were reading this blog and b) my dating life is anything but monotonous, lets be honest. not because im super desired or exciting or whatever but merely because when you reach my age, you tend to encounter/go out with ALL types of folks and that makes for entertainment. anywho, i just feel like doing a recap because honestly, ive tried to post a couple of times this year and just really havent had a thing to say. and im not in the mood to psycho-analyze anything or whatever....i really just have gone out with lots of great guys and felt like documenting the experiences. so, shall we begin? well, i said "year to date" so we will just go ahead and start with new years day. i worked a bit then headed up to a yurt in the uintahs for our ward snowshoeing trip. this was my first snowshoeing experience, btw, and well, lets just say i dropped a couple hundred bucks the next week for a nice pair. i loved it that much. so i trekked in with a few other folks, we got a bit lost, but i didnt mind meandering through the forest on a nice moonlit night with cool people. so we made it in to the yurt (i know you are probly wondering what this has to do with dating. wait ...for...it...). so it ended up that me and one other guy wanted to go on a late night moonlit snowshoe adventure. so we took off up the trail. it was fantastic and gorgeous. i absolutely fell in love with winter recreation/camping because everything just looks and feels so different. everything is still and peaceful and its just incredible. so that was fantastic. and yes, i definitely noticed that this guy was sooo much fun. but i thought, "he is so young (23), so whatever." sorta dismissed it. in the meantime, there were a bunch of blind dates that had been sort of accumulating (friends that said "oh i want you to go out with this guy. can i give him your number?"). so, names and times get sorta fuzzy here, but we will just say that I have eaten at the Thai place by my house with 4 different guys. (hey, if they ask where I wanna eat, its just simple and close and yummy, ok?) and i began to feel like a blind dating machine. i definately dont hate blind dates. i appreciate my friends and their desire for me to be happy. but it just gets a little old. all of them were great guys, not a single jerk in the bunch. but in comparison to the other dates that were happening at the same time, well it just made it hard to really consider them. and the funny thing is....the ones that i thought for sure would call...didnt. and the ones i wrote off have actually pursued. so ive come to the conclusion that with all my years of experience and wisdom ..i am worse than i ever have been at determining levels of interest and accurately perceiving guys' level of fun/enjoyment/interest on a date with me. anywho, so back to the "other dates" that were distracting me from enjoying the blind dates. so im gonna have to say that one of my favorites was the christmas tree burning. so, snowshoe boy, yes he asked me out the week after that yurt trip. and i was surprised but stoked cuz he seemed great. we went to dinner (at THE thai place, but it was funny because he picked that with no input from me. ironic) and a wedding reception which was a funny first date. but we already had plans to go snowshoeing the next morning (everyone else that was supposed to go flaked out so we decided it was a date) so it was sorta a marathon first date. (oohh that just made me wonder if anyone has ever done an actual marathon for a first date. huh. ya thats a bit much for even me. a 5k, perhaps.) so our morning snowshoeing excursion....well ill just say im blown away that he asked me out again after that because, well i had no makeup on, and when i exercise at all my nose gets way runny and i was just slipping and falling and snotting all over the place and being ridiculous, and wow. ya. defintely not my typical "date natalie" polite boring behavior. (for those of you that dont know about "date natalie...its my lame version of me. that usually comes out on dates, particularly first dates. and uuuusually mostly when i actually am interested. not always though. ps i am fairly certain that none of the these guys read this blog, but if you are, well, i just needed to document these months of my life. hope you dont mind. :) anywho, i think christmas tree burning came next. yes indeed. we had talked about the amazing smell of pine and how id never burned a christmas tree. so somehow we ended up on a freezing cold dark, very foggy night tromping around some frozen lake in bountiful finding the spot for christmas tree burning. we climbed through barbed wire, through snowy muddy fields, down a path, through some trees, over a frozen river (yes of course as i carefully descended down one side of the riverbank i absolutely slipped, flew up and yes, down right onto my bum. he just chuckled and came and helped me up. i had already had so many embarassing moments with this guy that i just didnt care at all anymore. which was nice. i should always do ridiculously awkward things at the beginnings of dates or whatever so i can just get it over with and not care. ) and we eventually found the designated "christmas tree burning spot" in the middle of a marsh that had become significantly marshier since snowshoe boy had last been there. but we forged ahead, used a whole box of matches and magically, on the last match, he got it to catch fire a bit and we savored that moment. it was pretty awesome for anyone who has never done it. anywho, time moved on, yada yada, we hung out, did stuff, insert random other dates and blind dates in here. alas, things didnt work out with snowshoe boy. im tired of blogging and its been so long since i posted so theres really no point to this other than to post. and not forget what ive done since i lived in SLC. so there you go. the end.