It's not you, it's......well, yeah. It's you, jerkface.

There really are so many life lessons you can take away from online dating:

• If you meet for a coffee date and you're bored out of your noggin, order a delicious avocado sandwich! It'll really make the date so much better. Plus you won't have to worry about lunch.

• If someone describes themselves as dark and stormy, BELIEVE it. And stay far away. They are doing you a service and letting you know UPFRONT that they are cuckoo bananas. That's sexy for about a half a second. When you're 24 and a hot mess, yourself.

• If you want to get out of a date, there is an art to letting him/her down easy. Lie. I've found lying is good.
  

So the first time I had to get out of a second date, I found myself writing the most brilliant e-mail that I swore I was just going to cut and paste and use again and again because it got such great results. The guy e-mailed me back to THANK me for being straightforward (ha!) and wished me good luck! Really it couldn't have gone better.

I wrote about how I had a great time, happy to have met him but had done a lot of thinking and I really felt that I had recently made a profound connection with someone else and I didn't think I was going to make any other dates because I wanted to explore where that was going.....

The actual e-mail was much better than that, really. I came off a lot more silver-tongued, as you can imagine. I'm just trying give you guys an overview of how....ok, it was pretty much that. But like I said, he bought it and I didn't come off like an asshole or feel like crap.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have huge rejection issues (even from people I'm rejecting) and I'm having to face these issues directly for the first time in my life. Normally I would just not e-mail, call, communicate with that person again, not wanting any sort of confrontation. Anything to avoid having to be uncomfortable or making someone else uncomfortable. One of my greatest fears is to tell someone I don't like them. I'd rather have someone tell me so. How effed up is that? So it was with great relief that this was a success. But did I learn from my past successes? No. In fact I am still paying the price with the too-much-tongue dude, who can't seem to figure out what went wrong....

Why didn't I just use my winning 'profound connection with someone else' line? I thought maybe, I'd try something else for once. Stupid! In fact, I think I realized how easy I had gotten off in the past with my rejection (form) letter and I somehow wanted to punish myself or pay in some way. I don't know what the fucked up psychology behind it all was but I certainly learned my lesson. Stick to what works, Lady! Don't ever say things like: I think we are looking for different things. or We are on such different tracks in our lives. or It's not you, you're great. It's me. Those are all so cliched and big fat yawn-fests and most importantly, don't work. Believe me, because I've tried using those on the too-much-tongue dude (TMTD) and they all came back to bite me in the rumpus. The TMTD is still e-mailing me, asking me things like: "What IS it you are looking for?" "Explain to me why we are on different tracks??" - and other junk like that. The old me has surfaced and I'm just ignoring his e-mails hoping he goes away.

Believe me I am tempted to be honest about what really went wrong and send him something along the lines of....

Well Sir, Here's the deal. When we "kissed" I was seriously afraid for my pharynx, larynx and esophagus, not to mention my digestive system which had just taken in a fair amount of Moroccan tapas and a good liter and a half of wine. And when I thought about it the next day I had a hard time NOT vomiting in my own mouth as the flashbacks were quite vivid. AND I was then so inspired as to devote an entire blog entry about it because my repulsion could not be purged in any way other than to share it with the cyber universe I call friends.

How do you think that would come off? Not so delicate as that 'profound connection' letter, right? I'm totally sending him that.....if he e-mails again.