Sadly, all the quotes in today’s comic strip are all authentic encounters that I have had in the last month with women that I was [up until that point] interested in…

As my single life progresses I start to think maybe I could be able to overlook the reality TV watching tastes of the woman in the first panel despite the fact that she’s never seen Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or Harry Potter. Maybe I could even put up with the supposed “huge baseball fan” who leaves the game an hour early for no good reason whatsoever. (Hint: there IS no good reason for such behavior.) I start to think after a while, maybe my standards are too high. Maybe I’m being too selective. Maybe I need to overlook minor differences of opinion or taste.

And then this week a girl said to me, “I hate cartoons. Cartoons are THE WORST.”

…

And that’s when I realized that she had no soul, and that I needed to start being far more selective in my dating.

The post Dating 2 appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

Following yet another Valentine’s Day alone, Wendy decides she needs to set up Matt with one of her friends.

The post Single Life appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

Here’s a little preview of the latest video I’m working on. The completed video was meant to go up on the site this week, but due to the passing of a relative out of state, I won’t be able to finish it until I get back in town. But I wanted you to have a little preview of what I’m working on. Hopefully it will be completed and posted after a few more days!

The post Valentine’s Preview appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

-Scroll down to see the super awesome collection of Raccoon Toons Valentine’s Day Cards!-

I think as human beings, we all need a little romance in our lives from time to time. It doesn’t have to be a lot. Simple things will suffice. I’ve decided that there is simply no substitute for that rush of romantic adrenaline you get from a witty conversation, or from a pretty face across the room, or from a flirtatious smile. If there’s anything else that comes close, I haven’t found it. There’s just nothing like it.

So while I am normally somewhat [cough] negative around Valentine’s Day, I would encourage us all to try and feel a little romance. I think it’d be good for us. I’m not saying you have to go out and search for it like some kind of desperate treasure hunt. I’m just saying, let’s allow ourselves to believe it exists.

That’d be a good start.

In order to help us all get into the romantic spirit, I have taken the liberty of preparing a series of Valentine’s Day cards. There are 29 of them (of course) and are available below. They are suitable for printing so feel free to download any of them that you like, or get all 29 of them in one file by clicking here.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

~M

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Sometimes you have no idea how a date is going to turn out. After many years of dating, I have discovered that people still surprise you even when you think you have everything all figured out. This could be good or bad.

I remember for example, taking a girl to dinner and discovering that she was far more charming and creative than I had previously imagined.

I recall another young woman who in addition to being a wonderful conversationalist, consistently fascinated me with the multiple ways she volunteered her time and performed various acts of service.

I’ve spoken before about the girl who went to dinner with me and ate an entire pizza all on her own. That was surprising. My goodness.

I even remember an experience as a youth when I took a friend to a high school dance and it was one of the best dates I had ever been on, because it turned out my date who I thought was somewhat shy, ended up being a ridiculous amount of fun.

So people can surprise you.

Unfortunately, I also remember some dates that surprised me in ways that were less than favorable. Below are a few recommendations of things NOT to do for all you dating people out there. I write them from my own experience, but you should feel free to take them to heart and make them your own.

• Do not say nothing. I can only comment on your pointy shoes so many times before it sounds forced. You’re stuck with me for a few hours and trust me, this will go a whole lot easier on both of us if you open your mouth and say a few words. I don’t care what you say at this point. I’ll pretend to be interested. We can have a riveting conversation on the life cycles of Norwegian snails for all I care. Just say something. Or at least breath a little heavier so I know you didn’t die in my car on the way over to the restaurant.

• Do not vent to me about all of the people you can’t seem to get along with. Not only does it seem like a red flag that you can’t seem to play nice with anyone, but it’s kind of a downer. I’m interested in you, not your mother or your sister or your coworker or whomever wronged you on this particular occasion. I am not your therapist. If I was, you’d be buying dinner and we’d be eating someplace much nicer.

• While we’re on the subject, you are not my therapist either. I didn’t take you out to dinner to experience an intervention. I don’t need to hear your armchair psychological opinions on my feelings of inadequacy. I don’t need to hear you discourse on how I’m not over my past loves, that I’m trapped in a juvenile state of regression, or that Disney princesses have created an unreasonable expectation of women in my mind. I know my issues, thank you very much. If I wanted therapy, I’d go to therapy. All I really wanted was some nice conversation and maybe a chicken ranch sandwich.

• Do not insist that you’re old enough to date me, only to moments later complain that your mother made you clean your room.

• Do not ask me about my interests only to listen to me passionately expound on my love of baseball, before promptly responding that you find baseball to be intensely boring and a waste of time. You won’t get a second date no matter how many times you text me. There are SO many things wrong with that I don’t even know where to begin.

• Don’t be a flake.

• Rather than responding with simple compassion, do not after learning about my family’s cancer history, take this opportunity to unceasingly lecture me (and my family who you’ve never met) on our eating habits, insisting that all of these various cancers could just magically go away if we only started heeding your all-wise and heretofore unknown wisdom on vegetables and the cult of Crossfit.

• Do not invite me out for a date, only for me to learn upon arrival, that some guy from out of town showed up and now you’re on a date with him instead.

• Do not bring your pregnant friend and her husband along on our first date. Do not insist that we should go back to your pregnant friend’s parents’ house afterwards. Do not turn our date into a family affair with your pregnant friend, her parents, her five (yes…FIVE!) siblings, and their three insanely large and affectionate dogs. That is a lot of people to meet on a first date. I planned to be on a date with one person. Not with nine and a half persons.

• Do not suddenly and violently erupt into tears in the middle of our date without any explanation whatsoever. I feel like this should be kind of an obvious one. And yet, here we are.

So there you go. That’s just my two cents. They seem like good things to avoid to me. Just sayin’.

Now go forth and conquer, ye single dating people.

The post A Very Good Start appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

I was once told that women like spontaneity. Only I don’t think that’s actually true. Sure, all you girls would just love it if some guy with great hair who you’d secretly been stalking on the internet walked up to you and said in his deep and masculine voice “hey, this is so sudden and spontaneous, but let’s go take a trip together to the far away island of Yap. Right now. Let’s leave. This instant.”

See you’d all LOVE that, and you’d brag to all your girlfriends, “oh my man is soooooo spontaneous. He’s the most spontaneous of all the men. You wish you were me.”

See but here’s the thing. That’s not being spontaneous. Because that guy with great hair and the deep and masculine voice got the idea to travel. Then he probably looked in to the costs, checked flight times, and weighed whether or not he could take the time off work. So I hate to burst your bubble ladies. But what you think was spontaneous wasn’t spontaneous at all. In fact, you keep using that word and I do not think it means what you think it means.

What you think you love and adore wasn’t spontaneity. It was surprise.

I mean think about it. You wouldn’t really want to travel to a distant [but awesome] far away land without any plan whatsoever. You want your man with the great hair and well chiseled abdomen to plan everything and just surprise you with everything you like (obviously he should just be able to magically KNOW these things). So you see, it isn’t really spontaneous at all. It’s just spontaneous to you, because you were unaware of this plan until a moment ago when this super-human-man with the great abs (who is also a doctor) surprised you with it while whispering sweet nothings into your ear.

So you dear sweet ladies, the next time you want your man to be more spontaneous think long and hard about it. And then after you’ve imagined the two of you lost and alone without any plan or course of action whatsoever, tell him that you like surprises instead.

The post Be Spontaneous appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

I’ve written at length on the topic of date planning in the past, so I won’t rehash my views concerning the matter.

Instead, I will take this opportunity to discourse on something that is really important:

Um…ok I got nothing. I’m sorry. I woke up early for a job this morning and no matter how many Red Vines and Fig Newtons I eat (yes…I know I’m not the healthiest eater in the world thank you very much), I’m afraid I can’t seem to bring my mind out of it’s current state of drowsiness.

So while I would normally take this moment to write about some sort of terrible problem or dilemma that currently vexes our society, I’m afraid you’re just going to have to settle for the jumbled words of a sleepy cartoonist.

But hey, there are HUNDREDS of crazy Matt writings in the archives on this site. I’m sure you can find a good one that will still provide you with all of the displays of my insanity that you’ve gotten so accustomed to reading every week.

After all, I’d hate to deprive you of that.

The post Poor Planning appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

A very happy Singles Awareness Day to all of my single readers. I feel your pain. Hang in there.

~Matt

The post Dating appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

I have always been a helpless romantic. In the 3rd grade, I had a crush on a girl in my class. Truth be told, I had liked her from the moment I first laid eyes on her in preschool 4 years earlier. You can sit there and tell me that a preschooler couldn’t possibly fall in love, but you’d be wrong. I may have only been 5 years old, but I remember that glorious moment all too well.

I arrived on the first day of preschool, and the teacher had me stand in the front of the room to introduce me to the other children. I’m sure I was quiet and shy, because that’s the kind of kid I was. And that’s when I saw her. There she sat on the brightly colored carpet looking up at me. Her glowing visage capturing my 5-year old gaze. She wore a green dress that had a white collar that had little designs on it like a fancy doily napkin. It was hot in a way that only preschoolers can define.

I remember studying the other children in the room, and then looking at her. There was no comparison. A few of the other kids had blank stares on their idiot faces. One or two others had snot dripping out of their noses. One child clearly had behavioral issues. These other kids couldn’t hold a candle to this lovely angel of the preschool. In that split second I knew she was kind, intelligent and lovely. She was perfect.

I didn’t waste any time. I immediately sat down right next to her and began my courtship of the prettiest little preschooler there ever was. We became friends. She would come to my birthday parties. I would go play at her house and chase her chickens. Once we got into an argument because she didn’t want to watch Transformers with me (I still count it as the moment our relationship fell apart). My childhood crush would continue all the way through the 8th grade. But I digress.

Back to the 3rd grade. It was Valentine’s Day, and every year it was the same. This was my chance to subtly tell my dear sweet love how I really felt about her. Every year I would select the most heartfelt or suggestive Valentine in my recently purchased selection (because those Scooby Doo Valentines can be pretty suggestive) and reserve it for her, my childhood sweetheart. Clearly if I gave her what was obviously the most endearing of my Valentines, she would realize we were meant for each other and we could run off and spend a lifetime of happiness and bliss together on the monkey bars. She always did like the monkey bars.

But every year my specially selected Valentines seemed to go unnoticed. Perhaps, I thought to myself, it was time to be a little more bold. After all, we were in the 3rd grade now. We were practically adults. It was time to declare my love more openly.

That night, I stressed about the situation as only a 3rd grader can. I picked out the most alluring Valentine I had and put it aside. I filled out all the other Valentines for all my other classmates and put them in the supplied envelopes. After addressing them all, only one Valentine remained. It was clearly the best one. Surely anyone who saw it would know that it was meant to be given only by those who had real and deep feelings of love and passion for someone. I filled out the card. I carefully wrote her name, practicing my cursive and trying my best to capture her beauty in the way I artistically swirled the letter “A” in her name. I placed the Valentine in the accompanying envelope. But it wasn’t enough. She needed to know how I felt.

And so I did one of the most profound and terrifying things of my young 3rd-grade life… I drew hearts on the envelope.

Now granted, there actually already were hearts on the envelope to begin with. My hearts were these extra little hearts that I drew inside the larger ones. But surely she would notice that I didn’t draw hearts on anyone else’s envelope, and she would KNOW that I did it for her as an expression of my deep and abiding love. The idea was frightening and I knew it would not be without consequence. I changed my mind a couple of times, tearing off the envelope and placing a new one on in it’s place. But before too long, I would succumb to my emotions and I would draw the hearts again. I repeated this process until I was completely out of envelopes, and stuck with my decision.

That night I barely slept. I stayed up all night, full of angst over the idea of delivering my Valentines Day card. How would she react to seeing I had drawn EXTRA hearts on the envelope? What if she hated it? What if she told her friends? I could be teased and made fun of for the rest of my elementary school life like that kid who ate boogers! But there was no going back now. I had to go through with it. My love must be made known.

The next day I brought my Valentines to school. In the afternoon we all traveled around the classroom and placed our cards and Valentines in the bags and boxes on people’s desk. I was so nervous. For a moment, I almost convinced myself that I shouldn’t go through with it. But I couldn’t give everyone in the class a Valentine except her! I was committed now. There was nothing I could do, but deliver my card to the bag on her desk.

I waited for the right moment. I made sure she was away from her desk handing out her own Valentines. I made sure no one else was nearby or watching me. I scouted the area like a trained expert in espionage. I knew my mission. I would get in, get out, and return safe. The package would be delivered.

With great speed, and great stealth, I completed my objective. Quickly I returned to my desk. It was done! My card had been delivered! Now all I had to do was wait. This was so nerve racking! My poor little heart couldn’t take it! I sat and discretely watched her desk from the corner of my eye. I waited for her to look through her bag of Valentines. My heart was racing. What had I done!? She’d probably never speak to me again! I watched and waited in terror. But she didn’t open any of her Valentines. The bell rang, and she picked up her bag, and she went home.

For the next several days I would try to gage how she behaved around me, wondering if she had received my declaration of love. But for some reason, she behaved as if nothing had ever happened. I couldn’t believe it. Here I had been through SO much, and she didn’t even seem to notice! But then I remembered why I loved her in the first place. She was the most intelligent girl in our grade, and she was kind. Surely, she had noticed. She was too smart not to notice. But she was kind. She knew how I felt about her, and she knew the other kids would tease me relentlessly if they found out. She was keeping the secret of my love to protect me! My heart swelled. What a girl!! I loved her more than ever before.

As the school years passed, I would repeat this Valentines tradition again and again. But with each year, our relationship would fade. Our paths diverged. Our interests changed. I saw less and less of her around school. Or maybe I was still too shy to talk to her. With each passing year we drifted further and further apart until I barely knew her. I heard she got married not too long ago. Regardless, we would never again be as close as we were in preschool. Perhaps that is why I had acted with such urgency on that first day of school.

The post Schoolboy Crush appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

So true.

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