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24 hours of online dating
Jul. 4th, 2004 12:57 pmI'm starting to reconsider my online dating habit, and the following journal entry, which I promise will be G rated (okay, maybe PG), will explain why.
On this website, which shall remain mercifully nameless, you can check a box next to a person's profile to indicate that you are interested in them. If they are interested back, they can check the same box. If one of you has actually paid to subscribe to this website, you can send email (which is the only way you are able to contact them).
Guy #1 .... rides bikes (good) and writes a literate and interesting profile (ooh, good!) but lives in northern Virginia (a five-hour drive from me). To put this in perspective, if I started in San Jose, and drove south for five hours, I'd be in Ventura. He does not appear to consider this an impediment. I consider him a geographically inadvisable date. (Think about it... if dating goes the way I'd like it to, then naturally I'd like to see a lot of the person. A ten hour round trip can really cramp your style that way.)
Guy #2: Enrique from Detroit wants to chat. (No. See above.)
Guy #3: xcupidx from Massachusetts wants to chat. (Hmm. Cute picture. Faced with a cute Caucasian guy who meets my other stated criteria, my two-hour-drive-or-less rule goes on temporary hiatus. As it turns out, that was a mistake.)
What follows is an excerpt from shortly after the "hi" part:
Gail: So your profile says you are very into fitness?
XcupidX: Are you peeking?? oh yes, I'm into fitness. what's your email? I'll send you some pictures.
(Not only am I 'peeking' at this unknown person's profile, I'm running his email address through google in a second browser window, with and without the yahoo.com part of the address. But I don't tell him that. My mama didn't raise no idiot. (Happy late Mother's Day, Mom. ;-)
In any case, I gave him my email and expected to get pictures of him doing whatever-it-is he does to stay fit. Like finisher's shots from a race, maybe? That is not what I got. I got shots of him with no clothes on from the waist up.
Xcupid: Nice huh? And it gets better as you go down!
Okay, how on earth do you reply to that? I chose the truth:
Gail: I guess I just don't know what to say.
Xcupid: I can send video, too... that'll really blow your mind!
At this point, I realized I was probably incidental to the good time he was having. I tried not to think about what else he might be doing besides typing, and ended the conversation there.
Guy #4: Towel Man.
Towel man lived in Burlington (good), met the stated criteria (good) and wanted to meet for coffee (sure). I assumed that his profile picture showed him wearing a towel on his head, draped like a scarf so his face was peeking out of the folds, because:
a) That was the only headshot he had
b) He was in a goofy mood when the picture was taken
No. Actually, he looked good with the towel ON, but coyote ugly with the towel OFF. Believe it or not, coyote ugly is not necessarily a showstopper... provided the guy in question has the self-confidence and personality to pull it off. Sadly, that was not the case here.
Like I said: Enough. About four people I ride with have encouraged me to join the local Episcopal church, which has a singles group. I am no churchgoer, but it looks like I am about to start, solely to be included in community life here... which revolves around churches and churchgoing.
On this website, which shall remain mercifully nameless, you can check a box next to a person's profile to indicate that you are interested in them. If they are interested back, they can check the same box. If one of you has actually paid to subscribe to this website, you can send email (which is the only way you are able to contact them).
Guy #1 .... rides bikes (good) and writes a literate and interesting profile (ooh, good!) but lives in northern Virginia (a five-hour drive from me). To put this in perspective, if I started in San Jose, and drove south for five hours, I'd be in Ventura. He does not appear to consider this an impediment. I consider him a geographically inadvisable date. (Think about it... if dating goes the way I'd like it to, then naturally I'd like to see a lot of the person. A ten hour round trip can really cramp your style that way.)
Guy #2: Enrique from Detroit wants to chat. (No. See above.)
Guy #3: xcupidx from Massachusetts wants to chat. (Hmm. Cute picture. Faced with a cute Caucasian guy who meets my other stated criteria, my two-hour-drive-or-less rule goes on temporary hiatus. As it turns out, that was a mistake.)
What follows is an excerpt from shortly after the "hi" part:
Gail: So your profile says you are very into fitness?
XcupidX: Are you peeking?? oh yes, I'm into fitness. what's your email? I'll send you some pictures.
(Not only am I 'peeking' at this unknown person's profile, I'm running his email address through google in a second browser window, with and without the yahoo.com part of the address. But I don't tell him that. My mama didn't raise no idiot. (Happy late Mother's Day, Mom. ;-)
In any case, I gave him my email and expected to get pictures of him doing whatever-it-is he does to stay fit. Like finisher's shots from a race, maybe? That is not what I got. I got shots of him with no clothes on from the waist up.
Xcupid: Nice huh? And it gets better as you go down!
Okay, how on earth do you reply to that? I chose the truth:
Gail: I guess I just don't know what to say.
Xcupid: I can send video, too... that'll really blow your mind!
At this point, I realized I was probably incidental to the good time he was having. I tried not to think about what else he might be doing besides typing, and ended the conversation there.
Guy #4: Towel Man.
Towel man lived in Burlington (good), met the stated criteria (good) and wanted to meet for coffee (sure). I assumed that his profile picture showed him wearing a towel on his head, draped like a scarf so his face was peeking out of the folds, because:
a) That was the only headshot he had
b) He was in a goofy mood when the picture was taken
No. Actually, he looked good with the towel ON, but coyote ugly with the towel OFF. Believe it or not, coyote ugly is not necessarily a showstopper... provided the guy in question has the self-confidence and personality to pull it off. Sadly, that was not the case here.
Like I said: Enough. About four people I ride with have encouraged me to join the local Episcopal church, which has a singles group. I am no churchgoer, but it looks like I am about to start, solely to be included in community life here... which revolves around churches and churchgoing.
