I believe in the rule of threes. So after three people in a span of a week told me of their success on OkCupid, I swallowed my old-school romantic pride and agreed to become a member of the 21st century. I created an online profile.
My ego grappled with how to answer the 10 questions that would algorithmically match me with potential suitors and then be displayed for all to peruse. I wanted to sound cool and interesting and not too eager. Easier said than done for someone who had not been in a real relationship since freshman year of college.
Can I really admit in print that my favorite movie is “Dumb and Dumber”? And that my happy place is a trip to a farmers market with a side of green juice? My life motto is “follow your bliss”. LAME. Totally lame.
It takes me several days to pick out and crop a photo. I don’t have ANY photos of me alone…they are all arm in arm with one of my fabulous friends. I can’t leave them in the photo—that would be misleading. My suitors may mistake me for one of my hotter friends. This is by far the most excruciating part of building a profile. I HATE every photo of myself.
User handle created. Photos uploaded. Questions answered. I’ve done the work, so I decide to just see who contacts me. I log off.
I get several messages and “winks” in the first few days, however, the majority of them live 50+ miles away in NJ or Upstate NY or Puerto Rico, and the rest have profiles and photos that involve cats or sweat pants or the impression that they sit online all day jerking off to porn and lurking in cyber chat rooms.
Fed up, I message a few guys with promising, interesting profiles. NO response. Not one from any conversation I initiated. So, instead, I let the slobbering psychopaths come to me.
In my three months on OkCupid, here is a sampling of the dates I went on:
SAM: Spoke in the third person and had a speech impediment that caused him to spittle when he said certain syllables. At one point during our dinner he actually spat a bite of celery across the table at me and then said to himself out loud, “Sam! I can’t believe you just did that!!” Datelife: ½ date
JAKE: Worked for the FBI and talked about all the undercover drug busts he’d been on. Honestly, I thought this was pretty cool. What wasn’t cool is that as a bad-ass P.I. he could not “wear the pants.” I had to elbow my way into a spot at the bar; I had to choose the restaurant; I had to tell him when to call or where to be. For someone who beats down doors and incarcerates convicts, I hoped that he would be able to choose a red from the wine list. He did, however, notice that my toenail polish matched my finger nail color. I should have been tipped off by all the profile photos of him dressed up as a pirate. Datelife: 2 dates
MICHAEL: Michael was a fun, adventurous guy from Chicago, but I broke Michael’s heart on our first date because I diagnosed him with a wheat allergy. Oops. I opened my loud, holistic-healing, alternative-medicine-wielding mouth. He couldn’t get over the fact that he could never have beer or his grandmother’s mastacholi again. Datelife: 2 dates.
JUAN: Spanish plastic surgeon from Miami. He was nice enough, but after he told me about the 9lb tumor he removed from a woman’s breast, I kept catching him glance at mine. Does he think mine need inflating? Can he tell that my left is bigger than my right? His humor was a bit dis-arming, and there was something about him that was just off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. This was confirmed when he asked me for a second date and when I accepted, said “wow, ok cool…I thought I was too weird for you.” Well, Juan, now you are. Datelife: 1 date
More fed up than when I started, I deleted my profile and went back to interpersonal communication and/or meeting people on subways or in the produce aisle.
Training Takeway: Mile 19
I was determined not to judge people on their online profile because I did not want to be judged my mine. You don’t have to judge, but be selective…if you don’t you may lose an eye with rouge vegetables or a breast to an over-analytic plastic surgeon.