Online Dating Undercover: Part 1

So what kind of people do the online dating thing? That’s what I want to find out. I had one experience with an online dating service a few years ago. It was disastrous. Here’s what happened. My sister was enrolled on a dating website and as she scanned through various profiles, I sat in the back, looking over her shoulder (giving her advice on the losers to avoid and the hotties to pursue). I saw a really cute guy (or he was in the angle the photo was taken from—when I saw him in person I would find someone substantially shorter, less buff, and more cross eyed than I expected) and told her to email him for me. So we started chatting. And then he got really specific.

How much do I weigh? Why do you ask, and you know what?—that’s kind of insulting. You don’t just ask girls that. But he was cute, and I wanted to keep the flirtatious banter going. Oh, I’m such-n-such, I told him; lying by an inordinate amount. Let me see pictures, he says. So I dusted off the old forlorn photo album that holds my “skinny pictures”. All women have one of these. A secret stash of their skinny pictures. Painful reminders of the past, of thinness not appreciated at the time. Thinness not valued for what it would be worth ten years later and just months short of their biological clocks blowing a gasket.

So I posted some of my skinny pictures for this joker. And they were good. You should’ve seen me in them. I was slender, trendy, carefree. Smiling as hugely as the lady in the Orbits gum commercials. Now I never expected to have to own up to the fact that these were a decade old, because this guy lived in a completely different state. He was about a thousand miles away. No pressure. No accountability. No honestly, basically. Then one day I got a phone call. Hey, I’m in town. Let’s me up.

Queue the dreaded funeral march. So I made an excuse. A few weeks later he was back. And he continued to pursue and pursue, until finally, I knew I would have to meet him. Well…he wasn’t what I was expecting and I’m sure I wasn’t what he was so eagerly anticipating. Yet as luck would have it, all he wanted to do was make out, and since you can do that at any weight….all my worry was for nothing, and our magical courtship came and went like that.

Lame.

So, five years later, I’m old. Almost 30. That’s like 65 in Mormon-female years. And I decide out of sheer boredom one night, to try the whole online thing again, because let’s face it, just finding a guy out in the real world isn’t gonna happen. No one dates any more. People hardly make eye contact any more. The only way you’re going to get anonymous male attention is if you go to the mall on a weekend and walk under the second story balcony, where all the high school boys hang out, trying to look down girl’s shirts.

So I went online and created a profile. It’s witty. Charming. Brilliant. All the things that I am. Oh, it also displays my literary prowess. And good grammar. That’s important to me. I look at that. If a guy says he’s in law school and just working “port time” to pay his way through…something isn’t right. I suspect, because I happen to be a very untrusting person, well, maybe not untrusting…skeptical…realistic…suspicious—okay, untrusting, that only about 50% of what people put on their profiles is the truth. Who knows if the photos are even theirs. Who knows?

I think some people really are 100% honest, and bless their hearts. Idiots. You don’t just put your whole real self out there for people to see. First of all, you need to keep a little mystery! If you’re screen name is StillTrying, I think we can be pretty sure that you’re in a sad, lonely state. You didn’t even try to think of something witty and alluring. StillTrying says “I’m desperate and still trying, trying for my life, to find my special woman. I’m not wasting time. Will someone respond to me? Please? Anyone? Hey, I’m still here…Hello?”

Aren’t I horrible? I shouldn’t make fun of these people and yet…I still will.

Anyway, I’ll admit that I’m a very emotionally immature girl when it comes to “relationships”, the dreaded R-word. Do you know I can’t even say the word “date?” Can’t say “boyfriend” either. I once had a guy tell me (after we’d been dating for nearly a year) that he couldn’t call me his “girlfriend” because I was too overweight. Now…I’m not inordinately large. I swear. I’ve got some extra curvaceousness for sure. Not all men can handle it. Obviously he couldn’t. Weiner. But man, was that statement a blow. Sadly, for years now, I’ve completely bristled my little back hairs when people referred to “dating” or “boyfriends/girlfriends”.

Anyway, that was a tangent. So…I’m gonna go online and check this whole scene out. If I take it seriously, what will happen? Can I really open up with someone? What happens then? Do we meet? Do I try and be coy and mysterious? Fortunately I haven’t got the kind of constitution that makes me worry about what guy’s think. I know that I’m amazing, so either they see it or they don’t. But will the whole thing be a waste of time? I’m sarcastic. Very sarcastic. Will they be able to handle that? Probably not. I think I’ve sent plenty of boys home crying. I hope.

What it comes down to is this. I’m not ready to be married. I’m scared. I love my independence. I really love my space. And I really love my apartment, style, music, furniture, cat…all things that would be affected if a man came on the scene. Or would they? Maybe I’ve got it wrong. So I’m going to approach this from an investigatory point of view. What’s the whole process like? Should you try it? What do the screen names mean? That’s one I definitely want to know. You’re only given about 20 characters to come up with something unique and definable, and you better make it good!

So we’ll keep track of these guys’ movements. What do they say when they initially make contact? What do their pictures look like? Can they spell and formulate proper sentences? Why does it seem that they’re on the site? Really looking for love, or just looking for an opportunity to post shirtless pictures of themselves? The classic picture where a guy takes a picture himself standing in front of the bathroom mirror, flexing, is the best. And there are many of these. Classy. Original too.

And yet, why shouldn’t a person try to make themselves attractive on their profiles? Of course, they’re going to do that. I’m such a cynic. I know I posted pictures that I thought were complimentary. Captured my best side. (The one of me lounging by the pool, where armpit chub is squeezing out of my swimsuit didn’t make the cut).

Maybe by the end of my little experiment I will have come to some conclusions. The biggest one will be this: Am I serious about finding someone; or am I the arrogant self-serving single person who’s just putting her pictures up to fish for compliments—only to jerk her line out of the water at the last minute?