IN WHICH I GREATLY EXPAND MY HORIZONS or MASSIVE JOINING OF OTHER SITES

It’s official.  I’ve taken off the gloves and am throwing more caution to the wind than even before.  Is this getting repetitive?  Do I continue to inch forward until I have just about teetered over the precipice?  Will I soon take leave of my senses entirely?  If I do, dear readers, it is not from abject desperation but from grit, single-minded resolve and utter determination.

I have joined a another pay site and am now not only a member of Match, but of FitnessSingles – a site wholly dedicated to people looking for running partners, people with good chests (both male and female), and mostly people who photograph as though they leave their couches periodically. 

No, you naysayers, I am not shallow for being on that site.  As I say in my brief profile (not much be said!), as long as people don’t spend 98% of their day tending to themselves the way my little cat does, I will happily agree that these are people who care about their health and appearance.  I will allow that they eat their Wheaties, exercise and breathe deeply, as well as all those other things that health conscious people appear to do.  

Mind you, only if you are naïve enough and new enough to the game to think that those photos are current. 

Never fear, I have not left my favorite freebie, OkCupid though, frankly apart from a pen pal in New York, a gentleman who wrote obscene suggestions in Esperanto and a man in New Mexico who insists on telling me bad Jewish jokes and giving me weather reports – I am sad to report that the site has yielded very little.

Oh, and just one thing from Match that got my goat – and the animal metaphor will continue in a second. Get an email from a 75 (!!!) year old guy.  Wasn’t sure if he hadn’t written to me before, but he was going to take the chance even though I had said I wanted to go a little younger.  I seemed to him too elegant and intelligent to be a cougar.  I was so annoyed when I got this.  I wrote back and said yes he had written to me, the jerk, and told him to think of it this way... he’s 18 years older than me, does that make him a cougar??? GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

As well, while on the notorious POF, I signed onto an offshoot of said site called Evow for people who are interested in committed relationships, the good ole LTR’s.  As if in a Greek Chorus, I hear you cry, get away from POF, but no worries, this one is less horrible than its sister site. 

Talk about commitment-phobes, I can’t even commit to one dating site.  In the spirit of more being more, I’ve cast my net wider, I went back on Jdate as well. So if you’re keeping score that’s three paying sites, and WTF, un-hid my profile on POF. Eeeeck, general consensus is, I know, but I am maximizing just for these next couple of months with the, I think, intelligent notion that maybe someone somewhere is making a New Years Resolution!

I think that I will have to keep index cards on all of this as my fellow non-blogger Alessa suggested.  But as massively as I’m throwing out the net, I realize that the online dating world is getting smaller and smaller.  I do see a lot of the same guys on these different sites.  I momentarily wonder what they’re doing on so many sites when I remember the mantra, they just wanna get laid.  So, I realize that even more caution (you know, that which I just threw to the wind) needs to be exercised.

Not to mention continuing to want a do-over with One Syllable.

So now that you are aware of how utterly pathetic I am, read on anyway.

I had been out of town for about a week and already the maximum exposure was garnering results.  Several guys on the Fitness site thought I was in excellent shape, a 40 year old on Match thought I was dangerously beautiful.  Yes, I promise, I ain’t falling for it, though it does fall trippingly and most pleasantly upon the ear.  Even dreadful POF was active, although to be honest was not particularly enthused about going on there a lot.  But the sister site Evow seems quite fruitful.

Like everything else, though, what I had predicted from the beginning continued to be true.  Most of the contacts were one to two emails.  It seemed as though they just wanted to get their toes wet and then jump back. 

With one person I’ll call Tanning Bed Guy for a really unhealthy irradiated look, I was thinking about how I wanted to respond.  I’ve made it a rule that I will respond out of common courtesy though my serial monogamist friend had told me that there was no need to answer queries in which I wasn’t interested.  Such boorishness is not in my character.  I simply wouldn’t be as dismissive as many are since I think that the Internet isn’t a license to be impolite or cruel.  However, because I had taken longer than he liked, Tanning Bed blasted me for being rude.

I didn’t take this personally either, and told him he had to grow a thicker skin.  Then I got a long sob story about the death of his father (which I could relate to) and how he wasn’t doing as well as he thought. I started doing my usual thing, which is to soothe, and realized I’m not this guy’s therapist or his mother.  Compassion I will certainly give, but the next email wanted more, and I thought – NO.

I believe and hope that January will be interesting as I think I’m really right about the New Years Resolution thing.  So until then, Happy New Year to everyone who has been kind enough to read my blathering.  I am an optimist and think that 2011 will yield all kinds of treats!

IN WHICH I AM MADLY DASHING AROUND TRYING TO APPEAR BUSY AS THE HOLIDAYS APPROACH or DRY SPELL

I cheerfully acknowledge that I haven’t had a date in weeks. I say this cheerfully because there is no other way to say it.

I have been busy communicating and saying hello, people respond and then let it go as I predicted they would, but I am determined. I am not discouraged, and anyway what’s the point?  The sidewalks will soon be closing up here in LA.  It’s a known fact that no one can manage to do anything here for virtually the entire month of December.

But I go on, I persevere.

I am busy pursuing volunteer opportunities, even inspired to get into macho fields of law enforcement or the fire department because of the basic philosophy -- go where the men are.  Oddly, I’ve spent so many years in the halls of academia, and have to say that that hasn’t exactly been a treasure trove of dating possibilities – au contraire.  The only ones that seemed to want to date me were my students, and I wasn’t prepared for that particular infraction, flattering though it was at times.  And no, I don’t think they were doing it because they wanted a better grade.  I’m an easy grader anyway.

So the day goes and lo and behold, a communication from Match. Fireboy, I’ll call him, wants to get together.  Seems articulate enough wrote self-effacing emails, and featured himself in fire fighting gear, though he is not a firefighter per se.  I said to myself okay, I’m sort of liking this type: a little brawn some brains but nothing too challenging, and so I bite. 

Another admission here and don’t worry, it’s not a big deal.

After a couple of emails, I get impatient because it’s either meet or begin writing an autobiography, and frankly, it never pays off as far as I can tell.  I begin with interesting details about myself and then when I meet these guys, not only haven’t they read it, but even if by some fluke they have taken the time, it is painfully obvious that they have not digested the more fascinating minutia, and are certainly not ready for testing. 

Fireboy sends me his number, I send him mine, then I let him call so that I can hear his voice.  Oh! woe is me, not that velvet chocolaty voice of One Syllable – sadly that is rare, I’m beginning to find.  However, pleasant enough and I suppose, worth me returning the call when I feel like it.

Which I do, a decent interval later.

This one was trying to impress me with facts such as he had been in the Fire Station in my area, and had been to a holiday party there with, yes,  __________________ (fill in 60’s celebrity name) … not that I asked.  One very solid rule about LA is that people here are cool about celebrities, and we certainly don’t try to impress each other with knowing this one or that one.

We agree to meet and I get off the phone and, folks, I’m just not feeling it.  He isn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, and I had a suspicion he wasn’t hiding that light under a bushel either.

However, I am dogged and unwavering.

As much as I don’t really want to go, I do go.  It’s yet a third coffee bean… LA is full of ‘em.  There’s even another couple behind us in line also meeting for the first time.  I buy my own tea – he doesn’t even offer, but I always feel better doing this, so they don’t expect something in return.  In return, I hear you cry, is this a barter situation?  You just never know, do you??

Okay so not attracted to him from the get-go.  However, I am firm in my intention that he will at least enjoy the short time we spend together -- very short.  We sit outside as it is still nice and sunny and I begin to question him as I feel that if I don’t, I’ll have to finish up my tea in the car going home.

I find that the easiest opener is to ask them about their experiences on Match or other dating sites.  I find they like a sympathetic listener and love to complain about all the lies they were told before meeting some unfortunate woman or other.

I do so, and get to listen to the fact that he has unashamedly been on Yahoo personals for six years.  He has, he confided to me, dated an actress, though, he added, she won’t remember him.  (Believe me, I won’t remember him tomorrow, either.)  He told me how one person had stood him up, so I encouraged him with my story of the ill-fated luncheon.  He seemed outraged about the fact that he ended up paying for a meal for another woman, and dubious about her promise to pay the next time.  Obviously, there wasn’t going to be a next time.  Hence, I am penalized, I realize, with having to foot the bill for my own tea.  Perhaps, the woman was depressed that they met at Four and Twenty Pies – not, in my estimation the coolest of dating destinations.

He asks me nothing about myself. 

While he is talking, I notice the dirty fingernails and worse the fact that he is looking at his watch first.  I feel free, then, to start wondering when I can end our obvious mutual agony.  Luckily, it seems that his meter was in danger of running out, and we said goodbye.  With great relief I called my fellow (evidently) non-blogger, Jane and said with a huge giggle in a high school voice, “OMG, he was SO boring.”

Sad how we revert, isn’t it?