Back to the Dating Board

If I try online dating again, maybe I could be in a commercial and challenge one of those blissful couples to a literary trivia contest. (Hah! I would totally beat them.)

If I try online dating again, maybe I'll meet someone I could actually be with.

Or maybe I'll spend hours reading through profiles where people praise themselves in 500 words or less, read e-mails from guys whose word choice freaks me out, and then go on a series of bad dates that will subsequently make me swear off dating altogether and adopt a bunch of cats.

Except then I might die, because I'm allergic to cats. (Nothing against all you cat lovers out there, it's just that in addition to being allergic to cats, I'm also terrified of them. They can sense it too, because I've been scratched by almost every single one I've ever come across. Maybe they sense that I'm more of a dog person. Or maybe they truly are diabolical creatures who are plotting to claw me to death when their owners aren't looking.)

Last year I tried online dating for the first time. I wasn't even looking for my future boyfriend at that point; I just wanted to meet new people and go on dates. And I figured that if anything more were to happen (i.e., a relationship that would allow me to become one half of one of those happy couples), then great. If not, at the very least it'd be a good learning experience.

I ended up going on dates with several guys. I won't go into too much detail on what the dates were like, but let's just say that when I finally deleted my profile, I was relieved. After about six months of online dating, I decided to take a break so that I could study for my preliminary exam because the whole dating scene was just too time-consuming. And it felt good to be focused on my work again, because at least as a teacher and as a graduate student I never had to worry about getting an e-mail from some guy whose profile had the word "sex" on it at least fifteen times and contained a picture revealing nothing but his bare chest (and not even his face, either).

I don't regret doing online dating, because in a way I did get what I wanted; I did get to meet new guys and go on dates. But I think the worst part of online dating was the e-mails I'd get from creeps. The guys I did go out with weren't so weird (at least not in their e-mails), but it got to the point where I wasn't even excited anymore to get an e-mail from a new guy; I'd just brace myself before opening it because I knew I probably wouldn't be pleased with what I read. 

Several guys sent e-mails that only contained one line, which included their phone number. My strategy was generally to exchange at least three or four e-mails with a guy before we set up a date, so that we could at least write to each other for a couple weeks and find out more about each other before deciding to meet in person. It wasn't like we wrote long letters to each other, but I figured it was good to at least find out a little bit more about the guy before the actual date.

But some guys were way too eager to meet right away. One guy sent an e-mail with no information about himself other than his phone number (and his profile didn't have much info in it either, another red flag). When I didn't respond to his invitation to call him, he sent another e-mail a few hours later that read: OR STAY SINGLE FOREVER.

I mean, really? Whenever I think of e-mails like that it makes me reluctant to try online dating again. If any of you tried online dating, did you ever get bad e-mails like that, or am I just cursed?  I know that not all guys are like that. And one of the guys I met actually did win me over with his words, though unfortunately, he turned out to be better at writing interesting e-mails than making conversation in person. Even though I passed my prelims, my work schedule is still as busy as ever (it always is). But I figure I should give online dating at least one more try; this time I'll try a different site.

And then maybe I could challenge one of those couples from those online dating commercials to an arm-wrestling competition. I probably wouldn't win, but maybe I could distract them by reciting the slogans from the commercials.

Check out this hilarious video from College Humor; it's called "Web Site Story" and is a parody of West Side Story. It pokes fun at online dating and it also jokes about how everyone is online all the time.
Youtube won't let me embed the video in this post, but here's the link: Web Site Story.