Getting Rejected

I've been on match.com for about a week now, and I'm already thinking that I should a) stop shaving my legs; b) stop working out and start eating whatever I want, which means I'll start by falling head first into a box of chocolates; c) shave my head and use the money that I save on hair products to buy books with titles like I HATE MEN.

On match.com, if someone contacts you, you can click on "No thanks", and the website will send him a "not interested" e-mail. I've already gotten five of those "not interested" e-mails. I've also sent e-mails to dozens of guys, but almost all of them haven't responded.

It makes me think that maybe a) at age 32, I really AM too old; b) I should get plastic surgery to make myself look more attractive, except then I'd be able to tell people, "Nothing on my face is real"; c) I'm going to be single forever, so maybe I should adopt a bunch of dogs right now so I can become the crazy dog lady (I can't be the crazy cat lady, because I'm allergic to cats and then I'd be the dead crazy cat lady).

Yes, I've been contacted by guys on match.com every day. (Most of them "wink" at me, because apparently it's too much effort to send e-mails. I dislike winks, because then the pressure is on me to figure out what to say in the first e-mail.) Like the sixty-year old man who apparently doesn't think it'd be awkward at all to date someone who's almost thirty years younger than him. Or the fifty-three year old who specified in his profile that he only wants to date women in their twenties and thirties. Or the Asian guy who described himself as the "Orient Express" and invited women to "take a ride". Or the guy with three chins who described himself as "athletic and toned" and specified in his profile that he only wants to date "slender" women.

It's discouraging, to say the least. Why am I only attractive to much older men and guys who make inappropriate jokes about sex? Every time I get another "wink" or an e-mail, I cringe, because I know that whoever e-mailed me is most likely someone I would never want to date. And almost every single time, I'm right.

It's not like my standards are too high. I didn't just e-mail the "perfect 10s." If a guy looked remotely attractive, I sent him a brief e-mail to introduce myself and ask him a couple questions. But even a guy I didn't think was that cute sent me a "not interested" email.

And my criteria isn't just based on looks either, though I will admit that physical attractiveness is a factor. I don't think it's so wrong to want to be physically attracted to the people that you date. But it's also based on what the guys write in their profiles. There was one good-looking guy that I didn't e-mail because he hardly wrote anything about himself in his profile. He only wrote two sentences in his "summary", and he didn't include any other information. It made me think that he was either just really lazy or was just on the site for one thing, and it wasn't a relationship.

There are other guys who wrote things in their profiles that made me laugh out loud, so I e-mailed them, even if they weren't guys I normally would have noticed. Others mentioned having read my favorite books, so I e-mailed them too. But still nothing.

It makes me feel sad. I reread my profile and looked in the mirror and tried to figure out what was it about me that was so unattractive. I don't think I'm ugly, but a week with almost no positive responses from the guys I e-mailed made me think that I am.

I say "almost" because one guy did respond. We've exchanged a couple e-mails so far, and he seems nice enough. A part of me can't help thinking that he'll be like several of the guys I dated, the ones I liked but who didn't like me back. I can't help thinking that he'll show up for our date, take one look at me, and then make an excuse so that he can leave early (that did happen to me on a date once, and it was awful). 

I'm going to keep trying for a few weeks, at least. But if it doesn't work out with that guy and I keep getting rejected by other guys on match.com, I'm not going to stick it out for the entire three months of my paid membership. Then I'm going to sign up for a membership with plentyoffish.com. If THAT doesn't work out, then I'm going to go to the hair stylist and tell her that I want the "Kojak" look.

What about you? How do you deal with rejection? Do you think it's better to send a "not interested" e-mail or to just not respond at all?

Side note: Here's a hilarious video I found online that cheered me up a little. All teachers should be like the one in this video.