With online dating you must have online dating profiles. I hate the profile thing. You basically have to write about yourself and what you are looking for, carefully choosing what you say, reveal, and hopefully at the same time are attracting the kind of person you think you want in return. I roll my eyes at these damn profiles. They are the modern day sales pitch for love or lust. They kill me. You find yourself judging people on what they choose to write about themselves. I had a good friend, who I actually dated for a few years in my past, also recently go through a divorce. He can be very charming, is smart, good looking, and a pretty great catch overall. I read his profile to assist him on his way back into the dating world and my first thought was…holy crap…he has a terrible profile. It was cheesy and forced. His pictures didn’t do him justice and he even had that self-portrait bathroom mirror thing. Typically when I see that picture in a profile my first thought is “Next!” At the time I didn’t have the heart to say anything and he is in long term committed relationship from that profile. (Yay for him, what do I know.)
I have thought many times to myself as I am looking at profiles if I would skip so quickly to the next person if I had met this particular person in real life first. But the bottom line is…the first impression is not happening in person. I am reading a profile that they wrote and they are doing the same for me. It is what it is. I have met some very nice people in this process as well as some of the strangest, most peculiar people. Online dating isn’t ALL bad. But when it IS bad, it can be really bad or sometimes just really REALLY funny.
Now I should probably disclose that even though I am single right now, I am not on any online dating websites currently. A couple weeks ago I made the decision to take a break from the online dating world. All this dating has kind of muddled things for me and I feel like the universe might be screaming at me to stop. I have had some strange happenings (not bad) and just decided that I need to let the universe catch up with me a bit (or vice versa) before I get all cluttered up on my weekends with random people again. So far…so good.
I was originally going to start my story out with JewPac (his thing..not my nickname), but I think I will start with Dr. Bob first, because well he was the first guy I ever went out with that I met through the internet.
Dr. Bob isn’t a very long story. He was a nice looking fella, who had moved out to Portland a few months prior for a new job. He was fresh out of school. The guy had a Ph.D in Physics. Super smart. He was finally in the real world after many years of being in the academic world. Not just the academic world but the completely higher level geekery world of math and science and all that comes (and does not come) with that. He was polite and had a joke about Schrodinger’s cat that I laughed at when we were writing back and forth. I don’t remember the joke, but I do remember looking up the Schrodinger’s theory again on Wikipedia. Now this was my first date since my split, not to mention my first online date ever. I was petrified and frankly didn’t know what to expect. ( I have come so far since then.) The first date was very quiet with just a little small talk. I noticed that he had a hard time making eye contact with me. I thought it was sweet. He was clearly nervous or either I had something up my nose that was making him feel uncomfortable. Either way sweet to not make ME feel uncomfortable by looking in my eyes while we are talking right? Right. (sigh) The date was over before I knew it. Like literally it was the shortest date. He asked me out again and I convinced myself that it was just the first date nerves not the OBVIOUS lack of chemistry. So I said yes. I won’t bore you with the rest of the details because I actually went out with Dr. Bob three times. The guy hardly made eye contact with me on all three dates. We went to a movie at one point and I remember twice people stepped between us because they assumed we weren’t together. Dr. Bob stood that far away from me. On the third date when my smart girl head finally was screaming, “Lauren!!! You don’t like the guy, he is weird and won’t look you in the eyes…no more dates” I was shocked when he turned to me at the end of the night, looked at my shoes and then said, “I really like you. I think we should consider you being my girlfriend. I own a home that I am on working on paying off quickly and would eventually like four children. What do you think?” Dr. Bob, who hadn’t even so much as brushed my arm, much less made more than 4 seconds at a times worth of eye contact with me, wanted me to be his girlfriend and consider his desire for four children. Huh. I attempted to be really sweet and politely told him that I wasn’t ready to be anyone’s girlfriend yet and before I could finish my sentence he promptly interrupted and said, “Interesting. Well, good night.” That was the last time I saw or spoke to him. Although I do remember seeing on his online profile a few months later a disclosure that he had made stating that he needs the women interested in him to be patient, that he will only date one woman at a time and will get in touch with interested parties as soon as he is available. I was glad to see he was out there dating enough to require a disclosure.
That was my first venture out in the wilds of dating. That first venture proved to be very unwild, but certainly got my feet wet for what was going to a be a continued series of "huh.", wide-eyes, sloppy kisses and stolen cell phones.
