What Fresh Hell is This?

There are few stranger planes of existence than the world of online dating.

Knowing what this is now about, if you feel the title is now a bit dramatic, I assure you it’s not. So there.

First, a few semi embarrassing statements to help set the stage for this little affair: I could be classified as what’s known as a ‘Late Bloomer’. I’ve had many strange and varied experiences, but enough little ‘rites of passage’ seem to’ve passed me by to raise eyebrows. One of them is dating. Until recently, this never seemed like that big a deal. Suddenly though, and it could have something to do with being halfway to thirty… It is.

So in the spirit of not dying a spinster, I threw up a profile on Let’s Date, the Suicide Girls’s dating app. I called it a social experiment; it’d be fascinating to see if I got any responses at all. You create a card with enough statements to define yourself to the rest of the world (somehow), and people decide whether or not they’re into that. If they like you, they hit a button, and you’re told someone likes you. Eventually, if you come across their card and decide you like them and happen to hit the button as well, you’re told you’re a match and a date is (usually) set.

My very first match? A cute yet quirky girl (I’m Bisexual, by the by.), who shared enough interests with me to get me interested. It all seemed perfectly harmless… Until I happened to scroll down and catch her Twitter page.

Turns out she’s a Financial Dominatrix.

I won’t say her name on here, that’d be unkind. But after reading through her feed, where men of all kinds begged for her attention in some pretty scary/hysterical ways, and going through her website where there was more of the same… I chickened out. It’s not that I would never, but… Not right now.

Not too long after that, after some equally strange interactions, I pulled myself off the app. Thinking for some strange reason that a new spot would be better, I then threw up a profile on OKCupid. Again, I operated under the giggle worthy ploy of it being a ‘social experiment’.

When the messages actually started coming though, I didn’t have a clue what to do with them.

One guy told me I was a tease. Nothing else. Another guy said I was cute and all, sure, but we had some fo-real sexual disconnects. This, of course, came without me actually answering any sex based personality questions. Girls were either very close to their mothers, or too cool to talk to the likes of me. I tried not to read too much into that. Or any of it, for that matter.

More and more, I found that it was both harder than just going out in public to a bar (Who the hell are you dealing with? Is that picture even real? Craigslist Killer, anyone?), and a hell of a lot easier (If you don’t like them, just stop talking. They can’t follow you. At least… As far as you know.), but still confusing. Really, really confusing.

This did, however, lead me to my first date. I messaged back and forth with a guy for a a while, he seemed reasonably intelligent and made me laugh. This is, by the way, the easiest possible way to win points with me. Make me giggle, you’ve got your foot in the door.

W and I set up a dinner date and met up at six o’ clock sharp. I showed up early and waited inside, compulsively fixing my hair, checking my face (even though it wasn’t made up) in the mirror, wondering if there were any adjustments I could make that would somehow help this process I knew absolutely nothing about. You know, the girly stuff you say you’ll never do until you’re suddenly doing it. You sad bitch.

Suddenly, a tall skinny guy in glasses walks right by me. I smile and say hello, he says hi back, and continues on into the restaurant. It took a few seconds before he realized he’d just passed his own date, and for that date to realize she’d just been stupid enough to look her date in the eye and not recognize him.

After being thoroughly embarassed, we went to get a table. Cut to awkward talk finally melting into a fair amount of good conversation and laughs. He was nice to talk to, and I’m hoping I was too. But he had one failing, and it was the strangest I’ve ever experienced; He had no problems. He’d never experienced stress. Nothing bothered him, and he was perfectly content with his life.

Ouch.

Still, it was a good time. And after exchanging numbers, off we went to our separate domiciles. If he hadn’t dropped contact for two weeks and then popped up again wanting to get together, it might’ve worked out. Thankfully though, working with a nice little cross section of males meant I had multiple opinions on hand to explain these things to me so I didn’t think I was getting worked up and woman-y.

He’s not contacting you within the first week? He doesn’t give a crap. He’s texting a few weeks later? He’s bored.

Bye bye, W.

So, diving back into the pool once again. There’s a small pile of new prospects that might pan out well, might turn out to be just friends, or might turn into nothing at all. But I have noticed just how stupid that bit of stigma that’s latched onto online dating actually is. In spite of the few differences, it’s all exactly the same; the awkwardness, the potential for axe murder, the creepy, the gag worthy, the laughs, the fuzzies, all of it.

Which means sometimes you can’t help but dwell on why that cute girl gave you a one sentence burn and completely blew you off. Or knowing that very pretty guy was never going to message you back, but being unable to help trying in the first place.

But hey, it’s the internet. No big thing, right?

… Right?

Oh God, what hellish existence hath I wrought?