Online Dating. Free versus Paid.

Last summer I joined eharmony and dated (unsuccessfully) a few males. Over the winter I joined match.com and dated no one. Eharmony was really good at matching me up with people that I was compatible with, I simply didn’t have any chemistry with them……and the dudes on eharmony weren’t….um……..very attractive. On match.com, however, the profiles featured more attractive males, but I didn’t get the “success” that I did on eharmony. And after paying around $300 for my time on those sites I gave up on paying.

Paid sites discarded, I joined the masses on Okcupid.com. Here’s the lowdown on OKC. Pros: I get more traffic and contact on OKC than I did on the paid sites. Cons: when you click on someone’s profile and they’re online, they get a little notification that you’ve just looked at their profile. For whatever reason, I hate this. I do not want people knowing that I’m scoping them out. I know, it shouldn’t matter - it's a DATING site, but I hate this aspect of the site. I usually say an expletive out loud and immediately close the browser. This is how much I hate this site. Pro/Con: there is an IM feature. It’s a Pro in that it allows you to connect with someone immediately, it’s a Con in that I usually don’t feel like responding.

Remember how I just told you that someone can see that you’re checking them out? This is how it goes: I’m on the site, trolling for an attractive, non-crazy, hopefully employed, funny, interesting, non-self involved, intelligent man that hasn’t been snatched up yet and someone who is none of those things will IM me. But I need to click on their profile before I know this. So I do. And now they know I’ve checked them out. But I don’t want to talk to them. It’s just a basketful of uncomfortableness before I curse and close my browser.

Generalizations about people on OKC: the people on this site are more prone to be looking for someone to hook up than looking for someone to have a fruitful LTR with. Because of this I encounter many interesting men. And am IMd by them. And have quite a few interesting conversations with them (specific blog on this to come).

So, as I said in my last post, I am taking up the dating mantle again and giving online dating the ole college try. Paid sites out, free site in. And oh, its just as entertaining out there as ever!

Recipe:

Hang around your office meeting rooms around 2pm where you are bound to find free food leftover from lunch meetings. The food might be a little slimy, but at least it's free.

Virtual World Meets Real World

Online dating.....amusing. One hopes to embark upon this adventure to meet someone compatible. I have yet to meet that person....but I HAVE met people online that I already know! Here is that story.

As I blogged about before, there's a certain stigma to online dating. But the thing is; it seems like everyone is doing it! I was going through my closed matches on eharmony and usually this is a mindless task, I click the profile, click "closed match". This steps aren't necessary but if I don't do them, the matches just sit in my "match" box forever; staring at me with the "closed" message. And because I'm anally retentive, I must get rid of them. So, click click, close. But every once and a while I will let my eyes flicker up to the top of the page to look at the picture of the person who doesn't want to date me. And in the briefest of moments, I flick up.....and see someone I know!!!

I couldn't believe it. I went back and sure enough, there he is, this guy I knew from Buffalo. He ended up in my match box because he now lives in my search radius. OMG! Buffalo boy! I was never friends with him, but he was friends with my extended group of friends and we certainly know each other. It made me wonder: did he see that we were matched and anxiously click close, hoping I would never see him? I also couldn't believe he closed me out!!! Boo for Buffalo boy. I never would have considered dating him, but felt rebuffed that he closed the match. No matter. I clicked on the "send a last message" box and chose from the preformulated options, "good luck with your search!". I wanted him to know that I knew! mmhmm.

A few weeks later I'm in my kitchen making dinner whilst my lovely roommate is trolling OkCupid for men (she has an insatiable appetite for them. She's a maneater!) and she calls to me, "Emily! I think I was matched up with ____ (insert name of a friend). I responded, "no, I'm sure it's not him"....her: "I'm pretty sure it is..." So, I ramble over to the couch and over her shoulder I see it, a picture I recognize. It was - it was him. They were matched at 97%, a match made in Internet dating heaven.

In the span of a few short weeks, I "ran" into two people I know in the online dating world. Guess it's not as uncommon as I people pretend....

Emily - My First Attempt: Online Dating

Oh, the stigma of online dating. It's said in hushed tones....they met....online. It's almost like it's an admission of being the worst kind of single - the one who couldn't actually meet someone in real life....they had to go ONLINE. Shock! Horror! Shame! Is meeting online the sexual equivalent to arriving at a dinner party with a pie, only having to admit that you bought it at the gas station on the way over? Looks like one thing, but is really a cheap, cheaters version of the real thing? Mmm, pie. Ok, distraction over.

In this digital age we live in where we google potential suitors names, search for them on facebook, follow their blogs, clandestine cyberstalk; you'd think meeting people online wouldn't be given a second thought. But it does. I love the split second hesitation I get when I tell people I'm going to try online dating and have a profile on eharmony. There is the briefest of pauses and then the, "wow! that's great! totally!" delivered with a smile and a glint of "thank god that is not me" behind their eyes. I actually know more than one couple that met on eharmony and are now married. And since the government says advertisements can't lie, I believe those ads with all those smiling couples that say they've found their soul mate on the site, and I can too!! (for the low, low price of $75 for three months). Wow, that didn't sound jaded now did it?

Regardless. I DID pay that price for the chance to meet someone to date.

I sign onto eharmony and am slightly daunted by what I'm faced with. I have 1,493 matches. Yes, over one thousand. Where do I even begin? Before I even start, I'm faced with a small delay -- lots of "closed" matches. These are guys that aren't interested. Awesome. Now, I get it - not every man on the planet is going to want to pursue a relationship with me - but imagine signing on and spending 45 minutes closing out matches that have already been closed. Let me tell you 45 minutes of acknowledging rejection after rejection can take a toll on your desire to continue this process. But, I trudge on. I am currently in the various stages of communication (on eharmony there are 4) with ten different guys.

How many am I excited about? Three. And one I haven't heard from in weeks (my suspicion is that his membership ran out). I'm trying to keep an open mind and am initiating communication with any man whose profile intrigues me. This usually means something that makes me laugh but I usually give consideration to: a complete profile (there are many that half-assed or not complete), someone that doesn't drone on and on about how buff they think they are, or how much they love their favorite sports teams. I am also suspicious of men who do not have profile pictures. Come on people! In this digital age, who DOESN'T have a digital photo of themselves?? Highly suspect. I'm not going beat around the bush here -- if HE'S too embarrassed to post a picture of himself, that doesn't bode well for me.

So what DOES make me quiver with excitement and anticipation? Well, that happened today. I received an email from a teacher in the Bronx, where he talked about something near and dear to my heart: Buffalo. Done! Funny, sweet, tied into my profile, and had a great writing voice. Understandably, he's a teacher, so I'd be really disappointed if he used bad grammar and punctuation, but he didn't! A fully completed profile! Pictures! Not too much for a girl to ask for, if you're asking this girl, that is.

So -- I'll leave here and go back over there, I have 1,493 men to cyberstalk.

Fresh Pressed Apple Juice & VHS

Any self-respecting woman would scoff at the idea of listing her best attributes and posting them on a public website for all to judge. Well, I’ve learned that when it comes to dating in NY, self respect along with pride and dignity are just a few of the things women are willing to sacrifice in order to snag the “perfect catch.” In this case, I am no exception. Sure, I could have been mad when Kelly posted that explicit, yet exceptionally well written, craigslist post without my permission but a part of me was relieved. I can’t count the number of times I complained that my life would be easier if I could say, "hey lets just cut through this whole process and I’ll give you a 3 point presentation why I'm awesome and you should date me."

After that, it’s completely out of your hands. You’re done selling yourself and your potential suitor either likes you or they don’t. If not, then move along because there is no point in wasting your or their time. And in a city like New York, it’s all about efficiency. Kelly had done all the work and put my plan into action without the stigma of actually posting the ad myself. Needless to say, I was totally gung-ho with the entire scenario. The entry below is a direct result of this dating endeavor….

The quick background:
Name: Mark
Age: 29
Location: Brooklyn
Attractive attributes: good witty banter, adorable ironic hipster glasses, a like for music and movies, a complete lack of knowledge of politics and an affinity for baked goods.

After many missed gchat messages, Mark (whose name has been changed to save his identity) and I finally decided to meet up at a bar downtown after I got off work. Despite the dreary and dismal weather I was upbeat about my new potential suitor. On my way to the bar, umbrella in hand, I literally ran right into him. Serendipitous I thought, truly this date was off on the right foot.

We started walking to the bar a 2 blocks away from our chance meeting on the corner. Off handedly he mentioned that he “didn’t really drink” but then instantly reassured me that he didn’t mind when others did. This immediately sparked my curiosity. Could it be that he was a recovering alcoholic? Did he have some major moral or religious objection to drinking? Was it something completely ridiculous, like it gives him terrible gas? Who knew… I mean, I did meet this guy on craigslist…. Anyway, we settled in to a table in the corner and after a brush off the first time, I asked again why he did not drink. The answer: “I don’t drink many liquids.” Wow, that came out of left field. What does that even mean?!

Apparently, our dear friend Mark has a liquid drinking regime. In the morning he likes to drink something green such as spinach, followed by something orange, then he moves on to a fresh fruit juice – perhaps a pressed apple… He continued to speak, but it was at this point that my brain stopped functioning for a half second.

Oh yes, I had in fact, agreed to go out on a date with “a crazy.” Now, after weighing my options and the severity/dangerousness of the crazy, I thought it was in the best interest of future storytelling and this blog to carry on with the rest of the date. It had only been 20 minutes…what other gems could come from this?

After deep contemplation, which to the normal person was only a fraction of a second, I fell back into step. Acting as though what he’d just said was not bat shit crazy. We continued to talk about various subjects such as music, school and the ever popular angst ridden teenage years. I can’t lie, there were several points in our conversation that I did enjoy. Namely our discussion of being a sound engineer, which, if you know me, is a topic I can talk about forever. Though, after about an hour of talking I had reached another solid conclusion: not only was he crazy, he was pretentious about it. No alcohol was good enough to drink, no teacher good enough to teach, no band good enough to listen to, no job good enough to do…… Did I mention that he was unemployed?

If nothing else, I was also determined to get a free meal out of this. So when he suggested a change in location I was all for it. I even threw out a plethora of suggestions, all of which did not seem to interest him in the least. I let him choose and we ended up at a local pizza place. Seriously! All I would get from dealing with this guy was a slice of Sicilian?! Oh no. I ended up getting much, much more.

If you thought his drinking regime was crazy… well stand back for his restrictions on eating.
The reason why he dismissed all of my suggestions is because when it comes to food, less is more. He did not like “ethnic food” because he had:

1. consistency issues; and
2. only liked foods with minimal ingredients.

Again, just like with the drinking, he reassured me that he did not look down on people who did eat those foods. He even went on to say that he was a great cook even though he, “wouldn’t touch the food that he made with a 10 foot pole.” Which begs the question, how does he know that he’s a good cook if he never eats it? I digress… in our extensive conversation about his food options the only thing I could get out of him that he ate on a regular basis was pizza and hamburgers. He also had in recent years developed an intolerance to dairy. Although, I question the validity to that statement since cheese on pizza has dairy. Don’t fret because after 4 years sans milk, this week, he discovered soy milk. The jury is still out as to whether or not it will make the cut. The one major exception to all of his rules… baked goods. I guess even a crazy can’t turn down a good chocolate croissant.

After much scintillating conversation about his VHS collection – primarily comedies between 1972 and 1986 - we started walking. I’m not sure where he was walking to but I knew I was heading straight to the subway. We ended up in Union square, said a quick and awkward goodbye, hugged, pretended that we would perhaps meet up again and went our own separate ways.

I will state for the record that I in no way regret this date. In fact, it may be one of the best – worst dates of all time. If nothing else I got quite the story out of it.

Lesson Learned: When life gives you apples… make some fresh pressed apple juice.

Recipe

Apple Shake (2 servings)

1 cup vanilla ice cream (Feel free to substitute a soy ice cream if you have some sort of dairy intolerance)
2 cups freshly pressed apple juice
2 ripe bananas
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
Combine all ingredients in blender until smooth.

It’s easy and has minimal ingredients. Enjoy!