Adventures in Online Dating

In homage to the dark leap I took a year ago, I'd like to share with you my adventures into the slimy waters of overconfidence, creative photography, and gross overuse of punctuation and emoticons: Internet Dating.

I didn't ever intend to do it. Internet dating. Why? Well, there's no one on there for me. I don't/didn't want to date the type of guy that would Internet date. That was my belief and I held to it. Not to mention how humiliating it is writing a sales piece for yourself. But one innocent 8 hour champagne brunch and there I was of which I swore I’d never do. But they convinced me, those conniving girls. They threw champagne down my throat and dared me to date online. And if I didn't, that meant I thought I was too good for it. Fine! I'm no snob. I wouldn't cower in fear of cheesy winks and unnecessary over sharing. I agreed with grandeur. I would Internet date, and I would put my picture up for all to see!

Uh, then I got sober.

I kinda hoped everyone would forget. 8 hours of drinking champagne can do crazy things to people. I avoided emails, kept communication low in hopes the little dare would disappear into a memory. Nope. They remembered all right. Those girls. They sure know when to push. I put it off a good week until finally with the deadline approaching I drank some wine, laid down on my kitchen floor and typed me a profile. As I started to type the words just flowed. Then I reread what I wrote and realized I was quite nontraditional. Out there. My self-deprecating manner oozed out of "all about me" paragraphs and I managed a heavy ladle of sarcasm in "my interests". I laughed. No wonder I was single! But then I realized the whole point of Internet dating. If somebody doesn't like who you are, who cares? Even though I was dared into the dang thing, I was going to be real and honest me in that stupid profile. I'd stab myself if I wrote the standard "I like to go out to dinner and have a good time and stay at home and watch movies and snuggle." I'd rather be locked in a dungeon alone then be so entirely unoriginal. So yeah, you get the attitude that came through.

I filtered through and picked recent photos- hoping no one would recognize me- literally squeezed my eyes shut and hit "submit". It was official. I was an Internet dater. Oh God.

....To Be Cont'd