the misadventures of online dating.

he who is a she.

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 19:59:13 -0800

Typical Saturday night for a typical single girl? Duh, partying it up with my OkCupid “matches” and browsing through people who have viewed my profile recently. The night took an interesting turn when I discovered my profile has been visited by girls.

Is the universe trying to tell me something?

she who has almost given up, but not. just. yet.

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 21:01:47 -0800

I’m running out of time. The telltale signs are emerging. Late twenties, early bedtime, early wake-time, low(ish) tolerance for alcohol, a fear of hangovers so healthy it’s unhealthy, and an unnatural fear of the opposite sex infiltrating my personal space (aka texting me). My greatest joys are found avoiding people, staying in, cooking dinner for myself in my sweats, watching whatever I want on Netflix because no one is around to judge my “Recently Watched” list, going to sleep occasionally without brushing my teeth, and not showering. I am officially entering early spinster-hood.

Never one to give up without a fight, as of today I’ve decided I must put a stop to this downward spiral. I will start browsing my options on OkCupid again, maybe even consider paying for Match.com. This is a new epiphany, hot on the heels of my other recent decision to delete my profile after a certain creepy fellow kept writing letters to me despite said letters going unanswered… not once, not twice, but five times.

Fist in the air, I will do this. Force myself to meet new people, albeit online. Respond to texts. Maybe pick up phone calls. Maybe even go on a date.

Fuck, one step at a time. Stalking from behind the privacy of my computer screen first.

he who goes to high school reunions.

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:23:02 -0800

I discovered a genius way to meet new people (to date), much better than online dating, in fact. Just go to your single friends’ high school reunions. It works best when you go with a group of same sex friends, so your single status shines bright. It’s easy to get introductions because everyone knows each other and what’s even better: everyone is drunk. BOOM.

he who isn't having much luck either.

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 23:02:00 -0700

A male friend of mine put online dating quite well:

“Well, the dates were like… What’s the best way to put this? The dates were like sitting down to see a movie, and realizing within 10 minutes that the movie was gonna be terrible and not being able to leave.”

Took the words right out of my mouth. I’ve most certainly felt this way about online dates in the past, and it’s even how I feel within 10 seconds of meeting guys even in real life. To be frank, though meeting guys for me is a rarity these days, when it happens, I feel like going home and crawling under my sheets, never to be seen again by the human race. And I question why I’m still single?

My solution to that was supposed to be online dating. That, clearly, has not fared well, and we’re back at square one.

I wish they had a relationship status on Facebook called “Spinster.”

What do I win if I get all of them?

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 20:12:25 -0700

What do I win if I get all of them?

he who wants an entry written about him.

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 11:31:19 -0700

When word of my blog caught wind via Facebook, one of my friends showed his friend my blog, who immediately requested a date with me fully wanting an entry written about him afterward. His thought was that he wanted an honest analysis of his etiquette on a real-life date. I warned him that I might do things like make fun of his pants. With this disclosure out in the open, he accepted. (All of this correspondence, by the way, was done through my friend who served as the messenger via his Facebook. Good ol’ social media, right?)

This was about a month or so ago, and after some radio silence on their end (probably due to them having to gear up for opening a certain new restaurant), I received the official e-mail today from my friend, CC’ing his friend. We’ll call his friend “X” for now:

Sorry for the delay guys…

X meet S, S meet X. The deal was you guys go on a date and S you write about it. How you guys go about is up to the two of you haha.

Have fun guys haha

Oh shit, online dating has now become online-friend-set-ups-turned-into-journalism-projects.

Of course, the real test is how true to ourselves either one of us will be on this experiment date. Can he be real with me knowing I could very well be writing about anything? And could I really bring myself to write about anything, being fully aware that he would read it?

This is going to be interesting… and extremely uncomfortable.

he who is ten years too late.

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 22:13:08 -0700

What kind of question is “Hello, wow you’re big on hip hop music, have you heard of Nujabes?” in the year 2012?

he who is way too old.

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 18:51:00 -0700

A 43-year old keeps messaging me. His latest attempt:

older then you wanted, better then you expected
xx

Actually, sir, your attempts are futile, for I am a puma.

To help my readers understand what a “puma” is, I called on the help of the always dependable Urban Dictionary, and picked my favorites out of various definitions:

1. An attractive woman in her late 20s or early 30s. She is a pre-cougar/urban-cougar.

2. A woman who is not quite old enough to be a cougar, but still likes to date/mate with younger men.

Hell yeah.

he who takes too long to ask a girl out.

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 23:19:00 -0700

A male friend once told me to keep message exchanges between online suitors brief and not to be alarmed if they asked to meet for coffee or drinks after just one or two exchanges. He rationalized that the whole point of online dating is to meet in person to better gauge both physical and mental chemistry. No use in chatting online with someone you’ve never met, right? I’ve since taken this philosophy/dating rule to heart, and quickly lose interest once someone has spent much too long playing online relay. It’s futile, really, to be discussing the origin of my OkCupid screen name when I’ve just worked 13 straight hours. My whole reason for being on online dating was to cut the BS for lack of free time. So do us both a favor, and cut to the chase.

This rule might even spill past virtual reality and into our daily lives. Waiting too long to ask a girl out, contact her, or even stay in touch with her after date #1 means you will no longer be top of mind. Boys, the truth of the matter is, women these days are too independent, too busy, too ambitious, and having too much damn fun doing it all, to be waiting around for you. Be a man and do something about it before you’re out of mind, out of sight.

he who goes to online dating events.

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 23:33:00 -0700

Tonight I took up a friend’s offer to attend one of Match.com’s infamous singles mixer events, dubbed “Stir” for those who are unaware. Imagine the stories, I thought to myself. And stories, there were.

A detour to the wrong location and two hours later, I showed up, girl friends and trusty iPhone notepad in tow. Note about the iPhone: I was very well aware of how rude I was, typing furiously away at my phone in the middle of a mixer event, but it was all part of the experiment. Exactly how clueless and desperate can the opposite sex (or girls even) be towards social cues, when they’re put into a setting where the only objective is to date and be dated? The cluelessness was transcribed in my notes in quite the disorganized manner as I didn’t have much time to gather my thoughts, but I will try my best to decipher:

1. First guy (tall, Asian, too much gel in too short of hair, not bad looking). Initial thoughts:

He is very inquisitive about the shape of our cups. (Glass cups, not boob cups.)

Why is my cup smaller than yours? Because mine is on the rocks and I have bigger balls than you.

He is standing too close. Must lean back. He leans forward to compensate.

He is now pointing in my face. Or inches away from my chest as he tries desperately to include his friend in the conversation with my friend and I.

No, I don’t want to guess your friend’s accent. I don’t care if I only get one guess.

Am I too cool for school because I won’t play guessing games? Yes.

No, I don’t know how many provinces there are in China.

2. Second guy (a blur.) Conversation as follows:

Him: Why are you on your phone at an event like this?

Me: I’m taking notes.

3. Third guy (and girl). Girl approaches and introduces her roommate to my friend. Girl proceeds to talk. Initial thoughts:

How is a girl talking too much to me right now?

She is standing too close. Must lean back. She catches the cue, covers her mouth, suddenly self conscious of her breath.

4. Third guy (from perspective of my friend). Conversation as follows:

Him: So what do you do right now?

Her: (Insert job here). What do you do?

Him: Oh, I’m between jobs.

Her: (Ok, we’re done now.)

Note to unemployed fellows: It’s not wrong to be laid-off or in-between jobs, just be a smart conversationalist and don’t ask a girl what she does if you have nothing great to report yourself. Avoid the topic as much as humanly possible. Best foot forward, men!

5. As my friend and I were exchanging notes, two Indian guys jump up, literally between our faces, attempting to interrupt and start a conversation. We take two steps aside and continue talking. They jump up between us (freakishly close once again), clearly intending to scare us. I proceed to give them my best look of disgust as we walk away to the other side of the room.

6. Change location, change luck. Continue deep conversation with my friend. Really enjoying catching up with her at this point. I know this defeats the purpose of a singles mixer event, but who - SHIT! Indian guys pop up between us again, interrupting our thoughts and my happy space.

7. Really short Asian guys start lurking behind us but are too scared to approach. Nothing happens and they slink away, defeated.

8. Awkward Asian guy approaches by lurking behind us (what is with that technique anyway?), and then tries to introduce himself. But we’re leaving (honestly!). He slinks away, defeated. Or so we think…

9. Five minutes later, awkward Asian guy returns with his drunk broken-English-speaking Korean friend. He asks us what our names are, proceeds to find our semi-matching names highly amusing as we roll our eyes and laugh AT him (not with him), continues to make a fool out of his drunken self even though we are practically speaking to him with our backs turned.

In short, the three things lacking from my first single mixer experience: personal space, comfort zones, and eye candy.

BUT, the silver lining was the very friendly and quite intuitive, curly-haired young man who successfully got my other friend’s number at the end of the night. He, much to every man in the room’s dismay, spent the majority of the night surrounded by us three girls. I hope he feels like a winner.

Just to end on a nice note, I will commend everyone tonight for even having the courage to (a) go to something as scary as a singles mixer, and (b) approach girls. Keep on truckin’, because everyone deserves some love……… Just not necessarily from me.

he who just in case has STDs.

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 18:31:00 -0700

This morning a friend of mine instant messaged me with a few dating links, wanting to “help me out” with finding more noteworthy content for this blog. For the record, my friends and friends-of-friends have been fantastic support. (I aspire to be the Carrie Bradshaw of Los Angeles. The Taylor Swift of the online dating world. Or dating in general! Why not expand my horizons?)

That is, until I noticed that said friend’s idea of “support” is linking me to this pleasant site, amongst others:

www.stdmatch.net

Too afraid to actually visit this site on my work computer, I googled it. Probably not much better for my web browser history, but nonetheless, all in the name of good journalism! Here’s a description:

“Site for singles with herpes, HPV or other STDs to find a date, fall in love, or just talk with people in their same situation.”

Well, good to know it’s an option. To avoid.

he who has really bad timing.

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 10:52:00 -0700

Last night I nearly missed the window of opportunity to meet a guy I had been messaging from OkCupid for a few days. We had been trying to set something up, since as fate would have it, he was scheduled to fly back out to the mid-west to finish up grad school. Today. After a fantastic dinner with my girl friend, I decided there was nothing to lose and to give it a shot. In less than 30 minutes, he was able to meet me for a drink. One drink, mind you, as drunk dates are NEVER ideal. (Tip for all my ladies.) I anticipated several different scenarios that were less-than-desirable: perhaps he would be dressed like an old man, perhaps conversation would be lackluster, perhaps he would spend the evening make creepy comments about some body part of mine. None of which actually happened. (Whew, right? Wrong.)

He was tall (check) and handsome (check).

Together we discovered the bars in my neighborhood close quite early on weeknights, which proved to be inconvenient, as conversation was lively and filled with the kind of silly but sarcastic humor I live for. I could not believe it! I’m… laughing… with a complete stranger. A complete stranger I met on the internet. Check.

We talked and laughed ourselves from the bar to the parking structure all the way to right outside my apartment building. He suggested we go for a walk, so we took to the streets and ended up analyzing all the buildings in my neighborhood - which, to me, indicated that we both have a similar eye for design and appreciation for details. Check.

Before venturing too far, we made our way back to my building and sat outside. Hours had melted away by now, and I could sense a lingering in the air. Finally, he asked if he could kiss me. I let him. One two-hour long kiss, outside in the cool summer air.

He flew out this morning, and in January, will be finishing out his final year by studying abroad. In the Netherlands.

Before he left, he said to me, “Why did I have to meet you on my last day in LA?” He refused to let me say “goodbye,” only “talk to you later.”

Talk about a misadventure.

he who states the obvious.

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 22:34:00 -0700

I mean, I know my dating horizon has been looking pretty bleak, but this guy just had to take it to the next level and rub it in even further:

I just wanted to point out that we have 0% compatibility on all metrics. That’s freaking amazing.

Story of my life.

he who needs to put on a shirt.

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 01:17:00 -0700

One of my near-instant disqualifiers is when the male subject has topless shirts in any of their profile photos. Beach photos, bro photos, photos with bimbos, I’ve seen them all. Then there’s taking a photo of himself in the mirror while topless and clearly flexing. For one, poor photo quality makes me cringe. (Also on the contrary, guys who post professional headshots of themselves make me extremely uncomfortable.) Your phone showing up in the photo with a flash covering half of your face is never aesthetically pleasing. Said flash shows off nothing but your dirty mirror. What is that, leftover floss gunk? Finally, I still don’t understand how not everyone has gotten the memo yet that Myspace-era-style-mirror-photos are NOT OKAY.

Of course, all those rules go out the door if you happen to be a Team USA Olympian swimmer. HEYO!

he who shall be found online as really, really good blog material.

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 00:57:43 -0700

FML.

he who shall not be found online.

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:21:00 -0700

As of eleven minutes ago, I have de-activated my OkCupid profile. I am just not the type of girl who will find a match in someone who has been served up to me via data logarithms. There is no way a computer will know that I am a hipster with a good job. (How many of those are there in the world?)

That being said, just because it’s not for me, doesn’t mean I think no one should try it. In fact, I encourage all to give it a shot! The lonely, the bored, the frustrated, the sexually frustrated. There’s something in it for everyone. The funnest part about online dating, for me, was documenting the stories. I shall now open it to my friends to submit stories to me to post.

So go forth, my dear friends! Make profiles, make dates, make relationships, make babies. And of course, make misadventures.

he who thinks i'm cross-eyed.

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:07:00 -0700

You know, it’s really kind of endearing when they try to compliment me but just don’t get it quite right.

Hey, I really love the last photo of you in black and white, how your eyes are sorta crossed… Your eyes are really pretty. Just looks very artful and naturally beautiful.

Didn’t know I’m cross-eyed. OKCupid boys have certainly shed new light on how others might perceive me. Cross-eyed and crazy.

he who thinks i'm crazy.

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:03:38 -0700

I haven’t logged into OKCupid in quite some time and decided to check on my messages for shits and giggles. Here’s one I received from a kindly fellow nearly a month ago:

Hey, I know you don’t often reply but here I am tapping away a message anyway. Actually I’m stuck in good old LA traffic and using my phone so you have to excuse my poor grammar, typos and short message!

I think your likely a little too crazy for me, judging by your profile but that’s kind of alluring haha.

Frankly, the rest of the message wasn’t even worth reading, or blogging about.

he who hasn't gotten the memo yet.

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 23:04:06 -0700

It’s been months since I last logged in, and since my friend and I just struck up a conversation about online dating, I decided to log in to my OkCupid account to check my messages. (eHarmony account was deleted once my free membership ended. Best day of my life.)

Apparently my profile went time travelling into the past, when this pick-up line was still new:

You must be out of breath…..cause you’ve running around my head all day.

Really.

he who shall not be deceived.

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:29:09 -0700

On my way to a first date with my first eharmony guy. I just realized I’m wearing the exact same shirt as the one in my profile picture. I now look exactly like my profile. At least I won’t be lying about the way I look in some way. Wish I could say the same about these guys. Tip to men: lying about your height isn’t easy to get away with. Don’t do it.