Since the dating pool is so shallow these days my good friend lets call her “Sarah” decided to take matters into her own hands. After confessing to us that she signed up with an online dating site and that after a week of membership she already had three dates lined up for the following week, I was intrigued. How could it be that easy? Its unheard of! She spoke of the wonders of online dating; its free, there are cute guys that message YOU, and you'll just go grab coffee and get to know them better. I was convinced in that moment that she had gotten it right! Solved the mystery and ended our string of bad luck with Rochester men! Halleluiah!
Now let me just say a few things here. I moved to Rochester swearing off all my old behaviors. No more Sex and the City style man hunting, no more worrying about dates. I had convinced myself, that I just needed to worry about my career and taking care of me and if I was supposed to be in a relationship with someone, it would happen naturally. Well, my friends and I being typical twenty-something girls we can only entertain ourselves with “Girl Power” for so long until we become tired of sleeping alone and cooking dinner for one. So we started to get antsy and began our quest to the male shire. After about two months of hitting up every kind of club, no guys were talking to us. The only ones that were, in fact making moves were the sketchy wasted ones who put their hands on your buts. Not OK! So that's when Sarah started to take matters into her own hands, I say go girl, get it! She motivated me so much that one day with the help of my friends Shannon, Tom, and Mark I put up a profile. Its pretty simple and I thought “What could it hurt?”. That's when I started to panic.
To be honest I am very anti-online dating, I have been for as long as I can remember. In my opinion you shouldn't rely on technology to help you find a mate. If you are supposed to be with a person they will find a way into your life, you cant force a relationship like its an online 7th grade dance right? My self imposed relationship time line rules strictly states that if I plan to marry at age 30 and I'm still single by 28 then I will dive into the world of online dating. Simple right? Well online dating amongst twenty-somethings is huge! I know a handful of people my age who are doing it, not necessarily getting amazing results but they are doing it. Sarah I believe is the exception to this online dating awkward curse. Like I said after going on two dates, the good date actually resulted in a hot guy who is crazy about her! Fairytale story. I mean considering what I've experienced on this site in the past two weeks I'm not so sure I'll be meeting Mr. Right Now any time soon, but I'll tell you what my online dating journey has been like so far.
I have to say that the site is great, they are like a pushy mother trying to get you a man as fast as they can. They encourage you to make your profile detailed, upload pics and answer the hundreds of questions to better find you a match. Everyday they send you a list of guys who you match up well with and ask you to pick some or send them a message if you want. Or you can just browse the users and rate them according to five stars. I like this part because I get a few notices a day about guys who have given me high marks. Its like a reminder of how attractive you are. You can choose to respond to guys or not. Its pretty well set up. Here is why I fail at the site: I'm a person who NEEDS human contact. I cannot send messages or IM chat with guys over a computer, its creepy and lets face it no one is being their real self. The thing about me is, to really understand my charm and hot-mess qualities you have to sit and chat with me for a while. I feel like my profile really doesn't represent me as much as the real me does and I think that the men who are on this site assume they have a shot with me when in fact they aren't compatible with me in my opinion.
So about two or three times a day I'll get a message from a new guy basically saying this “Hey Whit you seem really cool and you're really pretty, message me sometime, I want to get to know you better.” Right there! Problem number one, I'm chicken! I'm totally the girl who wants the guys to take the lead. Don't leave it up to me! Just start asking me questions or just ask me to coffee, for real. I need human interaction, not cyber word play! I'm horrible at it! For example the first guy that messaged me wanted to get to know me by playing the question game, so I asked him “what are you hobbies?” I mean c'mon! That's a horrible question to ask someone, so generic, but I have no idea how his personality is. In the real world I could play off his energy and work my stuff. Its so hard! Oh and did I mention that I kind of hate computers. Yep I love to blog and watch my shows on Hulu but after about an hour I wanna claw my eyes out, so I have really no interest in chatting with a stranger for hours. Literally as we speak I have about three messages to answer from three different guys and I'm so stressed out that I keep putting it off. I literally get sick every time I go on the site. That's not healthy! I'm trying to stick it out and give it a chance but I really feel in m y heart I'm not meant for this kind of work. Like I said the only thing I really like about its is that guys think I'm interesting and approach me, it gives me hope that I'm not an ugly freak and that I do actually make some blood rush to the penis now and then.
I wish the men on the sight could approach it with a little humor though. I mean lets accept that we have given up on human interaction and self confidence and have resulted into the robot manufactured dating jungle. Lighten up about your profile and your objectives God's sake! All the guy's profiles are so stuffy and whiny! “Blah blah I just graduated from college, I'm sweet I'm shy, I don't drink I just want to meet someone to love”. BARF! I don't care, you're young and you need to chill out . There is one guy I really like. Unfortunately I don't think its going to work 1) He is in the 70% compatibility rage, and I strictly only try to get involved with 80% or higher (yes these are my rules, I know they don't make sense) and 2) What I like about him is his laid back attitude, and he is so damn cute. He literally has been the only funny guy I've seen on this web site. The problem with laid back funny guys is that the can sometimes be ass holes and players. All I want is this guy to ask me out for coffee because I think we would really hit it off, but I'm sure as hell not gonna ask him. If he is into me and my cyber messaging banter then he will ask. Otherwise we are just going to keep passing virtual notes back and forth.
So I'm not really sure what I'm going to do about this online thing. I think I have a few options. I could either just suck it up and follow the rules of the dating game, keep messaging and going along with the whole system or I could deactivate my account and go back to no guys talking to me as I drink my sorrows away in crowded bars. OR I could not take this so seriously, I realize that this should be fun and enjoy the fact that guys are interested and try not to vomit every time they message me. I think I can do this, my confidence just needs to change. Meaning I need to KNOW I can do this.
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