Microbiology

I just cancelled my subscription to the online dating site I was on. We'll call the site "Microbiology.com." There's no reason why I can't just call it by its real name (it's a word for a branch of science that also colloquially refers to connections between people), but I like to be all stealthy and mysterious on this blog, and I like to make up silly names.

A month ago I paid too much money for a one-month subscription to Microbiology. On Monday they wanted to charge me for another month, but I decided not to renew. Of the dozens of profiles that have been paraded before me, I'm currently only in contact with one person, First-Meeting(tm) Lady, who has said she'd like to meet me. She only sends sparse messages about once a week, and she lives 1.5 hours away from me, so just negotiating a meeting time/place could take weeks.

When I first put my ad up, I only wanted to search for local women. I wanted to play the field and get lots of dating experience. But then I exhausted all local options after the first week and no one else showed any interest in me. Then First-Meeting (tm) Lady came along and I rationalized why dating someone from out of town wouldn't be so bad. At least it would force me to go slow, I reasoned. Yeah, maybe a long distance thing would be good for me right now.

First-Meeting (tm) Lady and I were still trying to figure out the when/where of that meeting when my membership came up for renewal. So I sent her a quick message to ask if she could email me outside of the site, because I wasn't going to keep up my membership in Microbiology "for now." (I didn't want to admit that I'm a loser who no one is interested in, so I didn't elaborate.) As soon as I sent her the message, I cancelled my membership so they wouldn't automatically bill me for another month. I didn't completely delete my profile, so it will still be there if I decide to re-join, but it won't be available for people to see anymore.

But here's the problem. I know First-Meeting(tm) Lady won't be able to see my profile, but will she still be able to read the messages I sent her? Did she even get the message I sent her about contacting me off-site, or will she think I just jumped ship right in the middle of our First-Meeting(tm) negotiations? And the fact that she only responds to me once a week means, even if she did get my message, I might not know about it for a week.

So far we've only used the site's more secure and (relatively) anonymous email system, so my sudden request for her to contact me at my personal email address may come across as forward. And if she's not comfortable with it, she won't have any other choice, because (like Elvis) I've left the building. But I think at this point we've shared enough personal information (first names, jobs, and work places) that it wouldn't be too hard to Google each other and find out email addresses. In fact, I told a friend about her, and based merely on where she works and what she does, he was able to find her online. (I swear, I was not the one who stalked her!) So I found out a little more about her that way, and if she hasn't sent me a message after a week, I might just email her at work, with apologies, to see if she got my last Microbiology message.

But I'm not real concerned about it. The truth is, my heart's not really in it. So far, her communications have not really excited me. I also find myself not in any hurry to date, and since this month will be so busy with work stuff, maybe it's best if I put this on hold.

I can wait to see if there's any microbiology between us.