Match-eration

It's official: I'm on Match.com.

I found myself with some leisure time yesterday afternoon, and although I had a lot of projects to work on, I made the mistake of clicking on the Dating link on Yahoo. In the 1.5 years since I've online dated, I guess Yahoo! Personals has merged with Match, because that's where they took me.

Of course, they wouldn't let me view any of the ladies' profiles until I created one of my own, so I spent a frustrating hour or so just throwing shit up there so they would let me in. I had a really hard time coming up with a handle and a headline and a description of myself, because I wasn't prepared to be creative yet, I just wanted to browse some profiles. I threw up a placeholder that said, "I'm not ready to write this yet but Match is forcing me to so I can view profiles. Minimum 200 characters. Minimum 200 characters. Minimum 200 characters. Minimum 200 characters." Once I was able to lurk on the site, I found enough ads to make it worth my while, so then I went back and updated my profile.

At first I was stymied as to what to write, but then this here blog came to the rescue. I remembered a post I wrote about my talents and used that as the basis for my personal description. (Abridged and edited, of course.) I've spent entirely too much time editing and re-writing my profile over the past two days. I haven't even made contact with a woman yet, and online dating is already taking up too much of my time.

So, what have I found? There's about five local profiles that I "favorited", but none of them jump out as the love of my life. On paper they're no K, or SnarkEx or even AG. So I expanded my search geographically to include a few big cities within a three-hour drive. That search was much more promising. I added about 10 more profiles to my Favorites. The ad that appealed to me the most is-- surprise!-- a 28-year-old grad student from a college town about 2.5 hours away from Snarktown. There's also a 31-year-old "Jew-rican" (her word) from Big City, and a 40-year-old therapist from Other Big City. So I'm kinda all over the place. It is kind of exciting to look through profiles and collect them in my Favorites, like putting good-looking treats in your shopping cart. "Oh, she's really cute, and she said something clever! In the Favorites you go!"

To be honest, a long distance relationship about 2-3 hours away really appeals to me. It would be nice to date someone who's not in my town, so I could maintain my independence and it would force us to go slow, but also not 700 miles away like K was. For me, finding the right person is way more important than having them be in my town.

Probably the best prospect from Snarktown is a 44-year-old divorced mother. Her profile doesn't excite me as much as some of the out of town ones, and I worry that she might turn into another AG: someone I would date for four months, then breakup with because it just doesn't feel right, which would then inspire me to just be single for a while. If it's not me getting rejected, it's me doing the rejecting. Why is it so hard for two people to ever want the same thing?

I'm getting way ahead of myself, but this is why I suck at dating. I can't just get to know someone as a human being, I have to think way into the future to figure out if I want to be locked in with them for the rest of my life. And then there's the issue of whether I should approach all these women one at a time, or multiple ones at the same time. That could exhaust me. I'm not a multitasker.

This is all moot. Ninety percent of the women I've "favorited" probably aren't even interested in me.

*****

So this afternoon I got my first "wink." It was the local 44-year-old divorced mother. So maybe the initial interest is mutual. I guess I should send her a message. I described her to a friend, and we figured out that he knows her-- they work out together. Huh. Small world. Or small Snarktown, anyway.

Meanwhile, my busy pace has continued. I've gone out four nights in a row. I've been horribly neglectful of my two writing projects (one long-term and one short-term), which bothers me. My TiVo shows have been piling up. And here I am starting online dating, which takes as much energy as applying for a job.

I haven't even subscribed to the site yet so that I can send messages. That's something I'll do. Just as soon as I finish blogging about it.