A Big Step

This used to be a sensitive topic for me. Now, I feel I can share these experiences with you because sometimes they are just so ridiculous that I think people might think it's somewhat interesting. As you may know from the infinite number of online dating commercials, online dating in a new and flourishing dating tool. Everyone knows someone who has tried it, yet everyone pretends they are too good for it or scared of it. Whatever.

This past spring I decided to be a little adventurous and try online dating. I thought, "hey, I know a ton of people who do it, and I'm open to meeting new fish in the sea." So I joined, and let me tell you, it's been really interesting. Some details...

Signing up:
After you have paid for the service, you are asked to answer several personal questions like, "how do you react to things, are you political, do you require a lot of personal space, are morals important to you?" etc, etc, etc. You preselect questions you would ask the opposite sex. They range from "if I took you to a party what would you do?" to "what physical boundaries do you have?" Not kidding. It can be a little overwhelming, but after approximately 30 minutes to 1 hour, you are all done. The matching is on.

Matches:
The online service matches you with people similar to your personality and interests. You have plenty of things the service says you have in common like beliefs and goals. It somewhat takes care of the "filtering time/get to know you time" you spend attempting to find out more about a person you are interested in. You receive anywhere from 5 to 10 matches a day. I found this a little overwhelming too.

Communicating:
You initiate, or in my case, wait for men to initiate contact. When contact has been made, you receive this really pathetic email from the service that literally congratulates you because so-and-so wants to communicate with you. Really? Congratulate me? There are better ways to do this. Thanks, online service who I refuse to mention by name.

At this point, you have the opportunity to really evaluate their profile, determine if you like what you see, and either respond or "close out" the profile. "Closing" a profile can be a little uncomfortable. You feel bad about rejecting this person because of their picture or because you didn't like the content on their profile. Some reasons why I closed:

1. They took a strange picture in front of their computer. By themselves. Really? Why? Dear men, why?
2. God isn't a priority.
3. Their profile name is "Temptation." Really? Run, Sarith, Run.
4. Gave me their number and didn't ask for mine. Really? Um...don't hold your breath. I ain't calling.
5. Tree farmer. Can't live on a tree farm. Sorry.
6. Live across the country. How do I reset my match parameters again?
7. Their name is Jeronimo. Isn't that what you say when you jump off something? Not that my name is anywhere close to being normal, but...
8. First Question: Ask me what would I do for them if they were having a bad day. Come on!
9. They are 15+ years older than me.
10. The first thing they ask me is, "why are you so cute?" Wow.

These are just a few things I've experienced in my online dating adventure. There have been some quality experiences as well. Some have reached my heart and in turn, I have unintentionally hurt others. I guess it's all part of the same dating game.

Side note: I wrote the above content last night. The content below was written this morning after I received the correspondence below.

While there are an abundance of strange fish in this deep and unexplored sea, I can see some good in online dating. I do encourage my friends to try it. After all, it never hurts to meet new people, and I know several people who have met their significant other online (and... as far as I can see, they seem to be normal). I'm not all that discouraged. I view this experience as a blessing with some interesting twists. Although, I did receive this response from a guy last night:

8.26.10 Correspondence:

My Question to Questionable but Attractive Man: "What's with the computer picture? Please explain why you took that photo." (This is me giving him the opportunity to explain why he is not weird.)

His Answer: "It was for a profile picture for a Madrid-Based bullfighting ring. In
my spare time, between wood-widdling and Italian marble cutting, I am
a bullfighter and they needed a good headshot. With absolutely no time
left for my submission to be the opening matador, I had to get it
taken! So, I used my MacBookPro (PhotoBooth) to get the job done.
Personally, I think it says: "Hey, you should take this guy seriously
if he wears tights and gets in a ring with a raging bull." In all
honesty, I don't really understand your question."

See? Ridiculous. Life just keeps getting increasingly interesting. Thank you Lord for all the entertainment. I definitely can't say "I'm bored." And just for the record, I unhesitantly closed him out after reading his response.

God is good!