Where It All Started

A year and a half ago (exactly actually, in February 2014), I gave up on the men I'd been meeting at kickball, volleyball, improv, church group (you get the idea), and I signed up for an online dating site...with grand hesitation and a not-insignificant dose of shame.  I recognize that, in theory, there's nothing to be ashamed about, but I'd always assumed that online dating was a last-ditch effort, and I wasn't quite sure I was ready to admit to myself that I was at last-ditch.  Or to admit to the rest of the world that I was there.  I'm still a little hesitant about it.

Technically, I signed up for two sites: Match and EHarmony.  I didn't really know much about either of them, but I'd seen advertisements and knew people who used them.  Signing up for both turned out to be an intricate and studied affair.  What information do I divulge?  What do I wait to share later?  What the hell am I supposed to write in that tiny "in your own words" box?  (Why am I paying to be so confused?)

EHarmony turned out to be a bust.  It was far too directed for my taste.  You got something like three matches a day.  Or maybe a week?  I can't remember.  And then you could send them questions, and they'd send you questions, and on and on until you could finally actually talk to each other.  (Well, via email.)

But I don't think I ever emailed a single person on EHarmony.  Most of the men were not attractive to me.  The others were far too conservative/liberal for me.  The others didn't reply to my questions.  I still see some of these people on the street during Mardi Gras and festivals, and it's SUPER weird.  I usually pretend to be highly engaged in something on my phone, just in case they recognize me, too.  No matter that phones don't actually work during Mardi Gras.

Match.com is a different story.  While you also get periodic matches, email is the first step.  You also have the possibility of doing your own search of men in the area.  I don't know how to describe the self-search to you...it's like one day you're stuck in a drought, and then the next day there's a flood.  At first, you're so incredibly excited that there's rain.  You won't have a dirt patch for a yard anymore!  Long luxurious showers are in your future!  But then it keeps raining and raining and raining, and now you have a mud pit for a yard, and the government says you should still keep your showers to five minutes.

The punch line of that metaphor is that while there were lots and lots of men signed up for match, it didn't amount to much.  There were very few men interested in talking to me and vice versa.  It turns out that dating websites like these bring out the most judgmental and picky in you.

Oh no, he's in the "security" business...

He works part-time?  At the age of 32?

Star Trek quote?  No thanks.

Anyway, the point is, within all of this hubbub, I found myself having trouble initiating and sustaining email conversations, and then translating them into real-life interaction.  I think I went on a total of something like 3 first dates despite being on Match for multiple months, and of those dates, only one led to a second date.

At the time, I was writing a small blog about it.  The blog only ended up having a few posts despite the four months it went on, but as I said, I was kind of shy about my online dating ventures, so I only shared it with a small group of friends.  There's something to be said for having a larger audience, though, so please know that the old blog post that I'm going to share with you here has been slightly edited.  Because my writing in that old blog was pretty bleh, and I'm not big on sharing things I'm not proud of with people I don't know extraordinarily well.  Well, in terms of quality of writing.  You know what I mean.

This particular post is from March 2014, after I'd been on Match for about a month, and it's about the plight of the Match-subscriber's inbox.  Enjoy.



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Unrequited Email

I’m not a great flirt.  I tend to over-think situations and people, and my fight or flight response tends to result in flight on most occasions.

“You mean, guys don’t just try to come up and kiss you?” a friend of mine asked once, after an interesting New Year’s Eve party across the lake.

No, in fact, they don’t.  I would imagine that most women probably don’t have that problem.  I can’t help but notice, though, that even with a healthy dose of alcohol, how often my flirting goes unrecognized.

I was reading a Thought Catalog article online this morning called “Six Things Every Extrovert Secretly Has To Deal With,” a response to all the “being an introvert is hard” articles that have circulated the world wide web over the last few months.  The first thing on this woman’s list was “People will often assume that you’re flirting.”

Except that they don’t.  At least not in my case.

I don’t think anyone has ever had a normal conversation with me and thought, “I think she’s flirting with me!” when I wasn’t.  Sometimes I myself question if I’m actually flirting.  When I offered the guy at the Mardi Gras parade a few Cheetos, did he get that I was trying to talk to him?

This lack of smooth-tongued charm unfortunately shows up in my online dating emails, too.  When I first joined, I signed up for two different websites, so I could compare them and then get a refund on whichever one I liked least.  One of the things I liked/was overwhelmed by about match was the expanse of profiles to read and choose from.  One of the things I liked about eHarmony was the fact that there was a standard question-response procedure that you followed before actually freestyling it via email.  In other words, I could delay exposing my ineptitude at flirtatious banter for at least a week.

I use the term freestyle because I feel very much the same way starting a Match email as I would standing on a stage with a microphone in my hand, trying to come up with rhyming lines that make sense.

Hey, my name is such-and-such.

Do you prefer to pay or go Dutch?

Yeah, it’s that bad.

Some people have a knack for these kind of emails.  I received one a couple of weeks ago that I was so impressed with, I used it as a model to write an email to someone else.

“Hi, 

I am not entirely sure what the first step is because this is my first day on match, but I wanted to say hello and introduce myself, and maybe ask a few questions like: What's your name? What made you become a teacher and what do you teach? And what do you like most about New Orleans? 

Aside from the fact that you were on the first page of my first search, I really like your smile (that's definitely something I really appreciate), and I am a native North Carolinian so the Wright brothers reference was noted and appreciated. 

Hope you had a good weekend!”

Of course, I never got a response to the email I sent out based on this one, so maybe it wasn't so great after all.

If you’re wondering what the Wright brothers reference was, there’s a spot on a match.com profile where you’re supposed to write a quick something with less than 140 characters that sums up who you are or what you’re looking for.  You’re not allowed to leave it blank, or it just says “hi,” which mine did for a while until I tried to find something that made me sound less boring and lazy.  I sat in front of my computer for a long time, brainstorming, writing and deleting, trying desperately to think of something witty I could put into the box that would express my personality clearly and accurately.

After about 20 minutes of nothing, I finally thought I’d go the funny route and use a pick up line.  I googled “clean pick up lines” and scrolled through to find something I thought was just the right balance of cheesy and clever.  I settled on:

“Did you invent the airplane?  Because you seem Wright for me.”

I eventually took down the pick up line because I realized that (a) it makes me sound pathetic and (b) it’s really not that funny.  Instead, I replaced it with something I actually believe in that doesn’t leave me feeling embarrassed or unsatisfied:

“Most things are better shared.”

I imagine this was the inspiration for the email I received last night.  The email in its entirety said:

“happiness is the only thing that doubles when it is shared 0_O”

While I appreciated the sweet notion of sharing happiness, I’m not sure what this guy was trying to accomplish by sending it.  I mean, what am I supposed to say to that?

My reaction was probably the opposite of what he was intending.  I immediately felt challenged to come up with as many things that multiply when shared as I could: candle light, tax deductions, awkward silence.  See, not just happiness.

This is probably why I’m single.

So, I've compiled for you a list of things that I believe to be better shared.  It is not in any way comprehensive, but simply a small representation of myself and the things I like to share.

TELEVISION

There are only two things I will consistently watch on television by myself: Saints games and Hallmark movies.  Everything else loses my interest at some point.  Even my favorite show of all time, The Office.  They all end up unwatched because TV just loses its flavor when I’m on my own.

ICE CREAM

I don’t eat ice cream by myself.  I’m not even sure I like ice cream that much.  But it tastes pretty good with others around.

CROSSWORD PUZZLES

I have tried for years to get into the habit and skill of doing a daily crossword puzzle, but I only ever end up doing them on Sunday with my mom.  (Also, I'm not good enough to complete them on my own.)

COMPUTER OR VIDEO GAMES

I should preface this particular entry to the list with the confession that I am terrible at video and computer games.  Even when playing with other people, I have a tendency to forget which character in the game I am, and then accidentally run off the side of a floating island because I thought I was the girl in pink not the green giant.  Still, that's more fun to me than playing Oregon Trail by myself.

ROAD TRIPS

As I’ve said before, I really like traveling alone.  And in the case of road trips, that works out well because like my father, I tend to drive until I run out of gas, at which point I use the restroom and grab a snack and then drive some more.

Driving with someone, though, especially someone you’re close with, means someone to play car games and sing at the top of your lungs with.  Time passes more quickly when there’s someone else there.

ALCOHOL

Why get a Daiquiri for ten bucks when you can get an ICEE for only two?  Because there’s someone else next to you who will also walk a little less straight and talk a little too loud when they finish it.

TAXES

Like I said before, the IRS rewards you for being married.  Maybe I should include that on my profile.  It is almost April, after all.

Despite all of the musings the email prompted, Mr Happiness-doubles is still unlikely to get a response.  Mostly because I’m not interested in a 47 year old man in Mississippi, but also because even if I was interested, I wouldn’t know how to respond.  Um, yes, thank you?

Feeling a little put out by the email situation, I decided to try my wares in real time for a change, at a Mardi Gras parade near my house this past weekend.  There were multiple men nearby that I noticed or that took notice of me, so I gave them my best flirt.

GUY #1: 'You Didn’t Look Like This When I Lived Here'

He lives out of town but he used to live in New Orleans and be part of our friend group.  He apologized more than once for not recognizing me.  “You look different, though” he says.  I still can't figure out whether or not to take this as a compliment.

This particular brand of man is excellent at persistence, but not so good at knowing what should and should not be shared.  The first time I met him, at a party a few years ago, I showed some interest.  That is, until he told me that he set fire to his room once when he threw away a lit joint.

At the parade, he laid it on thick, and I was having a hard time finding a civil escape route from the conversation.  I eventually claimed to need to call someone (which was true) and stepped away to do so.  Post-call, I stepped back into a different part of the crowd, avoided eye contact, and immediately struck up a conversation with someone else.

GUY #2: I Have No Gay-dar

He offered to lift up his shirt when the floats passed, so I could get beads without losing any dignity.  We would make a great team, he says.  I thought, Surely this is what flirting is.  Then my gay friend started chatting him up and comparing notes on gay bars in the Quarter.  I give up.

GUYS #3 and 4: Looking to Get Some

They showed up in our area when the parade started.  I’m pretty sure one of them started the conversation with me, but they were at least moderately attractive, and at this point, I was just hoping to get attention from someone who was straight and didn’t set fires while stoned.  We talked for a while about work, college, and our neighborhood.  At one point, Guy #3 caught a Saints hat, which I professed jealousy over.  He put it sideways on my head and Guy #4 pulled out a strand of hair from my forehead to hang outside the cap.  “There,” he said, “now you look like a 90s kid.”  We discussed being born in 1985 and how that was the best year (but really, was it?).  At the end of the parade, they asked me if I was planning on going downtown later.

“Nope, I’m planning to go to bed after this.”

This is definitely why I'm single.

I don’t like not returning attention given to me.  It actually makes me feel really uncomfortable to put up a wall when someone’s talking to me or leave all of those emails in my match.com inbox unanswered.  Not so much because I have trouble saying no.  I just know that it really sucks to put yourself out there and get rejected, or worse, get ignored.

Aziz Ansari talks about this on a Jimmy Fallon Late Night clip I saw recently when trying out “YouTubing” the other day (not my thing).

“Aziz:

[Technology] I think has changed everything.  Like, take your most basic problem as a single person, right.  You like someone, they don’t like you back.  Or the reverse, someone likes you, you don’t like them back.  At one point, that’d be kind of an awkward situation.  You’d have a conversation.  It’s weird, you know.  Now what do you do?  Someone likes you, you don’t like them back, you just pretend to be busy...forever.  Why risk hurting someone’s feeling when you can create an alternative reality where scheduling is the problem?

But I don’t think that’s coming from a bad place or anything.  I think you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.  I don’t know what the answer is.  The other option is just to like be honest with people.  Like, I talked to a girl, and she was like, ‘Oh, I’m just honest with people.’  I was like, ‘Alright, I’m a guy asking you out to dinner, you don’t want to go, what would you say?’  She said, ‘I would say, “I’m not interested in getting dinner with you.”’  And on one hand, that’s no games, you know where you stand.  But could you imagine actually getting a text like that?

Hey, you want to get dinner sometime?

I’m not interested in getting dinner with you.

Damn, what are you, a demon?  That’s the meanest, cruelest thing anyone’s ever said.  Why don’t you pretend to be busy, you piece of sh**?  I’m just a fellow human being.

Silence is another option.  Silence, I think, might be the meanest one.  I don’t do silence ‘cause, I don’t know, we’ve all been silenced before in some fashion.  That’s the worst one, especially when you’re really excited about someone.  You’re like, ‘Oh man, this is on.  They felt that, I felt that.  This is done.’  Send the first text all confident.  ‘It’s done, forget about it.  It’s done.’  Three hours later, no response.  ‘F****************ck!  I put too many exclamation points in the text!  What was I thinking?  Noooooooo!’  And then three hours earlier, you were looking up vacation packages on Orbitz.”

I love this segment.  My problem is, compassionate or not, I can’t pull the “I’m busy” card because I’m on an online dating site.  And people can see the last time I logged in.

On the flip side, silence is what I have received in response to every single initiating email I’ve sent on match.  I should temper that statement with the admission that I have only actually sent out four or five emails, and that I sent two of those today.

Today's Email 1:

“I think the thing I appreciated most about your profile was your honesty about getting onto match.  I was (am) pretty hesitant myself, and it’s nice to know I’m not the only one unsure about the whole venture.  I meet a lot of really great people on a regular basis who turn out to be great friends but not great romantic potential.  When did dating get to be so hard?

You seem like a fun and fairly down to Earth kind of guy, which is a lot harder to think than you might think.  What’s one thing you wish you could do, but can’t?

ps. Personally, I wish I could do a split.  Or juggle abnormally-shaped objects, like Martini glasses (wouldn’t that be an awesome party trick?).  Or break dance.”

Yep...I wrote “harder to think than you might think."  What is wrong with me?  Maybe if I’d actually proofread my email instead of wondering whether using words like “abnormal” and “venture” would put him off or impress him, I might have a better shot at a response.

Today's Email 2:

“Hi,

It’s nice to find people who are also interested in trying new things and meeting new people.  Summer travel is usually my outlet for exploring new places and making new connections across the globe, but it’s amazing the new people and places I find right here in New Orleans.

If you don’t mind me asking, what’s one place in the world you’ve really loved visiting (here in the States or abroad)?”

And it’s at these moments when Aziz’s message resonates most deeply with me.  There aren’t a lot of guys that I find attractive on this website.  There aren’t a lot of people that I don’t immediately count out for whatever reason.  So, when I find someone stunning handsome, stable, and interesting (like bachelor #2), I find myself desperately trying not to get my hopes up that he’ll respond positively.  Because he might not.  Because chances are that every other girl on this website is emailing him, and they’ve probably figured out how to sound both intelligent and exciting in a brief email, unlike me.  Because I still can’t find a way to make my profile sound remotely as interesting as I am.

Yesterday, someone asked me, “You play the piano, too?  You're really pretty, why don’t you have a boyfriend?”

If I knew the answer to that one, this would be a totally different kind of blog.

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I really wish that I could find the email that I received at one point, in which the man wrote that he wanted us to be like that John Legend song, "All of Me."  The man was seventy.  And that is a terrible song.

I apologize for the length of this post--a little longer than I usually give--but I like reading over it and thinking about the differences between myself then and now.  I'm a lot more confident now.  I'm a lot more willing to initiate now.  I'm slightly better at flirting now.  I like to think that my writing has gotten better, too.  Practice makes perfect and all that.

Also, perhaps with the aid of a far more palatable dating app, I'm a lot better about getting responses. For example, I have a date on Friday.  I'm not putting a lot of stock into it (okay, I'm lying, he's really attractive), but I'm looking forward to getting back into the game.  I'll let you know how it goes.