Internet dating is a lot like shopping at Wal-Mart. Eighteen different brands of fishing poles? Check. Thirty different kinds of Hamburger Helper? Check. One container of Italian Marscapone cheese? Good luck! Certainly if you're going for quantity over quality, then look no further than the billions of personal ads littering the World Wide Web. Just to illustrate my point, I've copied and pasted a few shining examples below for your viewing pleasure. I've also included some of my own commentary, in pink. Enjoy!
"I like all shapes sizes and colors of women.luv to have a good time,I'm
very laid bck kool to be around.and very sweet funny and very ready
........" (Read: I'm just looking to get laid. Now.)
"I work out 5 days a week I love shopping ..and goings
to the movies....very out going young very witty man...I'm different in
my thinking processes..im a man of many characteristics good and bad
but over all a decent young man" (Wait. He works out AND he loves shopping? Different thinking processes? Pretty sure this one is batting for both teams.)
"I like meeting people and having interesting
conversations. I enjoy playing music, meditation, exercise, helping
people and petting my cats. My taste in music varies widely, but as a general rule I'm not a huge fan of easily digestible pop." (Honestly, I couldn't get past the "petting my cats" part.)
"I am a Real guy, w/ a REAL job, a REAL car, and very
soon a REAL place of my own...I love down to earth people who can
conversate (what?) about anything and can find good/fun in any situation. I plan
to own my own business very soon and looking to share my free time with
someone looking for fun." (I literally laughed out loud at this one. He should have just come out and said, "looking to share my free time with someone other than my mom.")
"OK IMMA MAKE THIS SHORT AND SWEET LOLZ.. I WORK MY
ASS OFF, LIVE ON MY OWN, I LOVE FOOTBALL, BBQ'S, TACO TRUCKS, TXTING,
BEER, .... MANY OTHER THINGS ... BUT REMEMBER I SAID IMMA MAKE THIS
SHORT AND SWEET LOL .. I LIKE A REAL WOMAN.. ONE THAT'S CARING,SWEET,CUTE, HAS CURVES, *NOTE* NOT INTO SKINNY CHICKS.. GOTTA HAVE MEAT ON UR BONES :). ANY ?'S JUST ASK.. AND PLS NO FAKES.." (This one has it all. Text speak, all caps, a mention of taco trucks, and the infamous "real woman/no fakes" reference. By "no fakes" does he mean he doesn't go for silicone breast implants? Or perhaps he means he wouldn't be attracted to a woman with a prosthetic limb? Or is he just against female robots?)
Alright, as much as I enjoy poking fun at complete strangers, I shall now move on to more of my personal internet dating mishaps. I should probably preface this next section with a bit of a disclaimer. After the first few dates (see Part 1), my view of internet dating started to evolve into a kind of desperate "surely more dates is better" mentality. I was booking myself for an outing just about every night of the week. (How could I possibly be sad and depressed when I was so busy?) My expectations were changing rapidly, too. I began to broaden my idea of "good looking" to include the more all-encompassing "visually tolerable." My list of "must haves" was starting to resemble an ever shortening list of "as long as he's nots." My original hope of finding true love was morphing into a much more superficial desire for something fun to do on a weeknight. (Then again, perhaps I should have just gotten cable instead?) Well that, and my loneliness seemed to urge me, like a little devil sitting on my shoulder, to wholeheartedly pursue Mr. Right Now. I could almost hear the little horned bastard in my ear: "I don't see the right man anywhere, missy. However, I do see several fun-for-now-free-dinner-keep-you-warm-tonight-gone-tomorrow men lined up outside your door!" It was a sad state of affairs, really. I wouldn't exactly say I'm proud of this time in my life, but it has since proven its value, hindsight being 20/20 and all that. So now that you've been appropriately warned, let's get to the good stuff.
Enter Jason. Assistant basketball coach for a prominent professional team in the area, college graduate, and had even spent a few years teaching math at a private all-boys school. His resume was impressive, to say the least. In his pictures, he appeared tall, confident, and had an approachable, easy smile, with (get this) straight teeth. He wasn't drop-dead gorgeous or anything, but I was hooked when I saw the nice smile in his online photographs. After a few emails sent back and forth (where he proved he had sufficient spelling ability), we decided to meet at Bonefish Grill for dinner. He was punctual and polite, and I breathed a silent sigh of relief that he was the same guy I remember seeing in his pictures. Although he was a bit more gangly than I had anticipated, (his long arms and mannerisms reminded me a bit of a marionette doll, for some reason) I shrugged it off when he waited for me to be seated before he sat down himself. A gentleman? This guy's got potential. Sixty seconds into the date, and I'm thinking, "What's his last name again? It better not be something weird or hard to spell." He sat down across from me, smiled, and we exchanged a few pleasantries before the waitress came over to take our orders. The small talk was appropriately balanced between him talking and me talking, but the more he spoke, the more I became fixated on his mouth. There was a funny, barely perceptible almost-whistle to his speech, and I realized within a few minutes that his jaw was set back more than I had noticed before, giving him an enormous overbite. That, and his top row of teeth (although straight) were downright massive. Damnit! This was going so well.
The waitress took our orders and the small talk continued, although a little more awkwardly now. I shifted the conversation in his direction, asking him questions about his experiences in the classroom, wanting to keep him talking so I could thoroughly analyze exactly how devastating this overbite was going to be for me tonight. In his defense, he hid it well, and had apparently learned at a young age to alter his speech in such a way as to downplay its severity. He was rambling on about coaching basketball at this point, and was telling a story of how he rescued one of his players from a crazy night of binge drinking the night before a big game. I remember thinking there was something I found familiar about his face, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was.
When our food arrived at the table, I was thoroughly on the fence with this guy. I had actually been considering giving him a chance. That is, until we started eating. Well, I should clarify. Until I started eating, and he started... gorging himself like a wild animal who hadn't eaten in months. Our entire conversation came to a complete halt when he picked up his fork. With both elbows up on the table, he instantly transformed into some sort of hungry, zombie caveman. He was actually trying to talk again, apparently undaunted by the mouthfuls of food he was tossing around underneath his giant overbite. I sat there for a moment, in shock, then looked around. Surely someone else was seeing this ridiculousness. Little bits of food were dropping like bombs out of his mouth onto the table. (And was that a spit bubble I just saw?) I suddenly imagined myself jumping up, ripping the tablecloth and plates and food off the table in one violent apelike move, beating my fists on my chest, then huddling over the mess and shoveling food into my mouth with my bare hands. Instead, I stared down blankly at my own forkful of pasta and giggled to myself, "I can't compete with this."
When the waitress returned later to take our plates (mine was practically untouched), I was mesmerized by the ring of crumbs and unidentifiable soggy bits of post-chew left on the tablecloth. My stomach turned. When he offered to pay for dinner, I didn't argue as much as I normally would, and then suddenly remembered why his face seemed so familiar. He reminded me of Mister Ed! You know, the talking horse. I wish I could tell you more of what he talked about that night, because he did a lot of talking. What I can tell you is that I remember hoping that the little green piece of spinach stuck in his front teeth (I had actually stared at it so long that I contemplated giving it a name) stayed there all night so he could go home, look in the mirror, smile, and then suddenly realize why I would never be calling him again. And as much as I appreciated his chivalry in paying for my dinner, I learned my third very valuable internet dating lesson that night: Free dinners always come at a price. Tonight's price? My appetite.
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