Internet Dating: Turns out there’s a little bit of asshole in all of us....

As I round third base on one full month of internet dating, I have no shortage of stories and observations. My profile has been viewed almost 2000 times. I have been winked at, instant messaged, “favorite”-ed and emailed. I have been sent one-liner pick ups and encyclopedia-length form letters, both clearly the internet version of throwing spaghetti at the proverbial wall to see what will stick. One potential suitor actually had several friends write references speaking to his “date-ability”, which he provided (not upon my request) for me to peruse at my leisure. I think it’s all because I mentioned in my profile that I can cook.

Think of what the results would be if I could actually take a good picture!

I relay all this only to illustrate the veritable ocean of single members of the opposite sex the new internet dater is suddenly plunged into. After months (who are we kidding here, years) of famine, wondering where all the single men are and suspecting they are on the verge of popping up here or here, I’ve finally figured it out. They are not, in fact, on the verge of extinction. No, no, they are busy running around town, collecting those “date-ability” references for their online dating profiles from their friends.

Why didn’t this occur to me before?

One key observation I’ve made as an internet dater is that there’s an awful lot of poor behavior going on here, on the part of everybody involved, myself included. I’ll give you an example. Somewhere roundabout Week 2, yours truly got stood up. I mean, the Classic Stand Up. There I was, politely refusing the bartender’s inquiry as to if I wanted anything, trying to appear busy texting nobody on my cell phone, finally ordering, drinking and paying for that drink. After thirty minutes, I got up and left.

Asshole, right?? Well, yeah, I should say so!

Were my feelings hurt? Nah....you gotta know someone before they can hurt your feelings. If anything I was annoyed because I had come home from the gym and had to do the whole drying of the hair/ reapplication of the makeup thing instead of lounging around in sweats for the remainder of the night. Plus, I wasn't exactly shocked that he didn't show. I had already started to smell a rat, as my efforts to confirm via email that morning had gone unanswered, even though his profile indicated he had been online later that day. Also, if I’m honest, my motivations in agreeing to go out with him in the first place were more professional than personal (he claims to be in the line of work I’d like to go into someday). Uh-oh, wait a sec. Dating someone with the ulterior motive of professional gain isn’t very nice, is it? Doesn’t that kind of make me an asshole, too?

Wait, it gets worse. Many a time I have made excuse after excuse for a guy who is clearly trying to blow me off. I rationalize; I hand out benefits of doubt like a flight attendant hands out peanuts. If grasping at straws were an olympic sport, I would have a trophy case of all my gold metals. Seriously, no one can top me in this.

“Perhaps he lost his phone and got into a car wreck and found out his grandma died all this afternoon? Clearly, I should withhold judgement until I find out.”

Oh wait, no. That’s what I would’ve said in lives past to the tattoo-covered bartender’s demand that I hand over the guy’s phone number, so that after my departure he could call and let my date know just what a fine lovely lady he’d passed on.

How did I respond to this request? I think it went something like this, “Yeah, sure. Got a pen?”

Doh!!

So what the heck is going on here? We’re standing each other up? We’re giving out each other’s phone numbers to tattoo-covered bartenders? Isn’t the point of all this to find someone to be with? This isn’t the warm and fuzzy, loving, caring stuff that breeds long-lasting relationships, you know.

Best I can tell, there’s (at least) three things going on here: vermin, vacuum and volume.

Vermin:

FACT - There are plenty of normal, reasonable, well-intended people, trying to meet someone special on the world wide web.

Buuuuuut......

FACT - Internet dating sites are also a perfect utopia for creeps and crazies. Card -carrying members of the Jerk Store Club and those with lists of issues longer than, well, long. In real time, these folks are often pretty easy to size up, and within a few minutes it’s possible to faintly see the scarlet “NOT DATEABLE” tattoos on their foreheads, peaking through the layers of stage makeup. The signs are much harder to initially spot, however, when all you’re working with is an online profile, some photos that may or may not actually be of that person, and some emails that, who knows, may have been painstakingly crafted to disguise all that crazy. The result is that internet daters are at risk for investing days, weeks or months only to wind up diagnosing the same terminal prognosis that may have taken all of 30 seconds to arrive at if they’d met this person IN line at the “Singles Safeway”, rather than ON line through “match” or similar.

Turns out I’d had a vermin run-in myself only a few days earlier, and my disappointment and frustration over that no doubt partly fueled my decision to hand over my stand upper’s phone number to a total stranger. Is it an excuse? Oh no, not at all. But it is part of the explanation.

Vacuum: Assuming the spouses from whom we’re hiding our online adventures never find out, our poor behavior seems consequence-free. We don’t have common friends. We don’t work together. I’m not going to see you when I roll in to swim team. Your cousin isn’t going to glare at you from across the Thanksgiving Dinner table for screwing over her friend. In short, our day to day lives are in no way impacted if we shit the bed on this one, aside from theoretically missing out on someone great. But even that is strictly theoretical. In reality, we are no worse off tomorrow than we were today.

Volume: The final piece to this pie is the sheer volume of potential dates one is exposed to via the interwebs. As described above, in the month I have been doing this, a literal swarm of men have flooded my inbox. However, I am no beauty queen, nor do I come close to being the best thing to hit Charm City since sliced bread. In fact, I appear to be a dime a dozen, as a search for ladies in my demographic and geography yielded page after page after page of results. Although I’m sure very few of those women include photos of themselves wielding large, high-powered nail guns - perhaps that’s my secret.

Anywho, I believe that the vast numbers involved result in a distinct loss of humanity. We aren’t people anymore; we’ve become commodities, unremarkable, indistinguishable, and completely interchangeable. The opportunity to meet new single people no longer resembles a small town airport with only one plane leaving each day. No, internet dating air drops you smack in the middle of the main terminal in JFK. It’s ok if I miss this flight; there’s another one leaving in forty five minutes. Similarly, it’s ok if I burn a bridge here or there; I can always refresh my search and “wink” at someone new.

Lesson learned? Well, usually for me a little bit of awareness goes a long way in helping me correct an identified behavioral issue. That being said, I will make every effort to not allow my frustrations to compound and manifest themselves as creative revenge.

That is, unless the guy really deserves it.

My dad always says that there’s an asshole on every corner. Which means there are four at every intersection.

In cyberspace, at the intersection of “Going to Hell” and “Mind Giving Me a Ride?”

khop