Wading in the Internet Dating Pool

I was one of the pioneers of internet dating. Way back in 1997, before you could even post a photo on your profile, when you had to construct a profile full of witty and charming little peanuts to lure in the cutest squirrels. It was a total adventure, and a complete crapshoot. I actually met a few cool guys, but no one who rocked my world. One guy who became a friend who ended up producing another friend's record. Another guy who told me he was 5'9" and thought I wouldn't notice when all 5'5" of him appeared before me (he was not four inches more charming, and I don't fancy guys I would kill in bed.) Another from Colorado who recently found me 10 years later, hello? We had one shitty date, why do you still have my email address? Still another a 6'6" cutie who was inappropriately 7 years younger, and from Baltimore to boot, who traveled to New York to meet me. One guy, a recent widower with a hot tub in the back yard of his Manhattan townhouse actually became my boyfriend for a couple months, until he hit on one of my friends IN FRONT OF ME (why do some guys mistake "laid back" for "irredeemably stupid?"), and I found his 20-year-old nanny's tiny wet bikini wedged between the sofa cushions in his living room. Her name was Brigitte. (Aren't they all named "Brigitte?")

Match.com was full of sad loners and divorced single dads looking for walks on the beach and soul mates (picture Jane putting finger down throat here). Guys who put up 10 year old photos (once photos were possible) in the hopes women would be so blinded by the pairing-off instinct that we wouldn't notice the twenty pounds of belly and ten years of hair loss. Nerve.com had an entirely more fun dating pool. I got laid an awful lot through Nerve.

After the nanny-banging, friend-hitting-on incident, I washed my hands of the whole thing. It was just too fucking exhausting, like going on a string of really shitty job interviews. I lost count of how many times I sat through awful stilted conversations wishing I could be a the kind of person who walks in, takes one look at a person, and says, "Uh, no. I don't THINK so," and marches back out the door. You either have to have really terrible manners or be a gay guy to pull that off.

But lately, I've been thinking it might be nice to meet someone. It doesn't have to be THE someone, just someone to hang around with a few nights a week, someone who can stand on the ladder for once and change the lightbulbs, someone to maybe loll around with naked on a rainy Saturday, having that great rainy-day sex and dozing with his back pressed against mine. Nothing too demanding.

To that end, I threw a profile up on something called, horrifyingly, okCupid. Tossed in a couple of photos, dashed off a careless profile (I like old rock and roll and the Pittsburgh Penguins, blah blah blah -- gone are the days of the artfully-crafted profile that shows how witty and full of character I am! Now it's more like, "Here. I'm not deformed and I don't have any diseases.")

So I get random responses from guys, most of whom are clearly only going by the photos on my profile and not by the super-secret webmetrics that say we are 96% enemies based on how we answered questions, leading me to think I should headline my profile with "SCREAMING BLUE-STATE OBAMA-LOVING, ABORTION-SUPPORTING LIBERAL, IN FACT I HAD THREE ABORTIONS LAST WEEK AND OH BY THE WAY I'M ALSO A FLAMING ATHEIST GOD-HATER AND GAY-LOVER" or something equally subtle to ward off the crazies.

And the guys with no photos? Dude, I know you're married, you're just too cheap to use Ashleymadison.com. Honestly, if you put up a photo and said, "I'm married but looking for a little sumpin-sumpin on the side," I'd respect you more.

So today I get one of those emails from my pal the server at okCupid and it tells me that someone! Has! Picked me! Actually, the computer picked me for him and he just validated the computer metrics or whatever the hell they're called. So I dutifully click through, and this is what I have received:

"I am a Man with full Of Courage with Good Ideal Of Hommour and Good Character with full of Great I deal Character, well i have being on INTERNET, And search The whole Planet to Find Some One With Great character wish Could Match My Search, But I could NOT see such On There, so am Now Here In OKcupid to Look for good Woman, to Live The whole Of My Life with, That is why i was On Here, am Not Here to Play Head Game.... well i know is not be Beautiful , But By Character. so i will be Glad if i could meet some one with That...Thanks...."

After ascertaining that I hadn't accidentally signed up for Sarah Palin's facebook feed, I clicked onto the photos to see if maybe my favorite mouthbreathing, ice-skating, Frankenrussian, Evgeni Malkin, had finally realized I was his one true love, but alas my hopes were cruelly dashed.

It would be hilarious if it wasn't also kind of really sad.

Look, I know I is not be beautiful, but really?