It became obvious to me in the month of February that for me to actually write about dating and relationships I should be actively involved in the process of at least the former and eventually the latter.
There’s a problem though. According to a recent Harvard Temperament Test I’m a green and red personality. This means I am agressive, determind, results-oriented, detail driven, analytical, and very logical. It also means I am more socially awkward than 90% of the people taking this test (MIT and Harvard graduate students.) Now I know some VERY socially adjusted people from both those school’s programs. I also know a fair share of socially mal-adjusted folks in the program. So even if the mix is 60%/40%, I’m still behind the 8 Ball.
Picking up a guy at a bar or chatting him up at a friend’s party is not really in the cards for me. I mean, I try, but approaching conversations like that are just not my forte. Believe me, I’ve tried. So, knowing this I consulted with some dating advice folks, and the resounding suggestion was to edge myself into the dating arena through online dating.
This made me break out in hives.
But for the good of all your readers, I sucked it up and put a profile up on match.com. I’d heard some mixed reviews from other people who had been on match, but had heard worse things about Yahoo! and a weird little site called “Plenty of Fish.” My profile hit February 27th, and as of this morning I’ve had the following interests: 3 “winks” from men over 43, 2 requests for “casual flings” from men under 25 and 1 genuine email from a guy in his early 30’s that never responded to my reply.
I was talking to my friend yesterday, and had absolutely concluded that the only thing that online dating had done for me was take my usually solid self-confidence and Mexican Hat Dance all over it. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I whined to her. “I’m cute, I’m intelligent, I’m witty…I’m effing adorable why don’t boys like me?!” It was one of my better moments.
My ever rock solid slumber party friend listened and then, in a friendly manner, verbally slapped me back to reality. She asked how much I had reached out to others, if I had tried any other sites besides match.com (she had heard some horror stories about the site) and also made me think about the sampling of available people in Greater Portland, Maine.
So I took advice from another friend and posted the same profile on a site called okcupid.com, which kind of makes online dating a game. They send you these little graphs and charts and results based on data you have entered on their site (results AND details…my little red-green heart is pitter-patting!) My most recent told me where the men most “likely to match me” lived.
Ugh…this is gonna be a challenge. But I’m going out to San Francisco in April and Boston is but a two hour ride away. Any boys wanna meet up…apparently we will get along swimmingly!
Have any of you tried the online dating thing before? Any suggestions for someone starting out?
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