Dating : But Is Cupid OK?

Recently, I had a night when, bored and feeling lonely, I decided to dip my toes into the alligator-infested waters that are the bizarre world of online dating. It has been a few years since the man I last dated passed away. It has taken time to reach a point where I even have considered looking at anyone else. But, I thought, maybe it was time. Maybe it would be nice to have someone to go out to dinner with sometimes, or to a movie. Maybe it would be nice to have a sex life that actually involves another person.

I made a profile that gave some of my key values, some things that are deal-breakers (cigarettes, drug use, motorcycles), and a few bits of information that I hoped would let people see enough of me to make them either curious or chase them off. I also stated that I am a stalker magnet, but that I would happily send photos once I established a rapport with someone. This, I believe, was my greatest mistake. I suspect that the legions of men who then proceeded to “like” my profile presumed that this was because a stalker magnet must be some walking version of Venus on the half shell.

Obviously, a stalker magnet is some 6 foot tall, incredibly alluring supermodel, with legs that go on for miles and teeth that gleam with perfection. She wears lingerie around the house and leaves her curtains open. She wobbles on her spindly legs and begs with those huge doe-eyes for some guy named Gary from Winthrop to save her from her lonely existence. I, on the other hand, have legs, but they do not go on for miles. They are nice, I think, as legs go, but it is my nice heart that has caused me the most problems.

My heart tends to see the good in people, and ignores those huge red flags that let most people know that they should stay 50 paces away from someone. I, meanwhile, see only the sweet, injured psyche, not the dangerous, lurking psycho. Luckily for me, I have gotten better at holding people at a distance. One gets better after the first restraining order.

In any case, I don’t think that many of the men on the dating site really were thinking about nice hearts. I suspect that the process of attraction for men begins very much with “nice ass” (or legs, or tits, or whatever), which starts the chain reaction, which then eventually helps them to notice the nice heart. So when they are on a dating site, the first thing most men are looking for, is not what is inside. If you leave the photo part blank, the imaginations make up the rest.

And just like that, cue the hordes of lonely hearts. Multiple hundreds of “Likes”, although I didn’t want to pay to see them (I suppose I just wasn’t overly invested in the process to begin with). I tried to sort through the various suggestions made by the site, tried to be ruthless in my culling. Men who were overtly angry, desperate, or bluntly looking for no-ties sex got the immediate ax. If I want shallow, no-ties sex, there are plenty of bars to go to where I can find a drunken hook-up like a normal person.

I started getting introductory messages. Some were sweet, and the men seemed nice, but the only one I really connected with was a married guy who was obviously bored and feeling unfulfilled somehow. His profile did not mention the married part, but he confessed pretty much immediately. We actually talked about things that mattered, and I quite enjoyed my chats with him, but I am familiar with the syndrome of the bored already-committed man, and it is a situation that can get very messy, very fast. I told him that we could be friends, but no more, because I didn’t want to be in that situation, and he seemed like someone who would feel immensely guilty and horrible for cheating. He admitted that he felt bad already for even having gone on the site. Well, then.

I started getting more and more irritated every time I went online. It became obvious to me that most of the men who initiated conversations with me hadn’t even really read my profile. I just didn’t have the patience. I was going through profiles ruthlessly, and starting to find reasons that every single one of them was unsuitable. Was it that they were really all so terrible, or was it that I just didn’t want to deal with the process? I started realizing that not only was online dating not for me, I wasn’t even sure that dating was for me, period. In which case, why bother with all of this hoop-la?

Shopping for partners online felt like shopping online for household appliances. Vacuum cleaners, or blenders, perhaps. Reading through reviews on Amazon and weighing the pros and cons. “Ooh! Look! This one has a crevice attachment! It only comes in purple, though…I really was hoping for a red one. Still, it has great ratings, but it has 3 kids all under 7 years old.” I mean, how much baggage are you willing to accept in order to buy a vacuum cleaner with a crevice tool?

I deleted my profile. This thing is not for me. It feels too clinical, and too manufactured. Viewing romance through a screen leaves me cold. Rather than continue the charade, I decided, I would spend the time that would have been wasted on sifting through profiles on actually doing things I enjoy. If I meet someone, sometime, out in the world while I am doing something I already enjoy, all the better. If not, at least I will be having fun.

Humans are strange creatures. We waste our time on manufactured versions of life on social media, we have become detached from other people because everyone is scrolling on past the days and spending less and less time with actual human contact. So, we get lonely, and go on yet more websites, trying to find a person who will bring us out into the real world and experience real things with us. There are so many lonely people out there, if my online experience is anything to go by…imagine if all of them actually went out into the wide world, doing things they loved, enjoying life, and meeting people along the way.