My 27 day adventure has come to a close. I saw some familiar faces, some new faces, and that was really about it. In the days since my last post, no miracles happened. I got exactly two messages - one from the "sexy" Paul Giamatti look-alike (seriously... and it was the exact same form letter he had sent me 3 previous times. I didn't even dignify that with a response. Is he persistent or does he suffer from amnesia? I'll never know.) and one from a guy who was clearly the man of my dreams, but I made no attempt to land that Prince Charming. Why? Well, first, he had no profile picture, though he did offer to send me pictures "upon request." His message said we were "a perfect match" and that I was everything he was looking for. He also said the fact that I was a Libra was really cool. Actually, sir, it just means that I'm horribly indecisive and want everyone to be happy. Maybe that's his idea of cool, but I doubt it. So I checked out his profile, which is where I found the rest of the reasons not to respond. The second was that he lives in Miami. I have nothing against Miami. I have nothing against him looking for someone within 5000 miles of his home. But there is no part of Miami that is within 150 miles of Louisiana. So strike two for him. Then I read his description and had to do everything in my power not to laugh and call bullshit immediately. You see, this prince has a Ph.D. from Harvard, is a self-employed millionaire, and lives on an estate with his dog and horses, where he enjoys hosting parties and playing polo. Really, guy? Really???? Maybe this actually is his reality and I'm just far too cynical to ever believe it. But you know what they say - if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
That's how my online dating fairytale ended. I got a message from the ideal man that I could not bring myself to respond to, and then the account went dead and shall never be revived again. It wasn't entirely a lost cause, though. Now when someone suggests I try online dating, I can tell them that I did and we can move on with our conversation. When I see commercials for eHarmony or Match or any of the other sites, I can ignore them like I do so many others without wondering what may be out there. Now I'll go back to the dating dark ages - meeting someone in public, exchanging phone numbers, and having actual human contact. Human contact - what a concept! I realized over the last few months that I need more of that in my life after discovering that I'm a pretty terrible flirt in person. I can handle flirting electronically. That's easy. But when it comes to giving off those nonverbal cues to someone that you kinda like what he's got going on, I am so far from expert level it scares me. So I guess my next step in dating will be to become a better flirt, then maybe I'll have better results.
But as the book closes on internet dating and 2010, it opens on 2011 and endless possibilities. My resolution for this year is pretty vague, which I think is exactly as it should be. I'm not vowing to lose weight (after dropping 30 lbs in a year my grandma thinks I'm dying of some terrible disease... no more weight loss for me). I'm not vowing to stop drinking soft drinks or cut back on alcohol or save more or spend less. My resolution is this - don't waste the pretty. It's a quote I read in a book many moons ago, and it always stuck with me. This isn't about anything superficial, but about your life as a whole. Don't waste the precious time you have on things that just aren't worth it. No more stressing about situations I can't control, or getting all worked up about why he didn't call or whether I should give him a chance even though he doesn't meet any of my criteria. I'll be keeping my worries and what ifs in check because those don't do anyone any good. If I can wake up every morning and remind myself not to waste the pretty that day, then I think I'll be in for one awesome year, or at least it'll be a year with fewer headaches and less irritation. What more can you ask for?
With that, I wish you a happy, safe, and fun new year. Here's to 2011 and 365 chances to get it right!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Holidating: 6 Days Remain
Only 6 days to go until my account on the paid dating site is deactivated forever. So far, I have absolutely nothing to show for it. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I haven't been on one date this month at all, let alone with anyone I met online. My profile has been viewed almost 500 times in the last 21 days and I have exchanged messages with 40+ men, and I still have nothing.
Well, maybe that's not entirely true. No, I haven't had any dates through the site, but it isn't exactly right that I have nothing to show for it. I've learned something about myself through this process, and that is that I can be picky. Hey, I didn't say I learned something great about myself, but it's something. I've been accused of being picky by friends and loved ones and I always shrugged it off. I can't do that anymore. It's a fact. I am picky when it comes to internet dating.
I've always believed that you should have some standards, some non-negotiables. One of mine is smoking. If you're a smoker, I'm not interested. If you only smoke when you drink, I'm still not interested. An occasional cigar with the boys, I can handle that, but that's as far as it goes. If you are trying to quit or plan to quit one day, good for you! Call me when that day actually comes. There's a reason for my intense hatred of smoking, and it goes back to when I was a child and almost lost my grandpa to a heart attack that was the direct result of his smoking. So yeah, that's a non-negotiable.
Another one of my non-negotiables is chemistry. I've touched on this before, the idea of there being a "spark." I know lots of guys I enjoy being around and have great conversations with, but that doesn't mean I want to see them naked. Likewise, I know some guys who are unbelievably hot, but there's nothing more to it than physical attraction. I want both. I want to have physical and emotional chemistry with someone, not one or the other.
Everything else - the age range, liking sports, proximity to where I live, education, etc - it's all open for discussion. The problem with internet dating, though, is that when I put in my age range and proximity, combined with my preference for non-smokers, I ended up with lots of messages going to my filtered mail (as in, this guy sent you something, but he doesn't meet your criteria). This happened so often that the site asked me if I wanted to remove my smoking preference. Absolutely not! But when I looked at the profiles of those who messaged, winked or simply viewed my page, I was met with the opportunity to be pickier than normal. It's easy to remove all the smokers. But then comes chemistry. If your profile doesn't do it for me, I move on. Same for pictures (or lack thereof - not having a picture is automatic removal). If our messages or chats seemed forced or pointless, I'm out. On one hand, I feel like there's a whole host of men out there who would have had a better chance if we had encountered each other in real life as opposed to on the internet. But on the other hand, if my gut feeling is "don't bother" than why should I? When is your gut feeling ever wrong?
I've made some exceptions along the way. I've contacted people who winked, responded to people who were too young, too old or too far away. I still haven't had any dates from it, so did it really make a difference? Maybe I spent the last 3 weeks shooting myself in the foot. Maybe my disdain for internet dating got in the way of my chance at finding something special. Maybe, but then again, maybe Mr. Right doesn't have a profile online. Either way, I'm no longer holding out hope that my next great romance will begin with a message on a dating site, but I'm ok with that.
I know fairy tales aren't real, and I know that the idea of finding "the one" gets pretty depressing once you look at the numbers and the odds of it happening, but I know that now is not the time to throw in the towel. I know that love exists - I've seen it in my parents' marriage and many others - and I know that it's out there for me. When the time is right, it will happen.
For now, I'm going to enjoy the holidays and spending them with the people who matter. I'm also going to spend the next week or so thanking my brother for his new relationship and for bringing the girlfriend home to meet the family, as it will hopefully take some of the pressure off of me. I'm going to do some cooking, laughing, eating, giving and celebrating, and I hope you do the same. Merry Christmas, everyone!
Well, maybe that's not entirely true. No, I haven't had any dates through the site, but it isn't exactly right that I have nothing to show for it. I've learned something about myself through this process, and that is that I can be picky. Hey, I didn't say I learned something great about myself, but it's something. I've been accused of being picky by friends and loved ones and I always shrugged it off. I can't do that anymore. It's a fact. I am picky when it comes to internet dating.
I've always believed that you should have some standards, some non-negotiables. One of mine is smoking. If you're a smoker, I'm not interested. If you only smoke when you drink, I'm still not interested. An occasional cigar with the boys, I can handle that, but that's as far as it goes. If you are trying to quit or plan to quit one day, good for you! Call me when that day actually comes. There's a reason for my intense hatred of smoking, and it goes back to when I was a child and almost lost my grandpa to a heart attack that was the direct result of his smoking. So yeah, that's a non-negotiable.
Another one of my non-negotiables is chemistry. I've touched on this before, the idea of there being a "spark." I know lots of guys I enjoy being around and have great conversations with, but that doesn't mean I want to see them naked. Likewise, I know some guys who are unbelievably hot, but there's nothing more to it than physical attraction. I want both. I want to have physical and emotional chemistry with someone, not one or the other.
Everything else - the age range, liking sports, proximity to where I live, education, etc - it's all open for discussion. The problem with internet dating, though, is that when I put in my age range and proximity, combined with my preference for non-smokers, I ended up with lots of messages going to my filtered mail (as in, this guy sent you something, but he doesn't meet your criteria). This happened so often that the site asked me if I wanted to remove my smoking preference. Absolutely not! But when I looked at the profiles of those who messaged, winked or simply viewed my page, I was met with the opportunity to be pickier than normal. It's easy to remove all the smokers. But then comes chemistry. If your profile doesn't do it for me, I move on. Same for pictures (or lack thereof - not having a picture is automatic removal). If our messages or chats seemed forced or pointless, I'm out. On one hand, I feel like there's a whole host of men out there who would have had a better chance if we had encountered each other in real life as opposed to on the internet. But on the other hand, if my gut feeling is "don't bother" than why should I? When is your gut feeling ever wrong?
I've made some exceptions along the way. I've contacted people who winked, responded to people who were too young, too old or too far away. I still haven't had any dates from it, so did it really make a difference? Maybe I spent the last 3 weeks shooting myself in the foot. Maybe my disdain for internet dating got in the way of my chance at finding something special. Maybe, but then again, maybe Mr. Right doesn't have a profile online. Either way, I'm no longer holding out hope that my next great romance will begin with a message on a dating site, but I'm ok with that.
I know fairy tales aren't real, and I know that the idea of finding "the one" gets pretty depressing once you look at the numbers and the odds of it happening, but I know that now is not the time to throw in the towel. I know that love exists - I've seen it in my parents' marriage and many others - and I know that it's out there for me. When the time is right, it will happen.
For now, I'm going to enjoy the holidays and spending them with the people who matter. I'm also going to spend the next week or so thanking my brother for his new relationship and for bringing the girlfriend home to meet the family, as it will hopefully take some of the pressure off of me. I'm going to do some cooking, laughing, eating, giving and celebrating, and I hope you do the same. Merry Christmas, everyone!
Friday, December 17, 2010
Holidating: Week 2
Another week has come to a close in my 27 days of online dating experiment. So far, I have practically nothing to show for it. First, the stats:
One of the dates wasn't really a "date," but rather more of a plan to meet up if we happened to be in the same place at the same time (tailgating before a Saints game). My tailgate group bailed the day before and I had to work until all hours of the morning the night before the game, so I didn't make it out. No worries, though. It wasn't like we'd agreed to meet by the flagpole at 11 am or anything. In fact, my side of the conversation went like this: "Don't know if I'll make it out there to tailgate, but I'll let you know if I do." So maybe it shouldn't be counted in the "dates planned" statistic. Moving on...
The other planned "date" was to get together for drinks after the Saints game with a guy I'd actually had phone conversations with a couple of times last week. I thought both conversations went well (though there were naturally some awkward pauses here and there, but those things happen when you talk to strangers), and our email messages were good too. So he texts me after the game and says to let him know when and where. I texted him back that I was grabbing some dinner and would let him know (drinking on an empty stomach NEVER works well for me). Then he texted me a little later asking if we could reschedule because it was pretty dang cold outside. In his defense, it was super cold and super windy. It was the kind of weather that would result in you not wanting to leave your warm & cozy house. Does that mean we have to wait until warmer weather - like March - to reschedule? Not necessarily. This is south Louisiana. The last two days have seen temperatures in the 70's, and we'll see the same temps next week. Still, I couldn't help but think it sounded like the excuse you make when, in reality, something better came along. He said he would call me on Monday, I said ok, and that was that. Then on Monday I got a text saying he'd call Tuesday. And on Tuesday I got a text saying he was leaving town and would call on Friday. Hm.... I could very easily give him the benefit of the doubt here, as my Monday - Wednesday were crazy busy with a relative in the hospital and things can certainly come up, but he could also be pulling the slow fade. Lots of contact, a little less, still less contact, and then nothing. Slowly fading out of my life. Not a massive loss if that's the case, as I don't really actually know the guy. It'll become clearer today if that "I'll call you Friday" plan materializes.
So what of the other 61 guys? 31 only winked, so now we're at 30. 12 of them don't meet my criteria, so now we're down to 18. Of those, two of them are guys I already knew in real life - guys I grew up with or went to school with and our messages are more of the fancy meeting you here variety than the let's get married and make beautiful babies kind. Where are we now? 16. One of those is the self-proclaimed-but-not-actually "sexy" guy. So, 15. Two of those 15 found me on facebook without asking if that was ok. No, really, I'm not that anal about my fb page. The fact is that one of those guys friended me on there before ever sending me a message on the dating site. The other one sent me a message on fb after I neglected to respond to his message on the site. I chose not to respond because he wasn't a paid subscriber and my only option was to email him. I didn't want to use my email address for that, so I ignored him. Then he found me on fb. Uncool. So here we stand at 13. Of the remaining 13, 2 of them have no photos at all. Of the remaining 11, there is either something in the profile or in a photo (or both) that doesn't work for me in 9 of them. So now we're down to 2. I just started getting to know one of those guys. As for the other one, he's no longer in the running. Here's why:
This particular character sent me a message to which I responded. Then we started chatting through an outside service for a little while. The first day or two of chat went decently enough. The conversation didn't move freely and was a little forced, but it was ok. One of his earlier topics of conversation was sex. I told him that wasn't really ok with me, as I'm not a fan at all of discussing my sex life with strangers (or non-strangers, for that matter). He apologized and we moved on. He started texting me, which was fine. At one point he got aggravated because I didn't immediately respond and wanted to know if I lost interest. I told him I had not, but that it's sometimes difficult for me to respond right away while I'm at work. But then the conversations became more and more forced. They generally went like this:
I guess I won't have much to show for this little month-long experiment other than a few new blog posts. That's ok, though, and I'm not letting these failures get me down. I'm working on some possibilities offline that have far more potential than any of the 428 guys who have looked at my profile ever will.
- Page views - 428
- Emails - 32
- Winks (ugh) - 31
- IM conversations - 4
- Guys who have added me to their favorites - 1
- Phone numbers acquired - 3 (same as last week)
- Guys who requested the link to my blog - 4
- Dates planned - 2
- Dates that actually took place - 0
One of the dates wasn't really a "date," but rather more of a plan to meet up if we happened to be in the same place at the same time (tailgating before a Saints game). My tailgate group bailed the day before and I had to work until all hours of the morning the night before the game, so I didn't make it out. No worries, though. It wasn't like we'd agreed to meet by the flagpole at 11 am or anything. In fact, my side of the conversation went like this: "Don't know if I'll make it out there to tailgate, but I'll let you know if I do." So maybe it shouldn't be counted in the "dates planned" statistic. Moving on...
The other planned "date" was to get together for drinks after the Saints game with a guy I'd actually had phone conversations with a couple of times last week. I thought both conversations went well (though there were naturally some awkward pauses here and there, but those things happen when you talk to strangers), and our email messages were good too. So he texts me after the game and says to let him know when and where. I texted him back that I was grabbing some dinner and would let him know (drinking on an empty stomach NEVER works well for me). Then he texted me a little later asking if we could reschedule because it was pretty dang cold outside. In his defense, it was super cold and super windy. It was the kind of weather that would result in you not wanting to leave your warm & cozy house. Does that mean we have to wait until warmer weather - like March - to reschedule? Not necessarily. This is south Louisiana. The last two days have seen temperatures in the 70's, and we'll see the same temps next week. Still, I couldn't help but think it sounded like the excuse you make when, in reality, something better came along. He said he would call me on Monday, I said ok, and that was that. Then on Monday I got a text saying he'd call Tuesday. And on Tuesday I got a text saying he was leaving town and would call on Friday. Hm.... I could very easily give him the benefit of the doubt here, as my Monday - Wednesday were crazy busy with a relative in the hospital and things can certainly come up, but he could also be pulling the slow fade. Lots of contact, a little less, still less contact, and then nothing. Slowly fading out of my life. Not a massive loss if that's the case, as I don't really actually know the guy. It'll become clearer today if that "I'll call you Friday" plan materializes.
So what of the other 61 guys? 31 only winked, so now we're at 30. 12 of them don't meet my criteria, so now we're down to 18. Of those, two of them are guys I already knew in real life - guys I grew up with or went to school with and our messages are more of the fancy meeting you here variety than the let's get married and make beautiful babies kind. Where are we now? 16. One of those is the self-proclaimed-but-not-actually "sexy" guy. So, 15. Two of those 15 found me on facebook without asking if that was ok. No, really, I'm not that anal about my fb page. The fact is that one of those guys friended me on there before ever sending me a message on the dating site. The other one sent me a message on fb after I neglected to respond to his message on the site. I chose not to respond because he wasn't a paid subscriber and my only option was to email him. I didn't want to use my email address for that, so I ignored him. Then he found me on fb. Uncool. So here we stand at 13. Of the remaining 13, 2 of them have no photos at all. Of the remaining 11, there is either something in the profile or in a photo (or both) that doesn't work for me in 9 of them. So now we're down to 2. I just started getting to know one of those guys. As for the other one, he's no longer in the running. Here's why:
This particular character sent me a message to which I responded. Then we started chatting through an outside service for a little while. The first day or two of chat went decently enough. The conversation didn't move freely and was a little forced, but it was ok. One of his earlier topics of conversation was sex. I told him that wasn't really ok with me, as I'm not a fan at all of discussing my sex life with strangers (or non-strangers, for that matter). He apologized and we moved on. He started texting me, which was fine. At one point he got aggravated because I didn't immediately respond and wanted to know if I lost interest. I told him I had not, but that it's sometimes difficult for me to respond right away while I'm at work. But then the conversations became more and more forced. They generally went like this:
Him: HeyAnd then they stop. Because here's the thing - if I'm at work and you're texting me, all I can really provide is a response. And he wasn't giving me much to respond to. It is incredibly hard for me to initiate awesome text conversations when I also have to ring up purchases or help people find books, especially during the holidays. So after about a week of this nonsense he asked me again if I had lost interest. I was honest with him and told him that the initial excitement was definitely long gone and, without that, it's hard to keep interest in pursuing something with someone you've never met and know practically nothing about. Maybe other people are into that, but I'm not. The conversations were forced and ones I didn't look forward to having. Seeing his name pop up in a chat window or on a text message didn't make me happy; it actually made me a little frustrated. The whole thing involved far too much effort, whereas I could text or chat or message other guys I met through the site with ease. He told me I was confusing. His number is no longer in my phone and he can safely be crossed off the list of potential next boyfriends.
Me: Hi
Him: How are you?
Me: Pretty good. At work right now. How are you?
Him: Ok
I guess I won't have much to show for this little month-long experiment other than a few new blog posts. That's ok, though, and I'm not letting these failures get me down. I'm working on some possibilities offline that have far more potential than any of the 428 guys who have looked at my profile ever will.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Holidating: Week 1 Update
First, I'll answer the question I know has been on your minds since last week. Yes, I did see that guy from my last stint online who wanted to know if I was fat (as he only wanted someone in top shape) at the cheer competition. I don't know that he saw me, but someone yelled his name and he walked past and there was no mistaking him... or the keg he was smuggling under his shirt. Hypocritical jerk.
Moving on... My current experiment is going well. I've gotten better messages from guys as a result of my blunt profile. I've also noticed, though, that I'm not getting the winks (yay) or generic messages I got last time around. Maybe it's because these guys don't want to bother when I've spelled out what I want so clearly, as they know they don't fit the description. Maybe the fact that I'm not presenting myself as some girl-next-door guy-pleasing airhead is keeping away a whole crop of weirdos. I don't really know why, but I like it regardless. I do know that the process appears to be moving somewhat slower this time around, perhaps because I'm not dealing with tons of messages from guys I'm not interested in and am instead having more meaningful conversations with people with actual potential.
That doesn't mean I haven't heard from nutcases, though. Unfortunately for some of these guys, my brain remembers strange things, like birthdays of people I haven't spoken to in years and, more importantly, usernames. So the couple of guys who contacted me the first time around that I wasn't interested in were people I certainly remembered when I got messages from them in the last few days. Examples - remember that guy who called himself "sexy" in his username but was actually far from it? He made a comeback. So did the guy who sent me multiples of the same message saying he was leaving the site. He sent me another one saying, yet again, that he only had a few more days and I should email him. In reality, he's probably only doing the free trial which wouldn't let him see messages sent to him. If that's the case, say it! Don't lie and say you're leaving when clearly you haven't left yet and it's been 6 months.
One of my favorites was from a new guy who saw on my profile that I wanted to find a man of at least 26 years, but was only 25. He sent me a message begging me to give him a chance because he owns a house and is reliable. I responded saying that my age range wasn't set arbitrarily, but out of trial and error, and that I would not grant him that exception. His response? "I'll be 26 in a year." Ok... and I'll be 29 in a year, at which point my minimum age will rise to 27. This guy also lost points for friend requesting me on facebook prior to sending me a message through the site. My last name and email address aren't listed on the site, but my first name is. All I can figure is that this little detective searched through all the women with my first name in our town until he found me. You better believe I called him out on the creepiness of that shit.
Other than that, the site has been letting me down by continuing to match me up with guys I already know. I kid you not, it's been 6 days and I've been matched with 4 guys from my hometown and 1 guy I dated in college. I'd say this defeats the purpose, though someone else said that maybe the site is trying to tell me I don't need to go online to find someone new because I already know plenty of great guys.
On a more promising note, I've been exchanging messages with a couple of guys with some level of potential. We've gotten to that stage where it's time to meet in person to see what would happen. I'll surely let you know what happens if/when we meet.
Here are the current stats:
Moving on... My current experiment is going well. I've gotten better messages from guys as a result of my blunt profile. I've also noticed, though, that I'm not getting the winks (yay) or generic messages I got last time around. Maybe it's because these guys don't want to bother when I've spelled out what I want so clearly, as they know they don't fit the description. Maybe the fact that I'm not presenting myself as some girl-next-door guy-pleasing airhead is keeping away a whole crop of weirdos. I don't really know why, but I like it regardless. I do know that the process appears to be moving somewhat slower this time around, perhaps because I'm not dealing with tons of messages from guys I'm not interested in and am instead having more meaningful conversations with people with actual potential.
That doesn't mean I haven't heard from nutcases, though. Unfortunately for some of these guys, my brain remembers strange things, like birthdays of people I haven't spoken to in years and, more importantly, usernames. So the couple of guys who contacted me the first time around that I wasn't interested in were people I certainly remembered when I got messages from them in the last few days. Examples - remember that guy who called himself "sexy" in his username but was actually far from it? He made a comeback. So did the guy who sent me multiples of the same message saying he was leaving the site. He sent me another one saying, yet again, that he only had a few more days and I should email him. In reality, he's probably only doing the free trial which wouldn't let him see messages sent to him. If that's the case, say it! Don't lie and say you're leaving when clearly you haven't left yet and it's been 6 months.
One of my favorites was from a new guy who saw on my profile that I wanted to find a man of at least 26 years, but was only 25. He sent me a message begging me to give him a chance because he owns a house and is reliable. I responded saying that my age range wasn't set arbitrarily, but out of trial and error, and that I would not grant him that exception. His response? "I'll be 26 in a year." Ok... and I'll be 29 in a year, at which point my minimum age will rise to 27. This guy also lost points for friend requesting me on facebook prior to sending me a message through the site. My last name and email address aren't listed on the site, but my first name is. All I can figure is that this little detective searched through all the women with my first name in our town until he found me. You better believe I called him out on the creepiness of that shit.
Other than that, the site has been letting me down by continuing to match me up with guys I already know. I kid you not, it's been 6 days and I've been matched with 4 guys from my hometown and 1 guy I dated in college. I'd say this defeats the purpose, though someone else said that maybe the site is trying to tell me I don't need to go online to find someone new because I already know plenty of great guys.
On a more promising note, I've been exchanging messages with a couple of guys with some level of potential. We've gotten to that stage where it's time to meet in person to see what would happen. I'll surely let you know what happens if/when we meet.
Here are the current stats:
- Page views - 189
- Emails - 18
- Winks (ugh) - 20
- IM conversations - 3
- Guys who have added me to their favorites - 1 (someone deleted me... I know who it was, and this is actually a great thing)
- Phone numbers acquired - 3
- Guys who requested the link to my blog - 4
- Dates planned - 0 (as in time & place; can't tell you how many times I've heard "we should meet up")
Friday, December 3, 2010
27 Days of Dating
My mom called yesterday afternoon with some interesting info that I hadn't thought about. I'm working a cheerleading competition with her on Sunday at a place that employs one of my former suitors on the paid dating site. Remember the guy who politely called me fat and was super nosy? Well, he works at the arena hosting the competition and is apparently their contact. I didn't even put all that together until mom called and suggested I find a way to remember his name and face, should we encounter each other this weekend. Good call on her part, otherwise I'd go crazy trying to figure out how I knew him.
So I went on the site to see if I could recover the old emails (I couldn't) or find him in a search (I didn't, but I did find him on the employee list of the arena's website - crisis averted), but I did discover that my account is till paid up until December 29th. Once I saw that I thought, "Let's do something crazy." I updated all my info and changed all my pictures and have now embarked on 27 days of online dating.
I'm approaching it a little differently this time, and that's where the experiment part comes in. My page is about as bluntly honest as it could possibly get. I have my very specific description of what I want (a 26-35 yr old man, not boy, who is confident & sane but not a rebel, etc.... note the age range has changed again). I also disclosed that I'm only there until 12/29 and then I'm gone forever. I also mention having a cat who is spoiled and that I tried online dating once before and ended up hiding my profile and essentially quitting. All of my pictures are from 2010 (which I also mention) and I even put that I have a relationship blog and that all the sordid details of our courtship would be written for all the world to read. Is there a man up for the challenge? More importantly, would my honesty and forthrightness (there's a college word for you!) make me more successful than when I made my first attempts and used words and pictures I thought guys would like?
I'll probably put more updates on the facebook page than I do on here, so if you want to keep track that way, "like" the page at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Confessions-of-an-Online-Dating-Queen/133961919986612.
Here's to some fun!
So I went on the site to see if I could recover the old emails (I couldn't) or find him in a search (I didn't, but I did find him on the employee list of the arena's website - crisis averted), but I did discover that my account is till paid up until December 29th. Once I saw that I thought, "Let's do something crazy." I updated all my info and changed all my pictures and have now embarked on 27 days of online dating.
I'm approaching it a little differently this time, and that's where the experiment part comes in. My page is about as bluntly honest as it could possibly get. I have my very specific description of what I want (a 26-35 yr old man, not boy, who is confident & sane but not a rebel, etc.... note the age range has changed again). I also disclosed that I'm only there until 12/29 and then I'm gone forever. I also mention having a cat who is spoiled and that I tried online dating once before and ended up hiding my profile and essentially quitting. All of my pictures are from 2010 (which I also mention) and I even put that I have a relationship blog and that all the sordid details of our courtship would be written for all the world to read. Is there a man up for the challenge? More importantly, would my honesty and forthrightness (there's a college word for you!) make me more successful than when I made my first attempts and used words and pictures I thought guys would like?
I updated everything at 5 pm Thursday, and since then here's how it stands (all stats as of 4:30 pm Friday, so less than 24 hours):
- Page views - 35
- Emails - 7
- Winks (ugh) - 11
- IM conversations - 2
- Guys who have added me to their favorites - 2
- Phone numbers acquired - 2
- Guys who requested the link to my blog - 3
- Dates planned - 0
I'll probably put more updates on the facebook page than I do on here, so if you want to keep track that way, "like" the page at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Confessions-of-an-Online-Dating-Queen/133961919986612.
Here's to some fun!
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