Dating is in person is difficult enough, what with the talking and time investing, it’s like getting a sun burn, uncomfortable at first, but it’s nice to show people you go outside once in a while. Online dating is like staring directly into the sun, you know what you are looking for, a relationship or for the case of my analogy, a sunburn, only you are trying so hard and the purpose is so obvious you, not only burn your skin, but you end up blind. Did you know, in the US, 31% of the population either uses online dating service or at least knows people who are using it? Or that 1 in every 3 relationships in this day and age starts online? Here are some more fun facts: Out of the total number of singles who seek online dating services, only 33% manage to get into a relationship. Out of the remaining 66% people, 33% lose hope and quit while other 33% of keep on searching for the right partner.
Match.com True Matchmaker & Date American Singles Mate1 Singlesnet eHarmony Black Singles Christian Mingle
This chart says two things to me. Number 1, people are lonely, and number 2…it’s time to become a black single. I admit to you I have been an online dater for the last two and a half years, and for the most part it has been positive experience. I have recently come to the realization that for me, personally, hiding behind a profile and only listing my very best qualities and pictures isn’t exactly putting myself “out there.” I also didn’t feel I was being very fair or honest in getting matched with men all across the country, only to make it clear to them I am in the middle of a graduate program which I am not about to leave for a ‘possibility’, and am even less inclined to do so this close to being finished. With all of these thoughts vacillating in my head I came to conclusion that it was time to let the dream of meeting a guy, without baggage, a great smile, and who would be willing to move across the country for me, go. Mostly because if they were that great they’d already be married to someone hotter and, unless you have a food addiction, who is really going to move to San Antonio? When I came to this conclusion I had about 15 days left on my subscription. It felt right, because for the first time in my life I was taking action instead of watching and waiting to see what would happen. I was finally making a conscious choice to stop staring at the sun.
Naturally, as is custom in my life after I make a decision, several things happened to make me doubt myself and what I thought I wanted. I was matched with two really great guys. The first was Justin; he was aggressive and very cute. He was a filmmaker and I was smitten by the little information he shared with me. He sought me out, skipped right over the guided communication and emailed me, which for some people you would think, ‘easy there fella’, but for me it was okay and maybe because it was this guy or who he was portraying himself to be. I kept right up with him. He was so intriguing; we had a great dialogue, until one day it stopped, suddenly and without warning. I was confused and I’ll admit a little bummed, but I was sticking to my guns, that would be my last online ‘relationship’, until I could fully invest myself into the process or until I had purchased three or more cats.
Then, out of the blue, with about three days remaining on my subscription, I was matched with a new batch of young men. Most of which, weren’t guys I would bother to bother since my exit was on the horizon. One in particular, though, began the communication process, on the very day we were matched. So I answered him, and literally a few hours later another request from him came, I thought, ‘Whoa, this guy is intense.’ He had obvious baggage, so initially I wasn’t as excited about him, but I didn’t want to be that girl who let a potentially great opportunity pass her by because of petty insecurities. Three days passed and it was time to sink or swim. Since that night at midnight I would no longer have the capability to communicate with him or any of the others, I went through my contacts and sent out various quick notes saying “Hey, I am done with this site for a while, but if you are ever in San Antonio and need a tour guide, shoot me an email”, and added my email. You know light and breezy, no expectations. This same guy from before, let’s call him Jack VanDerDouche emailed me almost immediately, answering my little jokes and asking a bunch of questions. I was still stung from my last adventure and was totally turned off by what I perceived as eager insistence. I took a full week to respond, because I am a busy lady, I try to be mysterious, and was still curious about a man who seemed to be as intense as I have often been labeled and rejected for being. It is so funny looking back, because I tried so hard to sabotage it right from the start, going out of my way to be disagreeable and demonstrating our lack of compatibility in the things I would write to him. He persisted; maybe he picked up on my little attitude and made it a point to win me over. He asked for my phone number almost immediately, to which I reacted as though he had just propositioned me for a sexual favor. I told him I wasn’t comfortable with that yet and maybe we needed to get to know each other better, mostly because I thought he was a nut job who was busying himself between our emails by making a wedding binder or photo album of our future children. I felt like he was way more into me than I was into him, I am not used to that attention and it scared me so I stalled.
We continued to write and I felt as he disclosed more and more, he was a genuine kind person, mostly because he was putting up with my immovable staunchness; I built a wall and from my perspective he seemed willing to scale it. Now that I am looking at the situation from a non survivalist, overly emotional, crazy chick, point of view I can see that he wasn’t sharing things about himself to me because he wanted to; he was sharing things because my questions were prying and self serving. Just so you get a sense of how relationally retarded I am, one question was something like, ‘so you’re divorced, huh, that must have been nasty, tell me every last detail.’ BECAUSE he didn’t know me, he couldn’t have known that I was trying to say, ‘It makes me feel really uneasy that you are divorced, I know that those fears are coming from me and my own insecurities, maybe at some point when you are ready, you can help me feel more at ease about that whole thing.’ But, my blessing and my curse is that I am direct in my communication…I know that isn’t obvious since I am so shy and have a hard time expressing myself. I didn’t beat around the bush about the things that made me uncomfortable and things I wanted to clear up so that I could reach a safe place to take it to the next level. Listen, I never said I was unclear on the reasons why men flee in my presence.
After a few more emails between the two of us, I relented and said it would be okay for him to ask for my phone number, my mama didn’t raise no fool. If I have learned anything from books and movies, it’s that if a guy wants you he will put forth the effort to come and get you. Besides, I am kind of hard to handle and I need a guy who is patient and understanding enough to deal with that, again, I know what you are thinking, Kyle, hard to handle?! She is as soft as a baby’s bum, hang on one second, my pants are on fire.
I felt like if he still wanted it I needed to be clear in giving him the go ahead. And that, my friends, is when the power struggle began. You know how in a relationship there are times when one person loves more than the other and it can shift without warning…not that I and Jack were at all in a loving committed relationship, but that is what this shift felt like. I had the control because I cared less, then when I felt safe, made myself vulnerable, and decided to care, I thought there would be an equalization of that power, and instead, he took control and backed off. What the hell, kids?! What ever happened to if you want something go after it, balls to the wall, no fear? I’ll tell you what happened, being 30 years old and not married happened, in the words of a good friend, ‘at this point, we’re all jacked.’ We’ve had close calls, lots of heart breaks and those learning experiences can do a number on people, it’s scary, I can understand that. So he said he wasn’t ready for my number, and that HE wanted to get to know ME better. This should have been the point where I bowed out because if that wasn’t him letting me down easy I don’t know what was. Being the coy girl that I am, I called him right out on it. I said, he needed to make up his mind, I didn’t understand why he would want it one day and not the next, why he would say things like ‘I am interested in you’ if he wasn’t into me. I thought what any single Mormon girl would, I figured he had an email box full of matches to choose from and was maybe keeping his options open, and I wasn’t too far off. So I said, that was fine, he could let me know when he was ready and I humorously answered his questions and ended with something very movie-like and epic, close to “Nobody knows anything [Jack]. We’ll take this leap, and we’ll see. We’ll jump, and we’ll see. That’s life, right?” **
As I had hoped he responded with his own telephone number and asked me for mine. I was excited, mostly I needed to hear his voice and I needed it to not be effeminate or lispy…we all know what I am getting at. I had one final chance, once he heard my voice and how I communicated in real life it was all over, we were moving from the minors to the majors. In my response I felt like I really had to be impressive, my main goal was to make him laugh and demonstrate that I was a neat girl. So, as is common among those of us who are wildly successful daters, instead of providing him with my ten digit telephone number I sent him on an internet scavenger hunt. Below you can see examples of some of the clues he was provided with are found below, in no particular order, gotta watch out for the pervs, if they want to find me get online and date me.
“ * The amendment that promises no cruel or unusual punishment...so this little scavenger hunt wouldn't be allowed before we pumped electricity through a guy here in good old TEXAS!
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvry0GTkwSc
don't read too much into that one, it just serves my purpose =)
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvry0GTkwSc
don't read too much into that one, it just serves my purpose =)
*the name of the improv club that Tina Fey and Steve Carrell were 'discovered' you can literally type that into Google and you will be able to get the answer. I love both of these actors. I look a lot like Tina Fey
*take 8 the number of kinds in my family, add 2 for my mom and dad that equals....
now take the number from my email and multiply that by the sum from above...
now take the total amount and divide that by 2...and you get the age I came home from my mission
Now add three and get the age I am now.
Now that we have that figured out, take the first sum from the beginning of this equation and subtract ten from it and ...ta dah!
So... what's the magic number? “
now take the number from my email and multiply that by the sum from above...
now take the total amount and divide that by 2...and you get the age I came home from my mission
Now add three and get the age I am now.
Now that we have that figured out, take the first sum from the beginning of this equation and subtract ten from it and ...ta dah!
So... what's the magic number? “
And I ended my email as cheer leader that went something like, rah, rah, we know anything worthwhile takes a little work!
The next day we had determined he would send me a text to see if he had deciphered the code. This is where it gets good. Apparently, he misread my directions and instead of determining which commandment, he thought it was the verse number the commandment was found in. I mean come on…he should have known what I was thinking, right? I know, I know. So he sends this totally crazy text about being the guy that I met in a bar last night who was nibbling on my ear…only I didn’t get that text…he was one number off. So he gets a response from this person, who I can only assume to be a crazy Latina saying, ‘umm, yeah, this isn’t Kyle, whoever that is…’ He thinks I am teasing him with this response, so he gets pissy and replies, “Oh ok, I’ll just go write one of my other chicks then.” (Could he be more subtle, read between the lines on that one) He gets no response that time and resorts to emailing me. When I read it my heart sank, he seemed so upset and I thought he was tired of the phone chase that my inability to be sexy and flirtatious caused, only that was me being sexy and flirtatious. I texted him immediately and told him that I was sorry about the miscommunication, at that point I figured he was done, he’d already said I was ‘unusual’…I didn’t take that as a good sign. He answered and said he got a huge kick out of the whole thing, which, at the time, was a relief. We agreed we would talk later that night at seven.
What else is there to say, he called, we talked, it was a great conversation. His voice wasn’t femmy and he seemed thoughtful, intelligent and kind. He told me he was interested in me, it made me grin like an idiot, and now we are engaged!
No, no, that is not how it went, not at all. We talked and it went great, or at least I thought it did, he expressed that he felt the same way and we agreed we would resume our conversation at another time. I was in the best mood the next day, I wrote him an email and for some reason was so busy I couldn’t send it...sometimes God only puts up so many roadblocks to save us from ourselves and he can’t help it if we have our feet on the gas pedal roaring by him, strait to the cliff ahead. I added to the email the next day, attached pictures of my family, more intimate details about myself, you know tearing down my wall and during my lunch break sent it to him.
Just as I clicked send and my message to him disappeared, the screen refreshed and suddenly there was a message in my inbox. Guess who?! Jack FREAKIN’ VanDerDouche! At first I thought nothing of it, maybe a request for phone call part two. Not so. He was brief and to the point, it wasn’t good timing, I was great, but not great enough, there were other matches in his life he wanted to pursue and he wished me the best of luck. I literally wanted to unplug the computer, not because of the rejection…I can take the rejection. I thought that maybe if I could unplug the computer and shove the prongs of it into my eye, then I could forget the whole experience or that somehow disconnecting it would stop the email I just sent from getting to him so that my embarrassment wouldn’t be compounded. I would have loved that clean break he provided, had it only come a moment sooner. I could have gone without the feelings of regret and vulnerability that followed. But I had to get back to him, I had to share more about myself, I wanted to be a good communicator, I know, stupid girl. Honestly, I wish that short man all the best in life like a frigid, twenty something wife, with a strong temper, hips that spread with child birth, and genetic tendency for facial hair.
And there we have it, the tale of playing hard to get and succeeding. What do we learn from this? The people in eHarmony commercials are the exception, never give your number out in scavenger hunt form, and always, always, wait like another 45 seconds before sending an email, save it as a draft and refresh, because who knows what the inbox holds.
I will continue in my quest and be sure to follow the words of a wise man, Michael Scott, “I’m not going to give up that easily. I’m going to make it way harder than it needs to be.” For my single friends a word of caution and unsolicited advice, look at ALL the pictures made available on the sites you seek, also keep in mind height in pictures can be deceiving, are they as tall as a tree or are they standing next to a short tree?? Above all creepers are creepers and most likely will stay creepy.
