Take Me Out to the Ball Game

I got to J’s apartment, and pretty much right away I could tell he was nervous. He had actually been on match dates before, but I guess for some people the first date is always a tummy twirler. We went to dinner first and this was maybe my third official date of my whole life? I told myself we were just friends going out for a good time so I was my usual silly, cheerful, joking self, but he seemed to let his nerves get to him. He was talkative, but he wasn’t the same as his emails and phone conversations. I figured he needed time to warm up. We went to the game and had AMAZING seats. It was my first time at the stadium, and it was my first game I had been to for the season so I knew I would have fun regardless of his feelings. I was having a blast; cheering for the unknown players, singing and chanting along with the stadium music, and simply just enjoying the sport. J, on the other hand, looked like he was at an opera. Yeah, I get it, I’m sure many of you are making jokes that baseball is so boring it may as well be the opera, BUT he had expressed his interest in the sport, too, and if he had lied about it, well, then, that’s his own darn fault! Throughout the game, I nudged him or would put my hand on his leg to try and get him to liven up and just have a little fun. Maybe the 8th inning I saw a change in him, but at that point I pretty much knew I didn’t really want to see him again.

Over the next couple days, we talked a couple times, and he asked if I was interested in going to a movie. I wasn’t sure how to tell him that I was not interested, so I turned to the method that had brought us together—match email. I thanked him for everything, but said I didn’t feel anything to see him again. He took it all in stride. He was a nice guy, average looks, put out a great effort for the date, but I didn’t get that “ooo I want to see you again” feeling. Maybe if we were to go out a second time he would open up more? Possibly, but here’s the thing I’m learning with match: if one guy doesn’t work out, it’s not a huge loss because there’s always more that you can take a chance with. I’m not ready to self analyze and determine what it says about me that I’m so quick to move on to the next guy. If I were to go with my first thought, though, it would be that I won’t have to think if I want to see the guy again—it will be a definite. J is done, but I’m determined to go out with others to learn about guys, match, and dating.

I Caught One!

Amidst the many emails and winks, there were a handful of guys that I actually started corresponding with. “Corresponding” sounds like I’m writing to prisoners, but I’m not. At least I hope I’m not. It’s kind of amazing how important elementary school grammar and high school English papers really come in handy later in life. I’m a grammar snob. No, I don’t remember or care about the antecedents and dissecting sentences, but I do know the difference (and so do my third graders) between “there” and “their,” “to” and “too,” “your” and “you’re” and that a period needs to be placed after a complete thought. I haven’t yet checked out many girls’ profiles for comparison, but for the guys, stop telling me you don’t know what to write! Get over it! You are on an online dating website, sell yourself, man! And for the sake of your manliness, stop using “lol,” there was nothing in your profile that you should be laughing out loud about. I’m sure as I continue analyzing more profiles, critiques will keep popping up.

There was at least one profile I didn’t have any issues with. We’ll just call him J for now. HIS profile was one that actually did make me “lol,” and that was basically all I needed. I had no clue what I was doing with this first batch. I tried responding to all of the emails, but it got to be too much so I finally started ignoring the ones I wasn’t interested in. Hey, guys have done this to me, too, it’s no biggie. So J was fun. His emails were easy, not boring, and we talked on the phone soon after emailing started. His humor carried over from written to spoken language and I felt at ease meeting him. Knowing I’m a baseball fan, he got us tickets to the Nationals game. J will be my first match date, and I'm not sure I will find love with him, but maybe I will find like.

The Search Is On!

My profile is all set up and now I feel like the new kid in school, trying to learn the ways of online dating. But being the new kid, apparently, has its benefits: you get all the attention! One of the search options allows you to specify new members, and this is helpful to me because I will turn up in that search which has a smaller amount of girls, whereas if a guy is searching for a 5'5" brown haired girl, I'm sure there are many more results. I was pretty surprised to find the high level of interest I received right away. Winks are more common, but 10 emails were already waiting for me a day after I started.

Now, yes, I understand that the girl likes to be pursued and we should "wait" for the guy to come to us. But really, I've got hundreds of guys that fit some part of my criteria just a click away and I'm supposed to sit back and see if any of them bite my line? I'm getting to work to find a guy. I've started playing around with different ways of searching, but the physical aspects I am definitely including are at least 5'10" and darker hair (or a bald head~and not the old man bald, but the hot total head is bare bald). Even though there is an option to specify salary range of my potential mate, I am staying away from that--for now.

The tricky part of where I live, in Northern Virginia, is that my restriction of finding someone 10-15 miles away, means that Maryland is included. But 10-15 miles turns into a 45 minute drive (at least!) because of the constant traffic. And sorry, I just can't deal with that. It also includes Washington, D.C. I do not drive in the city. Ever. I wish there was a way to exclude these two places from the search results but there is not. It's taking more time than I anticipated to weed through all the prospects, but I'm ready to find one, or five, to start talking to.

The Great Debate

Create a profile. Your profile is like the eye contact you give to the guy across the bar. It's the chance to get yourself noticed and to grab his attention so he'll look a little more. The first part was easy--selecting information about your hair color, eye color, height, location, all the boring but might-be-important-to someone stuff. The body type category is a killer. My predetermined choices range from slender to heavyset. I can get rid of the two extremes because I know I'm not either of those. The great debate was whether or not to put myself as athletic and toned, about average, or curvy. I told myself that I work out too hard to be about average. Now, am I curvy or athletic and toned? I think I have some curves, but what did they mean by curvy? My mind goes to girls with bigger hips, a real womanly figure. I’m kind of like that. I think. I’ve also been told that I have the body of a runner and runners aren’t curvy so then maybe I’m athletic and toned. I felt comfortable with the athletic part, but consenting to “toned” made me nervous. What if these guys think I have a six pack on my stomach with tight thighs and all? When it came down to it, I decided to be a swindler. I realized that every guy desired the “athletic and toned” body type, so in order to show up in their searches, I went ahead and selected athletic and toned.

It took some time, but, with my snazzy writing skills, the rest of my profile fell into place. I kept it brief, but gave enough of a glimpse about myself that the guys could get an idea. Plus, who really cares about the words, it's all about the pictures. I browsed through all of my picture folders in search of flattering but realistic photos of myself. I cropped out whoever may have been with me in the photos and uploaded them. I debated whether or not to put up the picture of me in my Gold Digger Halloween costume. It was a hilarious play on words costume, but I am half worried that guys might have the wrong idea from it. Oh well, if they can't appreciate my humor then I don't want them anyway!

kpsmyln6

I know I'm still young. I "have time" to meet someone, fall in love, get married, have kids, etc. I get it. But I don't want to sit around and wait and then realize that I'm 35 years old and living without any of the above having happened. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just not what I want for myself.

A couple girls that I know are playing around with match.com and have been telling me some stories. Mostly, it seems, they are emailing with lots of guys, but can't seem to go through with the actual date. Is it really that bad to go out on a date with a relative stranger? Maybe this would be good for me to at least get used to dating and to be around the male species for once.

I visited match.com's website and started learning about the site and how to search for my brown haired, 6'0" tall, beefy, successful, educated, and nice but not too nice perfect match. There were actually some pretty decent guys on there. I don't know why I felt so panicked over signing up; I examined the subscription choices and fees and what each entailed. I decided that signing up for one month at a cost of $35.00 didn’t seem like a bad investment.

I subscribed to match.com, but before I would spend lengthy time creating my profile, I at least had to create a match name. I settled on my AIM screen name and one that, I think, still fits me pretty well: kpsmyln6.

The D Word: Dating

College is over, student teaching is almost finished, and now that I have the entire summer to find a guy, I don't know where to begin. Knowing that my upcoming career as an elementary school teacher is predominently staffed with women, I wondered how I would go about meeting someone to date. Dating. It was an unfamiliar word to me.

Throughout high school I was never that girl that had boyfriends, or even who had guys interested. Only when I started working at a restaurant when I was 16 did I start gaining some male attention--the problem was that these males were all at least in their 20s, not very educated, and spent their time drinking beers at the bar where I was working.

In college, I didn't want to waste my time on those guys. There were some who seemed decent, and I didn't have any troubles meeting guys in college, but quite frankly, I didn't trust 'em! I dated maybe three guys during my time in college, but none of them lasted more than six weeks. Six weeks would be the magic number. And now, with a summer ahead of me, I still come back to the same question: Where and how will I ever meet someone?

MissMatch

Metaphorically speaking, I feel like my life is a giant puzzle, and while most of the pieces are fitting nicely, I am still looking for my soulmate. I know there is a space for this guy in my life and in my heart, and I'm hoping that online dating will lead me to the missing puzzle piece--my perfect match!